The Girls & Me!

So......I'm trying to accomplish some things today......one of them being to post on my blog so if you're reading this then good! It is rather tempting to read while the girls are asleep, but I figured sometimes I can read even when they're awake, but actually posting on my blog while they're awake?! Nope, not happening! They end up crawling all over me trying to reach the laptop and then doing something to it that I can't fix, so it's something I have to do when they are peacefully sleeping and I'm praying they sleep "just a little longer!" Seriously, I don't think anyone really understands the importance of nap-time for kids unless you are a mom and have kids of your own. I mean, it is really necessary for the survival and well-being of a mom....you have got to have that time while they are napping and if it isn't long enough it can drastically change the happiness of your day!

Two days later......I guess they sensed that I was hoping they would sleep longer, and seeing how it is quite impossible for them to be nice to me and sleep longer, I am once again trying to finish this post....while they're awake! I know, I must be crazy! :) It is actually getting close to their nap-time so I will have to pause in writing, but I shall, with as much certainty as I can, finish this today!

Nothing really new is going on around here, other then the fact that the girls are getting bigger and getting into more trouble....if that's possible....and in Bethany's case she just keeps finding more and more ways to get in trouble. Abigail has her phases, but has also discovered the joys of watching movies (Shrek and The Little Mermaid) so she can be entertained easily if I'm needing to get something done. For me, I've started P90X again and this is my second week of doing it. I guess I felt the urge to try and burn a little more fat....hopefully it's working. :) I've been reading that getting enough sleep is really helpful in losing weight. Unfortunately, On most night I can't even get 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep so hopefully that isn't altogether true. Bethany has been getting better, but then she goes through phases that set her back again so we keep having to work through them again....it will be so nice when I can move her into Abigail's room!You see it, right?! All that orneriness?!
It's so cute when they give each other kisses! :)We were saying 'cheese'.....so, of course, we're going to have cheesy smiles!
Bethany looks so sweet here....it must have been perfect timing on the picture, because I don't remember her being very still while I was trying to take pictures!Even through the girls aren't looking at the camera, I still think they look pretty sweet....and I love black and white pictures!

Sisterly Fun

Sitting in a basket can be so much fun.....or at least that seemed to be the case for Abigail and Bethany one morning! I actually prefer them sitting "in" the basket instead of "standing on top of it" since they don't seem to get as hurt....normally that is.....there was the one time where Bethany pushed Abigail out of the basket, which upset Abigail immensely. :)


Then there was the day of dress up....or rather, wearing their dress up skirts on their heads while in their pajamas! I thought they were pretty cute and I'm quite sure they thought so too! :)


I love it when they hold hands....it's so sweet and cute, especially when they do it on their own!
I guess Bethany thought she needed to add something to her appearance....so, big bright pink sunglasses were the perfect solution! :)

Fun Visiting Times!

Last month and just last week we had a few of my siblings come and spend some days with us and both times it was a lot of fun! The first time they came Jacob had some time off so we did some hiking around, but this last visit we just hung out around the house and pool selling golf balls and cookies. We live right next to the 3rd green on a golf course so that was pretty convenient. :)
John, Aleah and Adalie at Taum Sauk Mountain,the highest point in Missouri. It was also the first time any of us had been there, besides Jacob.
Climbing the stairs was a little scary, especially holding a baby! Of course, after we climbed all the way up there we discovered the door was locked to get up onto the platform so we had to content ourselves with standing on the little space at the top of the stairs.
Not the best of pictures, but it's us on top of Taum Sauk Mountain! :)

John had a talk with Bethany about unrolling the toilet paper....then it turned into a fun game of making "shocked" expressions! It was pretty cute! :)

Whoever would have thought that a blow-up mattress could be turned into a slide and provide an hours worth of fun! It was quite noisy for that hour too, but so fun to watch! :)
Then Adalie and John gave Dance Dance Revolution a try and we did that for about two days, which was a lot of fun....and exercise!

Heat Wave!

I don't have to say the obvious....you all know its been awhile, but I do apologize because I need to be better at this blogging stuff and it's definitely not that I don't have enough to write about. It's just finding the time.

The heat has been atrocious for the past couple weeks and it'll be nice when it cools off a little. I'm not quite ready for winter (summer seems to being going by way too fast), but the cooler weather of fall will be a relief after this heat wave. Abigail and Bethany don't seem to notice the hot weather at all....I wonder what age it is when they actually understand the concept of being hot and would prefer staying indoors when it's so hot! They love playing in the pool though....well, Abigail would prefer just sitting on the steps in the water, but Bethany loves being carried around in the water and sliding down the slide into the water. I have to watch her very carefully since she's not afraid of just walking into the water....I had hopes of her being a little more cautious after the first time, but after the second time I figured things weren't going to change. Bethany does have a swimsuit and I'm not sure why I didn't put it on before I started taking pictures, but they still turned out pretty good I think! :)

Goodbye Jeep....Hello Mini Van!

The jeep was a nice car and there is a lot of memories with it, but it was time for us to move on to something with a little more room, so we said goodbye to the jeep on Sunday and Tuesday afternoon we said hello to our new Honda Odessy....*drum roll*It is amazing! I drove it for the first time today and it was soo smooth and quiet! Jacob does a good job when he picks things out and even though it wasn't fun having to deal with the salespeople and all the stuff that goes along with buying a new car, he was amazing and did an awesome job. The color wasn't exactly what we wanted, but things worked out better with this color and we both are pleased with it....I love it! :) Abigail was enthralled when we buckled her in and turned on Shrek....Jacob and I both kept laughing at her expression and it was well worth it to see how much she liked getting to watch a movie while in the car!It still makes me laugh to see her expression...she was like in shock and she literally didn't move or change expressions till we stopped the car (other then to close her mouth after the initial shock wore off!). When we asked her if she liked the mini van better than the jeep, she, without looking away from the movie, nodded her head and whispered yes. :) Bethany on the other hand wasn't too thrilled since she is still facing backwards and can't see the movie unless she turns her head at a weird angle....so it will be nice when she is big enough to have a forward facing carseat....then we will really have some peace when we go for long drives! ;)

Well, we're getting ready to head down to my parent's for this 4th of July weekend as soon as Jacob is off work....sooo excited, I love getting to see everyone and we always have a lot of fun! We should be bringing back some of my siblings, so the fun shall come home with us...yippee! Abigail is really excited about Adalie and John getting to come back with her so it will be a fun week for her too!

