A Family Outing!

Jeff has been training for the Yakima River Canyon Marathon for the past few months. It was Saturday April 2nd, and we made it into a little family excursion!

[I liked the sign they had on the road]

Our hotel had a POOL! The marathon started in Ellensburg, WA, wove through the Yakima River Canyon, and ended outside of Yakima,WA. Since Ellensburg is 1.5hrs from home, we stayed in a hotel on Friday night. Jay loved it!

It was so nice to swim! It has been a while. Jay was nervous at first, but it didn't take him long to LOVE the pool.

I like warm indoor hotel pools--no shivering necessary! Rose took this picture for us, since she's too young to swim...

...Just kidding! Rose reclined on a lounge chair by the pool while we swam.

We brought dinner from home and had a picnic in our hotel room! Then we went out for ice cream (Jeff and I started a pre-race ice cream tradition back in college). We discovered a heavenly ice cream place by Central Washington University called Winegars. BEST chocolate ice cream EVER!

Jay was a party animal! He was so excited about the hotel room that he didn't get to sleep until 2 1/2 hours PAST his normal bedtime!

Rose was a dream baby, as usual--she has been only waking up once each night all week, and last night she slept all night!

Tired children in the morning.

THE STARTING LINE. It was windy and chilly!!

The first few steps. We didn't bring the double stroller because there were only two places to watch the race on the whole course, and I thought I could do it from the car. Well, the start turned out to be farther from the parking lot than I thought it would be. It was SO WINDY and cold, but I was dying to see the start. I sat in the car for a full 10 minutes trying to figure out what to do...

Yes. I shoved Rose in the basket under the stroller again. Let me tell you, she's a lot bigger than she was last time I did this-- I will not be doing it again! But we saw the start of the race.

Then we re-loaded our very crowded little Honda Civic (2 car seats = very crowded) and drove down the road to the only other viewpoint--around the 5 mile marker. We had to hurry because Jeff is fast! He was in first place at this point. Then Jay, Rose, and I went back to our hotel for a little bit before driving down to Yakima for the finish.

We met up with Jay's Aunt Steph, and Jeff's parents at the finish. Jay played with Steph--he loves her! We waited and waited and waited, and NO JEFF came! Right when I was getting kind of nervous and worried, a big pickup truck pulled in and Jeff got out of it! What a relief it was to know that my husband wasn't plastered to the side of the road somewhere in the middle of the canyon! Jeff said his body ran out of energy and started those painful marathon-pains at the 17 mile marker, and he slowed down and thought about what to do. By mile 22, he decided that he was DONE with marathons. He didn't want to kill his body more just to finish, because he has already finished a marathon before in his life. So he jumped on a medi-truck and called it a day. He is glad to be over the marathon bug!

There were people on horses!

We had such a fun time being OUT and ABOUT together!

A mama with a camera

Taking a picture that captures kids’ cuteness takes skill and perseverance. If you’re like me and don’t have much in the way of photography skills, it takes extra perseverance to compensate for the lack of skill. Mostly, what I get is a huge pile of OK pictures—our March folder has 274 pictures in it! Every now and then, however, the fates align and I get a little gem of a photo like this:

…but most of the reason for any good picture I take is that my subjects [kids] are exceptionally good looking. Thank goodness Canon makes such a great Auto setting!

This week I had the epiphany that little girls don’t have to wait till Sunday to wear cute dresses!  Rose has grown out of her newborn sized clothing, and now she has started fitting plenty of her dresses. I am such a loungewear addict that it seems weird to dress up my little girl if I’m just in sweats, but I’m quickly getting over that in the name of ADORABLE baby girl clothes! Rose has a much larger wardrobe of cute clothes than me anyways!

Ha—this face makes me laugh

Is this even possible? It happened today: they were both smiling, and I captured the moment! Even though Jay’s faux-smile-grimace is kind of goofy, this is my star picture of the week. I only wish I had removed Rose’s pants—I kept them on her till the last minute to keep her warm, and I ended up taking the best picture while she had pants on under her dress. Oh well!

Brace yourself for a little example of my… photo-perseverance:

**Question: what did parents DO before digital cameras?

Jay wanted to hold hands with Rose. So sweet!

When Jay had had enough, he left. Rose started tipping over.

I wish my feet were that cute!

Rose is 7 weeks old already!!

Trying to smile while concentrating on centering the camera and protecting Rose from Jay = dazed expression on Shaina.

As you can see, I try to live with moderation in all things except digital photography. Oh, and peanut butter.

Too LONG!

I have been wanting a haircut for MONTHS, but I haven’t been in the mood to dedicate a portion of our little budget to my HAIR of all things. I would rather use the $20 on something more exciting, like a new dustpan or some sweet glass Pyrex bowls for our kitchen. This month, I managed to squeeze all 3 of those things into our budget!

