Random September

I finally caught Emily's little 'drama queen' move on camera. If she gets upset about something, she'll cry and put her hand over her mouth. It's actually pretty funny. She can be so dramatic sometimes.

This picture describes Matthew in so many ways.

1-First of all, this kid must be going through a growth spurt or something because he is always telling me "I'm hungry!". He usually comes in first thing in the morning to tell me he's hungry. He loves a good breakfast.

2- He loves cucumbers. This particular morning, he wanted me to cut up a cucumber to go along with his breakfast. I cut up a whole cucumber and he ate the entire thing. Good thing our garden has been producing them like crazy, and good thing cucumbers are good snack options. He also loves scrambled eggs for breakfast.

3- He has blue plates and a blue cup. His favorite color is blue and he always requests blue dishes.

4- He has milk in his blue cup. He still loves milk!

5- Notice the little car he has by his plate. Matthew loves his cars and usually carries at least a couple of them around with him all day. His favorites are the character cars from the movie Cars. I hope he doesn't grow out of this phase anytime too soon, because I think it's so cute.
Emily always has a way of coming up with creative things to do. Often times it's pulling out the pots and pans and pretending to cook, other times it's pulling out rags & dishtowels and 'cleaning', this particular afternoon she was content to sit herself down in the little lego bin. She had her purse and was ready to go.

Matthew with his cars again. We have a little car racetrack that we got a few years back. It's been a great investment and has gotten many hours of good use.

The kids love having lots of time to run around with friends. I can't say enough how much I love our neighborhood. The kids have a lot of fun with their friends and I've become good friends with the neighbor moms. This particular day, they were having a good game of girls vs boys with the girls trying to put the boys in jail. :)

And I finally got a better picture of Matthew with his cute little friend Varity. These two are so fun to watch together. They're cute little friends.

Labor Day Weekend

After the Pocatello Marathon on Saturday, we headed down to spend the weekend with the Haworths since it was only an hour away. It was nice to kick back and relax while spending time together. Saturday was filled with football games- luckily the games ended well so everyone was in an especially good mood.
Kristie and I had lots of time rolling out on the foam roller. We were definitely starting to feel the effects of the marathon!

On Sunday, Kylee made the trip up to Grandma & Grandpa's from college- it was so fun to see her and spend some time with her. Nathan and Kendra even ended up being at Grandma and Grandpa's Saturday night. It was fun to see them and their cute boys. It was fun to hold Jackman for the first time- I love sweet newborn babies.
I was singing praises Sunday morning when I found out that grandma and grandpa's church didn't start till 11am. That bed was so comfortable and it was hard to get up! Church was wonderful. It was fast and testimony meeting and I loved hearing testimonies born by ward members, and especially my parents and Grandma Haworth.

After church it was nice to spend time together again. We had a yummy dinner and some very entertaining conversations that left us laughing to the point of tears (Yoda Speaking, "Where Can I Turn for Peas?"). Sunday night we even had a visit from Doug & Debbie and some of their grandkids. I love it when the house is filled with people- it brings back lots of fun memories from when we were kids running around with cousins.

Probably the best entertainment of the trip however, came Sunday night when Tom went digging through some closets and came across some real gems of clothing from when Grandma & Grandpa's seven daughters were growing up. Cole and Tom decided to put on a fashion show for us and it was pretty dang funny. Good thing these boys are secure in their masculinity!
Monday morning I was up at 6:30am so I could catch a shuttle in Logan that would take me back to the airport in Salt Lake City. Mom drove me to Logan and I was glad to have a little more time to spend with her. I ended up sleeping most of the shuttle ride and then had my long flying trip back home. It took two flights with a 3-hour layover in between. Good thing I had a good book to read (The Help). I got home about 5:30 Monday night and even though I was tired, was so excited to see Jeff and the kids again! It was a fun weekend, but I was definitely happy to be with my family again. (Although I did come down with a case of 'post marathon depression' about 2-3 days after which left me a grumpy mama, and probably left my kids wishing I'd take off again! Good thing it didn't last too long. :)

Pocatello Marathon

A few months back, Kristie, Amanda and I decided to run the Pocatello Marathon. It would be my 2nd marathon. I knew I wanted to run another marathon after my disastrous first marathon experience in Richmond, Virigina in '08 where everything that could have possibly went wrong, did. My training for this marathon wasn't exactly what I would have preferred. In the past I've had wonderful running partners that have pushed me to run faster and farther. Since moving from Philly, I haven't had any training partners which means all my running has been alone. I miss you girls!

With all our moving and getting situated, I really didn't get into a good training program until June, and wasn't real consistent until July. Some weeks I only ran twice, sometimes it was three times. Finally the last few weeks I was consistent with 4 days of training. I know I need to do better at training next time. It also isn't helpful when the weather is so hot though. We had some really hot & muggy days this summer- days where it would be 115 and cool down to 85 at night. Some nights I'd wait until 10pm to run outside and it would still be over 90 degrees and so humid it felt like you were in the shower. I would usually start Saturday runs at 6/6:30am to avoid the heat, but when it was real hot & humid it didn't make much of a difference. I could definitely do without the humidity! Anyway, I did the best I could with our circumstances, and felt that I would do alright in Pocatello.
I flew out to Salt Lake City on Thursday night. I didn't get in until about midnight and it was so nice of Tom to pick me up that late. I spent the night at Tom & Kristie's. The next morning we had some time to spend together and get things ready to drive up to Pocatello later on that afternoon. It was so fun to just spend some time together- probably would have been even better if we hadn't been a little nervous about the race the next day.

