Ten on Tuesday

1. Sunday evening we had a post race celebration at Able and Kari's house. It was still a little chilly so we got to sit by the fire while we celebrated. These two little boys sometimes just sit and chill together. It always seems strange when Rowan just sits in a chair somewhere, something his big brother never does. 

 Also I found this post race selfie of Zach and I that I forgot I had taken. Fun times. 

2. Last month I ordered an Animal Tracker Club box for Zane that comes once a month. The first month he got a tin lunch box and his initial set up of fun animal tracking things. Each month after that it comes with information and activities about a specific animal. Currently learning about different animals is Zane's favorite thing so this box has been perfect. This month's animal was  a zebra. We got this fun Zebra craft, some Zebra themed worksheets, a zebra mask, info sheets on zebras, a zebra magnet for his lunch box, and a plastic toy zebra. All these things fit in his tin and he loves it. I think this would be a great gift idea for any animal lovers in your life. Here is the link to the website, which also has a monthly space explore box which looks pretty fun too.

Zach writes and draws all the animals we see each day in his animal tracking book.

This month's zebra craft.

 3. As all of you know Mooly is Zane's beloved stuffed cow that he has had since he was a tiny baby. Mooly goes everywhere with Zane and is definitely "real" by Velveteen rabbit standards. She has been loved hard and it shows. Thursday evening, in the rush to get out of school and to his baseball game, Zane forgot Mooly at school. First thing Friday morning we had to go rescue her. Ever since then Zane has been very concerned about Mooly. Yesterday he asked if we could give her a bath, which we did and most of the afternoon was spent drying/brushing her hair. When daddy got home he jokingly sad that Mooly might turn into a real cow like in Velveteen rabbit and Zane burst into tears at the thought of losing Mooly. Zane has told us on multiple occasions he will NOT be giving Mooly to his kids when he grows up. In the midst of this love Rowan has desperately wanted/needed his own Mooly, which has been ordered and will be arriving any day!

3. Yesterday it rained all day long. These two also woke up early and decided to not nap well, which meant we had a very, very long day. By four we were grasping at straws for entertainment, so we made a Jungle diorama complete with the sponge painting the forest trees/grass.We painted foot prints in the jungle with plastic animals and then the animals and the boys needed baths. Lot of rainy day fun around here, but ready for some sunshine!

 

4. By dinner time both boys were pretty punchy and then spent all of dinner making each other crack up. It was very entertaining, even if little to no food was eaten. Here is Rowan's new giggling face, with the side way looking eyes. It's too much for me.  Love that Zane and Rowan find each other so entertaining!

 5. Needless to say today we needed to get out of our house. We took Maggie and Grandma with us to Otto's house first thing this morning. Today we saw lots of different things than what we usually do. The kids spent a lot of time looking at the Oklahoma rocks section, which is very old and I think terribly boring, but they enjoyed it. We saw the trains, the planes, played in the huge tree house, and of course had nature class outside, which was cut short by the rain. We will so miss Maggie joining in on our adventures next year when she is in Kindergarten.

 Rowan could have watched the trains all day. There were four of them going today and a guy there fixing trains as well. It was the train jack pot today.

 This was a new bike/helicopter set up outside which Zane could have pedaled all day.

6. Since it is almost May that means that Zane is in full party planning mode for his birthday. I am pretty sure the party planning phase of his birthday party will be his favorite part by far. He loves to decorate and come up with themes, a child after my own heart. Yesterday we landed on a Hawaiian penguin party. He recently discovered Lilo and Stitch on Netflix and loves it, and all things Hawaii, but also really loves penguins so why not combined the two. We might have gotten some party supplies already from Dollar Tree. Now trying to figure out what to buy the kid who has everything and doesn't play with toys, is another problem.

 We spent the afternoon practicing the limbo, which will obviously be happening at the Hawaii/Penguin party.

