Wordless Wednesday

Kid's Marathon Recap

Amara still has 2.5 miles to make up in order to have officially completed the distance ( 26.2 miles).

She was very nervous!! She even took about 3 bathroom breaks in the 30 minutes before the race! She is a true athlete! I tried to explain to her the jitters and nervous excitement and that it was in fact, a good thing! I am not sure she believed me. She was very worried about not meeting her goal. I never asked her what it was, I thought that might make her feel even more pressured.

The Grand Rapids Kids Marathon was very organized. The kids were to start in waves...depending on your last name you were assigned an animal. Amara was a cheetah and in wave 2. She had on my Garmin of course! I did not notice any other kids with fancy GPS gadgets on..whatever.

We were off and running and she did really great! She seemed a lot more relaxed and dare i say focused?!?! She ran the whole way- I found out at the end of the race that that was her goal all along-not to walk! Her time was 13:36 ish. She was flying! The cool thing is that the kids started and ran on and finished at the same start/finish of the real marathon that took place on Sunday.

The kids were treated to water, yogurt, ice cream and apples after the race. The YMCA also had a harvest fest party that we went to after the race. There was lots of stuff going on-face and nail painting, pony rides, coloring cider and donuts and lots more.

I wished I had more action shots, but it would have been kind of hard running with a huge camera! Amara had gym today and you better believe that she is wearing her marathon medal around her neck!

Still here....

I think fall is officially here--maybe! It was in the upper 70's and I enjoyed every minute of it. Amara is doing well with her running. She ran three days in a row getting in at least 1.5 miles each time! She needs 5 more before the big race this Saturday. She opted to take the day off today ( I don't blame her) and wants to shoot for 2 miles tomorrow!

picture from last fall-oct. 11, 2009!

Miles turned 3 and all of a sudden he is getting into his naughty stage. He is really well behaved, so when he does normal toddler shenanigan's it is sometimes hard to take! The good news is he is still dry and doing his business on the potty like a champ. I have been getting him up at around 11 pm every night to use the bathroom and that seems to be working well ( except for a weird 4 days in a row that he was still soaking wet, sheets and all!).

I want to get some good fall pics of the kids before the leaves all fall off.....maybe tomorrow.

Just stuff....

We are in the full swing of things with school now. I think we are establishing a routine here any minute. I am getting used to Amara being gone all day now. I am getting used to entertaining Miles all by myself now! Amara was really good at that.

I am trying to teach more classes too. Not that I want to, but it's easy money so why not!?!?

Miles has been without a nap for 5 days in a row now! I am not too happy about that, mainly because he is crabby. If he could go without a nap and still be normal, I would not mind as much. I am wondering and kind of hoping he will crash and burn this weekend and then start napping again. If not, then I can probably get more hours to work at the YMCA. I try to be done working in time for Miles to take a good nap, but this week--no so much! I tried everyday to lay him down and he was up causing trouble. He is lucky he is so dang cute.......

Amara is on mile 13 of her kids marathon! We did not run 1 time this week either. She (we) still have 12 more to get in by the 16th in order to make it. I think we will cut it way to close, but it will get done. She's a tough kid and she wants to earn a medal!

She has been asking to buy hot lunch at school. Yuck. I took a look at the menu and was appalled at most of the choices. I don't even think she would like most of the items. I think I will let her buy hot lunch once a month starting this month. We get the menu for the whole month so we will go over it this weekend and choose a day. It's making me think about Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution that was on TV last summer. Her school serves breakfast pizza too. It's just regular pizza, served in the morning. What a concept. She understands it's only a treat to get lunch once a month. I hope so. Maybe I will make her pay for it...........

Break.......carpal tunnel and kid updates!

Not much has been going on over here. I am still not typing as much as usual due to my awesome carpal tunnel flare ups. I might try so sleep sans braces tonight..they are awful and get in my way! I have been stretching and self massaging every chance I get. So far, so good!

Miles is doing really well with staying dry. We are now working on staying dry at naps and night time. I really hope this will be the last pack of Pull- Ups I have to buy!! Nap times are obviously easier than night time. I might wake him up and put him on the potty right before I go to bed, which is usually about 2.5-3 hours later. We'll see though.

Amara is doing well too. She is "training" for the kid's marathon, but we have not been getting in her mileage like we should. This darn going to school all day is really getting in the way! We are on mile 10 of 25. The 1.2 mile race is on Oct. 17th.....which means she has to get in 15 more miles before that day. It's possible. I sure hope she does it because she is kind of on the sensitive side and has already cried when I told her she might not get all her miles in! She also told me that when she ran 2 miles ( walk/run) it hurt a little and she did not like it. I told her that pushing yourself is a good thing and it might hurt a little at times! I am not sure she liked that!
Update on myself. I have another blog: Mission Possible that started off as a way to chronicle my fitness/running adventures. I would pick a big goal and then write about the journey to the goal for the most part. My thing is running, but with my vocal cord annoyance I have not been putting in the training that I need/want/should. Well, that and other obstacles ( time, work etc.). I planned on running a half-marathon in less than a month, but have not ran in almost 2 weeks. Not good. So, I most likely will NOT be doing that race. Bum deal! I hope to get back full force training mode in January and am crossing my fingers (and toes) that I am able to run The 2011 Boston Marathon. I qualified last Oct. Sign ups start ( and will most likely SELL OUT ) on Oct. 18th--the day after the 1/2 marathon I am not running!
OK, I better end this post before my hands freeze up!

