Howdy

Hello there, all. I hope you had a fabulous Thanksgiving weekend. We're lamenting the fact that Jeff has to back to work tomorrow as we've enjoyed our time together tremendously. We spent the holiday with family at the Lake and then were home for the rest of the weekend. While I'm traditionally a get-the-house-decorated-on-the-day-after-Thanksgiving kind of girl, we bypassed that this year to paint the kitchen. After 2 years of living with what I fondly called "acid-trip" yellow, we're finally enjoying a subtle buttery yellow. I'll post pics later this week when I'm not in a big fight with my external hard drive.

On Friday, Jeff and Emerson decided to stretch their legs outside and tend to some end-of-the-season stuff in the yard. Em was a great little helper. She was so happy to be ow-see-i (as she says it) after being couped up during the cold weather last week.

She was sporting the darling sweater that Godmama got her for Christmas last year and the watermelon hat that I knit for her when she was in my belly.

Notice the purple socks that we used for gloves...her only pair of gloves was inconveniently in the washing machine when they were outside, so we improvised. Em was happily playing in the dirt one minute...

...and was whisked inside to have her mouth rinsed out the next. Yes, that IS dirt in her mouth. And YES, I did take this picture before rinsing it out. She didn't seem too bothered by it. I was definitely more upset than Emerson was! There goes my mom-of-the-year award, I guess.

Ciao~

A.

peek-a-boo...

I SEE YOU!

howdy

We're just back from a long weekend at the beach in South Carolina, and I'm beat, so this will be quick. But I wanted to share a few pics from the trip.

Good morning from South Carolina. This was the view off of our deck. Now THAT'S a great reason to get up early.

We rented a house on Folly Beach and I thought this would be a cute way to show that. I attempted to edit Jeff out but I'm too tired to fight with my computer. Maybe tomorrow...

A family shot on the beach.

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this picture of my two loves. Emerson's posture and body language says so much about her spunky personality. And when I look at this, I can't help but sing "Me and My Shadow." She was ALL ABOUT her Papa this weekend, and that makes him pretty darn happy.We have so much to be {thankful} for. Here's a few that come to mind: spending time with family, the beach, dolphins frolicking in the water steps outside of our house, safe travels, new experiences for Emerson, a nine-miler for me (7 of which I did alone...never thought I'd make it, but it wasn't bad AT ALL!), sleeping in our own beds. And to that end, g'night, all!

ouch!

There's a new four-letter word being spoken around here lately, and that word is MOLAR. Em is cutting them, and it stinks. Seems like she spends all of her time either jamming her fist into the back of her mouth or pulling at her ear. The ibuprofen is being doled out liberally to be sure, which we are both {thankful} for. And sleep is coming at a premium. Well, Herself is still snoozing (at 7:45 am!) after a rough night. But Mama is sitting in front of the computer trying to get ready for the busy weekend ahead. Who's the smart one? Not me!

the simple things

Howdy all. We're just off a fantastic weekend that consisted of nothing but family time. Dinner with Grammy and Grandpa on Friday night, hanging around the house and watching the Hawkeyes on Saturday, and running errands and swimming together on Sunday. Nothing flashy, but we all have big smiles on our faces around here. In fact, we had an epic family tickle session/pony ride/wrestling match on our bed during the time that I refer to as "the burn off." {You know, that time after dinner but before bath and bed where we need to use up all the extra energy from the day.} I honestly don't know who laughed more, and that's just the way it should be. I'm {thankful} for every part of this wonderful, simple weekend.

I'm also {thankful} for the 9 mile run that I completed on Saturday and for my friend/training partner/kick-in-the-butt Gale W. She keeps me on the straight and narrow, and even supplies the recovery meds. Everyone needs a friend like that!

Emerson has discovered a fun new game. She LOVES riding the halls in the laundry basket. And Jeff was happy to oblige.

She is also getting the hang of using crayons. Here she is creating her first masterpiece. Maybe she'll be like Grammy and be ambidextrous?

Have a splendid week~

why is it...

...that no matter how many toys we have in the house, diapers are the most interesting thing around? This is what happens whenever Mama takes her eyes off of Emerson for a minute:

Maybe for Christmas, we'll just get more diapers. She'd be happy with that!

Today, I'm thankful for sinus medicine and naps (for me!)

sloppy

I made sloppy joes for dinner tonite. I've never made them from scratch, but it was SO easy. And it was a big hit with my crew, as evidenced here.

