Hygiene and Superpowers

Being a mom I take teaching my kids hygiene very seriously.  I don't want my kids to be the dirty or stinky one.  I'm in the process of drilling in my potty trained children that it is important to wash your hands after using the bathroom.  I had an interesting conversation with Emma the other day after her afternoon constitutional.

Me:  Make sure you wash your hands.
Emma:  They didn't get dirty.
Me:  Baby, germs are invisible, so you have to make sure you wash every time.
Emma:  Germs don't have superpowers!

True...but if she doesn't get the hang of washing she is going to develop the superpower to repel people away, if you get what I mean.

Hannah's 4!

Four years ago today this wide eyed cherub came into our lives.  She has been a blessing and a true joy to raise these past 4 years.

 She wanted a cake covered with princesses, I think she wanted the bonus of being able to play with them after eating the cake.  She's a smart girl!

 She got a scooter and a super cute kitty cat helmet.  Isn't that just too adorable!!  I love the ears, and look at her face!  She is loving it!

It was such a fun day.  She reveled in it being her birthday.  Tobie was yelling at her, not in a mean way, he just has these weird outbursts, I think he has borderline turrets, but I heard her yelling right back at him, "You can't yell at the birthday girl!".  HA!  

We start Joy School in a few weeks, and even though it will be taxing on me since there is only one other mother teaching with me, I am so happy to keep her home for another year.

Happy Birthday Sweet Girl!

Karma

Growing up in a house with 7 kids it's hard to have nice things.  Stuff gets broken, marked on and worn out a lot sooner than most.  During this time my mom developed a saying that I have heard often, "I just can't have anything nice!". 

I can't speak for my siblings, but I'm sure they would agree that we didn't do those things on purpose they would just happen.  Careless mistakes that were made that probably made life pretty miserable for her at times.  But it came to a point when I heard her exclaim it so many times that I would just internally (and sometimes externally) roll my eyes.  Of course not having to spend any of my own money on things I sometimes thought she was over reacting to trivial things.  I still felt bad for ruining her things, I just didn't understand the value of it, so when she would lose it and say again and again "I just can't have anything nice!" I felt she was blowing it out of proportion.

But before you think I'm an ungrateful brat, Karma has come a calling in the form of MY children.  I have learned my lesson the hard way, to my new dining room table that the kids marked up with permanent marker, to Theo's new leather office chair that they ripped the back up from the continuous spinning in it and it hitting the desk.  The latest victim, I present exhibit A:

This is a picture of our brand new duvet that we bought a mere month ago.  I was doing my nails and Miriam wanted me to do her nails also.  I told her I would, just give me a second to finish up my own.  But she just couldn't wait, and opened the bottle.  That's when it went all over her hands and onto my new duvet.  I know she didn't mean it, but if she had just listened to me and left the nail polish alone none of that would have happened.  And then it slipped,

"I just can't have anything nice!".

Yep, Karma....gotta love it...   

Sugar Monster

Today has been a total blah to me, and I think I realized my body has a negative reaction to sugar.  I try not to eat very much sugar, we rarely EVER have dessert in our house.  But I have this habit of signing up for the missionaries at least once a week and we HAVE to have dessert then!  Last night was one of those nights.  After schooling our missionaries on real Southern cooking of Shrimp and Grits with a side of Collards and Bacon and a pan of cornbread, I made this:

White Texas Sheet Cake and you can find the recipe HERE.  Oh my goodness, this stuff is like crack!!  Sooo good!!!  I actually had a missionary over in AL that fought my sister for the last piece of this stuff! 

But I really paid for it today.  I felt like a sloth, all I've wanted to do all day is sleep.  I was in my pj's until noon and I still haven't showered today.  I'm still really tired, but I feel like I'm coming out of a brain fog and I seriously think it's because of this sugary piece of heaven. 

Why do things that seem so right have to be so darn bad?!?

Pool Rules

You want some good advice?  Don't run around a pool....

True story...:(

Lady Liberty and New York! New York!

 On a whim Theo said Saturday morning, "How about we go to Staten Island and ride the ferry past the Statue of Liberty.".  I was so excited and totally not expecting to go so soon, but we just packed up the kids and jumped in the car.  In less than 2 hours we were boarding the Staten Island Ferry on our way to New York City.

 Pure Awesomeness!

