Hello again

Well December was rough. Heavier on the awful than I'm used to. The kids had coughs and colds. Husband got bronchitis. Then I got bronchitis. Of course I didn't get to take the good drugs because I'm pregnant and a good cough made me throw up. Then the ridiculous amount of coughing damaged my ribs and made it so painful to breathe that I was worried about getting pneumonia with my half breaths. A good sneeze made me feel like passing out. Seriously folks, the cough has been gone for awhile now and my rib still feels like someone is trying to make me a helpmeet. Oh and I tested positive for strep B and had a second round of antibiotics immediately after the zpac. And then J got the stomach flu. Then round 2, both kids got the stomach flu a few days later. Thankfully J can now puke in the toilet! M can puke on the 12in of carpet not covered by towels and in the crevices of the recliner. After destroying our New Year's Eve plans, I was happy it cleared up in time for our Denver trip (which was lots of fun and will have pictures posted. Eventually.)

I left my positive attitude somewhere around Dec 5th 2015 and it has yet to return. The neighbors did not get treats. We did not see the temple lights. We did not see Santa at Bass Pro. We made no cookies, not even for jolly old St. Nick. We adopted no families. We barely made it to one Christmas party. I'm just going to forget this season ever happened.

Now I have very mild placenta previa and have been ordered rest and no exercise. I negotiated with my doctor to still teach my yoga classes, but I am now 6 days without getting a solid sweat going.  How do people get anything done without the energy boost from exercise?! Without it, pregnancy fatigue is twice as bad. And cutting my classes also means cutting my money.

The struggle is real my friends!

Let's see what pictures I actually took that can misrepresent the month and put it in a cheery glow.

My sister made sugar cookies with the kids while I complained on her couch for 5 hours.

Grammy babysat and made a really cute gingerbread house with my kids.

Birthday presents from Aunt Chris were very well loved.

 One day I found her like this.

I made an ewok scoodie for my secret sister gift exchange

J rocked her part in the preschool program

We road the mini train by my inlaw's house. M had his mind blown.

I colored my hair "dark golden brown"

We still made the most amazing Bo Ssam even though the party never happened. Seriously, make this recipe.

Now time to sort through the fancy camera pictures and look for some Christmas morning magic.

Life according to my cell phone

We went back to Riverview park again because J requested to go "to that park that we brought food to when you went to buy clothes with Uncle Justin." Yes, she remembered bringing Chick-fil-a to this park a YEAR AGO when I took Justin black Friday shopping. That girl. Anyways, M can scale any height and gives me regular heart attacks.

I will never tire of seeing this boy in this frog costume.

Our pogo passes expire in March so I'm trying to go to all the places before it expires. That means Friday is now field trip day. We went to the zoo with our friends the Weidmans. The highlights ended being the fish in the pond near the parking lot and the ducks around the exhibits. Thankfully they got a kick out of the monkeys too or I would give up on these children.

M has also grown out of his clothes without telling me.

I tried to get a picture of him passed out on this chair but he woke up and hid.

We've enjoyed two full weeks of these two playing well with each other. Horseys!

We had a lovely time with amazing food down in Tucson for thanksgiving. My brother told me to put together the veggie tray so I had some fun with it. Without pinterest even.

They went to a Mexican food wedding rehearsal dinner and got these hats. They came out the next morning wearing them and singing, "We are the taco men" over and over and holding hands.

I took the pictures after the sealing and pretended I was a real photographer. After being super nervous all the pictures would be terrible, I had to send a screen shot to my sister to tell her she was right, they did turn out fine. (A black mark has now shown up on my cell phone camera lens and is not actually part of this photo)

Makutu's Island is another pogo pass place the kids love. I sort of hate it because you can't keep track of your kids in the tunnels unless you climb in with them. It wears me out, but it wears them out too. This time we met Husband for lunch at a park after and made it pretty much the best toddler day ever.

He was sitting there so smug, eating peanut butter from the jar for breakfast (not sure how this came about) that I had to take a picture. I mean, that grin.

For an early bday present, I finally made the Tesla test drive happen that was supposed to happen last year on his bday. Ladies, this is a really easy, cool, FREE thing for the people in your life who buy their own presents. And you can book it online :) We spent an hour in the car trying out the autopilot (I had the hardest time letting go of the steering wheel and letting it drive but it is COOL) and they even set the route up so we could floor it from a complete stop on the freeway onramp. I appreciated the warning the associate gave me to put my head back on the head rest because gets up to speed as fast as a roller coaster. Another plus, they don't talk sales to you AT ALL. It used to be illegal in AZ for them to mention prices because Teslas aren't sold through a dealer and blah blah blah business model,  blah blah archaic law. If someone wants to buy one, you have to do it online so the associates are really just information and have zero interest if you are purchasing or not. I'm pretty sure I'd rather buy a house with $150,000 but maybe someday we'll be stupid rich and buy one. 