I'll leave you all with some pictures of me and the girls...I find that it is quite impossible to get both of the girls in the picture with me and take the picture....I shall have to remedy that....maybe this weekend when there will be lots of people around to take pictures....if I don't forget....I forget things really easily....other then the fact that I Love Jacob the MOST!
I love my girls!

Stuff!

Yes, I know I'm not the greatest blogger, but like a lot of things, I will get better as time goes by and the girls get a little better about not demanding as much of my time.....hopefully! I'm trying to work with them about letting me do a little reading....we're making slow progress, but I did finish one whole book and started on another, so not bad. Well, as long as I don't think about the fact that I used to be able to read a good sized book (something like 500+ pages) in one day....now I'm limited to about an hour and a half of time while the girls nap and boy does it go by really fast! The girls went down for their nap a little later then normal or else I'd be out trying to get some sun....I'll have to do that tomorrow or else I'll be a white ghost in the middle of summer! Okay, not really, but I would feel like it! I'm loving getting to be outside more this year, the last two years I wasn't able to get out much due to the fact of just having had a baby, so this has been nice....other then the extreme hotness! I've noticed kids never seem to notice the heat. I wonder why that is....I mean lately it's been in the upper 90's with a heat index of over 100 and they still want to play outside and I have to force them to come back inside when their faces turn bright red from the heat! It's like they don't understand the concept of heat and that it means you should want to sit in the cool AC! At least we have a pool here and we can cool off some.

Oh, news update....we're probably getting a mini van this weekend! The jeep is needing to be upgraded so yesterday we were out test driving some mini vans and I think Jacob will be doing some more test driving later today. We're looking to buy a new one; Jacob wants one that will last us awhile, but they also cost a pretty penny (I wish they only cost a penny!)...they have some pretty awesome mini vans though and Jacob wants one with the DVD players in it for the girls! I'm excited about that since that will keep them entertained on our long drives...well, it will keep Abigail entertained; Bethany is still facing backwards and hasn't discovered that movies are fun to watch. So, that's the latest and greatest of the happenings around here, other then Jacob didn't have to work today and it's always nice to have him home!

Hospital Hill Half Marathon.....I Did It!

Here we are after the race in our new shirts!

I'm so sorry it's taken me awhile to tell you all about the race....a nasty cold decided to attack all of us last Sunday/Monday (right after the race) so we were rather out of commission last week and spent a lot of time laying around sleeping and watching The Office and Shrek (Abigail's latest favorite). Jacob also missed all week of work, except for Monday, and I didn't run at all...it felt so weird and I felt so out of shape and fat for not running! Funny how that works, but I guess I haven't not run all week since back in February before I started running....seems like a lot longer ago then 4 months ago.

Ok.....THE MARATHON and all that fun stuff! We got to Kansas City early afternoon and met up with my mom and sisters at the hotel...it was definitely a ritzy hotel....the water bottles in the room were $4! Needless to say we didn't use any! :) We all went down to the Crown Center and picked up out packets....bib number, shirt, hat, sample stuff and all that jazz.....then we just checked out all the little stores and got all nervous looking at all the people that had come to pick up packets making the fact that we were going to be racing the very next morning a little more real! My mom and sisters offered to watch the girls so that Jacob and I could go out to dinner, which was really nice of them, especially since Bethany doesn't like it when I leave her so she cries a lot. It was nice for Jacob and I to be able to get away for a little while and we even got to walk around the shops and just hold hands and not have to worry about carrying two kids or keeping track of them. Right before we headed down to the start line!

We all tried to get to bed early since we were getting up around 5:30am.....I don't think anyone had any trouble getting up since we were all a little nervous! We got down to the start line around 6:30am and it was already HOT! It was quite the racing experience....hot, hilly and long! I started out too fast and got dehydrated, but I was able to finish, which for my first half marathon was all that I was wanting. Jacob was holding out his hand for me right before I crossed the finish line!

I had hoped for better time, but with the combination of hills and dehydration my time was slower than when I had run my 14 miles two weeks earlier....so yeah, that stunk, but I would do it again because it felt so good to accomplish something like that! The only disappointing thing, was for the last 3 miles I had been thinking about the chocolate milk at the end of the race....well, I cross the finish line, got my medal and a cold wet towel (which felt AMAZING!) and went down the line of drinks, bananas and snacks to find that there was no REAL chocolate milk! They had some Myoplex chocolate cream, but after trying one drink of that and finding it to be disgusting I threw it away....why would they have something that tasted like that to hand out....I mean really, real chocolate milk taste sooo much better and probably would have been a lot cheaper! So, yes we were all disappointed about the chocolate milk issue, but other people people were too so maybe next year they will fix it and go back to having real chocolate milk. :)
We were all hot, sweaty, stiff and sore, but really happy with ourselves too! The medals were pretty cool looking....makes me want to run more races so I can get medals and t-shirts! :) It really was a lot fun to get to do a race with my mom and two of my sisters and hopefully we can run a lot more together in the future....and at some point have all of us girls running races together!