7. When I asked Zane what he wanted for his birthday he said, and I quote, "Maybe a book about good and bad snakes so I can teach zoo classes." Zoo classes are when he brings out a stuffed animal and a book about that animal and teaches Rowan, the other stuffed animals, and I about that animal. Here he is yesterday, being a zoo keeper. He taught up about cheetahs, penguins, and snakes! So any animal teaching present ideas people have, send them my way.

8. May also means that it is almost farm camp time. Planning is underway for the last weekend in May. Mom is getting farm activities planned for us and I am trying to pull together all sorts of crafts and inside entertainment ideas. The kids voted on shirt colors today, with blue winning by a land slide. Since Rowan and I were both sick for last years festivities this will be Rowan's first year to attend and I am sure he will love it. Here is hoping we can stay well this year, fingers crossed.

9. This afternoon, once the sun came out, so did the spring time animals. Zane found another frog, this time in our backyard, which was equally as entertaining as the last frog. Zane drove him around in the back of his toy trash truck, made him a little pond, and let him hop off of all sorts of things. Rowan and Zane both carried him around, I'm sure nearly killing him. Finally we decided to set him free by the pond. Zane gently put him in the pond and was ecstatic when he came swimming back to the side to see him. You have to love an afternoon of frog fun. 

 "Mom he is not scared, he is looking out the windows." In response to me telling him to let the frog out of the trash truck because he was probably terrified.

 "Bye froggy, love you."-Ro

10. The only thing that could overshadow finding another frog is today's biggest news, Marty and Mary have had baby ducks!!!!! They have been MIA for a while and we were hoping that they had a nest somewhere and then today, on our way to get party supplies, we saw Mary with about a dozen little baby ducklings. It was the cutest thing in the world and the boys were completely thrilled. We kept our distance, so as not to scare them away, so I only have this terrible picture of the adorable brood. They had gone back into hiding when we came back later to see them. Here is hoping they come out more often. What a wonderful springtime surprise. 

The E.L.M.S Foundation Marathon Relay: Run to Remember

When my sister asked me if I wanted to be part of a relay team at the marathon, I'm going to be honest, my initial thought was absolutely not. As I have mentioned before I am not a huge fan of running and at the time this was proposed I hadn't run at all in years. However, I didn't want to be the only person not getting on board with the family bonding adventure so I begrudgingly agreed. Once I had committed to it I worked hard. I wanted to be able to help our team have a good time and accomplish our goal. I went from running for thirty seconds at a time to running two to three miles a couple times a week during the span of a few months. I had a huge blister on the bottom of my foot for a few weeks and sat out a whole week, somewhere in the middle, with a hip flexor strain, but all in all everything went well. The past few weeks I had been working on running faster to try to better my very slow pace. Going into yesterday my goals for my leg of the race were to run the whole things, hills and all, with out stopping, and to finish in under forty minutes.

Race day started bright and early with the whole family dawning our "I Get Down. I Go Fast." shirts. This is a quote from my two year old nephew Everett who is intense about going fast and has been our running guru through out. As we headed downtown in the dark we sent happy thoughts to Kari who was at the starting line taking part in the morning prayer before sunrise. We found our way into the neighborhoods by my hand off spot and got a parking spot while they were still available. The boys played at the park while I stretched and prayed that the sun would come out soon, it did not, and the day remained chilly throughout. As I was walking to my hand off spot around 7am the first of the runners were turning the corner at the 10K spot, insane!!!

 This was really after Zach's leg, but aren't we adorable in our matching shirts!

