She blogs!

You know I have been a slacker when Grandma Shirley calls to make sure that you are still alive and everything is going okay! I am! We are here, good times, good times. I need to keep things going on here but I have a hard time because of the Lionheart Blog. I have to do that twice a week so I am kind of weighed down by that and then I let this slide. Boo! (I will be thankful though, if I ever get off the 2009 blog book, and 2010. '11, '12, '13 and then it will slow down for '14. Ha! Speaking of daunting!)

Duncan and Dylan turned 7 which is AMAZING. I can't believe they are that old! I feel old! They are all grown up! When did that happen? I need to ask Duncan his birthday questions because I bet they will be super funny. We didn't do much this year, having decided that they get big parties at 5, 8, 12 and like... 16? So it's not his year, it's Ian's. He got to take two friends to this skating, slide, jumping place here and I am sure it cost as much as a big party but the effort for me was less. (Sorry, love you...) And, Dylan didn't much care so there is that. She stayed home with me.

And, well, now that I look at it I never posted picture of Grey since he turned 2! So yea, that happened too. He got a Thomas cake "choo choo" he says, so adorable.

Last weekend was the primary church program and we totally slacked on making sure our kids learned their lines I was so good about it in the past... not no more! Work it into the schedule! So they go up there and help them with their lines (which is super common anyway...) but Ian says something about "Smirving mothers" instead of "serving others" which was adorable. I really couldn't pay much attention to everything because of, well... Greyson, Asher and Dylan, but we gave it a good effort.

Hmmmm, what else... Greyson is suuuper cute and fun lately and he is communicating more and more. I put down the toddler bed in his room just to get him used to the idea and sure enough, he wanted to sleep in it that very first night. I always think these things are going to be a lot more complicated than they end up being. Taking away the binki, big boy bed and that kind of stuff. Really it was done. We give him the choice of the "big boy bed" or the "baby bed" now and he had chosen the baby bed once since but even naps have been easy. He might need one reminder to say in bed but for the most part, he has been great. He loves to count, oye, the whole family loves to count... and he loves the alphabet. He knows the capital and the little letters and thanks to a folder game Ami gave Duncan for church he will match them up. It is the cutest thing ever. He just seems too young to do it but alas, I am not sure he knows his colors yet, so... one thing at a time.

About Math... my kids love math! Duncan is really good at it (and he knows it) but I am continuously being pelted with Math problems. From everyone but Greyson and Dylan. Asher is even in on the game. Duncan has been doing so wonderful at school that I can't argue. In the car I started asking the questions and then Duncan started getting mad when Ian answered before him. IAN! All this math practice is paying off I guess! So I would take turns though the kids and they weren't allowed to answer each others. Good grief. Everything is a competition!

Asher occasionally gets up to pee at night and won't make it to the bathroom, I think he totally could, I am not sure what his deal is. So he pees a little and strips down and then comes and crawls in bed with us naked and cold. But he doesn't move, he is a snuggler so Matthew loves it and lets it slide. He is just this little skinny twig! So last night he is sleeping on Matthew's back (Matthew has no idea!) and I decide he needs undies so I get them, he takes him to pee and then Matthew can't bare to take his tiny body back to bed so he snuggles like a warm (skinny) rock and falls back to sleep. If he moved the slightest bit I would make him go back to bed, maybe he knows that... because somehow this kid gets away with it! Nooooo, no kids in bed! Except tiny, warm cute, not moving ones I guess.

We had a church Halloween carnival the other night and the kids went NUTS. They had so much fun! (Except Dylan, she slept. zzzz) When Ian was getting in the car he said "That place was so fun! I want to go there again tomorrow!" Cue broken heart when we told him he can only go once a year. Halloween should be fun this year, I am excited to see how they do. Hoping to make cotton candy in the garage but all of the kiddos might be a tad too young yet and it might not be fair to leave them all to Matthew while I eat candy with the neighborhood kids so we will see how that goes. Ian is Dry Bones (which is a character from Mario, and it's kidn of thrown together and interesting, Duncan is that lame MineCraft guy, Asher wanted to be a red ninja but when it came down to it he decided to be a train (I think he remember from last year...), Grey was a skeleton and Dylan has a pirate dress. I did not put Dylan in the dress for the Halloween carnival though, I have it saved for school, I hope she doesn't hate it. I am going with her to her class at school because the Special Needs teacher wanted them all to go to their class parties but they don't have the support to do it. So alas, I will go go go.

