Christmas Prep

Thanksgiving weekend is behind us, and I did a lot over the long holiday weekend in terms of getting us prepared for Christmas.


Friday -- Colin and I did a little shopping while my car was in the shop (the girls were helping their grandparents with tree decorations at that time).  Black Friday, true, but by mid-morning, there were no crowds to fight with.  Just peaceful, easy shopping with lots of good deals still to be had.  I also spent 2 straight hours wrapping gifts that afternoon.  And I'm STILL not done!


Saturday -- The girls helped me do a little shopping in the morning, and we put up our tree in the afternoon.  We got a bigger fake tree this year, bigger than the one I had when I lived in an apartment by myself.  It was a lot of fun to put up and decorate!

Decorating the new tree!

Sunday -- I started boxing up gifts that we need to ship.  Also, the girls and I made our first-ever batch of buckeyes.  Delicious!!!  We used my grandma's recipe and it worked out really well.  We dipped well over 100 buckeyes, and I was worn out afterward.

Katie was a super helper!

You can probably tell from my body language that we just dropped one!

It was a great weekend, and we certainly got a lot accomplished.  Christmas is still coming quickly, but I think I'll be ready.  :)

500 Miles!

Did you see my widget this weekend?  On Saturday, I hit 500 miles for the year!

OK, technically only 499.6...

I've never set a mileage goal before.  Like any good engineer, I knew I needed to see how I was currently performing before I set any sort of goal for myself.  You need data before you can find ways to improve!  So I've been tracking my mileage all year long.  After a while, it seemed like 500 would be feasible before the end of the year.  And here I am!


It was rather anti-climactic, really.  I was on the treadmill at the Y, got frustrated/bored after 2.5 miles, went and lifted weights for a while, and then came back and ran the last 1.5 about half an hour later.  I couldn't leave, knowing I was so close!  But I've done it, and I'm still going strong.  We'll see what my 2011 total ends up being in just over a month!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!


This year, I made all the pies using a gluten-free pie crust mix so that my mother-in-law could enjoy them, too.  One box makes 4 crusts, so I made apple (2 crusts), pumpkin, and pecan.  I was pleasantly surprised with the taste, as some gluten-free products just don't taste all that spectacular.  These were pretty good, though.  My biggest problem was that they had a tacky texture even after lots of refrigeration, making them nearly impossible to roll out and put in the pie plate.  I ended up doing a lattice for the apple because I was so frustrated with the crust!

Pecan and pumpkin

Apple lattice

I did one pie Wednesday night and the other 2 this morning.  By 10am, I was all done, the girls were watching the Disney princess movie marathon on the Disney Channel, and Colin was playing video games...  I decided to go out for a run!  Beautiful morning, and there were lots of other runners out, to.  So nice to see!


We had lunch, had a little nap, talked to my family, and then went over to Colin's parents' for our Thanksgiving meal.  Yum, yum, yum!  Smoked turkey and all the trimmings!  His mom even baked the stuffing inside pumpkins, something I'd never seen before, but she'd seen on TV earlier this week.  How cool!

Stuffing IN pumpkins for serving

We enjoyed our day, relaxing and spending time with family, even if it included the wishbone battle. 

The wishbone!

The struggle

The victor!

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving, too!

Natalie's First Dental Appointment

I wrote about Katie's first dental appointment, and now it's time for Natalie's.  She's heard so many stories about Katie going to the dentist that she was a very enthusiastic patient!

We were the first ones there in the morning, and they were able to do both girls' cleanings at the same time, in rooms right next to each other.  Natalie was full of smiles and sitting with her mouth wide open, even before they needed her to.  She did so well, all through the cleaning and X-rays.  I was so proud!  They moved Natalie and I into the same room with Katie so that the dentist could examine both of them back-to-back. 

Both girls have great teeth, NO CAVITIES.  Hooray!  But they both have things to work on...  Katie has a baby tooth that needs to come out with the big tooth coming in right behind it, so she needs to start wiggling.  And Natalie needs to stop sucking her thumb.  I know that, I've always known that, but now she's heard it straight from the dentist.  It'll be hard for her to stop, but we need to work on it.

They both did so well.  Katie is still a little squirrelly during her appointment, and Natalie was gung-ho, so both good in their own ways.  I'm glad we made it through another appointment, and I don't have to worry about this again for another 6 months.  :)

Bok Tower Gardens

On the way back from our road trip, we stopped for lunch and to visit Bok Tower Gardens.  So close, yet we'd never been there.  What a beautiful place!

The girls and I near the carillon tower

Bok Tower

We started at the visitor's center, walked through the gardens up to the tower, and spent quite a bit of time wandering around the tower, admiring it and its surrounding koi ponds.  Since one of the daily carillon concerts was coming up soon, we played in the open area downhill from the tower until it was start time.

Natalie and I

Miss Katie

The music was beautiful, but the girls weren't as interested as we were after about the first 5 minutes.  They were just ready to go home.  We decided to walk slowly out of the gardens as we listened to the rest of the concert.

Colin with his girls

Gorgeous weather, gorgeos location.  We were glad we stopped and stretched our legs before the rest of the drive home!!!

