Unofficial "Half"

I ran my unofficial Half Marathon yesterday morning. There is a real race happening this morning that my friend Abby signed up for. I trained along with her, for moral support and so I could have a little inspiration. I usually try to run a half marathon sometime after each baby is born and since I hadn't run one after Luke, it was time.

I've had a cold for the last couple of days, but I got a lot of sleep the night before and felt a little better, so I just went for it. I'm so glad I did. It turned out to be a great run. The weather was cool, I ran strong the whole time, it was exhilarating. My unofficial time was 1:53:42.

In other news, we had a nice relaxing Thanksgiving dinner with the Tsarks.

And we've spent a lot time doing this..

and this....

and this...

and this...

And now Luke and I are home sick from church. He has a cough and yucky nose. We dropped the kids off to meet up with dad at church a little while ago and Luke cried the whole way home saying "chur, chur,.... mer mer, chur." He knows when he's being left out and he hates it. It so cute, it's hard not to feel sorry for him when his little world gets shaken so. Now he's napping and I just might do the same.

Spoils of the day

Thanksgiving is tomorrow which means today was a baking day. We didn't have too much to do and the kids were home from school so they did a lot of it. We started it all with rice crispy treat turkeys. Th kids have been dying to make these since the beginning of October. Max and Mer made up the batch of rice crispy treats by themselves.
Everybody helped out with the turkey contstruction. Well, Luke didn't help, he just ate candy. They actually made it waiting until after dinner to eat them. It was the perfect pre-thanksgiving treat.
I made some pumpkin scones that I've been wanting to try. They'll be for breakfast tomorrow along with some fresh fruit. I snuck an edge and got a taste of the ginger sugar topping. Man they are going to be good.

Meredith made me a cherry pie from her Bake it Up cookbook.

Doesn't it look delicious!

With sugar being a substantial ingredient in all of these recipes, including the fresh cranberry sauce we boiled up today, I had better start the day off with a nice bit of exercise. Happy Thanksgiving!! We're ready, are you??

A little Holiday decor

I finished up a couple of projects tonight. I shouldn't technically be sewing for myself right now with christmas projects and one more farmer's market coming up, but I keep seeing all the cute stuff Liz is making and I just had to get in on the action. I made a table runner that I can enjoy for one more week...
and a Merry Christmas banner that will be officially hung after Thanksgiving. Thank you Liz for the inspiration and tips! I love how they turned out!!

What's going on

Jack's last day of art class was Thursday. Thanks to art class we have accumulated quite a bit of thanksgiving decor. His last projects were a place mat, turkey hat, and 2 edible turkeys. He was sad to be done. (though I think he was more sad that I was making him pose for the picture). I'm thinking about putting him in for the next 3 week session. We'll see.

We took a trip to the movie's last night to see "Cloudy with the Chance of Meatballs." The kids have been working on filling up a marble jar for their completed chores in order to go. It took them about 2 1/2 weeks of hard work. We luckily caught the last showing before it went out of the theaters.

And finally, it is serious project time over here as I am gearing up for last farmer's market and Christmas. I have a few things in the works but this morning I finished some pajama pants for Mer and Max that they have been waiting for. Here they are ready for bed tonight.
Doug is home for the weekend now and did a little project of his own tonight. He hung his guitars. I wish I had a before shot. The shelf was where the guitars are and the guitars and amps were shoved into the corner. Good work Doug.

A little Girly Influence

Sunday morning Meredith was at it again turning her little brother into a little sister, Sally was his name this time. A manicure/pedicure, out fit, and doo. Jack was having fun but he scraped off all his fingernail polish with his teeth later that day at church. Mer must be rubbing off a little because Monday Jack changed his clothes and put on the wonder woman shirt. He did inform me that the w's didn't stand for wonder woman but he couldn't decide what they did stand for. And later that day he peeled the w's off. So now we have a shiny muscle tee.
Here's a picture of him on his bike. He actually started by himself yesterday and I was videoing Luke when he yelled that he did it. Here's the video I don't think you can make it out but he said "look Mom I started it."

And this his how Luke poses for the camera. He also likes wearing necklaces, thank you Mer.

Art, a Performer, a Biker, and a Candy-a-holic

So I took a 2 hour nap on the couch after the kids went to sleep tonight. And now I can't sleep. I would like to be sewing, unfortunately the machine is set up where Doug is sleeping....bummer. So here are a few things going on around here...

The kids were required to draw pictures of them helping in their family for primary on sunday. This is what they came up with...."Helping Luke find Elmo" by Max

"Me doing the dishes by Mer

"Helping Mer put her clothes away" by Jack

Jack can ride a two wheeler. This kid is a natural. On Friday he decided he wanted to try riding without training wheels. I took them off for him in the morning and since I didn't have time at that moment to practice with him I told him to just push himself around on the back porch and practice keeping the bike up. Later that afternoon Doug went out in the front with him and ran behind him a couple of times. He said after the first go at it he didn't even need him to hold on any longer. He could just do it. I saw for myself on Saturday when he took a couple of laps around the culdesac with me running behind him just in case. Then tonight again he rode back and forth in front of our house and practiced his stops and starts. I'm thinking in total he has logged maybe 1 hour on his bike now and he is practically independent. This is amazing to me after having taught Mer and Max by endlessly holding onto their seats or shirts so they could do it....killing my back in the process. Good job Jack... that's one big step on the path to being a big kid. I'll post a picture tomorrow.
Max was in his 2nd grade play on Monday night. It was called "The Big Cheese" he didn't have a part but he did an excellent job in the chorus. He has been singing the songs around the house for weeks now. It was fun to watch him perform them.I am just so grateful that my little Luke is a good sleeper. He is a champ at going to sleep. He holds his Elmo in one hand and his sippy cup in the other. I can lay him down wide awake and he just goes to sleep. His sippy spilled out all over him tonight and he cried out. I went in and changed his clothes and laid him by Doug as I changed his sheets. He just calmly tolerated it all and went back to sleep with no protest.Luke does demand and protest for other things, however. Since Halloween, we can't say the word candy or he'll beg and cry for it, and when you tell him no he throws a serious fit. If any one mentions the word candy or ice cream at the dinner table (to question whether we are having any) he pushes his food away, begs for it and won't eat another bite. So mentioning dessert at the dinner table is forbidden until Luke has eaten his food. Oh, and he'll always go for a lollipop.

Soccer comes to an end!!!

Today was officially the last day of soccer. Mer had an 8:30 game, she played hard and scored a couple of goals.

Max had a game at 10:00 where he played hard and had a specactular assist.

Luke passed the time wandering around

Mer passed the time entertaining the little boys and letting them pull her aroundThen it was off to Max's soccer party where Coaches Doug and Mike passed out the trophies.

Mer's soccer party was last Saturday.

Last night we did another craft show. Here was our set up. A couple of my bags weren't up yet, I still had to sew on the flowers at this point. I sold 4 bags and my Thanksgiving banner.
Since it was local, Doug and the kids came to see us and brought Frosties. He knew I ran long that morning and I wouldn't have a chance to get a long run dessert. He definitely scored points with that move. Thank you Doug!!
Oh and one more thing. Jack can ride a two wheeler!!!! But I'll save that story for another post.