School pictures. I did not buy Duncan's and I am undecided on Dylan's. Thankfully we had just gone to get them done. Which reminds me... I need to get Grandma Shirley's in the mail to her! Totally spaced it.

I hear he looks sneaky and cute... but I think a real smile is cute. I am such a mom. 

I am pretty happy to say that all of my planned races are OVER for the season expect for a very low key one in November and another in January. Easy, fun, walk-ish, not really race-ish ones. Yay. I did two half marathons in a row and it wasn't my thing. Combined with the second being a night race and wow... I tanked. But we looked pretty cute.

 This was the first, morning race in which I did pretty decent for not really trying to race... Sara coem in a mere 22 minutes ahead of me, you know how that goes. 

The night race in which I did terrible. I was slow enough to meet some new friends though. And thankfully, my mime friend waited for me at the end. (White is not nearly as flattering as black.)

Night races are boo. You don't really know what to eat during the day and they are dark, and lonely and boring and... yea. So I hope Sara will do it again and will just volunteer. She stayed with me for a slow 2-3 miles and then just had to go (Matthew had joked before the race that she had no slow setting, he was right!) She took third in her age group in this small event, I think she could have won. Maybe next year she will and I will cheer from a water table or something. I will stick to the day races!

Fitzgerald Grant. 

Dylan, so cute, in a shirt mom got her for her birthday. LOVE. 

I shaved my head

Yep - I did it. And, having a shaved head suuuuuucks. It's not fun, and for heaven's sake, it's not fun to look at. But alas, here I am with a quarter inch of hair.

What was I thinking.

I haven't mentioned it on the blog yet but, it must be done because my grandma Shirley is all calling me out in letters because I told her I wouldn't go any shorter and here I am, kind of almost, bald. Traci, my sister-in-law/sister/we are the only siblings she has/bestie was informed a few short months ago that she had cancer. The first words out of my mouth were "When are we shaving our heads?!" (Not smart... not. smart.)

This was, of course, before they even knew anything about it. Before they knew that it was in her lymph nodes, before they knew that a mastectomy might not quite take care of the issue, before they knew she needed Chemo. Well, not the brightest move on my part but, you know, once I say it I am all in.

Fast forward, this is me, wanting to get it all over with... this is her, delaying it until the last possible moment because no matter how soon she has no hair, she is still not going to get it back until December.

We got together with my family on a Sunday before her second chemo treatment, and knowing it was probably the last time we would be together and actually have hair, we took a picture. (More like... ten or fifteen, but you know...)

Ahhh... to have hair...

Then came Wednesday and she knew it was time. It just so happened that Jill was cutting hair at my mom's house and we could tack on a couple shaved heads to the evening so we did. 

It sucked and it was fun, and it sucked, and it was fun and you know all of that. After we took like 20-25 pictures because, you know if it took 10 to get a good one when he had hair, well... it's going to take more than that to get a good one without it. 

A real hair artisan.

(Yea, a little pink-eye never helped look anyone look decent either...)

As much as it kind of stunk it was nice to be all "I can't get my beanie on because what is left of my head is like velcro!" And "My head feels like it is having hot flashes all by itself..." And "I have to wear something on my head at night because it get's cold, do you?" At least we were going through it together. 

I ran my race with a bald head and actually kind of felt like a poser. At the end I got lots and lot of cheers and I kept my head phones in to I wouldn't hear them just because I felt a little guilty. After I had someone tell me good job and I didn't want to stop some random stranger just to explain so I just said thanks and kept going. Kind of funny. 

My sweet neighbor stopped by a couple of nights ago and she rubbed my head and said "Now, tell me what's going on with your hair dear?" Which I though was a good way to ask what in the world I was thinking... Apparently another neighbor had driven by and inquired to her if I needed help. Yea... no. Ha! 

Anyway, there you have it. Why I have no hair... though, it's starting to come back actually, Traci still has a little while to go. It will all be back before we know it.

We decided that beanies weren't really the look for us...

But we wear them anyway. 

Catch up and BC race recap

We are now a couple of weeks into school and the kids love it! Asher loves school and it totally bummed every Tuesday and Thursday when I send Ian off without him. I love that he likes it so much! When I drop him off he is like "peace out" and he takes off. Ian still hugs me and kisses on me and stuff, but not Asher. I am glad to report that he is happy to see me when I pick him up though, so that's something.