Weekend Road Trip

This weekend we took an overnight trip to visit Colin's great-aunt and uncle for their 60th anniversary party!  60 years is quite impressive, and I haven't had the opportunity to meet many people on this side of the family, so I was definitely in!


After our last soccer games of the season, we hopped in the van and took off.  After a brief stop to check in at the hotel, we were off to the dinner party.  The food was delicious, and we had a lot of fun meeting so many of Colin's mom's relatives.  They are spread up the east coast of the US from here to Delaware, so it was so nice to see everyone all in one place like that.


We stayed at the hotel overnight, then met up with everyone again this morning for breakfast before we left to drive home.

Here we are with Colin's mom and her aunt Alice

Lots of driving, but so much fun, and so worth it.  Happy anniversary, Alice and Freddy!  As they said in the toast, may you have 60 more!

Great American Teach-In

Today I had the pleasure of visiting Katie's class for the Great American Teach-In.  I was nervous, because I was following a police officer who let them all use the loudspeaker in his squad car.  How do you follow something fun like that?


But we had a GREAT time!  I was barely done introducing myself and they were already asking questions.  We talked about my education, the kinds of classes I had to take in college, and the kinds of things I do now.  I had lots of pictures and various sample items for them to look at and feel.  We talked about waste-to-energy versus landfilling for garbage disposal options.  The thing they were most excited about was the tire shredder I talked about!  And who can blame them...  Watching tires get shredded is pretty cool.


The kids were so polite and seemed to enjoy my presentation.  Katie's teacher even said he learned quite a bit from me as well.  I had goodie bags with pens, pencils, and small toys to hand out to everyone, and I had coloring pages about landfills and waste-to-energy facilities (trust me, that was hard to find online since most coloring pages are related only to recycling).  I'm so glad I had the opportunity to present to her classroom.  I hope the girls don't mind me coming back in the future!


The Great American Teach-In is such a neat opportunity for school kids to learn about a wide variety of careers.  Besides myself and the officers, I also ran into a financial planner, an exterminator, and a guest services manager for a large stadium while at school.  And I know there were so many more throughout the day (including reporters from the station linked to above)!  Our school had a nice reception area for all the speakers and had several volunteers to escort us to/from the classrooms.  Everything was so well-organized, and they really made us feel welcome.  I loved it.  I'd definitely do it again!


PS - Katie's teacher is supposed to email me a photo of me standing with Katie wearing the bulletproof vest, holding cuffs and a billy club.  She looked too cute!

Watching You

The other day I was frustrated with something, but I don't even remember what at this point.  As I was getting angrier, Natalie stopped me and said, "You have to be nice, Mama.  You know who's watching you, right?"


"No, who?"  I sort of snapped at her.


"Santa Claus.  And Jesus.  They see you.  So you have to be nice all the time!"


That Natalie.  What a sweetheart.  And a good reminder that others are observing my actions all the time, whether I think they are or not!

Veteran's Day Wrap-Up

Ah, Veteran's Day...  the day that my kids don't know I don't have to work and I am able to Christmas shop for them in peace...  The jig may be up, though.  Natalie especially was awfully suspicious of me.


I took the girls in to preschool since the after-school group had fun activities planned for Katie and friends as well.  Then I went running...  6 miles!  6!  Colin asked if I had turned into Forrest Gump.  :)  Not really, but I was on a local trail and wanted to see if I could make it to a certain more scenic point before I turned around.  That, plus I want to run a 10K in December and I was interested in seeing how close to ready I might be.  Turns out, pretty close.


After that, I:

• Cleaned up and had a snack.
• Watched some programs off the DVR and formulated a shopping plan while having another snack.
• Went to Toys R Us for my mega-shopping for the girls.
• Met Colin for lunch at Smoky Bones BBQ.
• Went to the mall and did more Christmas shopping for Colin, the girls, my mom, and my grandma.
• Went to Kohl's for clothing gifts.
• Came home and found a way to hide everything!
• Picked up the girls, who were suspicious of me getting them early and wearing casual clothing, not work clothes.  :)

We had a good rest of the afternoon and evening, and spent time talking to my brother, my favorite veteran.  He'd had a bad day at work, so I hope we were able to brighten his evening some.

Thank you Tyson and Angie, and all veterans, for your service to our country!!!

I Run This Town

I don't know if I'd mentioned it, but my in-laws bought me a medal hanger from Allied Medal Displays for my birthday.  We FINALLY got around to hanging it up over the weekend!

Natalie helped me dig through my trunk to find the medals I have.  I am so happy to have a place to display them!  Looks like I will need to enter more races so I can fill it out all the way.  :)  The ones on white ribbons are from races I ran in college, but the medals didn't come on a ribbon.  Luckily in my trunk we also had some white ribbon from when I was in Jennifer's wedding, so I used that to hang my medals that needed an assist.  I knew that would come in handy some day!


I thought that was a great hanger for me.  North side, south side, downtown, west side...  (not so much east)...  I really do run all over this town.  Thank you for the great gift!!!

