Y'all. I actually made a new running playlist last night, drawing from your great suggestions and those of some of the fitness blogs I read. I'm so excited to get out and run. And I'm totally in love with The Fratellis too.

Anyhoo, I have lots of links and sites, etc. that I've been saving up for weeks, so I better get them down so you can enjoy them ... before I forget them and all.

Kid Stuff
• Earth friendly diapers whose maker plants a tree with every package sold.
• ran across Nymbler last week ... it's a very unique baby name site that will take names you like and give you other suggestions you might not have thought of
• love this cute school house chair
• neat places to store stuff from KangaRoom Storage
• darling mama jewelry
• we need one of these snack trays for the next road trip
• Matt can totally make this for Tabby

Everything I write right now bores me to tears. It is all a big jumble of work and the scant hours outside of work. Things that might be interesting:

• Tabby is still saying "whassat" and "whooozat" almost incessantly. This is frequently the first thing she says when she wakes up in the morning.
• I have started turning the table on her and asking "Who's that" and "What's that" to see if she can tell me. Sometimes it sort of sounds like what it really is. But she always gets a couple things right. "Who am I?" she will almost always say "Mama" to and "Who's that" (indicating Loki) almost always illicits a "Woof!" response.
• Yes, my child is clearly a genius.
• Speaking of kids, did you know they used to perform pregnancy tests by injecting lab animals with urine? Weird.
• I still have not found the time to make a new running playlist. I have tried on multiple occasions, but either my darling baby decided to take over the computer or the computer decided to be cantankerous. Matt did not understand why this nearly brought me to tears on attempt #4 and declared that "something 'bigger' must be very wrong in [my] world." He's still alive, miraculously.
• I have been eating nothing but junk lately. Little time at home leads to me eating poorly. That and Holly giving me cookies. Shame on her.
• I am reading The Time Traveler's Wife right now. Seriously good book. It's due on Friday and I'm on disc 4/16. That does not bode well. But I rationalize my late fees as being "donations" to the library.
• Wii Fit comes out next Wednesday and should be at our door by Friday. Kickass.
• I am getting a pedicure this weekend. My horribly dry feet (with half a big toenail missing from a bad skiboot day this winter ... ew) will be very happy.

Sunday was a busy and fab day all around. We got up early and headed off to pick up Holly and Wes. Tabby downed an entire bottle of Yoplait strawberry smoothie in the car (that girl can really pack the yogurt away!) since she hadn't had much breakfast before we left (this really has nothing to do with the rest of the story, but it was funny and something I want to remember just because it's so very Tabby).

The race was at the Boulder Reservoir and I thought it was very well set up and managed overall. We got there in plenty of time and gearing up and two potty breaks later, we made our way to the start of the race. We should have been in the middle with the slower runners, but we ended up in the back with the walkers because it was going to be a huge hassle to get all the way to the middle of the pack with the double stroller. So we ended up weaving in and out of people and walk/running the first 1k. It was a good course overall, lots of flats, some small hills and a downhill to the finish line. As we came around the last curve, the hubbies and the oldest kiddo, Liam, were there to cheer us on. Other than that start, we ran pretty much the entire race, trading off pushing the babies in the jogger. I will not lie ... that last 1k kinda sucked. And the stroller, which up until about the 7k mark had felt light as a feather, suddenly felt like a wheelbarrow filled with boulders.

But we made it and with a very respectable time (especially considering our start) of just under 1 hour, 10 minutes. I was honestly sort of shocked when I saw the race clock just hitting 1:08 as we pulled into the finish line. I'm still extremely proud of us. A lady at the finish line who had run near us the whole race said she was incredibly impressed with us running with the double jogger and that we were "inspirational." How nice was that? As if just finishing the race at a run wasn't enough.

After the race, we wound down ... eating Luna bars and chatting and then, tired and sweaty, we went our separate ways. I found the whole experience to be a really positive one that I'd like to continue in years to come. It was so great to have something like this to train for and work towards and perfect to have a good friend to run it with.

Saturday dawned bright and early. We hit the ground running to head to Kelly's graduation. It was a typical, but very nice, ceremony. The two main speakers, the president of the law school and the chief justice of the 10th circuit, were both concise and amusing. And it was so amazing sitting there and watching my little sis graduate from LAW SCHOOL. Such an accomplishment. I'm still in awe and so so so proud of her.

For those of you who are curious, she's now earned her JD (Juris Doctorate). She has a couple of months to study for the bar exam (she has classes geared toward this) and will sit for the bar (a 3-day ordeal) in late July.

After the ceremony, we got down to the serious business of partying. We gathered at my parents house for a wonderful picnic with all of the family from the area to celebrate Ms. Kelly and do an early Mothers' day celebration. Food. Fun. Presents. My dad playing Mario Kart with the enthusiasm of a 10 year old. Good good good time.

We celebrated Matty's 28th in high style. I was able to leave work a bit early and we did some shopping for the upcoming events and got ready to go to dinner.

