I feel....

OLD! I woke up this morning feeling really tired and achy all over. Is this what it feels like to be in my 30's. I would have to say I don't care for it.

Anyway, enough of my whining. I had a great birthday. Emme & Calvin made me super cool birthday cards, I got a homemade washcloth that is great (thanks Marci) and some really tasty peanut butter cookies (thanks Trista) in addition to more birthday wishes than I know what to do with....thanks everyone. I also went out with a group of my girls to watch New Moon which was...well, really pretty cheesy and anticlimactic but fun nonetheless. Dan, also hooked me up with the Nike+ sportband so that I can go back to timing my runs and tracking my distance. I am really excited to try it out.

We have a pretty laid back weekend ahead of us which is good after the pretty eventful week. There is a big Oregon/Arizona game tonight which should have a positive outcome, but other than that nothing going on. Yay!

I'm really looking forward to Thanksgiving. It's been a couple of years since we've actually had Thanksgiving with Dan (usually we leave him behind and head to Klamath Falls) but this year he'll be in attendance as well, hooray. I love Thanksgiving...life doesn't get much better than yummy food, football and family (in small doses).

Super Delinquent

My blogging has been pretty much nonexistent as of late. I really just haven't had a lot or really anything to write about. The kids and I spent last weekend in Utah (well most of it was really spent driving through Oregon, Idaho, then Utah) for my brother's wedding. If I get around to it, I'll post the few pictures I took with my phone. (I, of course, dragged my camera all the way to Utah to not take it out once...really I left it at the motel instead of taking it to the wedding or reception... so sad.) The trip in itself was VERY, VERY long, but the kids were great and I am quite gracious to my mom and grandma for putting up with us.

Running has been going pretty well. I've been trying to work in somewhere between 16 and 20 miles per week and so far I've been managing with that. Last week I crossed the 6 month mark in my pregnancy and I'm definitely not getting any smaller (I really think that I'm already as big now as I was at the end with Leona). Every day, Calvin comments on how much bigger my belly is getting. "Mommy, your belly is so, so big!!" Anyway, it seems that with my ever growing stomach my recovery time is taking a little longer as is my desire to run very quickly. Lately, getting up to the dark and dreary 5am world hasn't been too appealing so I've been working in runs later in the day with Leona and I even took the double out the other day, which Calvin enjoyed, although the silly kid managed to go without socks (another story entirely) which left his feet freezing by the end (not to mention left me feeling like a terrible mother).

Anyway, life is good. Today is my last night of living it up in my 20's, so to celebrate I'm staying up past my normal bedtime of 10 (at the latest, really more like 9:30... if I make it that late) all the way to 10:15, maybe even 10:30! I know, I'm living on the edge... but that's what one is supposed to do while young and carefree, no? Tomorrow, I will officially be an old lady so then I won't have to hide the fact that really I'm usually asleep on the couch by 8:30...

Happy Birthday Eve to me...

Running Out of Time

Two years ago, for Christmas, my uncle gave me a gift certificate to the Eugene Running Company. I was pregnant with Leona at the time and wanted to use it for something that would be beneficial to me throughout my whole pregnancy (i.e. something that would fit me) so I got a sports watch. Before that point, I never used a watch to time my runs. I would roughly estimate my runs based on my start and finish time but nothing more scientific than that. Now, almost two years later, I have been absolutely addicted to knowing my pace and my splits and all sorts of other cool running information. Anyway, short story long, I lost my watch.

I didn't really lose it. Yes, it is not anywhere that I can find it, but I know that it is somewhere in my house, therefore not technically lost. I know it will eventually turn up, the question is when? We recently found two missing library books. One had been lost long enough that I had actually paid the library to replace it. The other had been missing long enough that Emme had to miss out on checking out a book at school for 3 consecutive weeks. So, things don't look so good for the rescue timeline for my watch... it has only been missing since Saturday afternoon... it has at least 3 more weeks before hopes of being discovered .

I didn't realize how addicted I am to timing my runs until I lost the ability to do so. Yesterday morning, I took Dan's ipod but got really frustrated with it because it was too touchy and I kept stopping the time when I was trying to check it. Today, I ran with the stroller and Leona. When I run with a stroller, instead of wearing my watch, I put it on the handle bar where I can see it and easily stop it while waiting at intersections. Well, on today's run, there were several times that I went to stop the timer only to find it not there. It was what I would imagine it would be to have an itch on a "phantom limb". I feel like I'm missing an appendage! Pretty pathetic, I know.

