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Little Brothers

Yesterday, while at his sitter’s house, Ben got a time out for playing in the toilet … right after Tabby had peed. Yea, lovely, I know. So while serving his time out he got a little bored … and hungry, apparently.

Lucky for him, sissy had done an art project at school where she used fruit loops to make her initials on a paper plate. I might add that she GLUED these (apparently stale) fruit loops on the plate.

School glue, however, is no match for Ben. He made short work of Tabby’s art project.YUM.

Tabby was pretty kind about it, actually. I think, though she wouldn’t admit it, that she thought it was as funny as the rest of us did. She said what she always does when Ben does something like this, in her best exasperated voice, “Little brothers!”

 

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Running Through My Head

  • After having my kids in my car for over 4 hours this weekend, it is a bit … disgusting. I found pieces of quesadilla and a chunk of mushed (and then hardened) banana this morning. I really need to clean it, but that thought is almost as unappealing as the mess, especially since we would have to move the pop-up to pull my car into the garage.
  • Since June we have been away every other weekend except for once in July where we were gone for 2 weekends in a row and then home for two in a row. It is getting exhausting.
  • The kids have gymnastics (tumbling) tonight … I am curious to see how Ben does with the “sit still and mind.” Should be entertaining.
  • Speaking of Ben, he cried when I dropped him off at the sitter’s today for the first time. I don’t usually drop him off so there’s not a lot of chance for him to get all mopey, but it was still very sweet and quite guilt inducing.
  • I am woefully behind on many things like folding laundry, cleaning out closets, uploading photos, organizing papers. I’m having a hard time caring though because the days are short and the kids are cute.
  • Next week is Labor Day. Where.did.summer.go?
  • I am really loving Pinterest. Just wish I could Pin from Google Reader.
  • The peaches have been amazing this year and to cap off the peachy goodness we’re taking delivery of a 20# box sometime in early Sept. We buy these from a coworker’s kid’s school and they come directly from Colorado’s western slope (Palisade Peaches!) … undoubtedly we will eat at least half straight from the box, but we will also be making some Peach Crumb Bars (perhaps now my favorite dessert) and some Peach Preserves.
  • I have been having some good runs lately … feels like *knock on wood* the rust is coming off and I’m getting back into the groove. This is good. I’m running a 10 mile race on 9/5 and of course the half marathon on 10/9 and it would be pretty bad to go through those distances with the run/walk & puff method.
  • I think we’re going to try to have one last hurrah at the pool with some friends on Weds … or maybe one last after that this weekend. We’ve done way better with actually using the pool this summer than ever before. Helps that the kids are into it!
  • Our NYC trip is almost here. It seemed SO far away when we first made plans but it’s like 3 wks from tomorrow. Wow.
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At the Lake Again

Once again we abandoned hearth and home and headed for the hills this weekend. My uncle’s family had our family, my mom and sister, and a couple of other families we work with up to his lake house for the weekend. You could have not asked for better company or a more beautiful location to spend the weekend. We had a wonderful time.

On the way up we drove through Rocky Mountain National Park which is just sheer gorgeous everything. We took in amazing vistas (the kids slept, so we did not stop for photos) and heading out of the park (the kids were awake by this time) we had a couple of moose encounters.

Once at my uncle & aunt’s house, the big fun began. There were five kids altogether and they spent the whole weekend running amuck in the back yard

… That is when they weren’t out on the water. We went tubing and canoeing and it’s hard to say which Tabby enjoyed more. Ben was all about the big boat.

With everyone pitching in on meals and cleanup and the like, it was pretty low stress and maximum chill. My cousin and her friend (both gifted musicians) treated us to a mini concert and the wine flowed freely. But of course, we had to head home and back to reality. The kids were glad to see their beds and we were glad to pick up Loki.

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This is What it Has Come To

A friend sent me a text (at 9:30 PM, no less) last night, wanting to see if I want to run a 10mile race with her on Sept 5 (i.e. less than two weeks from now). And of course, I said yes. I’m probably slightly mental and a bit sleep deprived, or maybe bolstered by the excellent run I had yesterday (4 mi). Or perhaps I was drunk on the chocolate frosting I nicked out of the bowl while making b’day cupcakes for my dad. Take your pick.