My run started up a big hill, which also meant running fast down said big hill to the perfect first song Bombs of Baghdad. When my Runkeeper app updated me on my pace at five minutes I was running at a ten minute mile pace, which I knew I couldn't maintain, so I slowed it down a bit as I head up Gorilla Hill. The people in this neighborhood had all sorts of interesting, fun things out for the runners; shots of whiskey, bacon, donuts, bananas, pineapple, you name it. They were all very friendly, super early in the morning. Gorilla hill consisted of lots of people in banana costumes aggressively trying to get you to eat a banana and a large blow up Gorilla at the top of the hill. Able called me a few times to tell me he might not be at our hand off spot because he had gotten trapped inside the race and was currently trying to get there on foot. So the rest of my race I spent trying to figure out what would happen if Able wasn't at our hand off spot when I got there. Did I keep running, did I stop, did I panic? All real options floating around my head as I ran up Western Ave.

 

 Here is Kari running into the hand off, smiling, not looking like a crazy person.

Abbey and her kids were cheering me on as I turned the corner at Chesapeake and made my way up the completely random, back service road, for the last mile or so of my run. Everyone along the route was very supportive and really made the run fly by. In good news Able managed to hitch hike his way to our hand off, in true Able fashion, and was there cheering me in, as I finished strong. When I handed off to Able my Runkeeper app said I had run 3.42 miles in thirty eight minutes and forty three seconds which was by far the fastest and furthest I had ever run. I did run the whole time, with all the hills, and ended quite proud of myself. I wish my boys could have actually seen me running, but I ran the last little bit as I was walking up to them, so I am sure they had no idea that wasn't the race. As we were walking back to the car I said "Rowan, come on lets run." And his response was, "No, I walk." Hence why Rowan was not our running guru! Love that kid!

 Here I am running past Abbey, looking like a psycho. Meanwhile I felt like I looked like an elite runner, not so much!

 My sweet boys!

After I was done with my part was when the fun of the day really began. I loved cheering everyone one and getting to watch the boys be so excited to see everyone running. We managed to get to cheer on Able, Zach, and Abbey before we all headed downtown. We waited for Abbey at the corner where she would turn to head into the finish line. Abbey was running her first 10K and rocked it. We all joined her and ran the last little bit together. It was great fun running in as a team, with the streets lined with supporters, cheering you on. All our kids were down there, yelling for us as well. It was a great feeling crossing the finish line together, accomplishing our goal, as a family. I was surrounded by four of my absolute favorite people on earth, which made it an absolute joy.

 Uncle Able flying down Britton.

 Our cheering team was starting to get a little tired waiting for Daddy, but they stuck with it and were over joyed to see him coming up the road.

 Last, but not least, we made a fast stop on Classen to give Aunt Abbey high fives on our way downtown!

 Again, unsure why I look like a psycho, but here we are heading across the finish line.

After the race we walked over to the Bombing Memorial, which is what it was truly all about. My kids were my cheering squad for literally every run I did during the last few months. Every morning that I didn't work we would head to the gym, usually after Zane had thrown fit and asked the question, "Why do you have to run." I would answer his question the exact same way every time, "I run to remember." This usually stopped the fit, I think out of pure confusion, but it was the honest answer, even if he was to young to understand the details. This helped me remember what it was all about every run. After we took pictures by the survivor tree, and I tried to sum up a terrorist attack to a four year old, we headed back to our cars. As we were walking Zane asked Uncle Able, "So do you remember now?" Out of the mouths of babes, hysterical because I think Zane honestly thought I was running to try to get some memories back, but also very poignant in that moment.

 The E.L.M.S Foundation stands for Engineering, Law, Medical, Spice, and Kari works for a foundation management firm. It just so happens that the survivor tree is an Elm tree as well. How perfect is that!

 

 I thought our gray and black outfits needed some flare so I got all the ladies sparkly gold headbands, which actually stayed on amazingly well.

So blessed to have these two sweet boys to hold.

The whole thing really was a great experience, at a time when I truly needed a goal to get myself back to the gym, and back in the routine of working out. I am proud of all of us for what we accomplished and for sticking with it even when we wanted to quit, well at least I wanted to quit a few times. I would do it again in a heart beat, but who knows what the next year will bring.