Halloween

Who needs Christmas when you can relive Halloween?

Seriously, folks couldn't tell who I was. That's what I get for wearing weird make up on a regular basis :)

Here was the whole fam for context

That was for the church Halloween party and minds were changed by the time actual Halloween came about. As long as I don't have to do any extra work, they can pick anything from the dress up box. M chose Peter Pan.

J chose Fever Elsa (the summer dress from the short sequel before Cinderella. The sleeves aren't as itchy). Obviously, she chose her own fancy pose.

M has asked to trick or treat every week since. They got more candy going around the single loop of my neighborhood than I did after two hours of trick or treating when I was a kid. It pays being some of the only kids on the block because everyone just gives them handfuls.

Chocolate Ice Cream

A good ice cream cone brings out the best in everyone.

That second time I did a triathlon

Big Sis tends to get me into things. I mean, it's my fault for saying yes, but they typically start as her idea. She asked if I wanted to do a Sprint triathlon with her and some friends because the more they had on their team, the cheaper it was per person. I said yes because I had only been doing cycling and yoga and had hit a little plateau in my fitness. I figured a race would help me do some additional workouts.

Nope.

I swam once in a lake in Seattle and once in the pool. Stupid water aerobics is going on from 8am to 11am every day and I just couldn't fit lap swims. I made it happen once and swam the requisite 400m with ease so I wasn't REALLY nervous, but I had planned on doing more swimming to train. 

I didn't.

And for running? I did a couple runs while on the epic roadtrip and then nothing for a month. I have crazy workout friend who run every Wednesday at 5 freakin AM so I decided to join them. They were doing 6 miles and I figured I'd just run a couple with them and then walk. It was just so fun talking to them and my lungs weren't burning at all (hooray cycling classes!) so I just kept going the whole distance.

And regretted it for a week with a sprained arch in my foot. I tried running again a week later and made it a half mile on the treadmill before it started hurting again so I didn't run again before the race. I mean, I did 6 miles without any other training, a 5k shouldn't be a problem, right?

I was pretty much loathing the entire thing for weeks. I figured I wouldn't get any emotional pay off from finishing because I had already done that distance before. I really debated forfeiting my $40 and sleeping in, but showed up with my sister anyways. Here is our before shot, during the freaking sunrise (I don't like waking up early). We take our power poses seriously.

I did find a renewed appreciation for the Fit. Two bikes without even having to remove a wheel. The same bikes we bought when I was training for that first triathlon.

I didn't even care if Husband came to watch because I was just not excited about this race. The sweet man did come toting the kids, but I ended up finishing just ten minutes before he got there. I did get some pics of my brother in law finishing though.

It ended up being a huge emotional payoff and I was so happy after we did it. My times were so much better than I anticipated and I averaged 8:53 miles. That is faster than I can run 1 mile, let alone after swimming and running. Props go to sister's friend Meg for setting that initial pace and making me want to keep up with her. She motivated me on the biking too because I had a faster transition and she caught up with me. Naturally my competitive spirit wouldn't let her stay ahead of me. I mean, I'm a cycling instructor, right? This was the only part of the race I had actually trained for. Sort of. I averaged 17miles/hr for the 12 miles so I happy with that time as well.

So thanks Big Sis.  It was worth it if only to show this picture to our kids some day in our matching tri shorts.

Vertuccio Farms 2015 style

Lil Sis came down for a visit so Penny could make her debut so we visited the pumpkin patch with all the Maidename ladies and progeny.

Grammy is always up for adventure and jumped right along with.

If there is water, there will be M trying to soak himself in it.

The first time I went here with a groupon, I didn't think we'd come often enough to use this sign. I was wrong. Hooray for yearly traditions!

"No M, stand here"

The animals were a major highlight this time.

You ever feel like your kids are just climbing all over you? This goat feels your pain.

This glorious beast was willing to pose for us.

"Oink"

M is fearless and loved this 2 story slide over and over.

I was trying to convince M to stand in the sunflowers so I could take a magical picture that doesn't truly represent our lives. M thought this was a dumb idea because there was a playground right next to it.  I told him to try and reach a flower.

No magic, just evidence I need to buy him bigger shirts. 3T already dude?

But ducks are magical, right?

Did I mention that October is still miserably hot here? It is. So is trying to slather your albino toddler in sunscreen.

He knew the drill this time.

Cousin had to have a turn too.

Near the exit was the pumpkin patch so I figured I'd take my facebook worthy "Happy Fall" pictures there.

But then I got the magic! Not that I took it off the camera in time to be seasonally appropriate. The photo calendars for next year won't betray my secrets.

Seriously, this kid is awesome!

I'm rather fond of this one too.

And this picture is awesome in so many ways.

I'm so lucky to have so much family I adore being around!