Anyhow. The kids started gymnastics last night. The class officially started last week, but we went to a going-away party for my cousin instead. Tabby is probably the oldest kid in the class. I put her in level 1 so I could just take them to one class. There’s not a LOT of difference, but there’s some. Mostly in how the kids behave. Ben is one of the youngest. He just runs around in circles and makes excellent use of the bouncy floor. And spring board. And anything to climb on. He genuinely seems to WANT to listen and “be good” but the urge to MOVE is great in this one. And even if Tabby is a bit advanced for the rest of the class, she’s having a great time being with her brother and advising anyone who will stand still long enough to listen.

I have been reading a lot. I am working my way slowly through JD Robb (Nora Roberts)’s “In Death” series. They are nice kind of fun reads, but formulaic enough that they don’t really stand out in my mind. The two most awesome books I’ve read recently are Nurture Shock and Bossypants.

Nurtureshock is about all the findings over the last 20 yrs or so about how kids learn and grow and develop. It is incredibly interesting and useful information and I highly recommend it to ALL parents and caregivers. We also learned that the curriculum our public schools use for the preschoolers and kindergartners is a really really well respected curriculum with amazing results and bragging rights. It’s called Tools of the Mind (check out the website, it’s got great info) and I’ve started implementing some of the ideas it uses with Tabby when we’re at home, including play plans (where the kids write out what they’re going to do during playtime) and buddy-reading (we read a book to Tabby and then she “reads” it back to us).

Bossypants on the other hand is its own kind of great information. It’s Tina Fey’s extremely funny book. Sort of part biography, part show-biz anecdotes and part life lessons (many learned from Lorne Michaels). It’s short, sweet and made me laugh out loud at least 10x as I read it. Excellent photos as well.

I have about 6 actual paper books in my queue right now, one on running, two dealing with nutrition and kicking the sugar habit (see reference to chocolate frosting drunkenness above), one about two society girls who came to the CO frontier to teach around the turn of the century, and a couple of new cookbooks plus about 10 magazines I haven’t cracked yet. I plan to drag them with me this weekend and see if I can make a dent.

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What’s Cooking?

This is crazy Back-to-School week for us (and most of the rest of the country, it seems). Tabby starts school Thursday and as coincidence would have it, our sitter is off this week, so we are farming out the kids to various helping hands throughout the week, including my mom, my aunt, a family friend and Matt, who has today. We are also heading out of town this weekend and have to get ready for that. The kids are also starting gymnastics (tonight).

But compared to last week, it’s an easy one, so we have lots simmering on the literal stove rather than the metaphoric one:

  • I picked up some frozen oatmeal (all natural whole ingredients, steel cut oats) from Costco; not a bad price, but certainly something I can (and probably will) replicate on my own, maybe using large sized muffin tins for freezing the correct portions? Anyhow, defrosted with a little fruit, these are AWESOME.
  • We made delicious Indian Hand Pies on Sunday night. They took a fair while, and aren’t something I’d do any weeknight, but the product was EXCELLENT and these would be great to freeze for on-the-go (literally) dinner or lunch anytime. Nutritional calculations I did revealed they’re only about 350 calories each, which considering they’re very filling is great! Next time I will probably just make my own dough since you need to re-roll the piecrusts anyhow to get the 12 rounds you require.
  • We are making plenty of old favorites this week to use up ingredients we have on hand including: sweet & sour meatballs (last night), quinoa stuffed peppers (tonight), sloppy joes (tomorrow night) and bbq chicken burritos.
  • We are going to make the newly found (and fab) banana pancakes for our breakfast while up in the mountains with the group this weekend. Plus bacon. Hopefully that will be a hit. Usually anything paired with bacon is.

And like that, August is almost over. I would have to say that my month-long meal plan was a decided success. It was a big time-saver knowing to just jump over to a list to find out what’s for dinner each week. And mostly, we followed the plan. Last week was an exception … I didn’t even grocery shop. And we had to add in here and there for unexpected events, but mostly, very successful. I want to try it again for the next few weeks before the next wave of crazy starts.

