A Grateful Heart- Day 9 and 10

Day 9:  A Gorgeous Day!
My dear friend Ang has been dealing with sick kids (of varying degrees) for a couple of weeks.  I pray for her daily and hope her kids are better soon.  I think it is really easy for us to get caught up in what we don't have  and what our kids aren't doing right.   We forget the important blessing of good health.  Log onto Facebook this time of the year and the posts are peppered with stories of ER trips and antibiotics.  You will even hear about the really sick kids who will only survive by the grace of God.  So today on this sunny Wednesday I am so grateful that my boys are healthy enough to run and skip and jump the entire walk home from school. 

Day 10: Baby Nap
Lauren is a true third child.  Her nap schedule tells that tale so clearly.  She rarely gets more than one nap per day but her little body demands a long morning nap.  Sometimes three hours or more.  9:00 am until her body is hungry for lunch (sometimes as late as 1:00!).   This is my time to work, clean, make phone calls, pin (As in Pinterest, don't cha know), blog, work, pick up dog poop, watch some Housewives (next gen All My Children), and of course drink coffee (these are things that are actually on my to-do list.).  I am so grateful for naptime!

Lauren's First Birthday Party part 2 of 3

My favorites parts of a first birthday party?  The cake smash and the present opening.  Lauren was totally into both.    Here's the cake smash! 

I love her cake!  I want the giant L on my cake next year!

So excited that everyone is singing to her!

Time to blow out the candle!  So much for all of our practicing, I had to blow it out for her.

Let's get down to the business of eating this cake!

 

 

So fun!  Don't you just love it?
She won't remember it but we will never forget it.

A Grateful Heart- Days 2-8

I conveniently missed the last seven days of gratitude.  I already knew that Day 2 was going to be dedicated to Kevin.  As it turns out, he's getting the entire week.  Seven reasons I'm grateful for Kevin:

• When he fills in for me, I have confidence that the kids are not only loved and fed but on their schedule too!
• He's sentimental. He loves dreaming as much as he loves
• He is my biggest fan. Especially now that I am a runner (haha.). He coaches me and cheers for me.  I look forward to sharing my accomplishments with him.  I run for him.
• He happily helps me cook and clean.  And although I've gotten better at asking for help, he's awesome at reading my mind.
• My kids adore him.  He's their superhero.
• He fixes my tire at 6:00 am.
• He gets up early and works hard for us.  Sometimes this means little sleep and no time off. Then he turns around and puts a Halloween costume together.

Lauren's First Birthday Party part 1 of 3

This (mostly) wordless posts is just Lauren and a few shots of her entourage.  Enjoy!

 

Lauren and Linkin (LaurKin)

LoLo and Grandma

Los with Aunt Rachel and Cousin Abby

Love this one with Grandpa

Girl Cousins- Taleen, Tylee, Los, Tayler and Abby

Best Aunties!

Chase: "My LoLo!"

Roadkill: TFTP

Distance: 8:64 miles
Time: 1:25:13
Avg Pace Per Mile: 9:52

My biggest running accomplishment will never be the time or the distance (even though I ran the farthest distance today) it will always be doing it. Getting up, getting out, getting going.  Running.  I was a swimmer in high school and did everything possible to avoid running.  Today my total mileage topped 60 miles.  That's not a lot but it is more than I have run in my entire existence.

It was a beautiful day for a run!  It was also a beautiful day for animals to die!  Two possums (one was a baby), a large cat, a frog..... Those are all things that make me run faster.  I'm so scared the dead frog is going to jump on me or the baby possum will try to grab my sock.

On my health: my hip hurts (luckily it hurts more when I'm walking) and my body seems to be giving in to a season-change cold.  Boo.  

Whew:TFTP

Distance: 4.02 miles
Time: 37:05
Avg Pace Per Mile: 9:13
Back at it, Tales from the Pavement fans!  Between Lauren's Birthday and Halloween, my stride has been broken.  Today was payback for two weeks of slacking.   I'm going to tell you something, I really like running.  Especially when I am seeing results.  I want to shake my iPhone and try to figure out how I can run that far.  Speaking of my iPhone.  I'm using the RunKeeper ap on my iPhone.  I love it.

A Grateful Heart

So it's November 1st and we are finally getting some cool weather.  We said good riddance so long to Halloween last night.  We have chicken and rice soup in the crock pot.  It's time to think about Christmas Thanksgiving! 

So today is Day One of I don't know how many days of gratitude.  We'll see how it goes.  I'm grateful for a lot of things big and small.  Today I'm grateful for an external keypad on my Mommy Tank.  I am especially grateful for the keypad because Keith managed to lock his sister in the car with the car running while I got the mail.  I didn't even have to yell panic.