Things I've learned from Ella

I have to write some of these down. They're too funny to forget. 3 year olds crack me up. Esp. my 3 year old.

"Poo poo and pee pee are best friends"
(I had NO idea. But they are seen together a lot.)

Her pirate name is "the-not-nice-pirate-Ella".
(Menacing.)

"Cows drink milk"
(Oh, really they DRINK it, do they?)

That is all my exhausted-from-not-sleeping-much- the-past-3-nights-because-my-husband-was-away-and-I-can't-sleep-when-he's-gone brain can remember right now.

Always been a funny girl. E at 1 here.

Fall is awesome

Why?

Halloween decorations (and the excitement of that little curly haired girl running among them.)



Won't find a witch on your doorstep any other time of year.


Falling of the leaves (and apparent tasting of the leaves as well.)


Pumpkins!

Blown up ones.

Blown out ones, too. :(

Mommy and baby ones.

And one more reason....FLEECE! It is fleece time. Finally cool enough. My favorite, favorite thing to dress in. So cozy. The girls have no choice.

3 Months.

Alice is 3 months old today and coincidentally, I find myself 3 months post partum, as well.

Funny how that works. :)

We celebrated by heading to my gym, en masse. Woo hoo. My first time with both girls...went pretty well.

Alice slept.
Ella played.
I knocked out 5 kid free miles on the treadmill-- with intervals mixed in. 42 minutes of awesome.

I am trying to stick with Runners World's half marathon training plan as much as possible to train for the Atlanta Thanksgiving Half. I feel those intervals in my quads tonight. To quote Johnny Cougar (I like to go old school and disregard the "Mellencamp"), "it hurts so good".

Alice at 3 months? Doing great. She's got some rocking head control...Ella loves to join her in "tummy time".

Ella and Alice working on head control together.


Alice loves to smile, especially at daddy when he gets home from work. She saves the biggest ones of the day for that. A very happy, contented, sweet, little girl. See?

Alice and her mimi (my mom)

And me? Doing fine. So happy to be through those first 3 months...they are a bit scary and full of tons of adjustments, physically, mentally and emotionally. I like my routines and we are definitely getting closer and closer to one now. Only 2 more lbs. to go to get back to pre baby weight. Yay. Some jeans are still too tight for my liking, but getting better weekly. (I keep a pile of the too tight clothes and try them on every week or so....once they fit, they get hung in the closet.)

Quiet time

I like Mondays.

And this is why.

The golf course in our neighborhood is closed and we can walk (or run or skip and throw stuff in the lake as E likes to do) on it after dinner.

Such a nice way to end a cool, fall Monday.

Doesn't get much better than this

Finishing up a great Saturday with the family.

Cool fall weather.

6 mile treadmill run in the am at the gym (some people hate 'em. I don't mind the treadmill one bit. Love to zone out and people watch at the gym.)

Followed by Riverside Park time for Ella (we ditched soccer today. the 8:15 am game time and the fact that Ella hates it made our decision easy.)





Dinner with Mike at my favorite restaurant, Pure. Babies were sat by my mom (Thanks, Mom!)

Heading out to dinner. Yes, we do have one more daughter, but she decided that screaming "NOOOO!" at the top of her lungs was preferable to just getting her picture taken.

Home now watching the Red Sox (hopefully) beat the Rays.

32.

My birthday was yesterday.

I am 32 years old. Officially fully entrenched in my thirties now.

No problem with that...I have no issues about getting older. Everyone does it. All my girlfriends are getting older. Mike is getting older. The alternative is not so appealing.

Thanks to everyone for the emails, facebook wall posts, cards, gifts, calls, etc. (Wow, I feel so popular.) :)

The highlights were the princess stickers and "Cars" card from the girls and the TREADMILL!!! from Mike. I am so excited for this. Finding the time to run with two has not been too easy, so anything to make it easier is greatly welcomed.

Me and Little MIss Sunshine today while E was in school.


Alice is coming up on three months old soon -- she's such a joy. Such a good, happy baby. Her smiles break our hearts...she loves to coo and we're working so hard to coax a laugh out of her. Not quite yet...think she's getting close though. Not yet sleeping through the night, we normally get a 3am wake up call from the hungry girl. Not too bad. It is the nights that we end up with 4 in the bed (E has been appearing in our room anywhere from 3am-5am telling us she "had a dream"/"heard a noise" and climbs right in) that are pretty sleepless.

Glad we have a king.

I am it.

Mama Simmons tagged me. So, I guess I am it. My five random things about myself are below (although isn't this whole blog just random things about me anyway?).

1. I was born in Naperville, Illinois, grew up in New Jersey (lived in lots of places there -- Westfield, Gillette, Millington, Tewksbury), went to college in Winston-Salem, NC and now live in Roswell, GA. Favorite place? Roswell Prettiest place? Definitely Tewksbury Where I would move to now? Winston-Salem (seems like a good place to raise a family.) I love the south and can't see us moving from here. Chicago is awesome, but the weather is SO not.