Duncan had his first spelling and vocabulary test and killed it. He is a smart boy. I worry about how his teacher can keep him sitting still for long periods of time but when he goes for it, he does a good job. And he is really good at math, just ask him, he will tell you all about it. We now have a routine that will last forever and that is that we come in from school, no TV everyone has a snack, Duncan does any homework that he has and then we read for 20 minutes. All of this before the TV goes on or we play. This may involved iPad bribes for the other kids though... not proud of that but you do what you gotta do.

Dylan seems to be doing well in school. I have gotten reports back that she has gone to the music classes with the Kindergartners and had that special time in the classes which is great, and a huge improvement over last year! The program is not very well funded (of course) but the teacher seems willing to try and do whatever we ask of her. That's great. Dylan IEP is coming so I am interested to see what they will come up with to make Dylan's time at school valuable. That's what she mentioned her goal was. I love it, we shall see.

Greyson turned two on us this past week, boo hiss! Mom and Bob totally spoiled him with gifts, it was crazy! They got him way more than we did... Grandma Shirley sent him $5 which I promptly took to the preschool to buy more books at their book sale (21 more books to be precise!). We kept telling him it was his birthday all day and he kept trying to say it. It was fun. We ate his favorite foods for lunch and dinner and had cake and ice cream on Friday. Now we are on a birthday roll with the other kids all asking when theirs is and who's is next and all that. He is on the Ian track of already knowing all of his letters and I think that's pretty good for two. I am not sure if I mentioned that before but it's worth mentioning twice. He thinks D is B, Y is V and Q is O, but other than that he does really well and has fun with it. Every kid has a parlor trick right?

Speaking of that book sale, I killed it. I ended up spending $23 and I got 89 books total. When I spent the last five she told me I was her best customer. The kids LOVE it and Duncan is starting to read really well and he is having fun being able to have a lot of choices of books that he can read. Great opportunity to build up the library! I always miss these sales but this one came to me.

Boring (but freaking awesome) Running Stuff

I ran a half marathon this past weekend and did great. It's the same one I ran last year as my very first half. Last year I ran a 2:06:11. I didn't train as well as I should in the last couple of weeks because I had just ran that half really well. I totally slacked on my mid-week runs (As in, I maybe did 2?) and was kind of nervous about it but since I had gotten my sub-two I was pretty chill with whatever time.

I met a cute first grade teacher on the bus and we hung out for a while before the start. She was alone as well and great company for a couple of hours but we ran difference paces so we separated when we lined up according to the pacers. I started just in front of the 2 hour pacer (and intended to stay that way). I totally stalked my new friend's, results and was happy to see she made her goal time without having to drop back to her "I would be happy with" time. Yay! Go random stranger!

I have decided that I have a hard time following a pacer or running with someone. If I feel like they want me to go a certain pace I fight it. But this time I got a pace band that adjusts for elevation (this is a huge elevation drop for the first 8 miles). I bought it to pace myself with a goal of 1:58. I got it prior to getting this on the race in August but figured I would shoot for slightly better and it would be a win. I had my eye on my watch quite a bit during the race which I don't know if it's a good thing of a bad thing but it was certainly nice to be able to start huffing and puffing, glance at my pace and tell myself not to work so hard. I would back off a little, which was awesome. I also have a tendency to slow way down at the end and not know and not pick the pace back up and this time I would look and be like "What the? Get going girl!" and step on it a little.

I was so afraid of having that 2 hour pace group pass me... That is so disheartening.

I did fuel well and I walked for a few seconds around mile 11. I didn't want to start walking at all because once I start walking a) I tend to think those walk breaks are okay and b) it is blasted HARD to get going again after having walked after 10 miles. Not happy about having taken that break at all but I needed it or I wouldn't have let myself.

Previously I have hated being able to see the finish line from a great distance but with this method of pacing myself it worked better - You could see it about 3/4 a mile to a mile away. I was able to go a little bit faster for the last five minutes or so and finish strong.

The finish was a closed down section of a huge and very busy street! The crowd support was awesome at the end and it was quite a big deal, probably bigger than any race I have run in yet. (Driving home was another story...)

Fresh off me celebrating my first sub-two half a few weeks ago I beat that PR by 3 minutes. My official time this week was 1:55:23. 11 minutes faster than when I ran the same race last year!

This is the official report - It is INSANE that I about close the top third. Why I never...

