the rest of february

The weekend after Will's birthday, so Valentine's weekend we went to Salida, where there are hot springs, for a getaway. We went here when I was pregnant with Eliza and we love it. We just went for one night, which was a good amount of time. Madison really enjoyed being able to swim on her own. The floats helped her to go on her belly so she could kick and move her arms to get around the pool. Eliza was content just to snuggle on me. It was interesting to all stay in the same hotel room, we pretty much all just went to bed at eight. I am hoping that this will the first of many trips we take this year.

Then last week our table that Will build was finally completely finished. At the first of the year, I decided to sell our table to motivate Will to build us a new one.  The result was that we ate on the floor for about three weeks. When Will had finally finished the table, it was too cold to stain and seal, so we had to be incredibly careful not to spill on it. Then last week, it warmed up enough for us to complete the project. I love how it turned out. It is made with beetle kill pine that Will had to cut all himself. We are planning on making  a matching bench, but that might not be finished until the summer.

On a more personal note, I discovered a thing called toe cleavage. I feel a bit silly even talking about it because is is actually quite silly. I recently have become a bit too into buying Madewell and Free People clothing on eBay.  I like name brand clothing, but refuse to pay the full price and I also really value the idea of buying items second hand. So I decided I needed a pair of leopard flats and this pair from Madewell was just what I wanted. Once they came, I tried them on with much anticipation only to see that my toes stuck out a bit. I have never had a pair of flats before, so I was not sure if this was acceptable. After much googling of toe cleavage images, I concluded it was acceptable, especially for people with long toes. So I kept them and have enjoyed breaking them in. I keep trying to find ways to make my mom outfits a little more put together and leopard print is just the thing. In case you find yourself in this same predicament, may I suggest not discussing it with your significant other, they might not find it as important as you do and this could result in some tension.

I was also faced with my reoccurring hair cutting dilemma. I was this close to cutting a long bob, but decided to go with a really good trim instead. I splurged and got my hair cut at an actual salon instead of Great Clips. What a world of difference! She cut nearly three inches off, but because my hair had gotten so long I can hardly tell. I am thankful I held off on the bob, I have all of my thirties to have a short do.

In other news, we might become the proud owners of a Subaru. I know, I know, so typical. We will be trading in our trusty jeep. I have had my Liberty since I was a Senior in high school. I try not to attach too much sentimental value on objects, but this car has seen me through every major life event. I will be thankful to have a car that keeps us safe in the winter, does not chug gas, and does not sound like you are in a wind tunnel, but I think I will miss it a bit. If owning a Subaru is anything like the Subaru commercials, then we will fill this next car with just as many memories.

I think that is just about updates one can handle for right now. I am off to keep two children entertained on this snow day.

eight months

Well, Eliza is eight months old. I have gotten even farther behind on my blog posts because of a broken computer. I am blogging from Will's Mac and so its quite a new experience for me. This month has been a pretty filled month, so hopefully I can play a little catch up, as usual. 

At eight months:

-Eliza is just adorable. I love this age so very much. She is not as fragile and she is finally able to get her body to do the things she wants to do. 

-She can wave "hi." She makes the cutest humming noise when she waves. I love how she starts waving and then catches a glimpse of her hand and gets distracted staring at it in wonder. 

-She is "crawling." I use this term loosely because it is more of a arm pull. She stretches her arms out and then pulls her body behind her. Those legs of hers are just along for the ride. She has figured out how to move from room to room and to wherever Madison is at. This has presented some problems in Madison's world, but we are working through them.

-She is eating nearly everything. Well, everything that we have given her. She enjoys feeding herself and does not mind too much when we feed her. It is nice to have Madison share food with her when she is fussy. When we were running the other day, Eliza was really not happy. Madison kept giving her cheerios and helped to ease the crying, it was wonderful. 

-She is sleeping a bit better. She still wakes up quite a bit at night, but we just let her cry until she falls back asleep. I am still not sure why she can not figure out how to just keep sleeping, but oh well. 

-She still hates the car. We took a little road trip two weeks ago and she cried nearly the entire time we were in the car. 

-She still loves to be held. She has also started crying whenever she sees me and dare I say, prefers me. Madison always preferred Will, so it is kind of nice to be the favorite. 

- She is starting to babble. I love all the bababas, dadadas, and so on. She is very much a screecher. I think it is so funny when Madison starts mimicking her noises and they go back and forth with the screeches.

-She can sit up all on her own and really loves to flip from her stomach back to sitting.

Will is 29!

Yesterday, Will turned 29. I have been celebrating his birthday with him for seven years. It is another neat marker that is fun to look back on and see how we have changed from year to year. From that first birthday we celebrated together where everything was new, to this year, where we have added two, beautiful girls to the mix. 

It was quite fun to include Madison in the birthday planning, actually just the birthday cake planning. We walked to Safeway last week and I had her pick out which box cake she liked, which icing, and sprinkles. We left with a tie-dye cake mix and hot pink sprinkles. 

We then planned a last minute dinner at a burger joint with our friends from church. It was a bit chaotic trying to eat with eight adults and six children, but it was still a great time. I brought the cake and Madison finally got to sing Happy Birthday. I know that Will was a bit embarrassed, but Madison loved it.

It was not a super fancy birthday, but we got to spend it together. Will, I hope you know how much your girls adore you and are thankful for another year with you!

