{Day One of C25K}

Yesterday was day one of my Couch to 5K (C25K) program. My friend Kristen suggested that I blog about it, so that way I'm being held accountable for keeping this up.... good point! If you don't see anything on my blog, you've gotta tell me!

C25K is basically a program that helps a person become a runner over 8 weeks. I watched a few weeks ago how the Biggest Loser contestants went home, and one of them (Laura) said that Jillian told her that running was the fastest way to lose weight. Since I've been trying to lose weight.... running might help a bit more. AND, since we have this amazing trail behind our house now, and I've been taking the girls a few times a week to ride their bikes there, it just makes sense for me to start running it so I can keep up w/ them a little. Now, I don't think I want to run a 5K (I might... but it's not why I want to run). I just want to be able to *like* running, and to get in shape faster.

So, week 1 is walk 5 minutes briskly, then jog for 60 seconds, walk for 90 seconds, then repeat w/ the jog for 60 seconds, walk for 90, etc. The program says to do this for 20 minutes, but I did it for 30 minutes. Towards the end of my 30 minutes, I was tired. I found the running uphill was hard..... very hard. And I'm very thankful for my sports bra. I didn't suffer a concussion w/ my bouncing boobs. I have to repeat this 3 x this week. I will do the second one tomorrow, and report back. I think one thing that will eventually help me is a sportswatch, or something that I can see the seconds better. My regular watch was a little hard to read. I've also found some podcasts that has music to it in the intervals (60 seconds/90 seconds) so you know when to run/walk. Might have to download those onto Katie's ipod. I ended my run/walk with a brisk (OK, I was dragging) walk back home and so altogether I did this for 40 - 45 minutes.

{Modge Podge}

This will be a bunch of ramblings....

First of all, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my brother. I saw this Lambourghini right next to us on Saturday on the way to Katie's soccer game, and I embarrassed Mike by taking a picture of it. I remember when my brother & I (coincidentally named Mike as well) were younger, he was fascinated w/ Lambourghini's. I doubt he reads my blog.... he never comments. Maybe I should share some stories of him.......

Then, Mike ordered himself a new truck. His old truck was slowly dying at 146,000 miles. He got it in on Saturday. He's loving it (so am I!).


After we picked the truck up, we headed to Katie's soccer game. It had been about 2 years since she had played, maybe three years? She used to be very aggressive (playing with all boys can do that to a girl). Yeah, not so much anymore. She really girlified her soccer playing. Can you say "EEK" when the ball comes to you? She can! I don't know what the term is called (where you hit the ball w/ your head?), but the ball right at her, and she hit it w/ her head. Course, she had a headband on (rubber) and she was so worried about her hair. ::rolling eyes:: I had to call out a few times "don't worry about your hair!" I think I added in a few "don't be such a girl!" gasp! Still, it was the first game of the season, so I anticipate by the end of the season she'll be racing after the ball again.

This is one of the few times she did kick the ball...

Madison complained the entire game that she wanted an ice cream bar. I quote her: "EVERYONE has one Mom!" Yeah, for someone who made an entire turkey sandwich before we left, and only ate one bite and said "I'm not hungry".... she's not getting an ice cream bar! Instead, she drank the majority of the water the entire game.

Note to self.... bring more water next time.

{It's been 12 years....}

Once upon a time, there was a prince who lived in the land called Arizona. He traveled the countryside looking for his one & only true love. He ended up in the land called Missouri, where he found his princess. They courted, and married 6 months later for time & all eternity. Twelve years and two little princesses later... they are still happily married and working on their happily ever after.

OK... that sounded corny, but after all the Princess bedtime stories & movies that I've read & watched with the girls for the past 11 years, I thought it was a little appropriate. :D Mike is probably rolling his eyes now.....

Happy Anniversary Sweetie!

You still make my heart skip a beat!

Why I love Mike....

He is a very hardworking man who provides for his family

He has a beautiful SMILE

He is very STRONG!

He is a jack of all trades kind of guy

He can fix ANYTHING!

He loves the outdoors

He loves his little girls and is VERY protective of them

There isn't anything he wouldn't do for his friends & family

He has a strong testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ

He puts up with me & my ramblings............

{Reading Restaurant}

Welcome to Alamo Cafe!

"May I take your order?"

Last Friday Madison's class had "Reading Restaurant". Tons of parents & grandparents (and aunts & uncles... neighbors..... you get the idea.....everyone under the moon came) showed up for this most amazing event of the 1st grade class. Yes... sitting on those teeny tiny chairs that you pray you won't fall out of, with your knees drawn up to your chest.

Maddie was most excited about this activity. We show up.... Maddie is our "waitress". She shows us to our seats. We choose from a menu of books they have been reading all year long. Each book shows the payment. For example, for "Madeline" she gets an "Awesome Job" and a pat on the back. She then takes her little paper plate, picks her book up, places it on her plate, and comes back holding the plate with the new book on it, waitress style! She reads us another book, asks us what was our next order, then we start the process all over again!