 You can see Lady Liberty in the background as Miriam and Hannah pose.

 Coming up on the city.

 "You're Fired!"  HA!  We decided to walk through the city to the 9/11 Memorial since it was only 1 mile away from the ferry.  We past by the Trump building.

 I was completely amazed by how narrow these roads were!  I'm used to big cities since we would drive through San Francisco often, but I never experienced such TALL buildings so close together that you didn't even have proper lanes!  It just blew me away!  I loved it though, it may sound weird, but with the buildings being so close to one another it actually gave me a homey feeling.  Has anyone ever described NYC as cozy?  LOL!

 This was actually the spot where George Washington was sworn in as the first President of the United States.  We weren't even looking for it!  How lucky is that!?

We finally came up on the memorial and they have this really neat wall as a reminder and also to honor the firefighters who lost their lives that day.

 I thought this was a cool shot.

Unfortunately they were doing some construction around the Memorial, and you need a ticket to get past that blue wall to the inside.  So this was as close to it as we got. 

Even though we didn't get to actually see the Memorial, just walking around the city and seeing the Statue of Liberty was a dream come true! 

Hopefully our kids will appreciate things like this one day.  I wish I could say how wonderful my kids were, that they were real troopers.  That they knelt beside the Memorial and said a prayer laying a single rose by the fence.  Instead it was me repeating to screaming and whining children, "You're killing my dream kids!".  And what's so funny (and I don't mean in the Ha! Ha! kind of way, more of a going crazy kind of cackle) is that Theo had his long run of 16 miles that morning, and I did 5 and yet our kids were DYING because they had to walk 2 miles.  Not to mention the stops and getting milkshakes from McDonald's, and hitching rides on the double wide stroller.  I was literally dragging Emma along, who was being exceptionally difficult.  But the real kick in the pants was when we got back to port where our car was, these kids whose legs you would think were falling off, were acting like cowgirls and galloping off the ferry.  Theo and I was pulling our hair out to get them to move, making our walk back to the ferry a living nightmare, and now they are flitting around like they were riding on a cloud the whole time we were in the city.  *SIGH*  

 At least this won't be my last trip into the city.  Next time we just may have to get a babysitter, I think we may just be expecting too much from them at this age.  I really hope they get better when they get older since I love to travel and go site seeing.  It just may take some time for that gene to manifest itself in them, at least that's what I'm hoping for.

Half or Full?

I'm in training to run the Half Marathon in Disney World next January 2013.  I've done 2 Half Marathons and they have both been Disney Halves.  They are pricey, butse4q they are so cool and the medals are awesome!  And you get to run through Fantasy Land right through Cinderella's castle, I guess you could do that any time you are there, but it would be really crowded and people would look at you funny.  Plus, you wouldn't get the cool medal.

This year is their 20th Anniversary of the Disney Marathon.  They have really outdone themselves on the medals.

Here is the Half Marathon medal:

I like how they did the hole in the middle.  The only thing is I have a Donald from last January.  I guess he represents the Half, but I have become pretty envious of the Marathon medal.

Which looks like this:

 
And if the looks of it isn't impressive enough, this thing spins!  There are two rings on the inside, the golden ring around Mickey and Mickey himself both spin.  That is way cool!  So cool in fact that it has got me wondering if I can actually run a Full Marathon!  At the last run I had a goal to beat my previous PR, and I did.  I could either challenge myself that way again and try to shave off more time, or I can really turn up the heat and challenge myself to a longer distance.

I haven't decided yet, mostly out of fear.  Also I really want to get my weight down so the run will be easier.  I swear this has been one trial that I can't seem to figure out.  I read an article in Runner's World where this guy made a comment, "Show me an overweight runner, and I'll show you an aardvark."  Okay, for one thing aardvarks aren't extinct, they aren't even uncommon!  You wanna see an overweight long distance runner, HERE I AM!  Ugh...that comment really ticked me off.  It definitely isn't from a lack of trying.  I have tried everything in the book, just short of starvation, and I can't seem to drop these annoying pounds.  I seriously think that is how I injured my foot from my last Half, I was just too heavy and pushed too hard to beat my PR that I damaged my foot.

So I guess if I can get to a lighter weight I will commit to the Full, yes, yes...that sounds like a plan. In the meantime I will just have to dream...and the dream that you wish will come true!  At least that's what Cinderella says. :)