Midweek randoms…..

It’s Wednesday, it’s Wednesday! Doin a little happy dance because that means 1 more day of running before REST DAY!!! But then the day after is the big 10 miler (insert pathetic girly scream here).

K-State football starts this weekend, holla!!! My family is all traveling to Manhattan for the game, but we decided to stay home this weekend. I have my run Saturday morning, we have dinner plans Sunday and I have to work on Monday (boo) so it didn’t make sense to travel (alone) with 2 kids for a short visit. If Josh would have been able to take off and go with me, we totally would have gone. I will miss my fam, they will have so much fun together. Josh will have the game on at Willies here, so at least I can watch my beloved Cats first game of the season (insert Wabash Cannonball song here).

Is it Fall yet? I am over Summer, she and I are no longer on speaking terms, she has been brutal to us this year. I miss my Fall, he is so much nicer to us, and he smells better too (what YOU don’t think the seasons have a gender? Well they do.) I am over Summer’s clothing too, bring on Fall and his cute sweaters and fun boots (note to self: go buy cute sweaters and fun boots).

The kids: Some days they play soooo nicely together and the next day it’s like WWF in here and I have to pull Hulk Hogan and Stone Cold Steve Austin off each other every 2 seconds.  Paxton has some pretty awful battle wounds this week courtesy of Harper’s nails to his face. I tell him over and over to stay OUT of her face, to leave her alone if she is in a mood, but does he listen? Noooooo he gets right back in her face “hey baby you want to go to my room?” “baby can I have a kiss?” then…………whap! Her little hand makes direct contact with his face and holds.on.tight.  The end result is a pretty nasty bruise and a a cut from her nail (she literally has a death grip on his face). This has happened 3 TIMES this week! I really hope his teacher doesn’t call SRS on us, how do you explain to them that the bruises and cuts are from his 1 YEAR OLD SISTER?!?!?!?

Paxton has been helping Josh put in our sprinkler system the past couple weeks and last night we were standing in my friends yard, talking, and all of a sudden Paxton yells at us (pointing at the ground with a stick) “hey guys I think this is a good spot for another head (sprinkler head) and probably another one right about there (points with stick again).” He was so serious too, ha! So if anyone needs help putting in sprinkler heads, Pax is your guy!

Harper’s new thing lately is saying “uh-huh” and “yeah” after EVERYTHING you say! She says it in a little high pitched voice and it cracks me up. So I mentioned that she has been taking her diaper off in the morning before we go get her out of bed, well Sunday morning when I walked in she was COMPLETELY NAKED!!! So I have been putting onesies on her at night and that has deterred her a bit because she can’t get the snaps un-done. Ugh, baby girl is a mess. She also has been showing some interest in the potty, she will sit on it but so far nothing has happened. She also tells us when she needs her diaper changed and apparently that is a sign that they are ready. I know this sounds bad, but I was in NO rush to potty train her, 1. because she is not even 2 yet and 2. that means she is officially not a baby anymore. Waaaaanh!

So I am going to conclude this exciting post (sarcasm there peeps) with some pictures I took from Papa Jim’s farm a couple weeks ago.

Little background story to this one: we (Papa, Pax, Harper, Nana, and myself) took the Gator out to the fields to see the cows. Well it took us forever to find them and when we finally did Deb nonchalantly says “won’t they think we are here to feed them” Dave says “yeah probably” I say “what the heck does that mean!!” Well apparently it means they will ALL RUN RIGHT TOWARDS YOU (hence the photo above)!!!! OMG I was freaking out as this large herd of cattle came charging at us and we are in this tiny little cart with no doors or windows to close!!! So we turn the Gator around and then what do they do?……….follow us!! RUNNING!! So now we have a large pissed off herd of cattle running after us!!!

(Hence the following pics:)

Dave barely got out of the Gator and got the fence closed before they caught up with us. THAT would have been BAD if he hadn’t got the fence shut in time, I think we would have been herding cattle the rest of the day……….and I know NOTHING about herding cattle.

The farm got hit by a wind gust a month ago and it destroyed the barns. It ripped the roof right off of this one!!

