Saturday, December 12, 2009

Fabric & Pattern Giveaway

My friend Jan's blog mentioned a great giveaway from Green Fairy Quilts. Check it out!


And check out all the other cool show and tell projects on Jan's blog from their quilt group - which my mom is part of. I love these ladies!

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Quilts for my nieces

Two new nieces were born in August. I was able to finish Kaylin's quilt in September - pink, green and brown flannel. I love the colors! I found the fabric up in Duluth in July.



And I finally finished Izabel's quilt a few weeks ago - magenta tone pinks and greens. I love the elephant and heart fabric I found when were were on vacation this summer (Perham quilt shop) - so adorable!!


November card club - holiday tags

This month's card club was actually tags, rather than cards. I love it - I'm all set for gift tags this year!! Here are mine. I made plenty of extra for myself :)





Sunday, November 15, 2009

Leaves

Last weekend, it was beautiful weather. Mana was shooting a wedding, so the boys and I raked up leaves outside and had a blast running and jumping in the pile. I love these two pictures. The first one is a rare photo op.


Monday, November 2, 2009

Halloween Fun!

Lots of pictures and stories to post from Halloween

Zander's Kindergarten class
I volunteered for Zander's kindergarten class. Mrs. Gindele was out sick (had a sub), so it was a bit chaotic... not that it wouldn't have been chaotic anyhow. When I arrived, I helped the other parent volunteers prep the room and fun stations. When the kids arrived in the room, they were all getting their costumes on...except for my kid. He wanted nothing to do with his Spiderman costume. I tried a couple times, but he just got more upset. They paraded around the school in their costumes (except for my kid). Then it was time for some halloween activities. I was assigned to the cookie decorating table. Why did I get stuck with the most multi-tasking - and the most focus on being germ free (since it involved food). I caught two kids licking the frosting off their knifes and then try to put it back into the frosting tub - aaaahh! I put a stop to that real quick.



Daycare party
I wasn't able to attend the daycare party (quarter end craziness at work), but sounds like the kids had fun. Look at the cutie frog and Spiderman. Zander and I put together treat bags. They turned out so cute!




Spooktacular 2009
Eric & Erica Ripken hosted Spooktacular 2009 and it was a blast! I haven't had that much fun in a long time! It was so fun to see everyone in costume. I realized that it had been about 5 years since we dressed up. Mana and I were robots - from Flight of the Conchords. Mana gets all the credit for making them. The highlight of the night was the live performance by Stranger In The Alps. They were AWESOME!! Take a listen (and look) to one of their songs below. (I made the video through iMovie). Mana's not a bad drummer for having never played until 2 years ago. **You can become a fan of Strangers In The Alps in Facebook**







Halloween Day/Night
Halloween day,w e carved pumpkins and visited my parents. After dark, we took the kids out trick-or-treating.




Saturday, October 24, 2009

2 yr, 7.5 month comparison

From time to time, I like to go through iPhoto and find pictures of the boys at the same age. It's fun to see the comparison and see how *different* they really are - despite the fact that people say they look so much alike. So, here they are - both at 2 years and 7.5 months.

Zander - Jan 2007


Mason - Oct 2009

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Zander Update

I have not been great at updating my blog lately, but wanted to post an update on how Zander is doing in school - otherwise I know I'll forget when I think about the "good ol' days".

The first week of kindergarten went really well. Mana drops Zander off and the first week of school, the kids congregated on the front lawn with the teacher. Then, the teacher would lead the class into the school. After that first week, it was a normal routine. So for Zander, that means Mana dropping him off. Zander insisted that he come into the school and bring him to the locker area. Sure, no big deal. The kid needed a little help finding the classroom. Well, after a few times of this, Zander started crying when Mana tried to leave. It has gotten progressively worse. I did a few drop-offs lately so I could experience first-hand what Mana was dealing with. It's at the point where he has to be brought to the class and we have to literally pry him off our leg and then run like heck out of the school and hope he doesn't chase us down the hall.... but he does. So, we have to walk him back until a teacher can take him and hold him back from running after us.

I feel horrible - and confused at the same time. How can a kid hate school this early on. And especially when he's doing so well. At conferences, his teacher said that he is one of the smartest kids in class. He's one of only 3 kids that can recognize all their upper and lowercase letters. That wasn't a surprise to me. Honestly, I thought ALL kindergartners knew this - guess not. He's also one of only 2 kids that can count past 50. Again not surprised. I'm often entertained with his counting into the late hundreds on our morning drives to Lizzy's. The teacher also said he's very participatory. He's always raising his hand to answers questions and he's very helpful. He doesn't act up at all. They have a green/yellow/red stoplight program each day. At the beginning, you start out at green and if you do anything bad (not follow rules, not kind to friends, etc), you move to yellow. Break the law again and you're red. He has been green every day, so he's a good kid. Just hates the separation thing! I think a small part is that he knows that Mana and Mason head out to run errands and he thinks he's missing out of the "fun".

I've been working with the teacher on action plans to turn this situation around. She's been great. Our next plan of attack is to involve the school psychologist - and use a sticker chart at school for his successful drop-offs. Zander met her today and she will be meeting Zander at his locker for a few days. And then a few times after that, she will meet Zander at the school entrance. Hopefully, we can "wean" him from needing the support to get into school. I know he can do it. He's a smart kid. He just needs to gain some independence.

29.8... again. Seriously?!

No, I didn't run 29.8 miles. That's my weight loss I've been stuck at for 3 weeks now. I just gotta get that extra .2 pounds off so I can say I'm down 30.

