Christmas Card time!!!!!

If you read my last post, you know that I am cheap. I pay almost no one to take pictures of my kiddos.  I have never had professional pictures taken of Elena and have only done it one time for Samuel.  Goodness, I must be a horrible mom!

Today I decided would be the perfect day for me to take our Christmas card pictures.  My sister Kelsey did them last year because she could be a professional.  I am not, but I do my best.  Thankfully, I forward all my pictures to her and she makes them pretty.  Then she creates my Christmas card and viola....done!  It is a great arrangement.  It makes me and her happy!

I am not sharing any of the possible card pictures because maybe you will be receiving one!  If you want one, you better make sure I have your address...ha!  You can see what cute and casual clothing they wore!  Anyway, after picture time the kiddos played and I got some really fun pictures in my humble opinion.  I know that my babies are the cutest ever!!

A picture from the picture taking place which I just discovered 5 minutes from my house....love it!

Today I am thankful for:

1.  Being okay---I had a picture frame dropped onto my face today.  It hurt like words I don't normally say and now I look so great....just kidding.  I have a lovely blue bruised nose and the entire nose area.  It is awesome really!  Look....

I look way worse than this picture shows!

2.  We ate out tonight---what a great thing after preparing some food today and knowing tomorrow will be filled with cooking as well!

3.  I had a great run this morning and I am always thankful for that.  I hope it continues tomorrow when I hope to run close to 39 or better in the mile 5 mile race.  More importantly, I cannot wait for Emma, Jonah, and Samuel to run the 1 mile kids race.  Oh my...it will be awesome!

4.  Charlie Brown Thanksgiving....a truly great holiday tradition.

5.  I am thankful for everyone who reads this blog and takes the time to comment.  I appreciate your love and support! I wish you all a Happy and memorable and yummy Thanksgiving!!!!

Today's pictures are above!

Weather Obsessed

I love the weather.  I watch the weather reports about three times a day.  That is ridiculous on many levels, but mostly because we live in Texas.  Our weather is the same 9 months of the year.  It is hot, humid, and slightly breezy from March until November.  Hot is of course a relative term.  I always think it is too hot for the time of year.  When it is 100 in the summer I think it is too hot.  When it is still 75-80 in November I am really annoyed with the weather.  Watching the weather would be much more interesting if we lived in a place that had seasons. 

As a runner, I pay particular attention to the morning temperatures.  I run in the early morning and need to know what to wear.  As a mom, I want my children dressed appropriately for the day.  I do not want to be "that mom" who sends their child to school in shorts when the temperature will drop 30 degrees during the day.  That happens frequently during a southeast Texas winter.   

Lately the weather has been my enemy.  I have raced twice this fall.  Thursday will be the third time.  I promise that the morning lows were pleasant except for race day for my first two races.  Both mornings were warm...almost hot...and very humid.  It is going to happen again.  The morning low for Thursday will be the highest we have had in 10 days.  Then guess what?  It is going to cool off the very next day!  Unbelievable!!!

I do have little superstitions that guide some parts of my life.  I do believe in the power of "3's".  I am hoping this is the last time it will be hot.  It will be the third time in a row for warm race weather! I have two races in December and most importantly the marathon.  The weather was great for the half last year.  Last New Year's Day it was warm and I really hope this year is different.  I don't really think God is very concerned with my prayers for race weather, but I plan to ask a few times between now and then!

Today I am thankful for:

1.  My house---even though I am always frustrated with the number of projects yet to complete, it is our home.  I have so many memories of our life here and I would not change that for one second!

2.  My Thanksgiving Day food shopping is complete.  I know I will have to return to Kroger for milk and bananas before Thursday, but at least those trips will be quick.

3. Listening to Jonah, Samuel, and Elena play so nicely this afternoon.  It was a rough morning so I was so happy to hear them play well together!

4.  Listening to Elena sing lullabies to Yuengling, our dog.  She loves Yingy, as she calls her, so much.  It was just precious.  No one else was allowed to talk while she was singing and Yuenlging was trying to nap!

5.  Checking things off my to do list.  Today I caught up on laundry, put all all those little things, went through 3 days of mail, and completed work for Church!  I am ready for a little Thanksgiving break!

Today's picture is of Elena singing to Yuengling.

You know Yuengling is just wishing for Elena to go away.  She has become very patient in her old age...thank goodness!

Running in the Zone

Most runs are just runs.  There is nothing super special about them.  Parts are great, parts are lots of work, and parts I just wish would end and end quickly.  Funny how running mirrors life so much!!  Every once in a while there is that special day where everything clicks and everyone is happy.  This rarely happens for an entire day in my house so I am happy with periods of time.  This also has rarely happened for me lately while running.  Most of my runs have either been like death or felt like too much work.  I worry regularly that my legs are just going to be too tired to run this marathon.  Today gave me a little hope that all will be good!

