Celebration and Survival

What do you get when your sister and her hubby go to Texas, your mom gets sick (who was supposed to watch their kids), and your kids are begging to see their cousins? You get a total of 5 children in 1475 square feet of living space. And we loved it! Due to my mom's illness, I offered to take Riva's kids for a day and night so my mom could recover. After Riva rescheduled Tyler's preschool (so I wouldn't have to drive 45 minutes x 4) they were delivered to our doorstep late on Valentine's day!! What a nice Valentine gift! The kids actually managed to sleep through the night (shocker!!) even though I was told the next day that Lynnea talked the whole night (by her sister no less) AND Ethan (who said it was annoying). Spoken like a kid who has his own room...go figure. :) We had a blast and went through food like it was going out of style.

 Austin was enamored with whatever Lynnea was doing since she was the 'baby.' In other words, she's the only one younger than he is. This picture came after I actually styled her hair. Yes, the infantissimal hair rubber band is ACTUALLY holding her hair back (for the time being). Then we had to pick a clip. This was too fun, except I marveled at how you can actually stretch those baby rubber bands and they don't break. Who knew?

 Mikayla and Ethan hit it off. Mikayla liked feeling Ethan's hair so they sat watching a movie with her stroking his head. Ahh..cousins.

 And then....here it comes.....I got a picture of ALL of them not moving!!!!! That is hard, let me tell you. In fact I got 2, but in the second one Austin is starting to book it off the bench. Cuties.

 And this is typical of the boys when they get together. We went to the park before Ethan had to head to Kindergarten. They ran till they all of a sudden got thirsty and had to go potty. We had to head back home for that.

 Ahhh...my sweet birthday cake. After eating Kix and half a banana for my birthday dinner (I had choir that night at church), the boys and daddy surprised me with a Dairy Queen birthday cake. It was yummy and the boys were so excited to show it to me. AND it was purple, which the boys know is one of my favorite colors.

We got the privilege of having Uncle Dannie drop by the day after my birthday so Bryan took us all out for steaks. What a treat! We love seeing him and the boys adore him! Nothing like good steaks, salmon, sweet potatoes and a bloomin' onion for a birthday dinner - and I didn't have to do the dishes afterwards! The splurge was worth it.

Keep on Runnin'!

February 6, 2011: 7:45am - my 2nd half marathon at Surf City, USA. I carpooled into Huntington with a friend of mine from church and we got there at 5:30am - yes, that means we left our houses around 4:45am.  In the dark. Before most people are stirring in their beds. I was excited, nervous and I was anticipating this event because I knew it could be my last considering all the various illnesses/pains I've been having these last few months. When the gun sounded, Riva and I still had about 1/2 hour to wait before starting ourselves. They start everyone in waves and we didn't think we'd finish before 2 hrs 45 mins. We surprised ourselves. Staying about 100 yards behind Mina (another friend of ours who ran) we trekked together for 13.1 miles, dodging all the walkers/slow runners....and finished in 2:07. Shocked? I was. Especially considering for the last 6 miles I felt a tendon in my left leg stretching a little abnormally and for the last 3 miles my left foot was spasming at various intervals.

Despite the cramping and being on my 4th antibiotic for sinus/ear pain that won't go away, I managed to stay next to Riva and finish with her, arms raised in triumph! There's nothing like crossing that finish line after spending months training and a couple weeks debating on whether I should even force my body to do it. We did it - and we did it together!

 

 Proud of our medals...this is after walking for about a 1/4 mile AFTER the race so our muscles wouldn't get rigermortis (sp?) on us. I could definitely feel them tightening...

And on a side note, here is my painting so far. I've managed to get the background and boat cover started. I'm freehanding the background, so I'm a little nervous to continue, but I'll get there. It's been this way for about 2 weeks now.  Too much sickness around here to do much including me having a flu right after the 1/2 marathon, Ethan getting a sinus infection and possible ear infection, and Austin getting over some strange fever. I'll get on this again soon so I can update it.

Coming soon: Pictures from our newest project in the living room/downstairs bathroom!!

The Old Becomes New

We moved into our house without changing the carpet. We knew it was dirty, flat, and beige (easily stainable) and put in when the house was built in 1996, but we didn't have the funds at the time to completely redo it. Sooo....our kids are older now, we've got some money saved up and we were sick of getting skewered by tack strips on the edges of the carpet. The boys would get puncture wounds and slices from landing in the wrong places in our family room. We chose Stainmaster "chase" to be our new color. It is a mix of beige, dark brown, light brown and little flecks of green. Bryan wanted darker, I wanted a little lighter, but we compromised on this and I love it!

 Bud and Bryan resting after moving almost all the furniture. When the installers came, the guys had run an errand and we hadn't moved any upstairs furniture yet (since we didn't know where they'd start) and they were not happy about that. I think they thought that I was the only one who was moving it. We ended up moving it all quickly once we figured out they wanted to start on Ethan's room and the hallway. It's hard when the entire upstairs is carpeted. We had to play musical furniture the whole day. I'm so thankful for Bud who came over to help! It took from 9:30am - 6pm to lay all the carpet and they did a great job!

 The boys LOVED the open space and thought it was pretty cool to run and roll around where there used to be furniture.

 Here is my new carpet!! It feels so homey and cozy and we love it. You can pretty much lose any toy that is small in this carpet because it blends in so well. It will be good for the spills/stains that will eventually come. I know in the future I'll be vacuuming up small items that the eye missed.

AND of course the wrestling on the new carpet. They had to 'break it in' by wrestling on the new cushioned floor. It's not like they need an excuse to wrestle, since they do it all the time. Now my house smells new and my toes are happy!