We arrived in Pocatello about 5:30pm. It was so fun to meet up with Amanda, Mom Stevens and Gideon at the hotel. After getting settled, we went right over to the expo to pick up our packets. This race they even gave us duffle bags & a bag of potatoes along with our nice long-sleeved race shirt. After the expo, we went to grab some dinner.

Tom was a great sport to tag along with all us women!

Kristie, Amanda, and I spent the night at the hotel right by the race pick-up. It was a blast being together that night and we had fun laughing and just visiting. We tried to go to bed early, but I don't think any of us slept real well- do you ever on race nights? We were up at 4:30am and walked down to catch a bus up to the starting line at 5:10am.

We had some time to wait around, wait in porta-potty lines, and spent a little time trying to warm up in the barn. Finally it was time to start the race at 6:30am. Because my last race was such a bad experience, I think I was still a little psyched out by the whole marathon- so my plan was to just go out real steady. I wasn't going to try to go real fast, I just wanted to run the race consistent and finish under 4 hours. The course was beautiful for the first half. I loved running down through the mountains. It was pretty chilly- about 45 degrees at the start. I didn't get rid of my long-sleeved shirt until mile 9, and I held onto my gloves until about mile 12. The course wasn't as pretty after mile 14, and at that point we started to run through crowds of the half-marathoners, 10k's and 5k runners. It made it a little more congested, but not too bad.

(Still waiting for my ordered pictures to be e-mailed to me)

I've heard people talk about the difficulties of down-hill courses, but I didn' t really know what they meant until I hit mile 16. The Pocatello course drops about 1400 ft over the first 14 miles, then it's pretty steady for the rest of the course, except for the hill around mile 20. When I hit mile 16 my legs felt so tired and I couldn't figure out why, then I realized it was from the downhill! My quads would be dying for a few days after the race.

I wasn't too excited when I saw the big hill at about mile 20/21. I wasn't expecting it, and it's never fun to see a giant old hill at that point of a marathon. I know I was slower, but I ran the whole thing and passed probably 15 people on the way up.

By the time I hit mile 20 I was pretty sure I was going to meet my goal under 4 hours. It was fun to start seeing the big crowds of cheering people, and although it was warming up significantly- it wasn't too hot.

It was such a great feeling to get closer and closer. I'm sure it's due to the fact that by the time you get to the end, you're physically and emotionally spent, but I started to cry when I saw that finish line. Good thing I wear the sunglasses. It was even better to hear my family cheering and see them waving. My goal had been to run the race consistent and steady and finish under 4 hours. I never felt like I was dying, I know I could have pushed it harder and run faster, but I wanted to have a positive marathon experience and feel great. I was so happy to have made my goal with a 3:56:10. Not too bad for a 2nd marathon.

Amanda & Kristie did awesome too! They both also had PR races and Boston Qualifying times-both have already run Boston. Amanda took 3rd in her age division with a 3:38, and Kristie ended up taking 3rd out of the women with a time of 3:08!

Mom Stevens, Gideon, me, and Amanda

Kristie and I with our 'baby' brother Cole.

I was amazed at Kristie! Her marathon time of a 3:08 is a 7:10 pace! She placed 3rd out of the women (she would have won the race & set a new course record any other of the 12 years) and 1st in her age division. In fact, in a field of 608 marathoners, there were only 11 men that came in ahead of her. I think I will always be chasing after my little sister. :)

After the awards ceremony and the fun experience of trying to get back to the hotel in time for checkout, we had a little more time for visiting (and getting some fun pictures) while we got the cars loaded up.
It was so much fun to run the race with these girls. I love my sisters & sister-in-laws and have decided that running with them is the best way to do a race. It sure makes it a lot more fun!
I was also grateful to have support of my parents, Mom Stevens, Cole, Tom, and the kiddies. It sure makes you feel loved when they all made such an effort to be there to support all of us. I was missing Jeff and my kids, I sure wish they could have been there, but it wasn't really a possibility/financially smart option.
At the end of the race, I was a little tired, but so glad to have met my goal of running a marathon that ended well! And I was definitely looking forward to not having to get up at 6am on Saturday mornings to do long runs!

Happy Birthday Caleb

Caleb finally turned 6! This boy has been asking me how many days until his birthday since last year when he turned 5, so he's been waiting a long time! I was just sad that I wasn't there on his actual birthday. I was running the Pocatello marathon and had to fly out the night before. Good thing Jeff is so much fun! I had all the presents wrapped and ready to go and threw in a few extra fun things for everyone. Then I made Jeff promise to take lots of pictures.

For his class birthday treat, Caleb said he wanted donuts. Well, I usually prefer to make something fun and cute for the class, but with me being out of town and leaving Jeff in charge of everything- that's exactly what we did. All the kids loved having a donut for a treat.

That night Jeff let the kids get a happy meal for dinner (they're probably hoping at this point that mom will never return- I'm no where near as fun as daddy! :) After dinner they did birthday cake and presents.

Caleb got some really fun gifts from grandparents and us. He loved all the books, pajamas, and fun toys.

I love Emily's face in this picture- she just realized what one of Caleb's presents was. This girl loves HEX bugs!
We got Caleb a lightsaber toy that lights up and makes sounds, but it's not as fun with just one. So I wrapped up a couple more for Matthew & Jacob. I figured I'd let Jeff have fun with them! :) I know it was probably more out of feeling guilty for being gone than anything, but I also left a game called "Big Buck Hunting" for everyone. You just plug it into the television and play the hunting game.

Like I said before, the boys were probably hoping I'd never come back- while I was gone I left a bunch of fun things for all of them, Jeff got them happy meals at McDonalds, they went to ChuckE.Cheese and had fun playing games and spending time with dad. I'm glad they had so much fun & we had a good time celebrating again once I got home.

Just Because

Just because they're cute...