Kid Quote :: 17

Jayden : Olivia said she wants to marry me.

Me : Oh yeah? What did you say?

Jayden : I said, 'No way!'

Me : Is Olivia nice?

Jayden : Olivia is sad.

Me : She is?  Why is she sad?

Jayden : Because I said I wouldn't marry her!

Me : Oh!  Well maybe you could tell Olivia that you don't want to marry her, but that you could still be her friend.

Jayden : Well....that's not going to make her happy either.....

For the record, in the beginning of school when I would drop Jayden off at school, I'd watch him walk up to the door and this little girl would be holding the door open for all the kids to walk through.  She would be eyeing Jayden the whole time he came up to the door, then when he walked through, she would say really sweetly, 'Hiiiii Jayden'.  Jayden who would be staring at the ground would look up and say, 'Oh, hi' and then ignore her as she tried to get his attention as they walked inside.  I asked Jayden one day who that little girl was and he told me her name was Olivia.  And from that day on, I've just been waiting for the marriage proposal.  2 proposals in 2 years.  Not a bad record.  :)

Prairie Fire Rain

Ok, I'm just going to stop saying it.  Obviously, I can't give up the half marathon gig, so I promise to no longer say that this is my last half marathon.  Now, that said....Today I ran in the Prairie Fire Half Marathon!  I think this was #9 for me.  And it was a cloudy, rainy morning.  I loved it!   Of course there were problems during my training, as it seems to be with me these days, I'm obviously getting old.  Things were cruising along just great, then after one long run I didn't get a chance to cool down and stretch my legs right away and my left IT-band seized up on me.  That put me out for about 2 weeks, while I stretched and iced and stretch and iced and foam rolled and iced and got a massage and stretched trying to get my IT-band to not scream at me every time I bent my leg to sit in a chair.  So I've had the last 3 weekends or so to try and get my running legs back in shape for today, not to mention my running confidence.  And it has been a sore and painful process.  You'd think I'd just not run the race, but no, I'd already paid my $50 and by golly I was getting my cotton race t-shirt, my finishers medal, AND my finishers dri-fit t-shirt.  This race gives out great goodies!

I had no real goals going into this race, if I got below 2 hours then great, but really I was just hoping my IT-band and my knees were going to hold out for me.  So, I got up this morning, slathered on half a tube of biofreeze, took a bunch of ibuprofen, gathered my gear and headed for the start line.  I thought the race this year went really well.  I loved running in the misting rain and I never hit that spot around mile 9 or 10 where I start questioning my sanity in deciding that running these stupid things are a good idea.  I just plugged along and while my knees and my legs were getting tight, it never got to the point of me thinking this was a bad idea.  Plus, I had the best cheering section right around mile 7ish.

And the finish line.

I finished in 2:02 and I don't think I probably could of run it faster.  And I'm okay with that.

Since it pretty much poured down rain the entire day and the kids were tired of "resting" with me, they went outside to play.  Willow - my little Kansas born child - is not a huge fan of the rain.  She told me it was yucky - "blech"

Jayden begs us to move back to Washington all the time.  He loves the rain!

Pony Party

Today, the kids and I went to our neighbor Goldie's 5th birthday party.  Goldie's mom goes all out for birthday parties, I love going to them, even the outside of the house is always all done up.  It's awesome!  Today's party was "off-site" at a grandparents house because the theme was a western with pony rides and everything!  Not sure how our HOA would've felt about pony's being trotted all over the neighborhood, not that I would've cared.  I have what could be considered a clothesline in my backyard (I put Willow's diapers out on it) and that's against HOA rules too. :)  I know, I'm a rebel.

At first both of the kidlets were afraid of the pony's, they wouldn't even pet them  There were other games to play though, especially with our new best friends who just moved in 2 houses down a little over a month ago.
Jayden and Carson playing sport toss.

Willow did some swinging with her new best friend, Emery (the blonde head behind her), who is also Carson's sister.  Willow talks about Emery All. The. Time.  "Emery is my friend?"  "Emery wants to come over and play with me?"  "Emery is my friend!" "Hey Emery!"  "Emery come over?" "Emery lives in the green house?"  "I going to the green house to play with Emery"  It's so cute to have your first best friend.

Jayden kept eyeing the ponies, so a little before I knew they were scheduled to leave, I told him that if he wanted to ride one, he was going to have to do it soon.  A few minutes later he comes up to me and tells me he's going over to ride the pony.  Sweet!  The whole reason I brought my camera with me!

Jayden loved it!  And went back a couple more times before the ponies left.  He told me later he couldn't wait for Papa (my dad) to see the pictures, since he knows my dad loves to ride horses too.  (So, Dad if you're reading, those pictures are for you!)

Pumpkin and Ghost Paintings

I have really been on a halloween art project kick!  Remember how I had the kids paint pumpkins?  Well, I'm no liar, I totally have them hanging up on my wall, right next to the pumpkin wall hanging my sister-in-law, Lisa made me!