Ten on Tuesday

1. Lets see what has happened since we last left off. It's race week here in OK and I have a sinus infection thanks to being allergic to everything outside this time of here. I have started my antibiotics and a five day pack of steroids so am hoping to be in tip top shape come Sunday morning. I'm slightly nervous about the logistics of the day, but am confident in my very slow 5K. We had a team meeting this evening to hammer out the details and I think we should be good to go. Wish us luck!

2. Rowan is talking up a storm, more than ever, saying all the things. He has the cutest little voice and says somethings clear as day, for instance batteries, the other night he busted out perfectly. But then there are some random sounds such as lemonade that take me all day to decode. He is in the cutest stage, though still terribly emotional at times.

CHEESE

Sad baby face

3. Zane's tball continues, this week in particular he has three games, one is a make up from the rain cancellation last week. Do we really need to make up tball games people?? Last night he had a big game. Zane got two big hits, scored twice and played great at second base. Rowan had less than a great night falling of the bleachers and hitting his head. I monitored his neuro status all night and seems to be doing ok today.

 Korenaki up to bat

 Coming into home

 Rowan needed lots of Bobo love after his injury.

 Rowan has recovered nicely and we talked about increased helmet use today.

Zane trying to teach Rowan how to bat. Rowan refusing to hold his bat with two hands almost pushed Zane over the edge.

4. The Richard's clan is in the midst of a big move and we have spent a few afternoons over there recently helping pack up. Last week the highlight was finding a toad in the back yard that was loved on for about an hour while the grown ups packed. He went through various names, but sadly didn't turn into a prince when everyone kissed him. Good times!!

5. Zach spent a few days last week in California for work which meant mom got to spend a day with the boys and I got picture updates all day at work, it was lovely. Thanks mom!

6. Yesterday mom and I took the boys to the big lake in our neighborhood, one of four I think, and went on a lovely nature walk. We saw ducks, geese, birds, and dogs. Rowan rocked an adorable outfit, complete with a bow tie with his hoodie. Mickey also made the trip and almost was lost at one point, but we rescued him. The main goal was to find Marty and Mary, who have been MIA from our lake for awhile. They were there, snoozing lake side!

7. It is spring time in Oklahoma which means one thing, watching the skies and prepping for tornado season. We have our storm shelter cleaned, stocked, and the kids have spent quite a bit of time playing down there. We found the actual tornado siren by our house so Zane could see what it looks like and try to understand that he doesn't need one in his room. Most nights, as of late, the storm clouds have rolled in, but nothing severe, but the weathermen are now on often in the background of our day. I miss Gary England!

 Rainy mornings on the way to the gym.

The boys love watching the weather, turning into real Oklahoma boys!

8. Spring also means walks to our neighborhood park. This week their were wild flowers in the field beside the park and my sweet boys picked some for me. I love these two in their matching Cardinals apparel. I swear I don't plan on dressing them alike it just seems to work out that way a lot.

9. Zane's new found obsession is climbing things. He would really prefer it be a tree, but backyard toys and fences seem to work out pretty well too. Grandma helped him climb the tree in our front yard and is dying to find more trees that are climbable, not all trees are you know. He also spends a lot of time climbing on chairs/toys to look over our fence, checking out all the dogs and talking to the little boy in the house next door. There have been multiple injuries from the backyard fence climbing so we have to come up with a better plan soon.

10. Lastly my favorite thing this week has been Rowan's new found love for Woody. I love all things toy story and choose to believe that Woody and Buzz are having all sorts of adventures in our house when we aren't watching. I assume they are devastated by the amount of time they have been spending in toy baskets as of late as well. But this week Rowan has fallen in love with Woody. Woody has been to the park, to picnics in the backyard, and has been Rowan's choice of toy to cuddle all week. This does my heart good, as I am sure Woody is so excited to be being loved by a new boy. I am less thrilled about Woody waking up Rowan at night with his laughing and saying "I am ticklish Ok." Not cool Woody.