Morristown St. Patty's 5K

We were all excited to head down to Morristown today. I've been planning on this race since the beginning of the year. Since it was the closest race to my birthday, I thought it would be a good goal to work towards. So I think I was more excited than everyone else today. Aaron has been coming with me on my Saturday morning runs. I usually have him run with me for my warm-up which ends up to be about 1.25 miles for him. Connor decided to run with us last week and said that he wanted to do the race. I was really impressed with him so I thought I'd let him give it a try. They had a Kid's mile before the 5K. So I registered the boys. I was pretty disappointed with the race because I sort of hyped it up a bit and they were pretty unorganized for the kid's race. There was no start line, no finish line, cheering, etc... And they didn't get a t-shirt or small prize. (Not that I'm trying to be a complainer but it was $12 per kid.) It was pretty confusing and it was pretty cold. And Connor wasn't too happy. He pretty much cried and whined the entire time. Not sure what happened to my son who was all pumped up and determined last week. Bummer. I think the highlight for Aaron was the 1/2 mile mark when the police officer and a few volunteers were telling everyone to turn around and head back to the finish. Aaron smiled and waved and ran right past them. But then he quickly realized what was happening and turned around. I just wish there would have been a more definitive finish for the kids. It was like running back into the mob that was about to race the 5K and no one was there telling them were to go or finish. It was pretty lame. So if you can't already tell, the kid's race was a complete disappointment in my opinion.

Here we are waiting around for the kid's run to start. It was very cold!

Connor ready to take on the world! That is...before the running began.

Here's Aaron running strong with Connor behind.

The 5k on the other hand was great. The course, I thought, was great overall with exception to this beast of a hill half way through. I saw very few people run it entirely. I probably made it 3/4 of the way. It was still fun and I finished strong. The thing I love about these races is you can totally cheer people on and just have a good time. There are always a few people that run at your pace so you can keep an eye on them and try to beat them in near the end. I love pushing myself at the end even if I am beat red in the face. It's great. I totally cannot believe my time and I'm not convinced that it's what I actually ran. I think my results will be posted in a few days so I'm going to check but Mike took a picture of the clock as I crossed the finish. My last time in December was 36:50 and I was shooting for 34 minutes this time. So I was very surprised and pleased to have reached beyond my goal.

I wanted to get a picture of us all in our t-shirts. So here we are back at home just as we were gearing up to clean out our totally neglected van.

Karate

In January, Connor joined a little karate class at the Summit Recreation center. It worked out great for me because Aaron was taking a social skills class at the same time. I thought last week was the last day so I took some pictures. He has really enjoyed learning some moves and I was overall pleased with his first karate experience. There were a few kids missing but Connor and Julianna more than made up for it. They were so loud it sounded like there were 10 kids in class.

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Finally some takers...

Aaron made a little pine cone bird feeder last week at cub scouts and we hung it up last weekend. Several days have gone by and we finally got a few birds to pay us a visit. Aaron wasn't home when we noticed the birds so I took a few snapshots. He was excited to see that some birds enjoyed his bird feeder. Hopefully we'll have a few more of the neat birds in our neighborhood over for a visit.

What's next?

First it was my shoes, then it was my car, now it's my ipod. What's next???

Finished it...

Well, it took me a while but I finally finished the little quilt I've been working on for a friend who just had a boy. I'm not sure what got into me. I usually just make the little flannel receiving blankets but I guess I got inspired to use up some more of my old material when Mike's mom and I made the boys quilts. This one was another copycat idea from Potterybarn Kids. I saw this adorable quilt that had rows of stitching and I knew that that would be what I would do for this baby quilt. I ended up having to do some zigzag stitching along some of the seams. I missed a few spots where I didn't have enough seam allowance. And I discovered the mistake way too late. So I hand stitched it as best I could and then decided to do a zigzag on the sewing machine to cover it up. What I love is that it totally looks intentional.

A visit to Greensboro...

I can't believe March is already here. February just flew by. One of our family highlights last month was going down to visit Mike's cousin Alma and his family. They live in Greensboro, NC. We had a great time with them. The kids loved being together and enjoyed playing with their second cousins. We were fortunate enough to make it for Brigitta's baptism. It was a special day and Brigitta was so excited.

After the baptism, Aubrey decided that she should be the one to drive us back. What amazed me was that she put the keys in the ignition albeit, the wrong key and then she went for the seatbelt. Pretty incredible what they pick up!

The kids enjoyed reading together. I got a kick out of seeing them all gather around a book.

We took a few snapshots just before we took on the drive home. These are all very typical images of what Connor's hair looks like most days. It pretty much describes his personality too.

Love these of Aubrey and Phoebe.

Alma, Susan, Jen, and Mike