And of course no visit to Papa Jim’s would be complete without petting Hall-E and some fun on the tire swing (Harper would take Hall-E home with us if she could…….she can’t)!!!

Have a good rest of the week!!!

Move it monday………..

 

Linkin up with Ashley again for her “move it monday” series. I feel a little guilty though because I haven’t moved it today, I missed the 4:30 group run this morning and am not sure I will have time to squeeze in a run during the hour Josh is home before he goes back to work. (edit: I DID go get a quick 3 miles in, I only had 30 minutes since Josh had to get back to work, and my schedule called for 45 min today, but something is better than nothing right?)

I had a hard run on Saturday though and I feel like my body is still making up for that. We had 8 miles Saturday morning with a HILL REPEAT thrown in. At about 4 miles we ran down a hill then ran a bit farther to hit the 4 mile mark, then turned around and had to run back up that hill, turn around, run down it, then turn around and run back up it before we could run the 4 miles back in. Holy freakin moly!!! That was AFTER running up the hill I have named “killer hill” which is about 3 1/2 miles into our run. THAT hill is a bad mamma jamma and kicks my butt (whenever I make it to the top of it, all I can hear in my head is the Rocky theme song and I feel like jumping around and pumping my fist in the air………ok so maybe I DO jump around little and pump my fist)!! So needless to say our run on Saturday was the farthest I had ever gone and had a ton of hills in it. Our trainer assures us that hill training is one of the best ways to condition your body for a run, even if the race you are doing is relatively flat, the hills build up your endurance to make you a better runner. Whatever!! I think she just likes to torture us and watch us suffer, ha! She has informed us that we better like hill repeats because every Saturday from now until the race (Oct. 9th) we will be doing them! This Saturday we have 10 miles. Eeeeeek.

(this is the view after we get to the top of the “killer hill” the lake at sunrise, so it kind of makes the hill worth it to see that at the top. Sorry for the crappy pic, it’s on my phone and I was all shaky from running up the hill.)

(my running buddy, Paula, happy after conquering the “killer hill”)

One thing I am NOT doing that Ashley is really good at remembering to do is strength training! I know I need it, that running is not enough by itself, but after running at 4:15 a.m. the last thing I want to do is go inside the Y to do weights. I know I just need to suck it up and do it, but it’s hard. All I want to do is go home, shower, and lay down for a little bit before the ankle biters wake up. Plus I am easily intimidated, so if there are guys in the weights area, I usually turn around and walk out. I work there for crying out loud!! I should not be intimidated or embarrassed but I totally am. I wish I was more confident or had more of a “I don’t give a s*&#” attitude, but I really lack that.

I am still trying to figure out what foods work best for me to run the next day. In other words: what food won’t make me need to use the ahem restroom. I am sorry if this is T.M.I but it totally stresses me out on a daily basis. I have had 2 incidents now where apparently I did NOT eat the right thing and halfway into a run it catches up to me. I live in a small town, I run at 4 a.m. translation……NOTHING IS OPEN, THERE ARE NO BATHROOMS!! The first time I just turned around and got in my car and went home, the second time I went into a nursing home. A NURSING HOME!! AT 4:45 A.M.!!! I fully expected the cops to bust down the bathroom door and arrest me for trespassing. At that point though, I didn’t care. Saturday was a good run and I had pasta the night before so maybe I should stick with pasta before my long runs, it made me SUPER tired though and I was in bed by 8:30 on Friday night…..lame.

This is my Saturday running crew, and this isn’t even all of them!!

Tomorrow is cross training day and we can either walk or swim instead of running. I pretty much only drown when I try to swim laps so I am going to walk with the group tomorrow morning then doing yoga afterwards. It should be a nice easy day, pretty pumped about that!

Midweek randoms…..

Wow I have not blogged in a week, school started so of course our schedule is busier than ever again.

We have been doing lots around here. Building forts, making cookies, going to Papa Jim’s farm, just trying to stay busy so we aren’t bored (and by WE, I mean the KIDS!)

Running has pretty much taken over my life. I go to bed early so I can get up early, I have to eat certain things (or NOT eat certain thing, ahem MEXICAN!) for fear of it affecting my run the next day, I have to drink plenty of water, I have to stretch and ice and breathe and…………you get the point.