I'm trying to cope without my watch and to be completely honest I really haven't looked too hard for it, so I shouldn't be whining so much. Until I find it though, I'll have to make do. Tomorrow I think I'll give my new kitchen timer (thanks mom) a run through... get it, "run" through... ha ha ha I'm so funny.

Halloween 2009 in Pictures

I love Halloween. I think I may have mentioned that before, but it's true. It is one of my favorite holidays. (I also love Thanksgiving, Christmas, St. Patrick's Day, my birthday... okay, I love them all and yes, my birthday is a holiday... or at least should be). Anyway, we had a great Halloween week. Here are a bunch of pictures to commemorate it:

We started the week off with a party at play group. Leona and Calvin had a great time dressing up and playing with their friends.

Here is Darth Vader and his cool pumpkin he made.

Here's the group photo... pretty hard to get that many kids all looking at the camera at once. Notice Calvin volunteered to let his "girlfriend" sit on his lap.

Thanks to my mother-in-law we were able to go all out decorating our house this year. By the time I was done, it looked ready for an 80's junior high dance party!

The kids loved our spider & web.

It went well with the cobwebs that were already hanging from the light.

Emme had her school party on Wednesday. I got to go and help with it and we had a great time.

We also had our church party on Wednesday, which Calvin helped me to make cupcakes for. Leona helped to eat the frosting off of them while I was taking pictures...

"What?!?... I didn't touch them"

The party was a lot of fun. Dan and Leona stayed home because she really wasn't feeling too well, but Emme & Calvin had fun fishing,

getting their faces painted (actually just Emme did that because, "it's only for girls"),

pumpkin bowling,

golfing,

and winning way too many goodies in the cake walk.

On Halloween, we celebrated with a "Jack-O-Lantern" pizza from Papa Murhpy's. It would've been a lot cooler had we made it ourselves... maybe next year.

Then we carved pumpkins,

and got ready to go trick-or-treating.

Here are our pumpkins all lit up.

Noni was still not feeling up to tramping around in the rain at bedtime, so she and Dan stayed home to keep tabs on the game for us. The rain didn't faze Emme & Calvin though, they had a great time.

Due to the duck game we ran into lots of houses with candy on the porch, but we were early enough that it hadn't all been looted.

This house looked really cool because it was all dark with just orange windows and scary things behind the iron fence... but my flash works a little too well.

Calvin led the way with his neon sword (not much Darth Vader left to his costume at this point)

The only house where the kids actually said "Trick-or-Treat" instead of just standing there when the people came to the door was our own. (At least I know they don't like to talk to strangers.)

All-in-all we had a great halloween. After we got home, we put on jammies and cuddled up to watch the rest of the great Duck game.

Game Day, Halloween... big, big day!

Happy Halloween! I have a bunch of pictures to post of Halloween parties and decorations, etc. but will wait until after tonight's festivities so that I can post them all at once. This year, Emme is going as "The Fairy of Halloween", (originally a witch, but who can turn down fairy wings), Calvin is going to be Darth Vader (never miss an opportunity to run around with a light saber) and Leona will be a fuzzy bunny with droopy ears (kind of looks like a lamb). They are all pretty cute (except for Calvin he's "not cute [he's] mean").

As for football day, it's a big, big game. We have U$C here at Autzen and it should be a pretty close game... which we have every chance of winning. ESPN's Gameday was in town this morning and they picked Oregon to win. (The video below is of Lee Corso dressed as the duck riding on the motorcycle...not a very good video but you get the idea.) Keep your finger's crossed! The game starts at 5pm which kind of impedes on trick-or-treating time, but we'll work something out. My biggest dilemma is whether I should wear my game day shirt or my pumpkin shirt when we head out...

Emme is doing great without her cast. Her wrist is pretty sore and I think her arm is quite stiff, but she is working hard to use it as much as she can and is being super tough.

Calvin went on his first school field trip the other day. They went to the pumpkin patch and had a great time. When I went to pick him up after school he had managed to sneak 3 pumpkins out of the patch and to the bus. His teacher said, "I don't know how Calvin managed to bring home 3 pumpkins, but he did." Leave it to Calvin to go above and beyond all expectations... he was sooooo proud of himself, "I carried all 3 pumpkins to the bus by myself". What a nutty kid!

Leona and I went for a nice run in the rain this morning. I've been trying to get at least 4 runs in a week and average somewhere between 16-20 miles total. I'm still feeling pretty great and am in pretty decent shape so it hasn't been too hard to stay motivated. I think that I might be slightly addicted to racing now. My last couple of races were a lot of fun. Every chance I get a search the race calendar and think about signing up for all sorts of races, but I think for right now, I'll just go into a "running in the rainy, Eugene winter, while pregnant, not so intense training" training mode.