Ramblings on a Wednesday Morning

Well, Hi! Let's rewind to the weekend. On Saturday Brett and I needed a super easy recovery run so we took the whole family and ran a super chill mile. Kent even ran some of the way though in this picture he is sitting on the front wheel of the stroller.

We moved to the 1130am block at church this Sunday and that means super lazy Sunday mornings. Gives Mark plenty of time for Mark and Puppy snuggles. Marker loves his Hugh Puppy.

I spent some time on Monday delving deeper into the workings of my lovely new Garmin and figured out how to put all my runs between now and our 10k in March into the Garmin calendar. I then synced that calendar to my watch and when it was time to run it was right where I needed it. Perfect!
As you can see in the picture it is also telling me that my next run is tonight!

So fascinating story for everyone, I have very little to do with Kent's shoes. I can tell him to put them on and put them away and that's the end of it. Except that yesterday one was missing. This one in fact and when I found it I looked inside and noticed this....

No wonder he's been complaining about walking because his foot hurts! We took him straight to the shoe store (that night, after dinner) and he was highly amused with this shoe size chart and made us all test our feet against Chewbacca. Look at that face!

Speaking of Star Wars: I picked up this book at Sam's club yesterday while the big kids were at school and they were ecstatic when bedtime story time came up and I whipped this out. Another point in the Mom jar.

Look at these sweet baby boys! Facebook informed me this morning that this is what Kent looked like 4 yrs ago today. I laughed and quickly took a picture of Mark today, today because they are wearing the same pair of jammies! Kent is 15 mos in this picture and was very sick at the time. He happened to have a bad ear infection but this was also at the height of trying to figure out why he was losing weight (and height) about a month before his kidney failure was discovered. Mark is perfectly healthy and 16 mos old in the picture :)

Here's the last thing I wanted to share. I'm currently knitting a sweater for Kent. Hopefully this one will fit over his big head. When I last showed off my work to Emily we were scratching our heads over how this would end up looking like a sweater. Those little flappy things make it look very confusing especially when there was only 50 stitches between them. It is starting to take shape.

 

Then my mom told me that eventually I would sew those flappy things together and to the back of the sweater and suddenly it started to make sense. I used safety pins to demonstrate what it is supposed to look like. In the picture we can see the back and the shoulders and a little ways down the front. Right now it is as if I am making a cardigan but when I get a bit lower down I will connect the front edges, turning it into a V-Neck sweater.

Happy Hump Day to you all!

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How are your New Year's Resolutions going?

Anyone resolved to get running?

My resolution is to KEEP running.

What craftiness have you got going on at the moment?

NYE RESOLUTION5k Race Report

New Year's Eve was a special kind of fun. Full of cleaning, chilling and endorphin's. In the morning we cleaned away Christmas and got the house back to beauty base zero and ready for a new year. That took all of an hour after breakfast and we had nothing to do but wait for our 5pm race.

I don't think I like evening races. I feel like I spent the entire day just anticipating the race and wishing time would speed up. I've only done one other night race but I think I can safely say I prefer just getting up in the morning and getting it done.

This race was also a little obnoxious because if you pre-registered online, as we did, you couldn't pick up your packet until just before the race.

So, after waiting around all day Brett and I dropped the kids off at a friends house and made it to the venue an hour before the race. Thank goodness registration and the post race party were inside the school next door because it was 26 degrees out and felt much worse. We picked up our packets and hung out indoors as long as we possibly could.

We made our way down to the start line 15 minutes before the start and jogged around. Not because we are serious runners but because it was that cold. I checked the temp 10 min before the race 23?! Ugh as night fell it just kept dropping, I didn't check again after the race but I can assure you it only got colder.

Bang! Just kidding, the announcer only yelled GO! It was a pretty low tech race. There were some gorgeous views of Washington park for about the first five minutes but then the sun went down and everything was dark for the rest of the run.

I was very thrilled that Brett and I were able to run the entire race. We only started running a month ago and I was a little nervous that we hadn't built up enough endurance. We were super frustrated that a couple that kept taking walk breaks kept passing us and falling behind and passing us until they burst out at the end and finished 20s before us? That always drives me a little nuts when I'm working my bum off to run the whole way.

Oh well! We ran the whole way and finished at 36:45! Only 45s off my main goal and a 11:49 mile. I am totally cool with that and excited to train towards our next race.

Over all it was a great experience. I don't know that I would sign up again next year, probably not until I forget just how cold it was or I am living in a warmer climate (That would be AwEsomE!)


I hope everyone has a great weekend! I hope to get in some sewing, napping, and we have a 3.5 mile run on the books tonight :)
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What are your weekend plans?

Happy New Years! What's Coming in 2016?

Happy New Years everybody! It's going to be a great one!
Last night Brett and I ran our 5k and had a great, if freezing time!

So far this is what 2016 is going to look like (we've got a busy first half of the year):

Dental School (better be, we are still waiting to hear)

An 8yr old girl and a baptism in February

A 10k race in March

TWO weddings in April, in California

One wedding in June, in Salt Lake

One half marathon in June, in Salt Lake

It's going to be a busy six months.
In that time I've got to sew one baptism dress, two other Lorelai dresses, two queen sized wedding quilts and knit at least 5 Christmas stockings. Madness!

Sheesh, looking at all this I'm beginning to think I might not see all y'all until June is over. Haha, well I'll at least be back tomorrow with our race report!
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How was your NYE?

What are your plans for the new year?

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
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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!

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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!
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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.
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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!