DSi Day

Finally!  Katie has been saving up her allowance and gift money for quite some time, and Friday, she finally bought her Nintendo DSi!  After school, we went to the bank to withdraw money from her savings account.  We went directly to Target and got a pink DSi, a pink Hello Kitty carrying case for it, and 3 games.  Lucky for us, Target was having a sale on all games where you buy 2 and get 1 free.


Lucky for Katie, it had quite a bit of battery charge straight out of the box.  She and Natalie spent the rest of the afternoon playing it, until we made her stop to go out to eat.

We are SO PROUD of her!  She had a goal to buy this, she saved when she could've been buying other toys, she was focused, and she achieved her goal.  It was a good lesson for Katie on the rewards that hard work can bring.  Great job!!!

1 Mile Pumpkin Run

Finally, the day has arrived!  The 1 mile Pumpkin Run!  I've done the 5K option 2 times before, so doing the 1-mile as a family was a new experience for all of us.  Especially considering I'm the only one that ever runs.  :)


They had an early packet pick-up at the Y on Friday, so we got our numbers and goody bags then on our way out to eat. 


Saturday we got up early to get dressed and get to the Y for our timing chips.  It's not that far, but we wanted to make sure we were there in plenty of time.  I was able to pick up the chips for our whole family while they sat in the van and played.  Closer to go-time, we all went inside so we could use the restroom and stretch.  It was a little cool out this morning, so the girls preferred to stretch inside since we could.  

Bondi band girls!  Katie frowning on purpose...

Eventually it was getting too warm inside for us, so we went outside to walk around and watch the start of the 5K.  Five minutes after they took off, it was time for the 1-mile race.  And we were off!  Surprisingly, Natalie took off like she was shot out of a cannon.  I was seriously afraid of her getting ahead of herself and wiping out on the pavement.  But she did great.  Katie did great, also, but her pace was less consistent.  She would sprint for a while, then come to a dead stop and start walking extremely slowly.  I did wear my hydration pack, which seems silly for only 1 mile, but I know the girls, and I knew they'd want water the whole time.


We did really well up until the turnaround at the half mile point.  It seemed so short to me to be turning around already, which made Colin laugh.  We were really just trying to herd the girls around and keep us all somewhat together.  But at the half mile, Natalie announced she was too tired and wanted to walk.  Then she wanted to be carried.  Up on Colin's shoulders, they speed-walked along behind us as Katie and I continued the sprint/dragging walk pattern.  That didn't last too long, though, because Natalie got angry that Katie was getting ahead, so she demanded to get down so she could catch up with us.  Lucky for her, Katie was walking more than running at that point, so Natalie got really close to us.


With a little less than a quarter mile left, I told them I was going to blast ahead so I could take the finish line pictures.  I almost missed the chip timer thingy in my haste to turn around, but I did cross it, so my finish time did register.

Katie approaches the finish, just behind our friend Anthony

2 seconds later, here comes Natalie!  Finishing strong while Katie stops to pose.

Finisher ribbons!

We were all so proud of ourselves for finishing this race!  Here are our official times:


Me - 12:28.5
Katie - 13:31.1
Natalie - 13:33.7
Colin - 13:37.8


We were surprised that the girls completed it so well.  Both Colin and I figured it would take 20 minutes plus, with one or both of the girls being carried the majority of the way.  But it wasn't like that at all.  They were out there to go fast and enjoy themselves, and they certainly did just that.  It's a smaller race, and since it's sponsored by our Y and our neighborhood association, we knew a lot of the people there.  Everyone cheered for everyone else, and it was just a fun morning of hanging out with friends.  


The girls can't wait to do it again next year!!!

Home with Natalie

Our preschool was closed for 2 days this week so they could take the teachers to a national conference that happens to be nearby.  We've had quite a while to prepare for this, and we decided that I'd stay home with Natalie both days.


It was so nice to stay home when we're NOT sick and worrying about the doctor, prescriptions, temperatures, etc.  Natalie and I took Katie to school both days, worked out at the Y (well, she played in the nursery) both days, went to get my hair cut, had lunch with Daddy and Poppop, did some early Christmas shopping, colored, cleaned up, reorganized, made sure we picked up Katie at the end of the school day, and worked on a number of small projects.  Natalie was a little wild and crazy, especially on Day 2.  Perhaps it was the excitement of having my full attention for 2 straight days?  Or perhaps I should've run her around the back yard a lot to burn off energy.  At any rate, she barely napped and was nuts by bedtime both nights.  It's OK, though.  I had a lot of fun with her!


Going back to work Monday will be a total drag!!!

New Shoes

You may remember that a little while ago, I was grumbling about the fact that my favorite shoes appeared to only be in the stores in a pink version...  Unable to find my Saucony Hurricanes in stores, pink or otherwise, I sucked it up and ordered them online.  It was very strange for me...  I love trying on shoes, and it was hard for me to just order shoes without trying them on first!  I crossed my fingers that they would fit the same as the previous two pairs.

New Hurricanes vs. Old Hurricanes

You probably can't tell, but there's barely any heel wear on the old Hurricanes!

And they do fit!  I am thrilled that they feel just fine.  They're all ready for the Pumpkin Run this weekend!