Of course, Jeff had to get in on the fun too. Sometimes, I'd swear that I have TWO kids. They're like two peas in a pod, those two are. And I'm quite {thankful} for them both!

a huge sigh of relief

So last week, Emerson had an EEG. We had seen some involunary convulsions from her during the last month and wanted to make sure there was no funny business going on. After talking to the doctors, they wanted to take no chances, so the EEG test was scheduled. It's a "sleep" test, so we had to keep her up late, get her up early, and pray that she'd sleep in the hospital during the test. Of course, it came SMACK in the middle of her wonky sleep-thingie due to the time change. But, she did GREAT. Emerson had 21 electrodes attached to her head and had to sleep in a "big girl bed" during the test. It took her a while to settle down, but both Mama and Papa were there with her, and she was able to sleep long enough for her brain activity to be registered.

Here's our little patient as the tech was attaching the 21 electrodes to her head. Let's just say that when we finished, her hair was spectacular.

And here's Sleeping Beauty (forgive the poor picture quality. I took it with my phone.)

She had a doctor's "shower cap" on over the electrodes (which were glued on with a toothpastey substance), and then taped around to keep her from pulling them off.

So, onto the aforementioned HUGE SIGH OF RELIEF...the test results came back completely normal. No funny business in the brain. The pediatric neurologist says that sometimes kids have, well for lack of a better word, ticks, which cause them to make strange movements. Nothing to worry about. Now, if you know me AT ALL, you know that I'm relieved and {thankful} to say the least. But I'm also going to keep my vigilant eye out and talk to another doctor if I see anything more.

a lazy sunday post

Em and I have been MIA this weekend. We're up in Madison, WI visiting cousins and braving the cold. Hard to believe it was 75 earlier this week, and now we're spotting flurries. Yuck! But I did just snuggle up under a cozy blanket with a cup of hot cocoa, so I guess there are some benefits to the cooler weather.

I'm behind on my thankfulnesses, so here they are:

~an 8.5 mile run on Saturday with Amy...the farthest I've EVER gone. When we got home {and I was relishing my hot shower!}, I kept saying "I DID it...I DID it!" 

~an EPIC win for the Hawkeyes!!!

~our Kothe cousins

Have a snuggly Sunday~

TIMEOUT!

Miss Emerson B. set a dubious record today. FIVE timeouts this afternoon. 2 for beating the cat... Jiko is SUCH a good girl...I'd have let Em have it if I had claws, but that's just me. And 3 timeouts for biting. Jeff not-so-affectionately calls her "fang." In her defense, she uses her teeth to pull up and for balance, but OUCH!! It stinks!

This begs the question: When one accrues 5 timeouts in a 3 hour span, are the timeouts really working? I'll let you argue amongst yourselves on that one.

On to happier topics~ In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I want to share some of the things I'm thankful for during the month of November. I'll try to do this everyday, but don't hate me if I forget. Here's my {thankfulness} for today:

After a really gruelling run this morning, my darling husband surprised me with a "recovery" omlette with spinach, ricotta, and chicken. Yum! AND, he stuck around a bit longer before heading to work so that I didn't have to get ready alone with the small person running amuck. Thanks, Booey!

anyone speak French?

As a former 4th grade teacher, I know that when you make a mistake about something, kids LOVE to call you out on it. But the beauty of spending my days with an almost-15-month old is that she couldn't care less about my mistakes.

Case in point. Herself is currently obsessed with the song Frere Jacques (please ignore this an all future French misspellings...5 years of Spanish is not helping me much here.) It is THE ONLY song she'll allow for her lullaby.

{how do I know this? because when I try to sing something else, she frantically signs "more" and "please" to get me to change. even her all-time greatest hit twinkle twinkle is not doing it for her these days. but I digress...}

Anyways, I'm a bit fuzzy on the words, and my fourth graders would just jump right in here and nail me. But not Emerson. Nope. The line that comes out "sonny leg ma tina" works just fine for her. (it's the 3rd line after the two "frere jacques" lines.)

Anyone out there know what I'm really supposed to say? I'm probably swearing at her or something!

Au revoire~

Queen of the Sniffles

Well, on this election day, I'm NOT going to talk about politics. There's enough of that going on on the tube tonite. But we're glued to the coverage and are curious about who the next prez will be.