 

And to keep his birthday celebration going, Will has jury duty today. It is like he is finally an adult!

oh, hey 2014

I am not much of a new years resolution type person. It is mostly because my melancholy personality is too busy mourning another year has passed. However, I wanted to take a minute to think about what it is I want out of this year. I do not think I can come up with a direct phrase or word to embody the whole year, but the closest thing I can think of, is rest. 

I want this year to be a year of resting in our family. Resting in our here and now. Resting in watching our two girls turn three and one. Resting in the adventures Colorado has to offer. Resting in not having a huge life change lurking in the future. 

In order to really emphasis what I mean by rest, I should do a rough recap of our life together. 

[2007]

We meet. We decide within a too short of a normal time period we want to get married. I make plans to figure out how to graduate from college early. 

[2008]

We spend the summer working in Estes Park. We get engaged. Will starts graduate school in Montana. I finish my last semester in college. I graduate from Texas A&M. 

[2009]

We get married. Move across the country. We move into student housing. We move again, this time in a 450 sq. ft apartment. We adopt Aspen. 

[2010]

Start the year of running by training for a half-marathon in May. Spend the rest of the year training for a marathon. Plan for Will's potential completeion of graduate school. Surprise, I am pregnant. 

[2011]

Will graduates. We move to Texas. Madison is born, woah! Move to Denver. 

[2012]

Start looking at houses. Buy a house. Go to Hawaii. Celebrate Madison's first year. I start graduate school. Surprise, (well, not really...) I am pregnant again. 

[2013] 

Spend the first half of the year anxiously anticipating little Eliza. Spend the rest of the year anxiously transitioning to having Eliza. 

[2014] 

The year of no impending life change. 

We have pretty much made a huge life decision every year of knowing each other. It is something I had not even realized until I sat down to reminiscence about our five years of marriage. I have been pregnant for a least a portion of the past three years. We have always had some sort of move looming in our future. Anyway, it is really nice to know that we do not have anything on the agenda this year. I am realizing and accepting that this is our home. We are finally digging in and making this place our own. 

We have several of our close friends and family whose turn it is to experience these life changes and we could not be more thrilled for them. It will be great to get to celebrate them fully and be the bystanders. 

I am excited that we can finally get the chance to just be, to rest (well. relatively). 

So here is to 2014! 

 

seven months

These updates are pretty close since I was so late for her six month one. I will try to think of what she has done different these past couple of weeks for memories' sake. 

At seven months: 

* She is still not a reliable sitter. I think this is because she would much rather be stretched out trying to move around. I guess we just make children who need to be on the move constantly. 

* I thought for sure she would be crawling by now. Still rocking on all fours. She can army crawl a bit forward, but mostly just scoots herself backwards. She can roll incredibly fast, like be across the room in a blink of an eye. 

* She has two teeth! I think she may be working on more. Getting these teeth took me by surprise because Madison did not teeth until several months later. 

* We have started solids. Mostly just bananas, an avocado, and apples. I have been giving her slices of apple and she can shred them with her two teeth. So she can manage to eat an entire slice of apple on her own. 

* I thought we were in the clear, but little girl is still having some tummy trouble. I even took her to a chiropractor this month, but it did not do much.  She is just waking up so frequently at night again and her discomfort is noticeable. We just feel at a loss, but oh well. 

* She is babbling a lot more. Her and Madison have been communicating a bit. They will mimic each others' noises back and forth. It is such a neat moment when we catch them getting lost in each other. They just laugh and laugh.

* She is transitioned out of nearly all her infant items. We no longer need the car seat adapter for the stroller. She can sit in a high chair all by herself. She squirms out of her rock and play. She even went on a stroller ride the other day where Madison pushed her the entire time. 

Here are some pictures from the past month:

And a certain sister took over our seven month photo shoot...

I feel I have all these blog posts swirling around in my head, there just is not enough time to sit down and get them out. My moments of uninterrupted time is still so scarce.

half-marathon

I am going to try my best to catch up on all the things we did the last of the year. One of those being the half-marathon I ran in December. I had not done a race since Madison was born, so I was pretty excited about doing the training and running this race. It was definitely a climb the first six weeks of training. Running four miles felt like I was pushing hard. Every week I kept thinking it should be getting easier, but it just kept being physically difficult. Then I hit the six mile mark and I think all of the previous weeks were finally paying off. I felt great the remaining long runs and found my love for running long distances again. 

I also knew that the training is the hardest part, so I had confidence the race would go well. We headed down to Galveston early in the morning, leaving the girls with the grandparents. We stopped at Starbucks and enjoyed a scream-free car ride. I began to get a little bit nervous when we met up with my dad and brother. We casually walked around and took in all the super intense, pre-race warm-ups of the other runners. 

Then the race started. I always hate the first three miles. I felt really awful, but did not want to say anything. Luckily, I found my groove at mile 4 and began to enjoy the run. We ran along the ocean in Galveston. The humidity felt great after training in such a dry climate. About half-way, Grant noticed that we were getting a little bit faster each mile, so he encouraged me to keep it up so we could finish under two hours. 

At mile 11, I just wanted to be done. So I picked up the pace and headed for the finish line and we crossed in under two hours.

 

It felt great to do this race. I am looking forward to doing more this year and using the running as a way to take back a little piece of me. There is something great that happens after running for an hour and I am so glad that I pushed my body to get back to that place.