This week

There's a good reason that people use recipe books and I just might be returning to the beautiful thing...this week coconut oil met my computer while making granola bars and this sentence just took me 5 minutes to write.

Ben was on a trip this week, so someone had to step in and make the pizza.  All from scratch and mighty good.

We had pizza/movie night

 

That notebook next to Alison went with her everywhere and she wrote down everything she wants to tell Daddy and has prepared a speech to give him when he gets home.

Eli had his last soccer game today.  At half time, the coaches had each kid score a goal.

Alison and I sewed trick-or-treating bags.

And potty training Colin has been going really well...will write more when Ben rescues my computer.

Eliot James 4.5

 

"Can I show you my crazy face?"

The fire truck visited his preschool today

"Put your heads together boys and smile"

Family pumpkin patch trip

After church on Sunday, we took daddy's muscles to the pumpkin patch so we could get some bigger pumpkins.  It had rained the day before and was much chiller than we anticipated...hope that explains Eli's outfit.  Most of my pictures are of everyone from behind because I was much slower as I hobbled along.

Alison claimed herself a "nature-tologist" and was determined to find a flatso pumpkin.

Daddy found the perfect one.

This is how she felt about it:

 

Nope, she wanted this one.

Daddy's muscles are big, but there was no way he could get that back to the car through all the mud.  Ironically she settled on a tiny white pumpkin.

Eli found the perfect one and shoved Colin out of the way just to show us.  Such love in our family.

Colin just wanted to run and run and run.

 

By the time we got to the end of the patch we felt like we were playing Where's Waldo with Colin.

We ended up only getting one big pumpkin but got 4 baking pumpkins and lots of pumpkin ice cream.  Let's be honest, that was the real reason for going :)

Our freezer is already stocked with fresh pumpkin puree and seeds are about to be roasted.  It's going to be a yummy Thanksgiving!

Hog Jog '14

We started Saturday morning off bright and early.  After picking up our race packets, we walked downtown to get some muffins.  Because I still couldn't walk quickly, we had to break major race rules and Ben wore my number and ran with Alison.  We felt okay with it because 1.) we couldn't let our 7 year old compete by herself and 2.) we were confident we would not be stealing anyone's medal.

Alison fueled up for the race with her favorite, a boston cream muffin.  I think it's hilarious that there's a police officer drinking a frappaccino in the back...only in Smithfield.

We made her pig ears and a tail the night before and she wore them the entire day.  In previous years there have been awards for the best dressed pig, but the tradition must have died because Alison was the only pig.

The boys and I stood up the hill from the start line to cheer Alison on in the beginning.

 

Colin was still wondering why he was awake and Eli was in awe of all the runners...and covered in chocolate.

Right after I snapped this picture, a strange wave of emotion hit me.  My little girl is running a 5K + seeing a dream of hers come true + I love the Hog Jog and it's been a special event to Ben and I and this year I couldn't even walk it + equal amounts of pride and pain of the sacrifice we made for Alison to run (I'm confident Ben would have placed if he could have really run).  I know that was a terrible run on sentence, but for a person who doesn't tear up much, I definitely was wiping away tears yesterday.

While they were running, the boys and I stopped by the farmer's market and then watched everyone cross the finish line.  I was so impressed at how patient the boys were, especially when Daddy and Alison took a little longer than I anticipated.

Ben said that Alison was amazing the whole time.  She never gave up or asked to quit, even though she was very tired.  Best part of the run=they held hands the whole time.

Racing to the finish line

As soon as she crossed the finish line she jumped in the stroller to rest.

 Ben had to whisk Eli to a soccer game and the rest of us got mandatory hotdogs.

Alison said that she loved running the race, but I cheered a little too loud.  And so it begins.  I'm officially the embarrassing mom.

That afternoon, I asked Ben to pick up some brown rice for me...this is what he came home with:

toys for the kids and pirate tequila for me.

Just so you know, if you have an Elmo guitar in your house, you need some tequila.

This week

Monday, I started potty training Colin.  Maybe I should say attempted to start potty train Colin.  This stinker proves to be a stinker every.single.day.  He sat on this potty for 2 days and would not pee on it...he would hold it until I put a diaper on him at nap time and completely let the floodgates open.

 

This week, he's gone on the potty all of 1 time...but I'm determined not to give up!

 You know you're a third when your mom makes you sit on the potty during lunch:

Wednesday Alison lost a tooth at school.  She has always wanted to lose a tooth at school because the nurse gives them this little treasure box to keep it in.  She said that she pulled it herself during a test because she just wanted it out.