The kids have been in rare form lately. Boy howdy they test my patience on a daily basis. But then they can be so darn cute too.

Funny Paxton sayings as of late:

P:“ Aiden has better ideas than I do, you know what his top 3 ideas are?”

Me: “what’s that?” (can’t remember what the first 2 were, the 3rd one was the kicker)

P: “and number 3, jumping on the bouncy couch” (the air matress at my dad’s house)

Me: “Yeah I don’t like that one very much.”

P: “Yeah that’s a bad one, let’s just hang that one up.”

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P: (at bedtime) “Mom, you have to let me sleep in your bed, because you love me and that’s what you do when you love someone.”

Me: “I do love you, but I love you MORE when you are in your own bed…….so GO TO BED!!”

He started school this week and loves it. Didn’t even look back at me when I dropped him off at his class (sad face).

Harper says “what’s that” and “I want that” all the time. She has also started taking her diaper off at some point in the night!! 3 times now we have walked in the next morning and her diaper is off and laying in her crib. This morning she even attempted to put her pajama bottoms BACK on after she took her diaper off because we found her in bed with both legs through one pajama leg hole. I just wish we had a camera monitor in there so I can see her doing this!! I just laugh thinking about her in there doing that. She has also been waking up at like 2:30 in the morning and calling for me then when I walk in there she says “hi Mommy!!” all happy go lucky, let’s play, it’s party time. Then she will nose dive for her pillow, giggling the whole time. Yeah, real funny girlfriend, my alarm goes off at 3:50 so I don’t find it too amusing.

She is a temper tantrum queen!! Omigoodness, watch out if she is in a MOOD! At church on Sunday, I wasn’t opening her snack fast enough (well excuse me Missy!!) so she walks out into the aisle and throws herself on the ground and buries her face in the carpet, crying the whole time. All I could think was “Dear God, please give me the strength to not kill my child in church!”

She plays so well by herself though, she will color, or draw on a magna doodle, or work on a puzzle FOREVER!! I love it, it is so opposite of how Pax was/is. He constantly needs someone playing with him and nothing keeps his interest for longer than 10 minutes.

Paxton took this picture of Harper, (like our messy house?) He LOVES taking pics and is actually pretty good at it, his angles are always so neat since he is so little.

The kids were sick for one day last week so we (they…….ok fine me too) stayed in pj’s all day. We played puzzles, relaxed in Paxton’s bed and pretty much just vegged out. It was nice, but midway through the day I started feeling guilty and “pajama day” turned into “Mom organize all the toys, puzzles, and books day.” (PS- that lasted all of 5 seconds and everything is un-organized again.)

Harper is my eater, she loves to eat, she could probably be a professional eater one day. One of her favorite words is, in fact, “EAT!” So the fact that she has a Mother who loves to bake, totally works in her favor and her new favorite spot is on the counter, right by the electric mixer, and within arms reach of spoons, beaters, and all those yummy ingredients that go into baking. (Please note I do NOT re-use any spoons/utensils she licks during baking)

She snuck her hand right into the mixer bowl and got a handful of sugar that she licked off and Mom caught that sticky little hand before it went back in that bowl for seconds. Sorry baby girl, nobody wants your slobber hands in their cookie batter, not even your Momma.

As a consolation prize she got to lick the batter off the beater, yes I let my kids eat raw cookie dough, I did it as a child and I am still alive so why deprive them of such a happy childhood past-time?

Forts have been a pretty big deal in our house lately. The kids think they are just the coolest thing since sliced bread. We have built them in the living room so they could have a “movie watching fort” underneath the kitchen chairs and blankets, but the one below is the mac daddy of them all. Daddy actually built this one and it has been up all week. Someone thinks this is his new bed, hey whatever, you can sleep in the tub if you want as long as you’re not in my bed!

And yes I am obsessed in shooting in black and white lately. I didn’t even know my camera could DO that until I took that photography class. Plus I don’t have to edit them in photoshop so it’s a time saver too!

Well I have another meeting tonight so I need to go make dinner before Harper starts eating my arm (wouldn’t put it past her). Have a great rest of the week!!