After it is all over, we eat on yummy cookies & ::gag:: Capri Sun's. The mini water bottles were snatched up pretty fast. darn

All in all we had a wonderful time listening to Madison read & show off her reading skills!

Poor Mike, always the subject of my picture taking when there isn't a kid in sight..... let's work on a smile next time, sweetie!

{Bitten....}

Yes, I bought Twilight.

I am not ashamed of that. At.All.

Yes, Mike watched it with me Saturday night. He lived. And semi-liked it. But he thought it was weird. Whatever.

Yes, my girls watched it with us halfway before we chased them to bed. Yes, Madison woke up early Sunday morning and tried to finish it before church. Yes, I threatened her if she didn't wear the outfit of my choice she wouldn't be able to finish Twilight (and yes, I'm a mean mom). and Yes, they did watch Twilight twice Sunday afternoon.

Yes, my girls laughed out LOUD when they saw Edward sleeping in the hospital bed.... "MOM! Edward is asleep and he said HE DOESN'T SLEEP... EVER!"

and Yes.... Katie turned her Teen Bop magazine poster (thanks Aunt Marcie!) to display Rob Pattinson as Edward (instead of the Jonas Brothers) on her wall. Whew! Eye candy for me!

She is bitten...... (but Maddie thinks he's Uhhhhgly!)

{Day 5 and to the end}

I thought I'd finish out the trip in this post... and it might be a little long. I have other pictures to download of stuff happening in the girls' life, and other funny things they have done/said that I want to get to posting before I forget it.

OK.... Wednesday rolls around on our trip. In Kansas City, Quik Trip (a gas station) makes the most phenomenal long johns (donut). It is one of the requested foods that Madison wanted to eat. (That & whalcomale {which is how Maddie spells it}..."guacamole"). My dad gets up and grabs some of these delicious super long donuts. YUMMY!

Wednesday is the day that my best friends are coming to visit! My best friend for over 20 some years, Jennifer, came over w/ her 2 kids. She's expecting a third any day now. We hung out for about 7 hours, taking in a trip to Costco and just visiting. We had so much fun catching up. I really miss her now......

Jennifer's two cute kids & my cute kid

this is her other baby... she'll kill me for even posting this, but I think I'm safe b/c she doesn't even read my blog. :P

Katie took in an opportunity to make some extra money, and my dad and Katie worked up a bargain so she could get a bike to replace the one we had to leave here when we moved last year (she had so much $$, and he would foot the rest of the money for the bike). My parents have several trees in their front yard that has these "pods" (or seeds?) that are spiky. They are a pain in the butt... literally. My girls used to get paid a penny a piece to pick these prickly things up. So, Katie goes to work in the entire yard, raking and placing them in bags. After Wednesday, Maddie gets involved, (well, because Papa Rod bought Katie a bike, and Miss Maddie had a huge meltdown, of which I'm still embarrassed about, so she got a bike as well..... all in all, Katie kept her money, and Papa Rod & Grandma Debbie bought the girls their bikes, but they had to finish the yard first!!).

this is only 1/3 of the yard!!

Wednesday night rolls around, and my other close friend Jenni (it was a day of Jennifers!) came to visit. She brought along her little sidekick: Owen. Owen & I have this relationship. He totally loves me, and I totally love him. We were buddies last summer, and I sorely missed him! So, they arrive, and she comes w/ Owen & her two girls: Alli & Reese, who the girls played w/ all summer last year before our move to Texas. Owen wasn't sure about me, but it didn't take long for him to open up and RECOGNIZE ME!! Yayyyy! My nephew is also visiting to let his parents enjoy a date night, so you would think these two little boys who are only a month apart would hit it off? No...... Owen only wanted ME! (and Jenni.... I'm not posting a pic of us! I promised!)

Thursday is a day of shopping. My SIL Rachel works for Hallmark, and they have a warehouse store inside their corporations that you can buy Hallmark stuff marked down SUPER cheap. So, we eat long johns that morning, drove to my grandma's house to pick up her minivan (and her as well), Rachel & Joshua jump in the van w/ us, and away we went! First stop was Gordmans, where I found this amazing hot pink purse w/ a cool wallet.... a must have! Next stop was Crown Center, an uppity type of mall in the middle of downtown KC filled w/ really cool stores that were so expensive. They had a traveling exhibit of The Wizard of Oz, so the 3 kids enjoyed playing around with that.

We represent.... the Lollip Guild, the Lollipop Guild, the Lollipop Guild!

and no, these are not the original shoes that Dorothy wore in the movie, just a copy since there were a bunch made "just in case".... you can see her name in the insides of the shoe!

Following the Wiz of Oz exhibit, we went to Hallmark to shop. I didn't find much to buy.... everyone else did though! After that, we went to eat at Chili's. At Chili's Joshua sat next to Madison. After eating I tried to get a cute picture of Madison holding Joshua. The first picture Madison is smiling really cute, and Joshua has this look on his face. Finally I said "Joshua, say CHEESE!", and he gave this amazing scrunchy face of a smile! It was HILARIOUS! He would only do it when he had a camera pointed at him!