Chip Time	01:55:22.4
Start Time of Day	07:25:50.95am
Finish Time of Day	09:21:13.37am
Pace	08:48
Overall Rank	867 out of 2551
Gender Rank (Female)	499 out of 1798
Age Division Rank (F35-39)	141 out of 398

And along with that, my BRF did her first full at this same race and killed it. That girl is crazy! She did a full in 3:36, which means she Boston Qualified (by 9 minutes).  I was so bummed I couldn't watch her come in, but my mom was here with the kids so I had to get home and getting back would have been impossible.

Sara and I have two fun Halloween Halfs in October. She says she expects another PR for me, I say she is crazy. We will see how it goes.

I added these pictures last week and Fitz is now twice as big as these pictures! How unfair! He is sleeping in between my legs as I am standing here typing this. He wants to sleep at my feet but I always move, I guess I have been here long enough for him to crash out. (Part of it is me protecting him from Grey!)

Fitz and Trina's new puppy Trixie on a play date. We need to get them together again soon! 

See this saggy collar? I have already had to make it bigger for him. :(

Asa in the tractor with Uncle Gary - The kids all loved having a tractor in their back yard! 

We started school!

Been a crazy couple of weeks here! 

Matthew took the last week off to do some yard projects. I mentioned that I wasn't that big of a fan of the backyard and, well, Matthew decided to take it into his own hands and make it be something we will like. It started with burying the trampoline. It's quite the project in an of itself but then it got bigger... 

It turned in to pulling out the pavers, pulling out the stamped concrete walkway to the RV parking (It had settled...), adding flower beds all over the place, adding more grass than cement and then... the biggie, leveling the yard. So basically, as you can imagine, the back yard is a major construction zone right now. Coupled with all the rain that we got last week it was a complete mud bog! 

I don't have any idea how someone can go through a kitchen remodel because just having this in the backyard makes me slightly stabby. On most of the days Matthew was great at having the boys come out with him to work but this means they are dirty about ten minutes in, so they get lunch outside and baths are a must (sometimes more than one in a day!). Or I would keep the kids in half the day and let them go out in the afternoon or whatever. But it certainly means I can't just shoo them outside when they get cabin fever. I think the new sod comes at the end of this week. This is good. 

And it's a good thing the D's had school. Yep! First week of school in the books! Was super glad to have Matthew home all week because of all the running around and back to school nights and stuff. Him being here allowed to be to be as involved as I needed to be, especially with Dylan.

On the first day of school Duncan saw his friend and shot out of the car. I was standing with Tammy, Dyl's aide from last year (who we won't have much this year... sadz...) and I asked her if I should go find him or what I should do. We both assumed that he knew the drill from last year and that he would be fine. So she took Dylan in. 

Come to find out, when she took Dylan to Ms. E's class Duncan was no where to be found. What? Yea, that kid followed who knows who in and sat down in the wrong classroom as happy as can be. Thankfully Tammy happened to see him in there and got him ushered to the right place. Silly kid, he was so excited. 

All of last week I went in to Dylan's class at her food time to help teach he new teacher how to get her food going and how to change her. The new teacher is pretty much the opposite of last year in that she is very quiet and not very assertive. So teaching her something that can be a little intimidating was interesting but I think she has it. I hope Dylan behaves herself. 

From Dylan being the only severe last year to there being 11 this year is quite the change! They are in this tiny little room, 11 of them! Two aides and the teacher. It's crazy, loud and unorganized! But it was the first day of school and Dylan kind of digs things crazy and loud so we will see what happens from here. With only two aide and some very demanding kids I am not sure how much of Dylan's day will be spent in her classroom... any? I don't know... we shall see. The kids in there are for sure cute but wow, what a job! 

It really seems like one of the aides has made a good connection with Dylan and she went and bought some balls for her to have since I mentioned she liked balls. I also got a lot of toys that are just Dylan's, she will have them available during the time when she is by herself eating. (A lot of the other special needs kids pull on the tubing! I am not sure how to handle this...) The aide noticed Dylan doesn't really like container play so she started to work with her on colors and... well... the first trial of colors was quite promising but I haven't decided if it was a fluke or not so no horn tooting from me just yet. Suffice it to say, that girl might be learning her colors this year. Prompting us to wonder what ELSE she knows right?

The little boys start school this week. Ian is M-Thurs and Asher is M-W-F which should be interesting to keep track of don't you think? Monday and Wednesdays will have to be my get things done day because I will have two hours with just Greyson. The other mornings should be fairly easy too with just two kids.