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No More Ms. Nice Girl

Sunday Matt and I were supposed to run the Heart and Sole Half Marathon. This would have been our 3rd Half Marathon of this calendar year, and our 7th overall, but due to the insanely crazy lives we lead, we have not been running much. My longest recent run was an 8 miler with my GFs and it didn’t go awesome (didn’t go terribly either). So Sunday morning, we found out we could drop down to the 10K, which is the other event that Heart and Sole offers and we gladly did so.

Still at less than half the distance, I had a terrible day. I felt sluggish. I felt like I couldn’t fully bring air into my lungs. I felt like my limbs were super heavy, particularly my arms. I felt hot. I felt cranky. I couldn’t find a song I liked. It was torturous, the way 6 miles hasn’t been for a long time. My chip time was over 1:06, and I should easily have been able to run this sub 1:00 or better. That may not seem like a big deal/difference, but it was more the way it felt.

I felt inept and slow, like it was my first race. I didn’t have fun. But it did do one important thing for me: it totally motivated me to get off my arse and start running seriously again. I have never stopped working out. From July 11 thru Aug 10, I was attending BootCamp every day. I barely had strength enough left to play with the kids let alone do any more than my bare-minimum runs. But now I’ve acclimated somewhat to the intense workouts of BootCamp and I have started going just 3 days/week. That should leave me ample time to run.

And run I will. I have a new training plan, one I am not going to allow myself to get sidelined on just because I’m out of town (I am out of town for 3 of 6 long runs). My do-or-die training plan. Because if I don’t do it, Oct 9 is going to feel REALLY REALLY bad.

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To The One I Love …

Nine years ago today, I walked on the arm of my handsome father down an aisle to be formally bonded to the man of my dreams.

He is not perfect, but he is perfect for me. An awesome husband. A wonderful dad. An amazing friend.

Wow. I am so lucky.

Nine years of fun and laughter and the occasional tear and squabble. Nine years of projects and recipes. Nine years of trips and lazy weekends. Nine years of holding hands.

Grow old with me … the best is yet to be. Cheers to 9 years … and many many more.

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The Haps

So now that we’re back from camping, what is going on this week? Plenty.

  • We went to see Cars 2 with some friends last night. We’d already seen it in Nashville but Ben was on a tear that day and Matt and I both missed a few scenes taking him to the hall. He did much better this time, but still didn’t really want to sit still. $2 movies are great for that though. It’s all families and pretty loosey goosey.
  • We probably should have stayed at home though because our cleaning people come today and we needed to get the house picked up … so Matt and I stayed up too late last night cleaning.
  • But I’m super glad the house is going to be cleaned because I’m hosting Bunco on Thrusday. We are having quiche made by the fine folks at Costco (or one of their suppliers) and a lovely salad (made by me). Maybe some bread if it works out. I will also be making the most excellent peach crumb bars for dessert. Swoon.
  • The kids were supposed to start tumbling classes tonight, but we’ve decided to skip their first one in favor of going to a going-away party for my cousin and his girlfriend who leave for a semester abroad at the end of this week. Should be fun!
  • Tomorrow is our 9 year (WOW) anniversary. We have nothing planned. We were going to go away to Vail for a weekend, but we haven’t found a weekend that works yet. Maybe October?
  • Friday I’m hoping to go visit a good friend of mine who just had a baby. I want to bring her a little something and a meal for the freezer. I’m thinking I may do Mexican Chicken Casserole for the meal, but not sure what to get the little guy for a present (or his big brother). Hopefully something will come to me.
  • This weekend is booked up too. Saturday we’re getting together with our cousins for some shopping and a movie.
  • Saturday afternoon/night Matt and I are hanging out solo while the kids visit my parents.
  • We can’t stay up late though because we’re running the Heart and Sole Half Marathon on Sunday Morning. I’m not looking forward to this … I haven’t run more than 8 miles since May and it is going to be HOT.
  • We are also supposed to borrow a pressure-washer this weekend and work on some of the nastier bits of our house … i.e. anything the kids touch. Not sure we’re going to have time for it, but I’d love to get that done.

What’re you up to?

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Camping!

I won’t lie. I’m a bit stressed at the moment. Things in our house keep breaking, including our A/C and I’m supposed to be hosting Bunco on Thursday. But I won’t think about that right now … I will think about our first camping trip and how well it went.

We went to the lovely Poudre Canyon, home to the Cache la Poudre River, Continue reading “Camping!”