Katie's new bike

Maddie's new bike

That night was a TV night as we watched our favorites: Grey's, Ugly Betty, etc.

Friday... can't remember much what we did on Friday. Oh.... we ran to Independence to drop Mike's truck off w/ him. He worked on his parent's property all week long installing & making a beautiful wrought iron gate for their property. They're building a house.

Mike (on right) w/ his dad & brother

gate he built from scratch.... beautiful!

Took another trip to Cargo Largo (this time I didn't get hurt, but we did find hats/scarves/gloves for a quarter a piece!). That afternoon the girls & I made won tons (we had our Butter Yaki meal for dinner!). I took the girls to a Highland Dance practice that night. Their old teacher wanted them to come back for a lesson, and she gathered up all the girls so they could see their old buddies. A nice cookies & pop display was laid out for them all to enjoy afterwards.

The girls kissing Joshua...

we did this last year when he was a little thing, and it was so cute.

My brother & his sidekick.... Like father like son?

Saturday we left (well, we tried to leave in the morning).... Mike wasn't done yet w/ the gate, so we hung out in Independence all day. Made a visit to the girls' cousins' house (actually, their 2nd cousins... they grew up w/ them). Finally at almost 5 that afternoon, we left KC.

Cousins...... group hug and in line of order of birth (except Price is a few months older than Katie, but Katie was taller this time, so they switched)

Finally made it home to Texas Sunday early evening!! Yay! Hate car trips! Love being home! Totally missing my family & friends again! :(

One more CHEESE for the road!

{Day Three & Four}

Monday rolls around and it's kind of dreary out. It's also FREEZING COLD! I forgot to mention that when we arrived in KC on Saturday night, it was nice & warm out. We left Texas while it was 80 some degrees. Sunday it goes down to 20 degrees. BRRR! My MIL had to work that morning, so the girls & I went to our usual places we love to go: thrift stores & a huge junky store called Cargo Largo. Cargo Largo is a place that you never know what they'll have there, so you have to go often, and most of the time you'll find a great bargain, but you have to look. I'm always finding a screaming deal there.

We get our goods, head out to the truck. I open the back cover that covers the truck's bed. I'm also on the phone to Mike. I load up my package, and as soon as my arm is in the bed, the hood came down ON MY ARM! Ye-OUWW! Let me tell you, that hurt! Katie came over fast to open it up for me (since I couldn't do it). Thankfully, it wasn't broken. I just sported a nice sized bruise that I still have to this day! When my friends asked me about it, all I said was "well, you should've seen the other guy!"

We hung out at my MIL's place until school was almost out. I took Katie up to her old school (Maddie became too shy & nervous, so she stayed behind) to visit w/ her old friends. She went home w/ her best friend for an hour to play.

That night Mike & I had a group date w/ our close friends: the Tui'one's & the Su'a's. We went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner.... that was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!! The food was so great! The girls went w/ my in laws to my BIL's home and had pizza & played the Wii.

Tuesday came around, and before we left Independence, we HAD to have Lucia's. Lucia's is a restaurant we always went to, that's a little tiny restaurant but has the best tacos in the world. The lady who owns it .... her name? Lucia! She spoils my girls rotten..... she's taken them shopping once & bought them expensive toys, and spoils them for Christmas as well. That's not why we like her.... she's just a really neat lady. :) We really miss her. Anyways, here is a picture of her w/ the girls.

Then my MIL said "let's go shopping!" So away we went to Target (my happy place!) and she bought the girls each an outfit. Afterwards the girls & I left for Blue Springs. The girls (& I) have some close friends from Highland Dance. They played their hearts out all afternoon. I had a great chat w/ Stephanie (the mom)..... we caught up w/ all the news in our life.

Afterwards, the girls & I left for my parent's house. We left shortly after to eat at a Chinese buffet that was really good! We used to eat there before it was a buffet and it turned into a "so-so" restaurant. Following that, we went to another thrift store (trying to find summer clothes for a growing 11 year old girl), then to my brother's house to watch his little boy while he went to play basketball & so his wife could go take a peek at a new baby.

{Day Two of Spring Break}

Katie plays with my cousin Kasey's hair...

Sunday arrives, and of course we gained an hour.... we really needed more beauty sleep!

Mike & I took the girls to church at our old ward that we used to go to when we lived in Independence. It was SOOOO good to see our old friends! That started at 12:30, and we only stayed for sacrament service, since we had a huge family dinner at my grandma's at 3:00 that afternoon. Mike & I visited w/ friends after church, and the girls went back to my MIL's house to eat lunch. They were starving, apparently. They're always hungry... what's up w/ that?

We get to my grandma's, and all the "look how much you've grown" comments were exchanged over the girls. My grandma is a short little thing, (she's so cute too!), so we had to take pics of the girls standing next to her so we could keep track of heights, etc.

We had a delicious dinner..... I learned how to operate my camera just a bit w/ some help from my cousin Kasey (she even made me a cheat sheet!), so we took some pics of Maddie with those.

Katie feeds my nephew Joshua cake....

Just had a great visit overall..... left to go back to my MIL's that night, and crashed again for more beauty sleep.