New Running Record

So the last few days I have been pretty grouchy for some unknown reason. Today was no different. I didn't run yesterday and going a whole day without it makes me stress a little. Today I set out to run 6 miles one more time before the race in a week. I also have Bunko tonight which = pig out. I really needed to burn the calories as well. I went to the gym and got right to it. At about 4 miles, I thought "it's not happening today" but kept going. Once I got to about 5 and a half, I thought "I'm feeling ok, maybe I'll actually go 7 miles today so I can burn a few more calories. So I did. Then when I got to 7 I figured I might as well go 8. So I did. Once I got to 8, my butt muscle started bugging me again, but I felt really good. The program on the treadmill only does 3.1 miles at a time. By this time, I was almost through the 3rd cycle of the program so I figured I might as well finish it out. 9.5 miles!!! I kept my same running pace through the whole thing. My first 5k (3.1 miles) was like 33 minutes and the second two were about 38 minutes. Not too bad! AND I didn't faint, puke or die! (Jillian). I'm sure I'll be sore tomorrow or maybe even later today, but who cares...what a great feeling. Plus, I burned over 1200 calories. That's like a whole days worth. If I eat even a little bit smart at Bunko, I'll still be good! Yeah ME! (in the words of London Tipton)

Birthday Activities

Dalin's birthday lasted about 3 days this year. None of these pictures were actually on his birthday. This is of the kids warming their hands around the fire while waiting for the last one to come down stairs. This is Monday night, the day before his birthday.

Dalin waiting patiently to be sung to and the ever anticipated "make a wish".

This is my very lame attempt to make plain ole cupcakes look like something better. For girls it's easy to put a few pretty sprinkles on and have them look cute. It was a very last minute plan and I had nothing "boy". So I made them into an 8.



For his party, we went to see Bedtime Stories. Glade and I had already seen it, but he wanted to go really bad so we did. The boys came over, opened gifts, then we headed to the movies. They were all really good and liked the movie. I even liked it the 2nd time! We were supposed to go get lunch, but they were all too full from popcorn and soda. Woohoo for me! Dalin has good friends and we love him dearly. He is still waiting for his Grandma to take him to his birthday lunch. After a slightly frustrating conversation of him trying to pin her down, he finally says "Any 'ol pizzeria will do." Only Dalin.

David, Dalin, Zack and Tyler.

We missed Stake Baptisms by 3 days so he doesn't get to get baptized till next month. He was a little disappointed about that, but he starts scouts today and he is way excited about that.

Happy Birthday to Dalin!

Today is Dalin's 8th birthday. Unfortunately, my computer is having it's hard drive replaced so now I only have my kids computer for a few days. I'm not going to upload all the cute pictures of his birthday activities till later, but I did want to mention it. Speaking of my kids computer, what a nasty virus we just battled. Some genius people out there I tell ya. Someone got a pop up that said our computer was at risk so click here to protect it. Sure enough, that was the virus. Then the only thing you could pull up was the ad that asked you to buy this ANTI-virus to solve the problem. What a great idea. Create a virus, then offer to fix it for a price. Lucky for us we have the IT guy as a brother in law. This morning I begged them all to stop falling for all the "you won an IPod" and "you are the millionth visitor" etc. crap that screws up our computer. We'll see if it gets any better.

Movie Review - Friday we saw Bride Wars. I thought it was really cute, made me laugh and cry. Glade did plenty of laughing as well. He said for a chick flick, it wasn't torturous. That's good I guess. Kate Hudson is adorable as always and Anne Hatheway didn't bug me this time so I guess that's good.

Saturday night we had games night at our house which went well. Mexican food and some fun games. My kids behaved really well and I think everyone had a good time. Bunko is Thursday, that's always something to look forward to. Still don't have a gift though, I should get on that. Gotta go cut my bread. I let it rise too much so it fell a little. Stinky.

PS - I can't wait till all this inauguration crap is over. I can hardly stand to see any of it, which I have stayed clear. Still, just be done with it already!

Forgot to include my little cuties

These were taken at Stephen's game, can't forget these ones! I took the two little ones so they could play at the park. Most games there isn't a park close but I knew there would be here so I thought it would be fun. What I didn't think about was bringing another sibling to help out at the park! I really wanted to watch the game but guess what they wanted to do....Swing! So I pushed and pushed and pushed....Finally I just said "All done!" and we were. They play so good together. I was lucky enough too that there was a couple of 10 yr old girls feeling nuturing and took Katy most places with them. Walked her up the steps to the slide while the other caught her at the bottom...Woo hoo!

This is where Bo spent most of his time. Up and down these little monkey bars. He's pretty good at it, but I kept having to get Katy down. This is him up at the top.

This is him at the bottom! I saw it happened and it didn't look too bad, but he laid there forever. I finally got up to go check on him since he wasn't moving for so long. I got about 5 steps and he jumped up and headed back up.

