Decemeber 2013

Instead of trying to back post all of December I'm just going to add it all in one. At the end of November I was on the hunt for a Christmas book that had a scripture, song and story. I remember Mom having one when we were growing up and I desperately wanted to do that for our family. In addition though I wanted to do something with the kids each night in December. Some of the things had specific nights to do them on like open Christmas jammies (Christmas Eve), but most of them were whatever we felt like doing. Here are some pictures of our activities.

 

We strung Froot Loops for the kids tree:

 

 

Decorated our big tree:

 

Made Snowflakes one night so they would snow in the kitchen:

 

Attended our Ward Christmas Party which Santa came to:

 

 

Decorated gingerbread houses and men:

 

Of course we did our annual Christmas Eve dinner at McDonalds, which the kids love cause they have the play place to themselves. Then we looked at light and home to open Christmas Eve jammies:

 

And of course Christmas Morning:



 

 

The big items this year were the Nintendo 2DS the older 3 got. Ruby got everything "Doc McStuffins", Emily loves her 'Kidz Bop" CD's and Mordecai loves his Megazord. Ivy didn't really care. Mike loved his riding pants I got him and I loved my down feather pillow inserts Mike got me and the baseboards he has installed. It was pretty low key day which we loved.

 

New Years Eve we were invited to a couple of places, but since we were all getting over the last of influenza we all picked up 1-2 weeks before Christmas, we opted to stay home and have treats and play games as a family. Mike has been home from work for 2 weeks and we all have loved it. Sleeping in until 8:00 a.m., being lazy in the mornings and just hanging out with each other. It has been fun.



Thanksgiving/Mike's Birthday

We had a pretty low key Thanksgiving/Mike's birthday. Felicia and Tom arrived Tuesday night so yesterday we picked Mike up for lunch to celebrate his birthday. This whole week the kids and I sang him "Happy Birthday" but we said it "Happy Birthday Week" and tried to do something special for him each day.

Today we had cracked wheat, which was his choice for breakfast, then we just had a slow day while the turkey cooked. Felicia and Tom headed to his sisters house for Thanksgiving dinner since all of his family was in town except one sister. We had Thanksgiving with the Smith family, Bowen's and Sister Murphy. After dessert we all went to our own homes and then we celebrated Mike's birthday as a family. After the kids were in bed Mike, Felicia, Tom, and I played games and just chatted.

I am very blessed to have Mike as my husband, best friend, father of our children, and many more things. He is such a hard worker and wonderful man who honors his priesthood, and loves the Gospel.

Pumpkin Pie 10k

Today I ran my second official 10k race. I had been training these last 2 weeks with running the 6.1 miles on Saturday's and 3.1 miles during the week and also doing leg workouts with Mike. Two weekends ago Marci, Elisa, and Mine and I went out on the trail where Mine and I did our first 10k. I knew I wouldn't be able to stay with the others because of my breathing, so my goal was to run the majority of it, which I did. I only ended up walking about 2 minutes total and that was after mile 4.5. My total time that day was 1:15:39 and we ran 6.34 miles. Last Saturday I went out to the same trail to run again, but this time by myself. I wanted to test out my new inhaler to see if it would really help. It did, I shaved off about 2 1/2 minutes off my time. I ran 6.29 miles in 1:12:51. Then this past Thursday night Marci and I needed out of our houses so we met up at the Paul Derda Rec center so we could run a 5k. That night was the fastest I've ever run a 5k with a time of 30:01. That means my average pace was 9:41/mile. Pretty good for me.

Anyway, Marci, Elisa, and Tala and I headed downtown to City Park this morning about 9:30 a.m. My goal was to run the 10k in 70 minutes or less. By phone GPS I ran it in 68:14 which beat my goal time, by my chip time I finished in 1:09:59 so still beat my goal...by a second. HAHA. I think that I will probably run another 10k this winter and my goal for that will be to just PR. I sure enjoy running.

Halloween 2013