Run for the Refuge 5K

On Saturday I ran my first real 5K since before I was pregnant.  During the summer Billie and I ran/walked a 5K, but this past Saturday I was able to run the entire 3.4 miles.  Back before I was pregnant, I had built up my running to the point that 3 miles was a light to normal run. Well, these last few weeks I have been back on the running wagon and I knew this race was coming up so my goal was to run the entire race.

The Run for the Refuge was to benefit the Refuge for Women, which is a great cause to give my $20 race registration fee to. Plus the race was at my church and around the surrounding neighborhoods (we passed 2 of my friends' houses on the course.) Plus my MUMs (mops) group was a sponsor of this race, so I decided it would be a great race to get back into the swing of things.

Oh, and I was still trying to decide whether I was actually going to run the race or not when my MUMs group contacted me and asked if I would be willing to coordinate a group of MUMs girls to run/walk the race and also do a t-shirt for all involved so we could stand out among the crowd. So that was what finally pushed me to commit to running the race (and training for it).

I missed my running friends. It's way more fun to run a race when you're running next to your friends and talking with them (or in my case, listening while they talk since I'm usually too winded to respond).  But Billie is about a month away from welcoming baby E to the world and Lindsy was out of town, so I was on my own running this one. We had a great turnout of MUMs girls (at least 25 which was really great since it was only 34* out) but some were fast runners and lots decided to walk and push their strollers.

Jonathan and Adalyn came to cheer me on. Thankfully they had the warmth of the church while they waited for me because it was so cold out! I loved seeing my girl's smile when she saw me after the race! She was dressed in her Halloween costume because that was part of the race... they invited all runners and kids to dress up! (I have enough of a struggle to run dressed for running, so there was no way I was going to attempt a costume on top of that!)  I ended the race able to sprint the last portion and finished at 32 minutes. Nowhere close to a personal best for me, but with my condition (carrying around an extra 25 lbs and just started back running in the last month) I'm happy with my finish time.

(After the race - looking especially lovely. My face matches my shirt! HA!)

Now that I've got this race under my belt, I'm back to being addicted to running in races! I love the feeling of race day! Maybe I'll sign up to run the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving in Toledo! Either way, I'm going to keep up running in my neighborhood at least twice a week. I don't always love running, but somewhere during the second mile my runners high kicks in and I enjoy the feeling. And lets be honest, I enjoy reaping the benefits of running...I've still got lbs to lose!

Sunday Dress

Adalyn received a few precious outfits in size 12 months from a family friend when she was born. What a great baby gift idea!! When we received them a year ago, they looked so big I couldn't fathom her wearing them. But today I pulled one out and it fit her perfectly. It was so precious that I just had to share today!

 Coda was giving kisses. How precious are the sleeves of this dress? She kept playing with them.

Oh my goodness. I could just eat her up!

Gated Community

As of a few weeks ago, Adalyn now lives in a gated community. I don't think she minds yet, but poor Coda now has to decide which floor he wants to be stuck on:)

We put swinging gates at the bottom and the top of the stairs a few weeks ago. We got two of the exact same brand at Babies R Us and we had 20% off coupons and Rewards Bucks! Then we got home and had a bit of drama with the gates. First of all this was during our family sickness and Jonathan was sick but insisted on installing the gates anyway. (I think it's a guy thing.) When he got to installing the second gate he realized that it was updated and the latch on the second one worked 100 times better than the one he had already finished installing. (This was after trying to figure out a spot to drill the gate in the wall which resulted in 50,000 holes.) Since the recycling had already taken away the boxes, I called Babies R Us and told them the predicament and they allowed me to bring it back in, without the box but with my receipt. The drill came back out and the gate came down and we went back to the store. I made the worker open every single box that was left looking for the "correct" latch. I was not successful. We went without a gate for another week and made it to the other BRU in town and again we checked all of the boxes and this time found the updated gate! So we now have two matching working gates! I love that they swing. So much easier to use than the old school gates. I'm sure Adalyn will soon be bored with them because she'll be wanting to climb the stairs, but I'd rather keep her off the stairs for now:)

Applesauce: A Yearly Tradition

I love fall.  I love the smells. I love the colors. I love all of the fall-ish events that we do each year like going to pick apples and pumpkins and making applesauce! My mom has made homemade applesauce since I was little. I never remember having store bought applesauce in our house because we always had ziploc bags of applesauce in the freezer all year long. A long time ago my grandparents owned an orchard so making applesauce was the thing to do every fall! 