Friday, the boys and I went to the pumpkin patch with Eli's preschool.  First, we saw some animals and climbed on some hay.

His "what are they doing?!" look

We played in barrels of corn and jumped in some cotton.

While the farmer was talking to all the kids about what farmers do, Colin thought that was a great time to run around with this bike.  Don't tell him that we used to have one of these, but it is now on the "why did I purge that?" list. 

Eli held my hand most of the time and asked me to come with him to the different activities, while Colin was racing around and exploring all on his own.  I need to start dressing him in neon so I can spot him easily, because he's fast and curious.  I'm pretty sure I get major bonus points for taking them through the corn maze.

We took a hay ride out to the pumpkin patch and the kids could pick any pumpkin they wanted.

Eli and his good friend, Nash

Out of all the choices, Eli picked this tiny one with black spots on it. 

Eli posing for his teacher, Ms. Kimmel

He was so excited about his pumpkin and explained to me that he picked a small one so it wasn't too heavy to carry back to the farm.  He's a smart one.  I told him we'll just have to go back with Daddy's muscles to get a big one we can carve.

On the hay ride

In other news, my foot/ankle is still hurt.  It's sad and makes me grouchy.  The cure for a foot injury is rest and there is no rest when Colin is around.  A friend lent me a boot that actually provided some relief, the first in 5 days...so I'll be rockin' the boot for awhile :)  Too bad it's not December or I would snatch up the opportunity to have a Christmas movie marathon.

Crawlin' Crab Half Marathon '14

Waiting to start, in Coral #1

We picked this race specifically for cooler temps and God sure did deliver on our request.  Saturday was in the 70's, today will be in the 70's, but yesterday morning it was in the 40's!!!  My brain had a hard time adjusting what I was going to wear, but in the end, I was thankful for the brisk morning.  A big perk to this race was that it was so close to our house, had super close parking to the start line and the convention center was open all morning (i.e. we could use real bathrooms and not port-a-potties).

Before the race

After the race

There were a lot of really good things about the race.  We felt strong and averaged an 8:35 pace until mile 10...when things went not so great.  But that's later.  Ben was incredible and took care of us and encouraged me through the whole thing.  This year, I didn't see a single person keel over or throw up or suddenly jump into some bushes.  There were plenty of water stations and they even offered gu packs and bananas along the way.  I personally think eating a banana while running is gross, but the thought was nice.  Our top 2 goals for the day were to finish together and to finish under 2 hours.  Praise the Lord, we accomplished both goals!  Our official time was 1:54:04 and we crossed the finish line holding hands, partly just to be funny. 

 

So you may be thinking that having a goal of finishing together sounds funny.  I have an extremely hard time feeling like I'm holding Ben back.  Maybe it's pride or maybe it's that I love him so much I want him to have his best run possible, but we knew that at some point in the race I would tell him to run ahead and he would tell me never.  It happened yesterday around mile 10.  My achilles tendon had been slightly bothering me the last few weeks.  I had been taking care of it and was aware that it would probably hurt a little during the race.  I could feel it the whole race, but by mile 10 it started to really hurt.  Our plan for the race was to think of it as a 10 mile run with a 5k race at the end (i.e. pick up speed the last 3 miles).  We got the 5k part and Ben asked if I was ready to pick up the pace, but all I could say was "no".  We slowed down and Ben talked me through the last 3 miles of pain.  I also get very angry at injuries and was mad that we couldn't push it to the finish line.  BUT, we finished and ran the entire time and met our goal.  Without an injury I'm confident we could have finished in the 1:40's.  Ben helped me hobble to the convention center for some beer and soup, which by the way, do not go well together.

The only other con to the race was that there were no crowds cheering us along the way.  There were maybe a handful of people along the way, but the run was quiet.  Even the runners were quiet.  It was weird to me and I realized how much I am motivated by music or cheering.  It was mentally challenging for me and eventually I made Ben play some music on his phone.

I am so proud of us and exceptionally proud of Ben.  This was his first half marathon and he didn't even seemed phased by it.  He could have run faster and longer and wasn't even a little sore yesterday.  He came home and mowed the lawn and took Alison on a long bike ride.  Do you know what I did?  I took a nap and iced my ankle.  Ben's back at work this morning and my mom is here to help me.  I'm so thankful that we had this experience together and we have the health to be able to do it.