The little race

I've heard that signing up for a race several months in the future is one of the best ways to get you committed to a new running routine. I did just that. I signed up for a half marathon in October. I also signed up for three other shorter races in the months before it. I have two 5Ks and a 10 K before the 'big' race.

The first of these was a 5K that was Saturday. The kids and I have been calling this race the little race.

I ran with one of my two workout buddies and her hubby. We also ran with some families from Bee's preschool.

The kids did not want to go. They didn't want me to run. Bee said I shouldn't race if I wasn't going to win. I assured her I wasn't going to win but was going to run.

We had to promise doughnuts. So here they are eating their doughnuts while I stretch. We're healthy like that.


I got at the back of the starting gate, behind a lot of walkers. I wore a chip on my shoe, so I know that my time as 31:05. It was 163rd place. Close to winning Bee, close. Yes, I'm a goon. I was just waving at the kids and holding my Ipod, but look pretty silly. Sometime mid race I had to ditch the Ipod arm band and just hold the darn thing. I learned a lot from this race and will know better for next time. (Hubby said the first group of runners came in at 16ish minutes. I can't even imagine!)

Post race they had bananas, apples, cinnamon rolls and ice pops for us. This picture reminds me of those nice pictures of people post delivery of their baby and they look like they just got up, put on some make up and laid in bed for a picture. Post delivery I looked a mess like I'd just swam in a swamp. Some of the runners looked fresh and lovely post race, I looked a mess. I might have secretly swam in the stinky river we ran by. I did learn that I better work more outdoor runs into my workouts. It's drastically different from running on the treadmill.

They had a kids dash. Both of my kids said that they wouldn't participate but I signed them up anyway. Just in case. Once they saw that kids were getting medals, Bee was all in. Lou took more persuasion but didn't want to not get a medal if Bee was going to get one.

They both ran it and got medals. Bee was surprisingly fast. She beat all the kids in her age division. She asked if maybe she'd get a trophy, but I didn't see any.


This race was the Colon Cancer Awareness Walk/Run. One of the families in Bee's preschool class last year became all to familiar with this type of cancer. The sweet mama of three little girls fought cancer during the school year- something which not every other parent even knew about. She was so strong and put on such a face when she was at school, which was just about every single day at drop off and pick up. After her treatment and surgeries, she is now cancer free. She was such an inspiration watching (and getting to know) this past year. Her oldest daughter is going to be in Bees class next year and her middle daughter is going to be in class with Lou (hopefully). We look forward to another year with them. We also plan to do this race again next year. Bee said I can try to win next year.

bed questions and a giveaway

Does anyone have bunk beds? I remember my brother having a set and I think my sister and I slept in them at one house when we had to share a room. I'm thinking they make them differently now. I remember falling off of the top more than one time. Lou has been in a 'big boy' bed for some time. He has a frame, but he doesn't have a headboard or foot board.

I'm considering getting a bunk bed. He's only three so he'd sleep on the bottom. Is he too young? I'm sure there would be lots of climbing to the top. Does anyone have a bunk bed advice? I'm kind of looking at this one.

Also- I have a giveaway coming in a few days. It's for a gift certificate to CSN online store. Not enough to buy a bunk bed, but absolutely enough for a fun kitchen gadget or something for the home.

unrelated photo: Someone kept ringing my doorbell and running while I was typing this up. I finally stuck the camera out the door and captured the culprit. Gotcha. Silly Bee.

Time to eat

I never thought I'd have such interest in broccoli or certainly that's I'd write about it so much. But Alas, here's another post concerning broccoli. We got to cut and eat the top head of one of our plants last week. Bee asked if she could eat it right away. After all, we've been eating peas right form the garden.

Oh honey, there are probably little worms we need to pick off!

There they are!
Sure enough, there were 4 on this little head. Reminds me how 'treated' most of our food is. I could pick and pick these guys off all day long and there would still be some left.

It's a good thing we don't have to eat from what I can provide! Here's the 'bounty' we each got tonight.
Here's the difference from our garden broccoli and some store bought stuff I picked up to supplement.

This is close to the last of the sugar snap peas we see. We've eaten several each day and have enjoyed them immensely. Next year, we will at least double the amount we planted this year.

I love to see these little baby growths. These are yummy yellow squash.