Since Jonathan recently organized our pictures, I decided to look back through the years at our applesauce making pictures. I probably shouldn't have since I was reminded of what the "real" Abby looks like when she's not carrying an extra 30 lbs around. But, I thought the pictures were fun so I thought I'd post them. 

2008 at my brother's house with my sweet niece who is now a teenager(!?!)

 And with my nephew.

 Jonathan actually got in on the action that year! (He hasn't since:) ) Can you tell the kids like to do the crank on the Victorio (maker)?

2009 at our old house with my parents and Billie:

 And of course you can't see Billie's Eli belly but it was there... :)

2010 and oh my! Precious Eli. I can't handle it! And I also can't handle that this picture of him is the same age as Adalyn right now! WHAT??  I was in a total of zero pictures from 2010 probably because I sat for a good portion of it with my swollen feet and legs elevated.

This year Lindsy joined us in the tradition and Kennedy was quite interested in how the machine works!  Here are a few pictures from yesterday.

I had to get a picture of Billie's baby belly this year! :) It's just so cute!

 Eli was enjoying eating his apple in Dakota's bed (with a couch pillow) love it!

Eli was laying in the recliner and Coda came to lay with him. Precious.

 Adalyn had fun playing with her bff Avery. They were sweet together.

Lindsy and Kennedy watching to see how it works.  Kennedy loved helping us turn the crank to make it and she hung in there for a long time!

 A picture of all of us girls! (The boys were at the driving range and then on kid duty.)

And this is what the living room looked like afterwards. Every piece of every single toy out plus Eli's trains and tracks. Wow...



Should we talk about the fact that I've had a UK t-shirt on every single year to make applesauce? Do I have a problem? I'll just say that it's because it's always on Saturday which usually means that UK is playing:)  (And thankfully we won yesterday!) We had a great time spending the day with friends. We made 3 bushels of apples this year and now we have stocked freezers of yummy applesauce that also double as healthy baby food! Yay!

A Day at the Orchard

A couple weekends ago we headed out to an orchard with Billie, Derek and Eli.  We have made a tradition of going to pick apples and pumpkins every fall together. It's funny to look back at our pictures we've taken each year.  We started off as a two couples. Then the next year Billie had a baby belly. Then the next year Eli was with us and I had a baby belly. This year we had Eli and Adalyn were with us and Billie has a baby belly. (If this tradition stays, I'll be the one with a baby belly next year!) {no, I'm not pregnant!}

Since we went after church, both kids had little to no naps but they were both so good! Adalyn was a bit of a grump and wouldn't give us many smiles for pictures, but she did give Eli lots of smiles. It was so cute!  I ended up taking 150 pictures while we were there. Yeah. I know. That's just crazy.

 Eli kept us entertained by dancing to the music the dj was playing!

 Adalyn enjoyed her ride through the orchard.

Eli loved making Adalyn laugh by playing with her feet.

 Anytime we set her in the grass (in the pumpkins or orchard) she did this... (Eli didn't know what to think about it.)

 So he gave her hugs to make her feel better. Melt my heart.

 Then Adalyn was full of smiles. Eli really enjoyed his apple too!

 Adalyn wanted to pick her own apple.

Perfect size for her. She wouldn't give it up the rest of the day. It was her favorite treasure.

 This was the only picture in the pumpkins where they were both looking at the camera.

Billie and I were both snapping away taking pictures all afternoon and not until the next day did we realize that we didn't get any pictures of all of us! Oops. My, how priorities change! We had a good time and decided that we may want to go back to our normal orchard that we visit each year later this month. Maybe it will be cool enough for Adalyn to wear her cute autumn outfit!

Still here...

It feels like it's been forever since I have posted.  It's not that I didn't have topics or pictures to blog about. Get this... Jonathan monopolized the laptop last week and I was okay with it.  Why? Well, because he was procrastinating doing his school work he was consolidating all of our pictures from our desktop and laptop onto an external hard drive. And while he consolidated, he also organized every.single.picture we have taken during the 5 years we have been married. Wow. Seriously. Is he awesome or what? :) So there was no way that I was going to complain about needing/wanting to write a blog post. Nope. Not me!