2. I hate to fly. I know, in my head, that it if safe. Safer than a car. But, I am so freaked out on a plane -- I am the cuckoo lady taking deep breaths, clenching her husband's hand, praying, and (when not pregnant or breastfeeding) taking a little pill to help me deal. I am so happy when I know I have no travel plans upcoming that involve flying. I think it is a control thing....

3. I love triathlon, but soccer is my first love. I played my whole life. Youth, high school, club, college....I still have dreams about it. I dream that I am on the field at Wake Forest for a home night game (my favorites) and I am playing well with all my best girlfriends. Those dreams are so vivid and real...they make me viscerally miss the game. Not the game that I would play now...rec league....they make me miss Division I college soccer. Way different and there is no going back there.

4. I can't touch my toes. I am extremely, embarrassingly inflexible.

5. My favorite holiday is Halloween. I love it. Love the decorations. Love the fall. Love the costumes. The candy rocks. Once all our decorations are done I will post some pics of our way over-decorated house.

Fun with static electricity

"Kate, you have some vomit there on your shirt."

That was the quote of the day. (Thanks for letting me know, Justin. A good friend will let you know if you have spinach in your teeth, bit only a true friend will clue you in to the disgusting vomit on your shirt.) :) Hope to return the favor someday...

So, yeah. I puked up my pria bar post race. But, it was POST. RACE, people.

I raced.

Yahoo! A good day puke or not.

Whether or not you've got some good fitness (I don't) 5k's hurt like hell. And when you have not a lot of running under your (too tight) belt hell comes about the start of mile 2. But, I finished and had a good time and loved being out there. Gorgeous fall day. Flat (mostly), familiar course. I took it out too fast (but, of course....I ALWAYS do this.) and paid for it later.

Mike and the girls came out to cheer. Alice wore this sweet onesie. (Thanks again, Michelle!)


I dry heaved my way to a 22:36 and took home one of these cute mugs.


Certainly not a great time, but a good place to start. No complaints from me for 2.5 months post partum. Just so, so happy to be back out there.

Congrats to my neighbor and friend, Amy, on completing her first 5k. She rocked! I think she's hooked now, even if she did have to do her first race with the competitive jerk who left her on her own out there (um, yeah, that would be me.)

Happy to have the day done and two girls asleep. We're watching the Red Sox beat up on Tampa Bay (I am watching IM Hawaii online) and eating cookies with our buddy, Phil. Phil did not come over empty handed. He brought me an early birthday gift. Check it out.


What a pusher. He's feeding my addictions. Trident and Diet Sunkist. Awesome.

Numb Feet

I can't feel my feet. They're numb.

Why?

Nerves.

My first race in almost a year is tomorrow morning (last 5K was last Thanksgiving...I was pregnant, thought I might be, ran hard anyway and puked all over at the finish. Nice. Let's hope we don't repeat that tomorrow. ) And I am nervous...when I get nervous, my feet go numb. Great for a running race, no?

Doing the Historic Roswell 5K. A great local race I've wanted to do for years, but am either pregnant/or IM training so I can't.

Not expecting anything blazing....just so excited to RACE! I've missed it!

Go sox!

Game one ALCS tonight...

Sisters

Look who we found in Target!

Push it.

Nope. Not talking about that sweet 80's jam by Salt N Pepa. (Although it is on my running mix...and it rocks.)

Talking about the double jogger. Took the girls out for their second spin in the thing today and it is no joke.

We (I) decided that the 20% grade alpine-esque ascents of Horseshoe Bend were out and headed out to Riverside Dr. to enjoy some flats.

Good call. All told, I am pushing an extra 65(ish) lbs. around. However, I am just so happy to be able to run with the girls.

Ella and I chatted.

She watched "Dora" on my iphone.

We saw a chicken. (Seriously, a chicken on Riverside. I saw the same one on my long run on Sunday. He must live there. Funny.)

Played "yellow car".
(Its a tough game to play. You look for a yellow car and yell "yellow car" when you see it. Complicated, no?)

Alice slept.

I sweated for 35 minutes.

Enjoyed the nice fall breeze.

Nice way to spend the morning.


Alice post run. She's exhausted from all the um, sleeping she did on the run apparently.


Ella's post run reward.

Despite....

...temperatures in the mid 80's (WTF? It's OCTOBER...come on Atlanta!) the calendar is telling me it is fall.

In celebration of the (non)season, Ella and I attended our neighborhood's fall festival this afternoon (the brown hairs stayed home). It was a yellow hair only outing.

Some pictures...




Freeze Dance -- she TOTALLY did not get this game.

Lucky Number Seven

I ran that many miles today. My longest run since last Thanksgiving...2007.

And the kicker -- I ran the 4th mile of said run with a 7 handle. (This was the only mile that I paid attention to the mile markers on Riverside where I ran.)

Yeah, maybe it was 7:54..BUT, come on! That's moving for a mommy. Right? :)

Atlanta Thanksgiving Half I am ready for you!

Woo hoo.