My Marathon

Now that it has been almost four weeks, I can say that running a marathon was really fun and I will probably do it again. The last few months of training, when I was running 16 to 20 miles every other Saturday, I thought, "why I'm I doing this. What weirdo runs 16 miles for fun." I still don't have an answer, but I can say it was worth it. I still feel so good about the accomplishment.

I met an amazing person during the race. (We are basically best friends now that we have spent more then four hours talking to each other).

We encouraged each other the whole way. We both knew we were each-others answers to our prayers. Although I had trained pretty much by myself, the Lord finds me awesome people to run my races with.

Yes, I died. My tight tibial band made my hips start to burn around mile 17. By 22, the miles seemed to get longer. The hardest was the last two. They were the only miles I could not talk to my new friend Naomi. It felt like the longest stretch to me. I listen to some music from an ipod Jamie let me borrow, that she was borrowing from a friend. I have no idea who I was listening to, nonetheless, it helped. I finished in 4 hours and 46 minutes.
I felt sick for the first hour after the race when I tried to eat. During the race I had water, electrolyte water and hammer gel (pasty stuff that you slowing eat. I worked on two the whole race.) so I just walked around and drank lots of water. My whole pit crew was pretty awesome. I iced for three hours and had to pee every 30 minutes, but I recovered well.

Thank you to my cousin, Loni. It was her crazy idea. She always gets me to do the funnest thinks in life. Thanks to my husband who took care of our children while I ran for insane amounts of time. Thank you Mom and Dad. I'm so glad you two were there. Believe it or not, I ran faster when I saw my mom standing on the side of the street before the finish line. Thank you Dad and David for talking to me while I was running my long runs. That helped so much. Jamie filled me up with so much water. Thank you for sharing the air mattress. Really.
Ultimately, during training and the marathon, my Heavenly Father blessed me. Through prayer, He blessed me. I relayed on Him during the most difficult times of the whole experience. I am nothing without my Heavenly Father.

James Plug

He has really taken to the Plug.

We know it is gross. We took it away after the picture.

I love his face! When he is about to move toward you he will stick up his arms as captured below.

June Fun

My little guy loves to walk around holding my hands. He also goes from a standing position to crawling by throwing his arms in the air and flopping on his belly. He is a fun baby.

Olivia and I went to a mother daughter sleepover and played on a slip and slide. Here she is stepping on the water tube so that the water presser pushes the water higher for a drink.

Here we are riding a train with our good friends. These two kids LOVE trains.

Oatmeal, who knew it was this good.

Eggs

This Easter was significant for hubby and I because it was the first major holiday we have celebrated alone together (well, add our two kids of course). In the past, we have been blessed to spend holidays with our extended families. We loved it. But this year, we really had to think about what we wanted to do. Planing unified us as a family.

This is what we did.
1) Easter dress. I added laced sleeves. It was perfect for her.

2) Chocolate bunny (Thanks Gramers) in her basket with goodies after nap.
(Notice clothing change. Our little Miss changes clothes two to three times a day. We are working on a solution.)

3)Easter bunny. Hard to find, but we got a shot of this one.


4) Egg hunt. There were 27 eggs, with one or two jelly beans in each. Olivia was board after 20 and needed persuasion to find the rest of them.


5) plastic grass... because I love to clean. I think next year I will look for paper grass.

6) Easter Dinner
Seth made the most fantastic Easter dinner. Very traditional. Apricot glazed ham, garlic mash potatos, baked cabbage with cheese sauce, sweet potato biscuits, and deviled eggs. I made the chocolate cookie nests with the ribbon eggs. I also set the table and hand washed all the dishes that were used to make this beautiful meal. Just letting you know so you don't think I did nothing while my hobby made up the feast.





What an awesome Easter. The only thing that I fell short on was putting more emphasis on the resurrection of Jesus Christ during the day. We taught little Miss that the eggs on our Easter tree represented new birth. That Christ had died and was alive again, but that was it. I hope I can bring Christ more into our Easter next year.
We miss our families and friends in Washington (and in the far east south) and hope their Easter was special.

Post Family Fun

Our Post Family came to visit us from Washington.


Squirt bottle water fight. It's cute until they team up on Gramers and I.



We had a blast at the zoo. Best zoo I have been to.



We through a little party for our nephew. Thank you friends.


Us girls went to Sweet Tomato, an "all you can eat" salad and soup and bread, and sweet potato, dessert, etc. restaurant. So good. Kim and I actually went twice just in the five days they were here.

Okay, not just girls. Goob went with us.


Our chunk won those Grandparents over, easy.

He took particular interest in his Grumps.

Too short of a visit. We love you guys.

Trees

Our little miss is a climber! And now we have a tree. She has so many bruises on her legs.

8 months (almost 9)
We are blessed once again with such a happy baby.

Working out with mommy


P.S. He is not always naked.

more baby shoes

I have sewn six pair of baby girl shoes for friends

James was getting a little jealous. My dad bought the buttons for me from an antique shop a while ago. I love them.

Dresser

Here is a before picture of a dresser I painted. I started painting the top and the sides of the dresser when my neighbor asks me a question.

While talking to my neighbor, I notice Olivia has paint on her feet. I return to my project to find this....

I took a picture because I told myself that one day I will laugh about it..

Sadly but true I had to wipe up Olivia's paint job and repaint. Here is the finished project.


In this one you can see her new curtains I made out of a shower certain I bought for .50 cents at a yard sale. I actually turned the curtain so the colored "moons" are going the width instead of the length and backed them so her room is dark at night.

Our first camping trip

Not only was it our first camping trip in Texas, it was our first camping trip alone as a family. Because we usually go with others, we had to buy a lot of our own camping gear; a tent, a lantern and our own food. We went to Fair-field lake, two hours south east of where we live. The lake had fresh water clams and was rather warm because it circulated through a nearby dam. The first night go bitterly cold and everyone but Olivia woke up throughout the night. James kept on moving around and I would find him feet from where we laid him down. We took a bird watching walk and saw a pelican. We also notices a bluish/greenish animal siting on a log in the lake. We went cross country to get a better look, but discovered it was only trash. Later that night, Seth was able to spot an armadillo in the bushes next to our camp site. I am happy to say we didn't see any scorpions, alligators or huge spiders. We had a great time, although we missed having our family to play with. We will probably go again before it gets real hot.






Swimming! Seth and I only went thigh high (No, we are not naked)

Olivia loved the water. She didn't want to get out. She loved to throw sea shells into the water. She also saw a green canoe and said "I wish I had a blue boat"



James thought the water was too cold, but he loved to eat the sand when I was taking pictures.




Trying to stay warm in the morning

S'mores