We got Dylan's new AFO's last week and she hates them, she freaks out! She cried the whole time she had them that night, all through school on Friday and as a test I put them on her after I knew she was happy on Saturday and she flipped out. So off they come. It doesn't make sense for her to have tolerated braces for five years and all of a sudden not so I will be calling them tomorrow. Just another thing to do for us. Boo. 

Oh, also... Dylan has had this loose tooth that looked all snaggely and I told Matthew he had a father's duty to pull at because she might choke on it. But really, we all know she won't choke on it because she would spit it out but it just looked so bad I wanted it gone. He and Tracy have been wiggling it for a week and last night Matthew went for it. He got it! (And had the bite marks on his finger to prove it!) Making it the first tooth of four that we can account for. Gross. Teeth are gross. 

We did get our little dog Fitz and we have had him now for a week. He is adorable and super fun. When I picked him up she said that he was the most playful one of the three (yay?) and that the other one I was looking at ended up being quite a snuggler so it was good that he went to an older couple. I guess... Ha! Really though, he will be so great for the boys to play with. So far so good. We kennel him in our room and slowly but surely we are potty training (miserable!).

We saw my little (big) niece Eden off to serve a mission in Ecuador. We will miss her so much, she spent a lot of time with my kiddos when she was in high school. She was so happy and will be such a great missionary. Love that girl. 

I finally hit my downhill goal time of a sub two hour half at a race the weekend before last. It was snowing at the start! Snowing!! I was not ready for snow at all and I had pretty much written off trying for my goal when we started but the clouds parted at about 2-3 miles in and we went for it. Sara is training for the full marathon in two weeks so she had to run these 13 and continue running for another 7 so she used this as a training run and helped pace me in. (I forgot my watch, she was using her phone.) At about the 12th mile she told me I was going to make it but it was going to be close so if I had any juice left I needed to use it, so I did. I would have liked to see my mile splits for this reason! I actually came in at 1:58:30. Woohoo! Now I can quit running! Just kidding. Kinda. 

This kid is thinning out and it ain't cool.

Pretty girl looking at Uncle Kiko at the cabin. 

Cute cousins. (Who puts their kids in white shirts to go to the cabin anyway?)

Last cousin picture with Eden! 

The story of my last 8 days... 

It's Fitzgerald!

He likes to lay on the vents and on the tile because he likes it cool. 

Did I mention that it was snowing at the start?!

It's not fair.

Ian has this horrible habit going on right now. His new thing is saying "It's not fair!" When he loses a game, when he can't have something. Everything is just "not fair!" It drives me crazy. After reminding him and telling him it's not okay to say that, I got after him good.

"Of course it's not fair! Nothing is fair! LIFE IS NOT FAIR!"

So isn't it ironic that all I can think and say right now is "It's not fair!"?

Do you remember my #2 HPE baby Jane? Rachel is baby Jane's mom and one of my friends in HoPE. She was taken to heaven very unexpectedly. The world lost a beautiful spirit this week, And I am really having a hard time with it.

I have come to anticipate, expect the loss of an HPE child. How cruel is that? We just lose them so frequently it's always a 'risk'. But the loss of one of our moms is almost too much to handle.

Oh how I have adored Jane and her mother. Rachel and I were close from the beginning, we met while we were both pregnant with babies due in September. I envied other HPE moms as they got to meet together (there are several lived very close to each other, Rachel lived in Mississippi). We would talk over your favorite social media site, trade notes with each other, ask questions. Laugh. Complain. Cry.

She has such a strong testimony, her husband Charlie is a Baptist minister. She was always so grateful an expressive that Jane was a miracle brought to her from Heavenly Father and she owed all to Him. She was the first to reach out to new HPE mothers to give them a reason to have HoPE.

All of her HPE friends that she met in real life have come together to grieve and they have decided she is in heaven rocking and singing all of the HPE babies that went before her.

Pray for Charlie and baby Jane, until they see her again.

xoxo Rachel.

Ahhh, summer summer summer

We start school again next week and I am not sure how I feel about it. At least Duncan and Dylan do anyway. Ian and Asher will start after Labor Day. On Mondays and Wednesdays it's just going to be Greyson and me at home for two hours. What the what?