I was scheduled to run 3 easy, 6 at 8:23 pace, and 3 easy.  It was a great morning to run.  It was 42 degrees when I set out at 6am.  The sun was starting to rise.  It was a lovely, peaceful morning.  I had a good attitude about my speed work.  I was excited to run that pace.

I ran the first 3 super easy...just shy of 30 minutes.  I picked up the pace to what felt challenging, but at the same time easy.  I looked at my watch and it read 8:15 pace.  That made me happy!  The miles were ticking by and feeling easy.   I had to focus, but nothing like speed work.  As I neared 6 miles, I decided to run 2 more miles at GMP and one mile cool down.  This was not the plan, but I knew this was what I needed to do today.  I could have kept up this pace for longer and that was super encouraging to me.  I know the cool morning was a factor, but I also felt strong today! 

My splits were those 8 miles were
8:16
8:19
8:17
8:13
8:13
8:12
8:20
8:13

My last mile was nice and easy for a total run time of 1:45! 

My marathon is in 6 weeks and I am running a half in 3 weeks.  I have 4 weeks left to prepare and then it is taper time!

Today I am thankful for:
1.  Being able to teach Sunday School on a rotating basis.  I love my preschoolers and enjoy my time with them. 

2.  Homemade apple pie---thank you Mom and Emma.  It was amazing!!!

3.  A wonderful piano concert at church tonight.  Umi Garrett performed.  She is a 12 year old piano prodigy.  She was cute and a delight to watch.  Her music was beautiful!

4.  Volunteering to help with crafts at Christmas Choir Camp.  I was able to help the kiddos make the Advent Daily Countdown Banners and visit with friends at the same time.  The craft is super cute and I can't wait for Emma and Jonah to bring it home!

5.  Watching the Texans with Emma.  I hope she starts to love football as much as I do!  I know she wanted them to win (they did) for the free slush, but she was still watching!

Today's picture is of my crazy Jonah who LOVES to climb trees and swing from the branches. 

Friday's Thankful list

1.  Emma, Jonah, and Samuel all had Thanksgiving Feasts at school today.  That meant I did not have to pack lunches.  Why is it so much worse packing lunch for school than it is to make lunch on Saturday and Sunday?  So weird!

2.  Today was a rest day.  I was so happy to sleep in this morning.  Then this afternoon I was itching to run because it was so nice.  I need to remind myself of that feeling tomorrow at 5:30am!

3.  Homemade lasagna...enough said!

4.  Duck Dynasty...super sad statement about my life, but the show is flat out hilarious!

5.  My mom is here... two weeks of fun, shopping, cooking, eating, and visiting!  YEAH!!

Today's picture is of my mom...

Can I do it?

Today was my last time to run 800's in this marathon cycle.  Can I get a huge Woo Hoo!!!!  I have run 800's 7 times since August and I have learned lots running them.  It is probably the most challenging workout I have completed ever especially 8 and 10 repeats.  The amount of sustained focused energy is nuts.  A loss of concentration for 5 seconds slows my pace.  It is a mental as it is physical.

My first set of 800's was done on the treadmill.  I will avoid doing that again at all cost in the future.  I was so out of shape and almost died running 4 repeats at a 7:53/mile pace.   My fastest set of repeats occurred the first week of October.  I ran6 and all my times were between 3:27 and 3:33.

I ran my 10 repeats the last week of October and was honestly really disappointed with my times.  There were all between 3:41 and 3:34.  I had no reason to be upset with them, but was for some reason.

Today I ran 8 repeats with my times between 3:38 and 3:33.  I would love to have seen more improvement from the beginning of October until now.  However, I am really happy with my consistent times.  I felt really strong running them today and could have done at least two more if not more than that.  I guess that means I could have run faster.  It could also mean I am getting stronger and it is probably a little of both.

Bart Yasso, amazing runner and athlete, believes if you can run 10 repeats at your goal marathon time, you can run a marathon in that time.  So, my goal time is 3:40.  Running each 800 at 3 min 40 seconds or better has been my goal since August.  I am well within that goal.  I guess we will see what happens on race day.  I hope I follow the trend!!!

Today I am thankful for:
1.  My sister Kelsey---it is her birthday and I wish I was celebrating with her.  She is the best sister...strong, kind, daring, funny, and so serious at the same time.  I wish we lived closer.  Happy Birthday Kelsey!!!

2.  Honey Crisp Apples

3.  Naps---I took a 30 minute nap today and it was great.  I had a killer headache and needed rest.  I am so glad Elena let me sleep with her!

4.  Clean sheets on my bed tonight....the only thing that would make that better would be if someone else had washed the sheets and made the bed!

