New Years Eve! 2015 Review

Can you believe it is the end of 2015? Next year I am going to have an 8yr old, a 6yr old and a 2yr old. What madness is this?!

Before we get ahead of ourselves let's look back at what an awesome year 2015 has been. Have you heard of 2015bestnine.com? It's a website where you put in your instagram name and it will generate your 9 most liked pictures from the year. So I did it and shared it on IG yesterday but I thought I'd share here as well.

2015 Best Nine:


So much fun to look back at everything!
A few other things I enjoyed in 2015:

Snow time with the kids

Selling some paper pieced patterns

Getting involved in mini quilt swaps

Lorelai really caught her stride sewing this year. She made this quilt with 100 pieces for her 100 day project at school.
We also had a ton of fun with soccer this Spring.
We NEED more Emily in our lives.
oh! I made a moose quilt?! Of all the things, haha.
Spent some summer weeks in California and had a great time at the Carroll Family Reunion!
I got active with this kiddo for the Cherry Creek Fitness Festival and then Girls On the Run
This baby turned ONE?!
and this baby turned FIVE?! Finally, this pretty girl has started piano and is loving it.
2015 has probably been my favorite year so far, I can't wait to see what 2016 brings.

BTW this evening brings our 5K! Wish us luck :D
~~~~
What was your favorite part of 2015?

Born to Run Born to Sew?, Thursday's Goals

Last night was our last run before our 5k on Thursday. It went very well and Brett and I feel like we will be ready for tomorrow!
On New Year's Eve Brett and I are running in the
and we are very excited.

We only started training one month ago so I don't have high expectations at all. I'm coming from a few years of very minimal exercise and we wanted to be sure to start out slow to avoid injury and/or burn out. We've been following a 5k plan on my phone and I've been extremely happy with how things are going.

They say when you are approaching a race you should set 3 race day goals.
A. One that is stupid easy to accomplish
B. One that should be attainable based on your training
C. One that could happen if all the stars align, the weather, wind, and roads cooperate and you manage to fart at just the right time.

That way if B& C fall through at least you have A.

So here are my goals for Thursday:
A: 45 min finish. A few months ago Lorelai and I did a 5k that I did not prepare for in anyway and we finished in 45 min.
B: 36 min finish. Brett and I have been running about a 12 minute mile so barring any unforeseen drama, this should be attainable.
C. Sub 33 min finish. Ha, who know's maybe conditions will be perfect, maybe adrenaline will be out of control and the perfect fart will propel me across the finish line at just the right time. Then again maybe not ;)

I'm hoping for B.

I haven't sewn in several weeks. I've been wanting to get back to it for a long time, I am soo behind on several obligations but things have been SO busy and we were sick for several weeks it just kept not happening. Until yesterday!

I was able to quilt this mini and sew several other blocks to get me all caught up on the I Heart B and C Sampler Bee. I just need to hand sew the binding on the mini quilt and mail everything off. That's going to feel so good!

I might have been able to get some sewing done on Monday but I was completely wrapped up in needing to finish my book. Late Monday afternoon I finished Born to Run by Christopher McDougall and it was excellent! I highly recommend this book to runners and non runners alike. It was well written and so inspiring. It focused on the Tarahumara tribe down in Mexico and the authors journey to run with these super-human runners. As I ran last night I thought a lot about what I had read and applied it to my form and general enjoyment of the activity. I'm trying to hunt it down on audio so I can get Brett to listen to it. I desperately need someone to chat about it with me!

~~~~~
What kind of races have you done recently?

Do you have a book you're super excited to talk about?

Some Weekend Stuff

While Em is partying hardy in the happiest place on Earth,

I am chilling at home doing nothing terribly exciting and hanging out with my favorite people.

Not much has happened since Christmas and while that has been great I am ready to start getting stuff done.

First a few pics from our weekend.
Saturday we didn't manage to stay away from the shops. The kids got some Christmas money and were ready to spend it! Lorelai's $10 did not cover this $99 Chewbacca, too bad so sad.

Sunday was church, my last day teaching Lorelai's class! Followed up by an afternoon of this... new kindle, chocolate and my Wonder Woman snuggy. Perfection. I just finished this book and it was fantastic! I'll fill you in soon.
Monday a shocking belated Christmas gift showed up in the mail! I was so thrilled and Lorelai yelled, "Dad got you the purple one! He got the purple one!" I spent the whole afternoon excited for my run so I could try it out. It was fabulous in case you were wondering.

So here we are. The first in my long line of things to be productive about was to clean out the fridge. I am delighted with the loveliness that is my fresh clean fridge.


Now to get caught up on my sewing. I am DETERMINED to get sewing done today when Mark goes down for his nap and the kids get kicked outside for play. I will be getting caught up on swap blocks and listening to Harry Potter and the Sorcerers's Stone for about the 1000th time. So glad it's finally on Audible!
~~~~~~
What are you doing this fine Tuesday?

Anyone still stuck in the holidays or are you ready to move on?

What are you reading?
I just finished Born to Run by Christopher McDougall and have started Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Snapshots from Christmas!

Merry Day After Christmas! Did everyone have a great time? It was such a great day I wanted to share a bit of it here :)

This is from Christmas Eve just before the kids went to bed. We are all so in love with our Joanie jammies this year! I need to get a pic of me and Brett in ours as well.

I decided at 10pm the night before Christmas that I wanted to have a special breakfast Christmas morning. I found this recipe from Our Best Bites and it was a smashing hit! I haven't been a huge fan of cinnamon rolls so far but these ones have changed my mind! I would say I'll be making them much more often but with one roll ringing in at 546 calories they will be saved for the specialist of special occasions. Look at the shade Scarlet Witch is throwing. I think she is jealous of our festive breakfast.

Kent got three different Lego sets this Christmas and somehow Lorelai only ended up with one. All the same the first few hours post gift opening were spent assembling legos.

I've known for weeks that Lorelai would be getting her first Kindle for Christmas and I've jut been giddy with anticipation. The big surprise however was that I got one too! Mine is on the left, Lorelai's is in the rainbow leopard print, haha.

She was thrilled to discover HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERERS STONE already loaded and ready to read. The nerd in her was very, very happy.

Here is Brett, asleep, with his brand new activity tacker...


Haha, despite the irony of this photo Brett and I have been very active lately getting a run in every night before bed. We've got a few fitness goals (largely running) coming up in the next year (including a 5k on New Year's Eve!) and Brett's  new VivoSmart will help get him in gear.
________________________________________________________________________________
How was your Holiday?

What was your favorite gift you gave? and received?

Any plans for the weekend?
I'll be doing my best to not to go to any shops and just hang out with my family!