Pat's Run

Yesterday I did Pat's run. It is a 4.2-mile run in honor of Pat Tillman, the ASU/AZ Cardinal football player who gave it all up to go fight in Afghanistan, unfortunately, he was killed. It was something that I have wanted to do for a while. My goal was to finish in under an hour, and my time was 48:13 which I was happy with. I didn't warm up very well and started to get cramps in the beginning so I pretty much walked the first mile, with that I thought my time would be much slower. It was a fun time, but way too crowded. I hope in the future they either put a limit on entries or give us bigger streets to run on.

As I was running in this one area, I saw a bunch of EMTs and medical people come running in.  An older man was on the ground.  I read in the paper a few days later he died. That was interesting.

Treyson Tidbids

Trey is 2 and quite a talker now. He pretty much repeats anything you say to him, but not always clearly. Many times he gibbers and throws in a few words to make it sound like he is actually conversing. My favorite phrases are baket ball (basketball) what are you doing, you're welcome (sometimes he uses this for thank you) bye bye see you, bye bye have fun, shoes on (sometimes he abbreviates this to shaun or Sean like Derek's friend across the street) He also likes to say "Hi Sean". We say that Trey has two middle eastern friends that he talks about often Humere, Humon, and Humin. His version of Come here, Come on and Come in.

Curtis got an iPad for Christmas and downloaded some kid apps, it has turned out to be Treyson and Derek's favorite thing. Treyson often asks for "pad". He is sooo good when he has that thing. We've been able to actually go to a restaurant and take that for him to play with and it is actually a pleasant experience. He is really good at puzzle and matching games.

We recently got a new car and he loves it. I used to have to literally wrestle him to get him in the car and then into his car seat. He loves our new minivan with a built-in DVD. He often says "car" because he wants to get in it. He loves the automatic doors. Every time we get in he opens and shuts the DVD player and insists that his "movie" goes on. It doesn't matter if we are going a block or on a long drive. He loves the DVD, then he gets in his car seat and says "buckle". If I leave the door open while I'm loading/unloading he tells me "door" and then he goes and shuts it. He willingly gets in the car and I have not had one wrestling match since we got the minivan

He is also a bit of a clean freak, I don't know if he has some of his Dad's genetics or if is just picking up on what I make his brothers do. He finished his dish and put it in the dishwasher, without anyone saying a word. He puts stuff in the garbage. When I beg, yell, and coerce the other kids to clean up he gladly starts picking stuff up and putting it away. Gladly picks up stuff from the recycle bin and helps the older two carry it out. Right now he is my best helper. The other day he was playing with the iPad in the kitchen while I was cleaning up. Curtis and the boys were downstairs. He got up and walked away and went downstairs, but nobody saw where the iPad went. We looked and looked all over for it. We asked Trey what happened to it, and it turned out he picked it up and put it back in Curtis' work bag right where it belongs. Amazing. I couldn't get my older boys to do that if their life depended on it.

He does still unfortunately love love love his bottle. I know he should be off of it by now, but he is such a crank weed when he doesn't have it. He can drink from, a sippy cup, straw, and regular cup and has been able to for a while but he loves his bottle, and I'm afraid loving it more each day.

He can climb in and out of his crib but he only does it when we tell him or when he wants to go to bed. Amazing, the other two boys escaped out of that thing before they were both two. It was miserable trying to get them to go and stay in bed for a while.

Going back and reading this it would seem that he is a total angel, picking up after himself, helping clean up, and staying in his crib, he is still quite a busy little handful, full of 2-year-old tantrums and a little stubborn. Typical 2-year-old. We love him and still keep him around.

My sweet boys

Often my sweet boys come home from school with flowers they have picked on the way home from school. Today Derek walked in with a little white flower he picked from a shrub on the way home. He handed it to me and said "when I first smelled it, I couldn't smell anything because it's so white" I guess in his mind the more colorful the flower the more fragrant.

Excuses to eat Cake

In celebration of Dr. Seuss' Birthday (March 2) Derek wanted to Honor the naughty cat by eating cake in a tub. They always make a big deal about Dr. Seuss' Birthday at school (last year I went into Derek's class and helped make Green Eggs & Ham) Derek had been looking forward to this day for a few months, he also wanted to fly a kite in the house and do whatever else obnoxious things the cat does in "The Cat in the Hat" one of his favorite books to read.
April 1- I had this great idea (I actually read it somewhere) that for April fool's day to make a sponge cake. Cut up sponges like a cake and cover them in frosting. I thought the kids would love it since they are always looking for April Fool jokes to do. They came home from school and I had it sitting on the counter, I didn't say anything. Dax saw it and immediately yelled to Derek "come inside Mom made us cake" They came running in and I handed each one of them a mini cake -They had to get an individual cake because I couldn't exactly slice the "sponge cake" Dax started saying this cake is tough, they kind of were licking the frosting and trying the saw through the cake. Finally, they realized it was a trick, they did not think it was funny one bit. In fact, Derek threw his cake at me. I barely redeemed myself by having a real cake, that looked identical to the sponge cake. They were so mad at me, but I kept telling them that if it had been the other way around and they did the trick on someone they would have thought it was hilarious.

Family Pics II

Since we had found a spectacular photographer, I had him do something I have wanted to do for a long long time. Re-do our wedding pictures. Our wedding day was a bit of a disaster for several reasons, the big downer was that it rained. I never felt like I had the wedding pics that I wanted, every time I looked at our wedding pics I cringed. My hair was a mess, my bouquet was as tall as me (you couldn't see anything but flowers) there were no pictures with my train on because it was too muddy, and I could go on and on and on. I finally decided to do something about it and have my wedding pics re-done. My groom was 1/2 way on board with the idea. OK with me doing it, but not excited to be in the pictures, I think he had had enough of our recent photo sessions. We might have to go to an exotic location for the groom to be excited about this. My one and only bridesmaid JJ was such a great sport to come and take part in this crazy idea. We had a great time. I tried to be as authentic to the original day as possible, my original shoes were chewed by a dog long ago, and I corrected the things that bugged oversize flowers, ugly hair, and a few other minor details, and of course, there are a few more wrinkles now. I am so glad to have the pictures and I can lay this to rest.

Family pics

These pictures have been a long time coming. I think Dax was about a year old the last time we had a professional family picture, and Derek was about 2 the last time we had a decent family picture. I'm so happy to have these and they turned out so great. Curtis happen to meet a great professional photographer and he thinks he made my kids look so cute. These are just a few of my favs, but he took hundreds of pics. So worth the money.

Guess who ate a red lollipop right before we did family pics?

Trey J and CJ

More to come...

Pool

We had a mishap with the pool.  The top step in the hot tub had a chunk break-off and needed to be repaired.  I got a few quotes and I ended up going with a guy that was recommended by our pool guy who services our pool.  I had a bad feeling about this guy, but I kept thinking it would be ok since he was recommended by our pool guy.  It was a disaster.  When he "fixed" the step the color wasn't even close to matching the rest of the pool, and the shape of the step wasn't even symmetrical.  What a disaster.  

We had to have someone else come in and fix it and no one was happy about this situation. It turned out it was time to drain the pool as well. We drained it, and as we were filling it back up the kids went out and played in it.  They had just as much fun in an empty pool as they do when it is full.  Just something different.