5. A freezer full of buffalo meat---I put our dinner in the crock pot this morning.  I had to use a 5 spice Chinese blend to make the Asian pulled beef.  I never looked what was in the 5 spice blend, but I knew as soon as I smelled it cooking.  I detest Anise and guess what was in the spice blend?  Yes, and to make it worse the blend also contained white pepper.  Drew hates white pepper.  So, our roast was tossed (I know but we could not eat it) and I pulled ground buffalo from the freezer at 4p to make sloppy joe.  Heavens!  Now my kitchen smells like anise.  Gross!

Today's picture of the day is of my beautiful Emma!

Almost Wordless Wednesday

Today I decided my thankful list would be in pictures so here goes....

 Emma's book report poster is complete and awesome.  Her oral report went very well too!

Samuel is so stinkin' cute that I could eat him sometimes! Today was picture day and I think he looked quite handsome in his sweater!!!

Elena is silly, happy, fun and such a joy!  I love spending my days with her and don't regret for one second that she is not going to preschool.

These boys...Samuel, Jonah, and Connor played hard outside and were taking a rest.  Good friends at such a young age....precious!

Resting in the sun trying to stay warm while I watched Samuel and Elena play.  I am glad we could play outside today!

Tomorrow is Race Day

Tomorrow I am getting redemption in the 10K.  Despite the wind and warm temperatures, I have decided tomorrow will be my day.  My attitude is the only thing I can control at this point and I plan to do just that.  Just to be fair, I will add that I really, really dislike this distance.  Do you sprint for 6 miles or what?  I can never decide and it is the worst challenge for me ever!

My coach gave me a plan.  I am going to run my plan and it will be my day!  Wish me luck!

Today I am thankful for:

1.  Great neighbors---Randy, Jamie, Kim, Leslie and their sweet kiddos.  They are all awesome, supportive, friendly, and helpful.  We could not be luckier!

2.  A playmate for Elena who is her age.  When you are 2, 3, and 4 I think that child plays mostly with the older siblings' friends.  It can be a challenge.  We are so lucky because our neighbor girl is three weeks older than Elena and they love each other.  It is fun to watch them be creative and play so well together. 

Aren't they cute?

3.  My bed---I know that probably sounds and is very selfish, but I love my bed.  I am thankful for it every night!  Can you tell I slept great last night?

4.  It is the weekend!  Yes, we are crazy busy, but it is my time of two days with my family.  We get to eat all our meals together, worship together at our church, play together, and work together.  I love the weekends!

5.  My health---I am feeling much better than yesterday.  Thank goodness since I am racing tomorrow.  In all seriousness though, I am healthy and strong.  I do not take that for granted!

Today's picture is of my first Christmas purchase.  I have bought gifts, but this is just a fun little purchase for us.  The kids were so happy!

Out of the mouth of babes

I think my children are hilarious.  Don't all moms feel that way?  These are some of the "wows" that have come out of their mouths recently.

Elena - "that is ridiculous" when talking about something at dinner.  Apparently I use that word too much.

Jonah - "Mom, my social studies book is old because it has pictures of past presidents."  After I finished chuckling at that statement I explained that social studies is history which is learning about the past.

Samuel - Our hot water heater has not been working recently.  The other morning he decided to take a cold shower despite being warned.  He told Drew "I can handle it."

Emma - She was explaining to me how a gymnastics skill evolves from just learning to perfecting it.  She said "it is like a seed that is planted and then is sprouts and grows into a beautiful flower." 

Seriously, where do they come up with this stuff? 


Today I am thankful for:
1.  A great morning run.  It was chilly.  My mile splits were at 9 minutes or under and it felt pretty effortless.  I wish all runs were like this.

2.  The bloggy world---Yes, it can be addictive and a total time suck.  However, I have "met" some amazing and inspiring runners and women.  I love reading their blogs, feeling encouraged and inspired by them, and learning from them.

3.  Watching Samuel and Elena play---I often wonder if I let them play too much by themselves.  Am I "ignoring" them by doing other things or by just watching them?   Today I did not feel that way.  They have such a special relationship.  I think it is because they are close in age and they spend lots of time together.  I hope they always have a special connection to one another.

4.  Leftover meals---Seriously, who does not love this.  I did not have to prep much for dinner and it was still a great meal.  Sometimes I think the leftovers are better than when first served!

5.  Medicine---I don't feel well today and I am so glad for over the counter medicine.  I have felt better since I gave in and took something.  Why I wait so long is always a mystery.

Today's picture is of Samuel and Elena being crafty...well kind of crafty.  I am not crafty at all.  However, I decided we were going to make crayon shapes with our old broken crayons.  Samuel picked out the cookie cutters and peeled the paper off the crayons.  They both were so excited to see their new creations. 

Peeling the crayons

Filling the cookie cutters

Waiting for the crayons to melt and take shape

The final product