Then, last Saturday, I made my first trip to Paint the Towne, after like a 4 month hiatus, to do a pumpkin painting!  Don't worry, I'll be making up for my lack of attendance over the summer, I'm going back in just a couple weeks.  :)

Then for about a week now, I've had this idea of painting the kid's feet and turning them into ghosts.  My original idea was to just paint the whole canvas black and then do their ghost feet prints on top of that, but at the last minute, I decided to do more color and came up with this :

Jayden of course had an opinion and told me what the faces needed to look like.  But I don't mind, I get way more compliments on my work if I do something that Jayden wants me to do.  If I had just done a plain ole smiley pumpkin, Jayden would of said something like, "hmm, yea, i guess that's nice' But since I did a squiggly face pumpkin, I got, "I LOOOOOVE it"  I like the second compliment much better, and really, that's what I'm after.

Halloween Shrinky Dinks

There is just something about watching melting plastic that makes me happy.  And there is something about getting to use the permanent markers that sit way up high on the shelf that makes my kids just as happy.

Somedays I think it's better for dinner to be late and for the kiddos and me to sit around the table and do a craft.  Jayden's been begging to do shrinky dinks for awhile (there must be something about melting plastic that makes him happy too), so I finally tracked down the plastic sheets and drew on some halloween creatures - a pumpkin, ghost, and bat.

Before the shrinking :

And after!

 Jayden was so excited that all 3 of them turned out and none of them folded in on themselves and melted in half.  He is currently in his room with his pumpkin and bat singing a musical between them.  Something about how the pumpkin wishes he had wings so he could go flying with the bat and the bat feeling sorrying for the pumpkin but telling him how much he still loves him and how he'll be back to visit him soon and how he hopes that soon the pumpkin will grow wings so they can go flying off into the night together.  (really need to sign this kid up for some sort of acting/drama/music...)

Whoooo Am I?

Royal and I had a parent/teacher conference tonight for Jayden.  Jayden is doing really well in school, he meets all their benchmarks, and scores above average or average in their national norms comparison.  Yay Jayden!  He is also the kid in class who is very concerned with the one kid who doesn't seem to fit in.  Jayden has befriended him and tried to help him in and around the class, and he even stood up to his friends (friends that live on our street) for him, when they were teasing him and throwing wood chips.  He has great empathy and I am so proud of him for being brave and standing up for what is right.

In the hallway, while we were waiting for our turn to talk to Jayden's teacher, they had all these owls with 4 descriptors on them.  You were suppose to try and guess which "owl" was your child.  I picked the right owl the first time!  Although, there were just a few things that gave it away.  Dinosaurs being #1.  :)

My favorite description, behind the "I like when my mom hugs me" was the "I am crazy!"  ha ha ha

Race for the Cure 2011

This is the 4th year we've participated in Race for the Cure.  It is a fun 5K to run, the course is flat and fast and meanders through an old neighborhood.  However the race is getting really crowded and is hard to maneuver a stroller through, even when doing the untimed start (non-competative), starting at the front of the line, and having Royal run right in front of the stroller to "make a hole" for us through the people who decide that running 5 wide across the road is best for everyone.

The first year, 2008, I was big and pregnant with Willow and I waddled my way across the finish line.  In 2009, Willow was almost a year old, I had lost all of my baby weight and then some, and running felt good, and I remember listening to Royal complain that we were going to fast and could we please slow down some.  To which he got a big fat no, and in turn, he made sure he crossed the finish line before me.  :)  In 2010, we signed up for the race, fought the kids all the way to the start line - Jayden did not want to be there, only to realize that I had a flat tire on the stroller, and we had to pull out at the last minute.  This year the kids and I made sure the stroller tires were fully inflated. With Jayden and Willow's combined weight, plus all the gear we bring along and pick up in freebies at the booths, the stroller weighs a good 100+ pounds, and I need all the air in the tires I can get.  This is, I'm sure, the last year I will be able to get Jayden to ride in the stroller, he is getting a little old and quite big.  Royal had class on Saturday this year so he couldn't come with us, and if I was going to participate I needed to be able to push the munchkins.  I finished this year's race somewhere between 26 and 27 minutes.  It helped to have Jayden in the stroller telling me to "go a little faster", "pass that person up there", "Oh, look, there's our neighbor, catch up to her so I can say hi", "Oh, look, there's another stroller, let's go beat them"

Here we are crossing the finish line.

And here we are with a few of our stroller buddies that we used to go work out with.  (I had made a deal with Jayden that once he started kindergarten I wouldn't make him sit in the stroller in the mornings anymore, however I was secretly hoping he'd get put in morning kindergarten and Willow and I could keep going.  Sadly, he was put in afternoon kindergarten, so no more strollers in motion for me)