I'm so thankful to have all of Adalyn's pictures organized and in files that I can find. I've been really into going through her pictures lately.  I'm planning on printing out her weekly and monthly pictures to be displayed at her birthday party so having all of those pictures in one spot will be helpful!  I've been making mixbooks for all of her photo shoots she has had with Jes. And once her birthday rolls around next month (!!??) I'm going to make another mixbook of her first year of snapshots. After making 5 {seriously!} books, I'm spent creatively, but hopefully in the next month I'll be ready to work on another 2.  I may post a blog about my experience making them. (And what they are for those people like my mom who have no clue what a digital scrapbook is.)

We've had a fun couple of weekends, first going to an orchard and then grandma and papa coming to visit. So we've been busy, but a good busy!  And just because this is a random post about nothing, here are a couple random pictures, because pictures always make a post better!

One night Adalyn fell asleep way before bedtime so I laid her on the carpet while we ate dinner because it was too early for her to go to bed for the night. Dakota went and laid next to her. He is so sweet with her!

 He saw me taking a picture and wanted to be in the front. HA! He's so cute! (And yes, she always sleeps with her hands behind her head when she lays on her back. So precious!)

 My two favorite people before church a couple weeks ago. Can  you even believe how big that bow is? I can't handle it. It's practically a hat! :)

 She usually stays so clean when she eats, so this face made me laugh and the tongue just made it even better!

11 Months

Last Sunday Adalyn turned 11 months. What? I realized that last year on this weekend we were taking maternity pictures at the orchard and this year I have an almost 1 year old. Unbelievable. I've been working on digital photo books of Adalyn's first year and I can't believe how much she has changed. You don't see it in the day to day, but when you go back and look at the past its crazy.

{This week last year}

Adalyn is long and lean so all of her 6-12 month clothes are too short but the larger sizes won't stay up around her waist. We're being creative trying to find clothes to fit. Her onesies are still 3-6 month! I've had some issues fitting shoes on her so we took her to have her feet sized. She measured as a size 3, and the store we were at only had 2 options in size 3 so we didn't buy any. But any of the size 3 gymboree sandals that she has fall right off because her little feet are so skinny that nothing will stay on her! Thankfully we've had some warmer weather so we haven't needed to worry about shoes. Yet.

Adalyn got a stomach bug for the first time this month and poor thing was so sad. She really lost her appetite and we're still not back to where we were with finger foods but mostly she's back to normal.  She loves puffs, cheerios and yogurt melts because they are few and far between. But we have started yo-baby and she LOVES it. And she eats grapes, bananas, peas and some other finger foods along with her normal homemade baby foods.  She says "more" in sign language when she wants more snacks. It's so cute. She also squeals and whispers "ba-ba" and does the sign language for milk when she wants or sees her bottle. Right now she still has 6 teeth but we're wondering if teething is starting again... We shall see...

She just keeps learning so much. When we ask her where Dakota, dada or mama are she can point to the right answer. She also says uh-oh and it's cute because it sounds like she has an English accent. She also waives bye-bye.

I had to throw in a few extra pictures this month. I just love all of her different expressions. I can't wait to print out all of her weekly and monthly pictures to display at her birthday party. It will be so much fun to see how much she has grown!  I'm probably forgetting lots of things that she is doing right now. We are just amazed by how much she understands and learns every day! We are so very blessed!

Bath Time!

Splish splash Adalyn was taking a bath, long about a Saturday night... We hadn't taken bath pictures for a while and these were too cute not to post!

 Dakota was checking on his sister. He wanted to join her!

 My beautiful baby. She loves bath time!

 Look at all that hair!

It's amazing how a set of cups can make a little girl so happy and splashy! I love this girl!

Our Little Helper

Adalyn is always "helping" us around the house.  The other night Jonathan was doing dishes and she insisted on helping him...

 I hope she's this excited about doing dishes a few years from now! :)

Another day she decided to "help" me by emptying the clothes from one of the sales out of the laundry basket...

 Notice that she went right for the pink tu-tu. My girl has good taste!

She was also trying to "help" me while I was switching out her closet this past weekend. Thankfully Jonathan was there to distract her from emptying the bin of folded summer clothes as fast as I could fill it. She is just so sweet. I love seeing mundane household tasks through her eyes. I could just eat her up!