Tetherball anyone?

Jr. High Sports

Yeesh, I uploaded backwards again! Stephen is playing flag football for the school right now. They totally su- I mean, they still need a little practice. He really enjoys it though and after a few "snap-offs" he got the starting position of center or the snapper. This game he got to go out and represent them as a captain..sniff sniff....so proud!


See the smiles on their faces? I believe this was their first and only touchdown of the day.

Stephen as the "snapper".

My lil' captain.

Pregame huddle for a little pep talk and "HUH!" I love that part.

Nick is running cross country and is the 4th best out of all the schools in our district. I don't have any pictures, but imagine a kid running really fast. No action at all! It's very unfortunate that he hasn't put all the pieces together yet, but got this amazing miracle of them not having a "grade check" at Christmas break, which was when the grading period ended. That would have been his 3rd strike and he would have been done. He was able to run two more races before the axe fell. I just wish he would love something enough to fight for it. So now he is done. Next thing coming up is regular track, maybe he can get it together before then.

Six miles or Bust

My plans to run 6 miles has continually been tested. Today I swore I would do it. I have a 10K in two weeks and I need to go the distance one more time. I went to the gym (snotty children and all) and when I got upstairs, all the treadmills were full. Now what?? I could hang out on another machine for awhile, but what a waste of my energy. Instead, I loitered. As soon as I saw a woman's time start the cool down, I went and stood behind her treadmill. Rude, I know. At this point I didn't really care. I wanted to get my run in! So I did. Mental is truly harder than the physical, but I made it with a pretty good time as well, for me anyway. I did an hour and 12 minutes. What's good about that is that it's only a little slower than I ran the Turkey Trot. I definitely pushed myself more during the race than I do on the treadmill. Hopefully I can beat my time at this next race.

When I picked my kids up out of the daycare, Katy was screaming and stuck up in the slide. No one even noticed. I asked two little girls if they could help pull her down. She just looked at me and said "I'm too little!" Grrr, I so not very nicely told her to get out of the way then cuz the fat old lady had to try to squeeze up those little steps to help her. OK, so that's not exactly what I told her, but I wasn't very nice. When I got up to her, she had a huge green snot hanging down to her chin. Maybe that's why no one would help her! I had no choice but to grab it and wipe it on my shirt, yes I'm still swallowing hard as I talk about it now. I kept trying to tell myself that it's ok, just be glad there is somewhere to take her so you can work out. Sigh, it still stinks.

Tonight we are going out with some friends. I hope the movie isn't bad. Sometimes you just never know. I'm going to try hard not to ruin my points this weekend like I did last weekend. I've still lost 5 lbs in the last two weeks, but I want to keep it that way. It sure helps to motivate you when the scale keeps dropping!

The Fight to Stand

What a slow and unproductive day. I had great ambitions to go run 6 miles this morning, but Katy had such a green snotty nose I decided against taking her to the gym with me. Which, actually, worked out well because Nick had a track meet after school at the park and I like to run while I'm there. He came in 4th again. Since his event is a whole whopping 7 minutes, I run around the park while there is down time. It's kind of nice to run outside without cars and crappy streets and to have some incline. Anyway, when I decided not to go to the gym, I thought maybe I would visit my mom, but she had plans this morning. So we stayed put at home in our jammies! That turned out to be a good choice because Katy was asleep on the living room floor by 9:30. She woke up about a half hour later and came and found me and slept on my lap for another half an hour.

That was the sad part of the day for me. She looked awful, you know when they don't feel good and their eyes are not bright and sparkly and their nose is crusty, stuff like that. While she was falling back to sleep, I just sat and watched her. It made me think of a friend I just talked to from high school who had to hold his 3 yr old in his arms just like that and watch her take her last breaths. I can't even imagine. It broke my heart to look at her with that thought and I KNEW she was going to wake up. Makes me very sad for all the parents who have had to do things like that. I'm very blessed.

Once she woke up, she was on the go again. That's where the fight to stand comes in. She kind of thinks she is potty training. She wears "unnies" when she feels like it, lots of times over her diaper, I know, totally unproductive. Anyway, before naps I told Bo to go potty so he did. She started repeating "potty, potty" so I took off her diaper and started to sit her up on the toilet. She kicked and screamed at me. What the heck? I put her down and said "What?" She lifted the seat, faced the toilet (on her tip toes) and put her hips forward just like Bo did. I kept telling her it didn't work like that. She doesn't know the difference between boys and girls yet so that explanation meant nothing to her. Lucky for me she doesn't know how to make herself pee yet. I let her stand there for a second before I took her away to put a new diaper on her. Crazy girl.

Last great part of the day. After Nick's meet, we stopped at the store so I could go to the bank and get some biscuits. He wanted to get an MP3 with his birthday money so we went to look at them. Along the way I found some really cute, cream colored, LONG shorts for $3. Nice!