I have had my eye on these beauties for a while. They are awesome. And so useful. I try to set a little dinero aside for kitchen improvements each month. One month all I could manage was a set of silicone whisks. But man I love those guys. Bit by bit, I am stocking my kitchen with lovely, quality supplies. Jeff thinks it’s funny how excited I get about new kitchen gadgets, big and small. I LOVE kitchen stuff!  I can’t resist rejoicing about them each time I use them!

If you think I’m weird for getting so happy over some glass bowls, you’ll definitely think I’m crazy for loving this dust pan so much! We have  had the same stupid, warped old dust pan for the past 3 years. I had to push down on the middle of it to get the dust to go in—not underneath—the dustpan! It finally cracked when Jay dropped it one too many times. YAY! I invested 4 whole dollars in this awesome tall dustpan. Since our vacuum only does carpets, we have to sweep our hard floors all the time. This dustpan really makes sweeping a breeze! Oh the small joys in life.

OK, I’ve put it off long enough. Here’s the “before” picture (pre-haircut, that is). It had been almost a whole year since my last hair cut!

Annnd the after-shot. The lady straightened it so it looks especially CHOPPED. It’s so nice to have less hair to handle! I walked a few blocks over to one of the 500 salons in this little town, sat in between two interesting women who were getting their hair painted, and endured half an hour of rather vapid conversation about lyposuction, laser treatments, and botox. And you wonder why it’s been almost a year since I had a haircut? Salon-talk is SO not me!

Freedom! for another year…

And now, for the REAL reason anyone reads this blog:

Irresistible sleeping baby Rose: droopy sleepy cheeks! She grew out of most of her size newborn clothes this week. Maybe that means she’s old enough to start sleeping more at night now? Last night she only woke up once between 10pm and 7am! That was NICE. Let’s keep it coming, Rose!

I had a fun little video of Jay, but it’s not working right now. So later, gator!

Could I have some ice, peas?

On Monday, I went on my first run with the double jogging stroller—or the TRUCK, as I like to call it. It is heavy! Tuesday morning I woke up and I could barely MOVE my left elbow without excruciating pain. I thought it was from holding Rose in a weird position or something until I walked to the grocery store pushing the Truck. Then I realized that the way I was holding handle and pushing one-handed torqued my elbow in a painful way. Injury #1 of the week.

Now, for injury #2. First, here’s some background: I have been a runner for 14 years. I ran cross country and track for 4 years in high school and 4 years in college. Somehow I made it through all that intense running without ever having to stop because of an injury. (pregnancy may have stopped me, but not any injuries!) Unbelievable as it may sound, I have never had to STOP during a run and walk home due to pain. Until this Saturday, that is.

SATURDAY: I mapped out a nice 3 mile loop and started running. Right when I was at the farthest point from home (of course), my heel started hurting. I just kept running, because I’ve had little niggles before and they have just gone away on their own. Not this time! After 2 miles, I had to admit defeat. I walked the last mile home with my painful heel in tow. It hurts! I can only walk on my tippy toes without pain. Grumble. I have only run 5 times this year—I’m not ready for a break yet!

What does any of this have to do with generic frozen peas? Jeff has had to ice various limbs and muscles during his marathon training, so we dedicated a bag of frozen peas for that purpose.

Tuesday night I pea-iced my elbow. Miracle! Wednesday morning, the pain was GONE!

So last night I had hopes of more magic peas healing my injury over night. Sadly, this one seems to be slightly more intense than the elbow was, because it’s still painful and puffy. With enough icepeas, though, it’s bound to get better soon, right? In the meantime, I will be on my tiptoes!

How to melt your Mommy:

It HAPPENED! Rose started SMILING at us this week!!!

We still have to work pretty hard to coax a smile out of her, and she has to work kind of hard to figure out how to work her smiling muscles, but she’s getting better every day! It’s one thing to get Rose to smile, and another thing to capture it on camera. These pictures don’t quite do her little grin justice, if you can believe that!

Jeff is good at smile-extraction.

We still love this guy too, of course! It seems like every time I start going a little crazy with the camera on Rose, Jay reminds me that there is work to do—he starts doing laundry, sweeping the floor, or in this case, vacuuming. Thanks for keeping me grounded, Jay!

The power of The Flower:

Just thought you’d like to experience it in live action:

Rose is pretty good at balancing that gigantic flower, don’t you think?

Bare Babies

Look at that round tummy! And that cute round belly button! Ok, and those cute round cheeks! Rose had her first REAL bath this week: the kind where she lays in water and gets all wet all at once. She liked it ok until I started actually washing her…

…but her least favorite part was getting dried off!

Jay is such a goofball sometimes! We think he’s cute when he runs around in just a diaper, Tarzan-style.

That bath wore Rose right out. I love how her hair gets all fuzzy and sticks straight up in the back after it’s been washed. And I adore the peaceful face of my sleeping baby!

Happylips! When Rose is happy, she gets this content, almost-smiley expression right around her little mouth. I call it her happylips, and it’s my favorite Rose face so far.

Rose seems to be kind of trying to smile just a little bit these days. Yay!

Jay has been working in the yard with his Dada this week.

Little strong neck

I may have mentioned this before, but… my kids make me happy!