Over1/2WayThere!!!

8 miles.
1hr:29min:48.92sec.
863 calories.

I might just be losing my mind, but a friend and I have decided to train for a Mini Marathon (13.1 miles). We have just under four weeks left til the big race and last night was our long run for the week. Our first time running 8 miles. We did it! We may not be breaking any records anytime soon, but we finished.

This little gem has come in quite handy during our runs:

Brooks and the girls got this watch for me for my birthday a few weeks ago...and I LOVE IT! Any of you who are runners, I highly recommend it! It has a GPS so I can track my distance, speed, time, calories, and so much more!

FirstDayOfSchool2011&SaturdayMorningSurprises

First and fourth grade! Wow! I can't believe it!

It was a great first week of school at our house! Kaicee walked in with no problems, Breck fought back tears and had a wonderful first day, and Taylor was a little lonesome at first but settled quickly into her wonderful world of make believe while mommy got some much needed cleaning caught up.
************************

Brooks and I woke up this morning to find this on the kitchen table:


Apparently, Kaicee and Breck had some trouble winding down after our exciting late night out with friends. They snuck out to the kitchen after we went to bed and had this waiting on the table for us this morning.
...we had to re-toast the cinnamon toast, but it was pretty darn good;)
...bonus, they even cleaned up their mess before heading back to bed!

I'm beginning to wonder if they are up to something....and how much it's gonna cost me?!? I just walked into my bedroom and found this on my bed:

This time, the note read...."We love you verry much. Since your going out to nigh we thought we could help you out by picking our your cloth. Love, Kaicee and breck XOXOXO" (*exactly as written*)

They are so sweet! Especially cuz they think that there momma is one of those super skinny girls with a cute little butt! They picked out a fitted top with leggings (kind of reminds me of the outfit Sandy wore at the end of Grease)...ummm, I may have to make a couple changes so I don't make anyone throw up tonight!

CanoeTrip

Today was our last official day of summer before the girls head back to school in the morning. We packed ourselves in the car and headed to the river for a little bit of canoeing...or 4 long hours, but who's counting?


We had a blast! Lots of laughs, a few screams, and many great memories!



This little Tot sarinaded Kaicee and I for some of our ride. I tried to get a video of her and managed running us into a tree...and now I can't figure out how to upload the video. Oh well. Just know that she was quite a hoot!



Within the first 2 minutes, Kaicee and I managed to slam into the side of the river bank and ended up paddling in a complete circle. Sadly, that was the first of many. We managed to run in to low hanging trees on the river bank (that dropped hundreds of spiders into dad and Kaicee's boat), paddle through more seaweed that I thought existed in a river, get stuck on the rocky sand bar, nearly tip our canoe (more than once), see LOTS of turtles (we stopped keeping track at about 86),
almost catch a couple of those turtles, and just have one darn good last day of summer vacation!

Hey, we DID manage to do a little canoe swapping without tipping. That counts for something!....doesn't it?
Did I mention it took FOUR hours to float the river?...paddling the entire way because the current was just about non existent. We all had some sore booties (as Taylor would say) and very dirty hands!
We finished our trip here
and ended up at the soccer field before heading to bed for a good nights sleep.

Good bye summer vacation! We loved every day we spent with you while you were here! Now, our outfits are laid out in our bedrooms and backpacks are waiting for us on the coat rack...ready to start the new school year!

NotSoSureILikedThat!!!?!?

Taylor woke up before I did on Saturday morning.
Actually, everyone in my family woke up before I did Saturday morning.
I stayed up scrapbooking the night before so I was very happy to be allowed by the entire family to sleep in ;)

Anyhoo....

As soon as I walked out into the living room I was greeted with this conversation:
Taylor - "Mom, when can I get my ears pierced?"
Me - "How about today?"
Taylor - "YEAH!!!"

So...we made a trip uptown to the jewelery store.

She was a little nervous but sat like a very excited big girl. See that cute little smirk on her face? ;)


Starting to get a little more nervous...


Utter shock came seconds later....

As soon as the piercing was done, she stuck that precious little lip out, slid off the chair, ran to my arms, and burried her face in my chest.



It took quite awhile for her to be excited about them.


p.s. She does really love them now! And is very excited that they don't hurt anymore ;)

RidingInTheRain

Our family loves to ride bikes.
We love to check out new bike trails...(so let me know if you know of any good ones!).
Most of the time we end up riding our bikes anywhere we go in town.
Tonight was no exception. We stopped in to visit some friends who have been gone on vacation for the last couple weeks and then headed uptown for supper.
The ride back home, however, was a little wet.
We rode the whole way back home in a torrential down pour! The rain was coming down so hard, Kaicee kept yelling, "Ouch! It feels like bee's are stinging me!"
We all laughed as we tried to keep our eyes open enough to see where we were going.
By the time we got home we were all soaking wet!



...oh, what fun times!

Chicago

The girls earned some FREE tickets to Six Flags Great America so we decided to make the most of it and head to Chicago for a few days.
We started off at Six Flags...
Taylor rode her first big coaster. She liked it but did NOT want to do it again.

Brooks tried to trick Kaicee into riding a coaster that went upside down, but she saw the loop while they were waiting in line and they ended up with us over at the pirate ride instead.

We were finally able to convince her to ride American Eagle, the largest wooden coaster. Breck, Taylor, and I hung out at the County Fair.


Taylor looked forward all day to riding the Carousel before we headed to the water park.

Our day ended at Hurricane Harbor water park.

Followed by Lego Land...

All the animals were made completely out of Lego's.

Taylor insisted that I take her picture by Santa.



The best part of Lego Land...we got in for FREE! Normally it's $20/adult and $15/child. One of the managers let us use his family pass because it was his last day and he hadn't used it yet. Nothing like a good deal to make the day even better!

Oh yeah, we stopped at Red Mango for some all nat-ur-el frozen yogurt...YUMMO! It was the best ever!

...and dinner at Medieval Times.

We cheered for the blue knight.

Taylor caught one of the flowers he threw out to the girls.

Our knight chose Kaicee to receive his ribbon, "Queen of beauty and honor."

Kaicee was so excited to have her picture taken with our knight after the dinner.

We ended up at Willis (Sears) Tower....


I am extremely afraid of heights so I was worried that I would chicken out when it came time to stand on the glass lookout ledge...but it was so cool to stand out there and look straight down. 104 stories below! And it made for some awesome pictures too!

You can't see the city in the background, but we'll take what we can get when we actually get a picture of just the two of us together!

Our last night there, we stayed in the Magnificent Mile and walked down to American Girl. We walked out with only a catalog for each girl so they could start their Christmas wish lists.

And the girls favorite part of the entire trip.....
Icee drinks on the way home!

What a great time away!

ToiletPaper

Some people choose to put the roll of toilet paper on the holder with the toilet paper on top.

This is the correct way.

Other people choose to put the toilet paper on the roll with the toilet paper on the bottom.

That is the wrong way.

Still others choose another way....


At this point, I am excited that she didn't just leave the empty roll ;)

FromTheEyesOfA4YearOld

Sometimes the view from a 4 year olds eyes are much different from what we are used to seeing. Here is what happens when one of those 4 year olds grabs your camera and starts snapping pictures...

mommy & Breck


gran


daddy


....not too bad.

family car and gran's house


daddy's dirty work shoes


...you just never know what will entice them.

Then again, with the help of some older hands, you may end up with a pretty darn cute self-portrait.


...or two.