Remember, Remember the rest of September

After Porter goes to bed (he goes down pretty early), Brooke enjoys her special time with mom and dad. This is when we play games or watch movies until it's time for her to start getting ready for bed. Brooke loves to sit in our laps and snuggle. I love it too!

I was sitting on the floor trying to see why my vacuum wasn't sucking (the bag was full) and Porter just takes that as an invitation to plot himself down with me. It was really cute, so I grabbed my camera from nearby to snap a picture.

I think I'm getting to the point where the kids are getting too old to bathe together. But it's been so nice to wash them both at once and have them play in the water.

One Sunday morning I was trying to get together a soup to put in the crockpot before church and also trying to make some homemade rolls. The kids would not leave me alone! They wanted to be right there in action too. Finally, I set up their own little water station so they could still be with me in the kitchen, but occupied so I could work.

More than a 1,000 Words

 Family pictures stress me out. With two young kids who don't like to listen, I am always convinced that we'll never get any good pictures out of a session. On top of that, the entire week before our pictures had been rainy. It looked like things were going to clear up--blue skies all day--then around 5:00pm, an hour before our session, it started pouring rain! I hadn't showered or curled Brooke's hair because I didn't want to go to all the trouble if our session was going to be cancelled. I called our photographer wondering what to do. She said to wait it out, because ya never know, it might just clear up in a minute or so. And it did! Insert mad-dash for mom to shower and coordinate what everyone was going to wear so we could get to our session on time.

For 30 blessed minutes, the skies were clear and the kids behaved (mostly). As soon as we packed up and were driving home big rain drops came splattering down and our HUGE hailstorm started. So glad we called it quits when we did!

And so thankful for Mindy Smith for her amazing skills! She captured our family perfectly These are worth so many more than a 1,000 words to me. I have to share my favorites, so bear with me, there are a lot of photos! But they were all just too good to not share them on here!

This one is my absolute favorite!

 Brooke is in the silly smile/ squinty eyes stage. I kept having to coach her, "No, Brooke, a real smile." She is also not the best listener. But she did great for these photos!

Mr P is always a busybody. He did not want to smile or sit still the entire session.

 Mom was doing silly dances behind the camera for this one:

I love getting pictures of Blake and I too. He's my strength and what holds our family together. I don't know what I'd do without him to help me, support me, or fix things around the house ;)

Little Mister and Missus

The Missus

Brooke recently made an "All About Me" poster for her preschool class and got to be the star of the week. She was so excited! (We will not talk about how mom forgot all about the poster and remembered at 6am the morning it was due). Some things on her poster were:

• My name is Brooke and I am 4 and a half years old.
• My favorite food is macaroni & cheese
• My favorite color is purple
• I don't have any pets but I wish I had a kitty
• My favorite books are the Fancy Nancy series, Curious George sereis, and Mercy the Pig series by Kate DiCamillo
• When I grow up I want to be a mommy and make muffins
• I am best at coloring
• My friends are Zurri, Addy, & Spencer

Brooke is a sweetheart and loves to color pictures for people. She also loves to help around the house and is great to help with Porter. She loves shows on PBS kids and Disney Junior. We love going to the library to check out books. 

Recently, we went on a long drive and Brooke fell asleep. When we got to our destination, Brooke was waking up and all of a sudden blurted out, "I did that when I was 3!" at the top of her lungs. Blake and I burst out laughing. I wonder what kind of dream she was having!

Brooke loves to be silly and sings and dances all around the house. She was very excited for her winter PJs.

The Mister

Porter is 20 months old! He jabbers all the time and loves to have you read to him. He LOVES his blankie and carries it everywhere with him. It's a big deal to detatch it from his death grip in the morning so I can get him dressed. He doesn't want to go anywhere without it. Sometimes he'll arrange it in a pile on the floor so he can just lay on it. He loves to wrestle with dad and play games. Last night Porter was trying to feed me a rock and I was saying "ew, yuck!" and he thought that was hilarious. We played that over and over and he was still laughing every time. Porter also likes to wear his shoes all the time. If he's not wearing them, he will bring them to me and try to sit in my lap so I'll put them on him. He also loves to be outside. He's getting interested in coloring (i.e. coloring the walls) so we have watch him really closely. Porter is our helper. He loves to put things away and knows just where everything goes. He's still our garbage disposal--eating everything and gets very upset if you are eating and he's not.

Not too long ago, Porter accidentally turned on the oven light and it surprised him. I think he thought he did sometime wrong because he ran away and was making some paniced sounds. He does this if he accidentally knocks something over too. It's cute. I love this stage where Porter is just curious about everything. I love watching him interact with life and discover things for the first time. He's a very busy boy who loves dirt, rocks (if you notice in the top picture he's holding a rock--that was the only way to keep him happy/still for pictures), and trucks, but he will settle down to snuggle with us. He's been giving hugs lately to everyone which is really sweet and cute. We sure love this sweet little boy he's turning into!

13.1 Fun! {or not}

Saturday was my big race day. I got up at 5:00 am (that's earlier than I wake up for work!) to get ready, eaty breakfast and pick up my friend Cami by 5:30. We drove to the finish line where buses took the runners up the canyon to the start line. When we got to the top, it was still dark and it was freezing outside! Luckily there were fire pits to stand around, but it was chilly in running clothes!

Me, Cami, and Andrea huddled around the campire, then later as the sun rose before the race

My MIL was so nice to come help with the kids and take pictures too. (I'm not sure why they look so grainy, though. Maybe her camera was on a weird setting. You'll see that some of the pics the colors looks washed out too.)

Brooke colored me a sign

I started out great. I found out there were going to be pacers running the races and finishing at different times. Last year I finished at 2:25 so my goal was to stick to the 2:20 pacer like glue and finish with her. As we started, I realized her pace was too slow! So I passed her and ran with the 2:10 pacer for most of the race. I felt awesome! Amazing what a difference it makes running a half marathon when I wasn't pregnant (like I was in 2008) or recovering from having a baby (like I was in 2012).

Between miles 4 & 5

This is around mile 11 and I was starting to hurt. It was hot, I should have carried my own water because I started having a weird, almost going to shock feeling, and the aid stations weren't close enough. Blake came out and gave me some water. To top it off, around mile 8 my right foot really started to hurt. A little after mile 11, I was in so much pain I had to stop and walk (I hate that I have to say that!) for a bit. I was determined to finish and finish running, but I was almost in tears because running on my foot hurt so bad.

Hey mom! Where ya going? I'm right here!

The finish line is really fun. They had music, food, and a bounce for the kids while they waited

I love this pic. Ummm, Blake, aren't you supposed to be watching our kids? (He's watching for me)

I finally finished!! I was never so happy to cross a finish line! My time was 2:13 and I was shocked! That is 12 minutes faster than last year and 7 minutes faster than my goal time.

Me, Cami, and Andrea at the finish. They were a huge support system while we trained this summer.

So, to sum it up--SO GLAD to be done with 13.1. 

After the race I soaked in my in-laws hottub for a while, but the pain in my foot didn't go away. Finally, I decided to go to the doctor at the urgent care. They took xrays but stress fractures can take a week to 10 days to show up in one (weird). The Dr. put a brace on it and told me to ice it and stay off it for 48 hours and then see how it feels. It's been 2 days now and it still hurts. I wear the brace and limp around then use crutches when I can't stand it any longer. If it doesn't improve by the end of the week I go back for more xrays and a new game plan. Boo!! This definitely solidifys my plans that I will be doing a different kind of race in the spring--I'm done with running for a bit, I think!