Wordless Wednesday

First Day of First Grade!

Wordless Wednesday

Just some images I shot the other day! I am having a lot of fun taking pics of my kids this summer! I think they like it too!

Wordless Wednesday

The kids and I had an impromptu photo shoot on Tuesday. This location was beautiful and the kids had a lot of fun!

Wordless Wednesday (kind of)

Amara getting ready to spalsh in a puddle!

Miles flexin' for the camera while at the beach!

Wordless Wednesday

1 Mile Fun Run

Amara ran her 2nd 1 Mile Fun Run and improved her time by 20 whole seconds (but who's counting??) 12:17 was her unofficial time! She had a lot of fun and asked if she could run another 5k race on the 26th! I am very proud of her and love to see her so happy after crossing the finishing line! Actually I am sure she is all about the medal!!

Another tooth lost and also some braggin!

It seems I don't have much to talk about on this blog!

Amara lost another tooth- 4 days after the first one. She is way too excited! I think she looks older and sounds funny too!

Tomorrow is her last day of kindergarten. We signed her up to have homework sheets to complete every week of the summer. She did 2 of them today. My little scholar! I also found out that she is reading beyond a 2nd grade level! So proud of her. I hope she remains this excited about learning the rest of her life!!

On Friday Amara will run her second race of the year. It's a 1 mile fun run that she participated in last year. She really wants to beat her time from last year. I think she ran a 12:30 mile!

The picture is from last year.

Toothless Wednesday

Amara lost her first tooth!! She was so excited, she literally FELL out of her bed! She was also so excited for the tooth fairy, that she was still awake at 10:30 PM!

I am going to save her teeth ( is that gross??)

How do I do that in the most sanitary way?!?!

Tooth Fairy--Yay or Nay???

Wordless Wednesday

Amara's new ride!

Wordless Wednesday-- Can you guess how old I am???

Happy Mother's Day

Matt took the kids by the river to take some pics! This was the keeper! It's now in a frame.

Wordless Wednesday (kind of)

I had fun practicing my picture taking skills on the kids this past week. What other way to "celebrate" a new outfit for Amara??

Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution- At least my 5 year old learned something!

Who has watched Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution ? Amara and I watched 2 DVR'd episodes yesterday ( yea, yea--there are some shows I allow her to watch even though it might be too much TV time. Don't judge me! ). So anyway..in a nutshell Jamie Oliver is a famous chef that likes to cook naturally. Natural ingredients, herbs, spices and the like. He is not big on "diets" per say- just natural foods that are not processed. He's a good guy. Amara really enjoyed watching kids her age learning about foods. She was beyond shocked when the 6 year olds ( she's 5) did not know their fruits and veggies by sight. One kid called a tomato a potato....at first I thought it was an honest mistake. Nope. He was totally guessing and was close, but really had no clue.
If you have not watched the show I urge you to tune in on TV tonight or catch it online.
So this leads me to our less than stellar week of eating. I won't get into the GORY details, because it is that bad, I am ashamed. For real. Ugh and gross.
Let's just say that when the kids and I went to pick up pizza for dinner last night Amara says
"Mom, when are we going to knock if off with the fast food" Oh boy. It was one of those moments when I was mildly irritated (probably slightly embarrassed that a 5 year old totally called me out), but I also knew she was right. I told her she was right and we would chill out soon. I could not even tell her we would be back to normal on Sunday, because we might not be. This is not the first time she has reminded us of our healthy lifestyle going bonkers. I am proud of her. It does not happen often that we have crap food more than once a week, but it does happen from time to time. We are human right?!?! I like to talk about leading a healthy lifestyle and for the majority of my days I do. I have my moments as many of us do. I am so glad that I (Matt too) are teaching the kids our healthy habits, but also not being perfect( rigid) all. the. time. So I guess this was a test for Amara ( yea right) Happy to say that she passed with flying colors !

Wordless Wednesday- Brother and Sister love!

5 year olds know best

The month of May has been full of celebrations for us. First was a 25k that I ran along with family members that participated in a 5k on the same day. We celebrated my birthday that same day a week early. Then there was Mother's Day. Next was my farewell dinner from some clients of mine. A friends birthday party. My real birthday and finally Amara's birthday was yesterday. To make a long story short---there was much junky food eaten by us. A lot more than usual. We are what we would like to think an above average family when it comes to doing things in a healthful manner. We like to eat healthy and we like to teach the kids to do the same. Amara knows that we eat well with small treats during the week and usually a junk food meal 1 time a week ( ex: mac and cheese, pizza or some other take out). This week alone I think I had pizza 3 times. Ugh. I can feel it too. Coming out of my veins and pores! My dad would say

"You're going to turn into a pizza!"

So anyway-- on Sunday we went to the zoo and when we got back my dad thought it was a nice gesture to "treat"us to pizza for Amara's birthday. I hated to turn him down, so I didn't. While my dad and I were off to pick it up Amara told my husband that we already had pizza this week and that we should probably eat something else; something healthier since pizza is greasy. Matt was ready to make her something else, but she finally "gave in" because she did not want to hurt granddad's feelings. Gotta love her effort though.

The next day we were to take her to dinner for her birthday. Whilst deciding what time to go she almost started to cry because she did not want to eat junky food again. We were so proud! She requested salad, whole wheat pasta and marinara sauce for dinner!

I guess it sometimes take a 5 year old to put us in our place and to remind us of the values we instill in her. It's nice to know she listens!