Monday, October 5, 2009

My first 5K!!


On Saturday, October 3rd, I ran the Twin Cities 5K - my first ever 5k!!! I have been training for this race for several months using the couch-to-5k app for my iPhone. I swear by it. Anyhow back to the race. My dad ran with me. (To the left is our pre-race photo - before we got all sweaty) And my mom, Marissa, Jason, Zander and Mason cheered us on which was awesome!
It was a super cool experience. The race went out ~1.5 miles, turned around and came back the same route. Right out of the gate, we were packed like sardines. If it would have been this packed the entire race, it would have sucked. But it loosened up right away as we approached the hill. It was pretty gradual, but it lasted for over 1/2 a mile - ugghh! There were plenty of people linign the street and one home owner had some 80's music blaring. That was my comfort zone. I'm so used to running to music. This was the first time I didn't run to music, but I survived.

As we passed the 1 mile mark, a guy was shouting out the time.... "14 minutes." What?! It took me 14 minutes to run one mile?! Well, not really. It took over a minute to even get to the start line (when my chip crossed) AND that first mile was mostly uphill. So, I told myself to relax. After all, I wasn't worried about my time. I just wanted to run the whole thing, no walking. Also as we hit the 1 mile marker, the lead runner passed us. Holy crap, he's fast. Gotta keep moving. The runners thinned out as the race went on which was nice. I could not believe how many kids were running - and they were passing right by me. Some of them were just a few minutes behind the lead runner - crazy!

As we approached the "loop", I thought, 'halfway, I can DO this!' My dad talked a lot while we were running. Honestly, I didn't hear a lot of what he said with my ultra concentration and millions of things running through my head. A few times in the race, I had to mentally pinch myself... Holy crap, I'm running a race. A 5K, that's over 3 miles. Holy crap! Two months ago, I could not even run for 5 minutes. Then we passed a guy who was running and juggling at the same time. Crazy, but made me laugh.

As we kept running, more kids passed me, but I didn't care. Then, we hard a familiar voice - it was Jason. He had run up about a mile to find us and cheer us on. Then he ran back to warn our fans that we were approaching. I kept up the same pace pretty much the whole run. Soon, I could see the big hill - downhill this time. Not a fan of hills, neither uphill nor down.

As we came off the downhill, I spotted my fans - mom, Marissa, Jason, Zander and Mason!! Again super emotional! We passed them and I thought...'OMG, I'm almost there.' In my training I had only run for 30 minutes, so I got overwhelmed with emotion at the thought that this was the longest I had EVER run... EVER! At about 100 yards from the finish line, I picked up the pace and all of the sudden I found myself sprinting to the finish line. My adrenaline kicked in and I gave it my all at the very end.



I crossed the finish line with 39:07 on the clock. I was glad to come in under 40 minutes, but I knew that my "chip" time would be even better since I didn't cross the start line for a minute or two. I ran my first 5k in 37:40. So, what's next? I really want to do another race. I've gotta get me some winter running gear. The capris and t=shirt are not going to cut it in this Minnesota weather. It would be fun to do a themed race - like a Halloween, Thanksgiving or Christmas one.

Thanks Dad, for running with me!!

Friday, September 25, 2009

Running and weight loss update

Boy, I've sure been neglecting my blog lately. Thanks a lot facebook!

Running update

I'm still going strong with my training for the Twin Cities 5K on October 2nd. I swear by the C25K (couch to 5K) program. I'm on week 8 of 9 and I NEVER thought I'd be running for 25+ minutes with no walking. I have never even run more than 5 minutes straight prior to C25K.

Back on my birthday (Sept 4th), I bought myself a pair of new shoes. I went to Run 'n Fun in St. Paul. I tried on several brands and models and landed on a pair of Brooks. They were $80 and feel awesome on my feet. (Everyone told me I can't be buying a $30 pair on sale at Kohl's). I have wide feet (boo!), so there weren't too many to pick from which made it a little easier.



During week 5 or 6 of my training, I decided to continue with my step aerobics classes at work. Cross-training is good for your body, right? Well, not when you're clumsy like me and twist your ankle and fall on your butt. My ankle and tailbone were sore for days and I iced them a LOT. After about 5 days of "rest", I decided to run again and it felt just fine. I have continued to run without pain, so that's good. Tailbone is healed, but ankle still hurts every once and awhile. I'm just a lot more cautious. And no more classes until after the race. I WILL be running this race - come hell or high water!


Quick WW update
I have lost a total of 26+ pounds since May. I'm pretty much on track with where I wanted to be at this point. I'm still in Weight Watchers and really think it's a joint effort between the running and WW.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Zander's 1st day of school

Just a few photos from Zander's first day of kindergarten.





Thursday, September 10, 2009

Meeting Brixton

Our friends Eric & Erica had a baby (Brixton) over a month ago and the boys and I finally got to meet him. He's SO cute and the boys (Mason especially) were excited to see him.

Mini vacation

Wow, long time, no post. Lots to share. In mid-August, we took a mini family vacation. It started with 2 days at my sister's in-laws' cabin on Eagle Lake near Battle Lake, MN. The kids had a blast - from fishing to boating and s'mores to sandcastles!






After the cabin, we took it more rustic and went camping. Zander camped one night in the backyard a month ago, but other than that, this was the first time camping as a family. It went about as well as could be expected for a 5 and 2.5 year-old. We hit 3 MN state parks bringing our total to 63. Only 8 more left to conquer the state!