Matthew has been busy working in the yard doing all kind of crazy things to make it so he likes it. I mean, he is tearing out concrete, we are putting pavers up on classifieds, he is pulling out the rock wall. It's crazy. We asked a yard guy to come do a bid on it but he never got back to Matthew so I guess he feels like he needs to take it upon himself to get the job done? Whatever... I don't think I would have been comfortable with the yard guy's asking price so it is what it is.

So the last couple of days there have been a couple random strangers coming to pick up the pavers though, it's kind of funny. They are just doing it, for the payment of the pavers that we are trying to get rid of. I guess that's why classifieds work yo.

Tracy and Shannon even joined the concrete party, Tracy came to help with the hard labor and Shannon came to cheer them and help Matthew with the plants. (He needs help, his Shannon is no good at plant stuff!) Their little Asa is so good, he will nap over here so we just set up his pack and play and he went to sleep.

Supposedly when Matthew is done we will have the trampoline up, or... Down? In the ground. Just in time for fall. Oopsie. Well it's been too hot to play outside anyway.

Duncan asked me if I stunk the other day, I don't, I don't think, but I said yes. He told me I stunk because I never took showers. What? I told him I did and we had quite the spirited conversation in which I insisted I regularly showered and he insisted I didn't! This conversation caused me to remember how, in Primary, he turned to his teacher the row behind hi and informed him that indeed Sundays were special because his "mom even showered on Sunday!" I was like "well occasionally..." Turns out, he really believes I only shower on Sunday and after my long runs on the weekend. I am not sure how I feel about this!

FYI, I do shower, but it's only after he has gone to sleep at night after I work out. He thinks his mother doesn't shower!

I woke up the next morning and told him that I showered and he smiled all guilty like and said "I just didn't know!"

Greyson has been saying everything but most of it you can't really understand. We have this great game where you ask him to say any word and he repeats it back. It's so fun and the kids all think it's great so they get in on the action. I don't think the other kids were such sound mimic-ers but then again none of them had this many people around telling them what to say right? The other day he got in trouble for something and he stood there and cried and then walked over to Ian like he was wounded so Ian would give him some sympathy and love. It's usually me he walks up to when one of the other kids get after him so it was funny to see that he would go to anyone!

I went to Demo Day for Boost Startup. It's the end of a three month program for new tech start ups where they present their product to angel investors and ask for money. I did it to support the Lionheart Innovations app but it was so fascinating! I don't know how successful they were, I won't know... I am just someone who blog for them... but it was great nonetheless!

I ran my longest run ever with my friend Allison and one of her friends the other week and it went great. A little too much stopping for me with that many miles though, once I stop it's hard to get going again, especially after 10 miles. It was still fun and I never would have gone 15 without them so it was good that I went. The idea is that if I have gone 15 it will make my 13.1 in two weeks easier.

I hope to get a sub two. I better get a sub two, it's a very very downhill run, more so than any other downhill race I have done so that should help right?

Last week Sara and I ran our downhill canyon run in prep (have to do some downhill so I can do some sort of walking without hurting after the race.) We went a lot further than we had gone in the past, to a city park in town. The last about 1.5-2 miles of the 12 were flat and I was able to keep up my pace for it which is awesome, and a good sign. Even on the downhill races, once you come out of the canyons, they are flat or rolling hills. If you can do that after that much down you are good to go. We shall see. She had to keep running and ran home to do a total of 17. (She is training for a full in Sept. for her 40th birthday)

This weekend it's a shorter run, 8 miles, and then "rest week" for the race.

Last week we went to a book reading and gathering for The Mother Runners. They are a couple of ladies that wrote some apparently great books about running and motherhood and all that. I don't know, I don't read books anymore! I did recognize them, most runners recognize the books and I saw one author at a booth at Princess last year. She is about three feet taller than me. (See picture). It was really fun, one lady won a treadmill! Just for being there! A treadmill! She wasn't that excited about it...

My adorable imaginary friend Bonnie ordered some Christmas ornaments so I am making those when the kids are in bed as well (after I shower). Just all around a little busy so the blogging is slacking. Except on Lionheart, where I have a financial motivation! I will appreciate this when I get to the 2014 blog book but somehow I don't see that happening any time soon.

This little Asa face... I die, he is an angel. 

The wounded soldier.

...requiring major surgery.

Charlotte looking for a bug in her drink.

This picture is hilarious...

(The two Mother Runners are the tall ones in the middle, my buddy Alison is second from the left.)