Can't wait. Seriously, can't wait for the tomatoes.

This guy is going to be funny, a black tomato!

Ok, so we can't eat these, but they are decorating our kitchen table and almost every surface I can fit a vase on in the house.


I am enjoying these too. These tiger lilies are my favorite flower. Hubby grabbed these in Missouri on his way home from an appointment this week. He's a smart guy and knows they are my favorite. Turns out our neighbors have a bunch growing in their backyard. Guess he won't have to wait for out of state work appointments to keep them fresh for me.

math and stuff

In addition to the hundreds club pages we are working on, we are also working on problem solving books that I made up. I shared once before about my not so secret love for Read-Draw-Solve books. That is what our problem solving books are based on.

I made four different books (the kiddos are going into pre-K, K, 1 and 3). The three older kids have similar books. The 'problem' is similar, but the difficulty level is different. Lou's book is different entirely.

Here's an example from earlier in the week. Here's the kindergartners book. Hers reads: "Mom bought 3 tennis balls. We had 2 at home. How many do we have now?" She is to draw and solve and write the answer. I want her to start adding the label too. I guess I forgot to tell her this day.

Here is the 1st graders book. Hers reads: "Amy bought 3 cans of tennis balls. Each can has 3 balls. How many did she buy?" She is to draw it, write a number sentence for it, and then write out the answer with label.

Here is the 3rd graders book. Hers reads: "Annie bought 4 cans of tennis balls. Each held 5 balls. How many balls did she buy?" She is draw it out, write out a number sentence and answer with label (Looks like we forgot the label here too).

Lou's book is much different. He did a few this day and then went onto something else. His is all about counting in various ways.

The books seem to be going over well. The kids keep them in their buckets and they go to them when they finish their 100s club page. The more prepared and 'automated' things can be, the better it works. Four kids on different work is almost harder than 29 on mostly the same work.

bear with me

I've retyped the title a dozen time. Surely it's not 'bare' with me... that might mean something different entirely. Something scandalous. It must be 'bear' with me. Regardless. Sorry, I have more pictures just of my kids. and hubby. and random grass.

On Lou's actual birthday, we did a little fishing. We took Grandpa and Grandma. I don't fish, I took pictures. The story ends with us leaving with 13 ticks. Yep, you read it right. 13 ticks. Only one required a hot match and some tricky extraction maneuvers. Poor Lou. Happy Birthday buddy, next year we go to the mall.






(Hubby broke out the camo hat... he doesn't get to break it out often)

(Lou stole all the trail mix)

Happy Birthday Lou

He's three! He asked for a monster jam birthday party. He is such a laid back guy and asks for little, so I was happy to oblige.

I made ticket style invitations using clipart I found through google images.


The party was in the backyard and I didn't want anyone to have to be posted in the house, so we directed the party guests.




This was the big splurge, although it wasn't really as much as I had thought.

It did require our neighbors truck to go pick up and drop off. They had 50 inflatables to choose from!

The bouncy house came with a snow cone machine. How lucky. We made up truck sounding names, cherry bomb, grape crusher, blue thunder, orange eliminator, All American (red and blue) and the mish mash monster madness (all).

It was a hot day, they were very refreshing!

Lou had the idea to let the kids decorate their own cupcakes. There were lots of sprinkles going on. He refused to let us sing and said no to candles. I considered mud pudding dessert to go more wtih the monster truck theme, but he didn't want that.

We played pin the license plate on the truck. The kids each decorated their own license plate just before we played. I ordered monster truck tattoos and stickers as prizes from ebay, which everyone got plenty of.


Lou wanted to play duck, duck, goose. We called it "Spike, Spike, Brutus" after two of his favorite trucks.

We had some monster truck coloring sheets available for when kids needed to take a little break from jumping. There are some links here and here.

I also had a game idea that we didn't get to. We were going to play some kind of matching game where you matched the truck name to a picture of the truck. The kids were so busy jumping that we would not have gotten to it anyway.

We also considered making an obstacle course for the kids to run. We had plenty to do without it. Had we not had the bouncy house, we would have done it for sure. My kids love obstacle courses.

The next morning was the actual birthday and he opened gifts from us. Bee got him water balloons. They were both pretty excited about it.

Happy Birthday big guy!