Dinner was at Cool River Cafe which is a nice steak house in south Denver. In addition to a couple of margaritas, I had crab legs which I hadn't had in ages. They were even better because they were already split ... so no cracker required. Awesome. Matt got ribs which are almost his favorite food on earth. there was venison and salmon on the table as well. Just excellent food and even better company.

Matt received (in addition to his early b'day present of Mario Kart from Tabby), a couple of Wii wheels from me and a new video game. I'm also making him his own branding iron for woodworking ... which isn't done yet. My family gave him some extra Wiimotes and (as a sort of inside joke) some shorts and summery clothes for Tabby.

On the way home we stopped at Tipsy's Liquor World, a new mega liquor store in south Denver to stock up for Kelly's graduation party. Which was kind of appropriate, cuz thanks to those margaritas, I sorta was.

My BFF and sweet hubby turns 28 today. We've known each other for almost 10 years and every day I'm exceedingly glad he's in my life. He's one of the good ones. You see it in how he does his job. You see it in how he pursues his hobbies. You see it in how he treats his family and friends. You see it in every interaction with his daughter. I miss him when he's gone and I'm always so glad to welcome him home. I love sharing adventures with him from travel to grocery shopping to parenthood to video games.

Things are definitely different now that Miss Tabby has come along. We definitely get fewer uninterrupted meals and conversations. We squeeze our truly together time into date nights and the couple of hours between Tabby's bedtime and mine and the occasional car ride when Tabby is perfectly content to watch the world go by. But we still have projects together and inside jokes and little rituals and it isn't better or worse, just different. And still wonderful.

Cheers to you, sweetie. May this be a great birthday and a splendid year. I love you lots.

My mom had Miss T today. But she decided to make it a working day anyhow. I went into the office in the morning and then we travelled together to a satellite office so she could do a review and I could do a software demo with some of our coworkers down there. It's a small office and Tabby couldn't get in the way much or interrupt any meetings and the two ladies that work down there are absolutely lovely and they love to get a visit from Tabby occasionally, so we took a little road trip to C. Springs.

Tabby wandered around and as funny as it sounds, the office is a pretty good place for her to wander around because it's mostly just halls with not a lot for her to get into. So she had a great time ... and we got to be with her and get work done. After mom had a meeting at the office and I had a date with my laptop (while unsuccessfully trying to get Tabby to take a nap) we did the grocery shopping for the graduation party. Tabby was asleep before we even got home.

I'm 2/7 through a crazy week. Matt is out of town. Our babysitter is out of town (thank goodness we have awesome family and friends to help out!!). And coming up this weekend (and requiring some of my attention this week) are three big events: Matt's Birthday on Friday, Kelly's Law School Graduation (and party) on Saturday and then my race and Mothers' Day on Sunday.

So my week so far has been a whirlwind of activity. I am exhausted by 7:00 and luckily, Tabby has been too, so I can have a break. Which has consisted of running, housework, work work, a few minutes on the comptuer and a few minutes talking to Matt. Thus, I have very little interesting to tell you about. Cuz it's hard to find interesting things to write about when I'm this busy. Instead, I'll let you help me.

What should I get my sis for a graduation gift??
Any good mothers' day gift ideas (for my mom!)?
How about for hubby's b'day???
Oy. I'm so behind.

I didn't feel like this weekend was as short as some. I attribute this in part to spending a lot of time at home. I still didn't accomplish my mile-long to do list, but we got what was necessary accomplished and we rested a lot.

Friday we went out to dinner with my parents and then my dad and Tabby had some quality time together and the rest of us went to see Made of Honor. It won't win any academy awards, but it was good fun and we enjoyed it a lot (other than the person near us who was bathed in cologne).

Saturday we went down to the site of my run to check things out. We didn't have time to run the whole course, but we ran for about 40 minutes. We met a charming employee who felt compelled to tell us that even though it was the first day of the season and they weren't charging today that we would have to pay even if we were walking any other day. We had walked behind her guard post without stopping and she wanted to make darned sure we knew that we couldn't get away with that normally. Whew! I'm super glad she told us. We won't be going back there.

We had lunch with Matt's brother at Daphne's, which I really like. And then we ran a few errands. I went nuts at the Carter's Outlet and bought Tabby a bunch of clothes that she probably didn't strictly NEED, but well, they're cute and it does make things easier towards the end of the week when everything is in the wash.

We cooked a very nice dinner of Israeli Couscous Salad with Lamb. It was tasty, but man, Israeli couscous is a pain in the ass to cook with. Imagine wrangling 100s of ball bearings in your kitchen. That's pretty much what it's like. Even when they're cooked (though they go down a lot smoother). We finished up the evening with some Mario Kart ... and watching Charlie Wilson's War, which I did not make it through, despite the fact that it intrigued me greatly. My eyelids got really heavy.

Sunday we had breakfast at IHOP which we will not go back to except for their stuffed french toast because the whole place was generally sticky and greasy. But we wanted a change from our normal breakfast joint. After that we hit Target (cuz it was a day ending in y) and headed home. Laundry. Napping. Hanging out. Couldn't be arsed to cook dinner again, so we ate Pei Wei. Matt headed out to Cali and we were sad.