Yesterday, Grammy came over to hang with Em while I did some tutoring in the afternoon. When I left, this is what was going on in the kitchen.

Uh, yeah. That would be my mom teaching Em how to email using her Blackberry. We are in SO much trouble when this kiddo hits puberty!

Sadly, we have a sick kiddo in our midst. Last nite seemed ordinary enough. She went down around 7:30, as usual, but woke around 8:15 SCREAMING. We went in a few times, but she couldn't stay settled once we left her alone. Long story short, she didn't fall asleep until AFTER MIDNIGHT!!! And, she was up around 1:30 and 2:30 and 5:15. Poor thing came down with a cold during the night and her nose was all stopped up. Later today, she spiked a 103 degree fever. Ugh! But, she was in such great spirits today. We laughed and laughed all day! I'm continually amazed by her sweet soul and kind heart. How did we get so lucky?

Mama bribed her to drink lots of fluids by putting some Gatorade in her water. Here's the Queen of the Sniffles guzzling down the good stuff.

We're hoping for a good nite tonite. She has a doctor visit (for an unrelated issue) tomorrow morning, and she'll need to be cooperative when she's poked and prodded, so keep your fingers crossed.

She's going the wrong way but I'm headed in the right direction

On this lovely morning, our darling Emerson decided that 5:18 am was a good time to wake up. Grrrr. But she kept us in stitches with her cacophony of sounds, so at least we got out of bed chuckling and not grumbling.

Speaking of getting out of bed at an ungodly hour, you may or may not know that I've been training for a 1/2 marathon since January. Well, training to train is more like it. In January, I was running about 6 miles a week and didn't have a lot of purpose other than trying to work off baby weight. But I heard a podcast from a guy who had run the Walt Disney World 1/2 marathon, and I was sold. I convinced my cousin Amy to join me, and was instantly motivated again. I'd never run further than 4 miles, so this 13.1 mile race was definitely going to pose a challenge, but it seemed doable...WAY more realistic than a full marathon. My biggest obstacle would be finding the time to train. I run about a 9:45 min/mile pace, so logging those 8, 10, and 12 milers takes quite a bit of time. But I found a training plan in Runner's World magazine and knew I could do it.

That brings me to the here and now. Today, I "officially" started training for the 1/2 marathon (and stopped training to train for the 1/2 marathon...confused yet?!?!!) I'll log 15.5 miles this week (I usually run 10-12, so this is a definite increase) and feel like God is on my side by giving us 70 degree temps in November. I do start to get stressed out about getting longer runs in (and getting home and showered) before Jeff leaves at 7:45 am, but I've decided that I'm only going to look ahead to "tomorrow's run" and nothing further. This seems like a good way to tackle a momentous undertaking. Now, if I could only apply this principle in my everyday life...

In case you were wondering...

5:37 am.

That's the time that Emerson woke this morning.

UGGHHHH!!!!

decisions, decisions

My friend and fellow teacher, Adrienne Wodka, once told me that there's a statistic out there that says that teachers make over 100 decisions per hour. I would challenge that parents make at least that many, if not more. What to serve for dinner, should I let her watch TV, does she need a jacket, is her diaper dirty??? The list is endless. Tonight, something as benign as the time change was cause for decision making in our house. Should we put her to bed at the usual time, and chance getting up at 5:30 tomorrow morning (6:30 is a frequent wake-up call for Em), or put her to bed later, chancing throwing her off her all-important schedule? Will it make a difference? Then, after talking around in circles for a few minutes, we realized that we have NO IDEA how it will affect her, and just went with our gut. (Put her to bed a few minutes late and will deal with the consequences tomorrow, I guess.) But sheesh, it gets exhausting thinking through everything ALL THE TIME.

I remember when she was a newborn, and we didn't have a clue about, well, anything. Everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING was a back and forth process and I was mentally exhausted by the end of the day. Fortunately, things have gotten much easier. Well, either that or I've gotten used to the decision making. But tonight's query reminded me of the "old days."

On to some fun pictures. Em loves playing Peek a Boo at opposite ends of the crib from her Papa. She squeals with delight when she sees him pop up and then runs to pounce. Note exhibit A:

And Exhibit B:

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this family time together at the end of the day. And I know that Em and her Papa do too!

Ok, well I'm off for my Saturday nite date. We were at a party today and didn't get to see the Iowa game, so, via the magic of Tivo, I'm off to watch my Hawks. Ain't technology grand...