The Littles is Three...

Toben James....

You are now THREE years old! How has this happened? I feel like it was yesterday that you were this small. Now you're a rough-and-tumble, loud, silly, cuddly, messy, loud, 100% boy. 

We had a small party on your actual birthday this past Sunday, September 9th. Family and a few close friends came to your "monster splash"where we played on the inflatable water slide in the backyard, enjoyed cake, fruit, veggies, marshmallow pops, and amazingly good popcorn mix. Your family and friends know you well, as nearly each gift had something to do with super heroes -- specifically the Incredible Hulk (which your mama still has very mixed feelings about!).

Your other interests at this age are mostly based on whatever your older brothers are into, like Legos, pirates, Wii games, baseball, and Star Wars. However, you have a soft spot for anything with monkeys! 

You love to eat pizza, and often ask to go eat "at the pizza place" which is anywhere that serves pizza. You love frozen yogurt, cheese sticks, lasagna, and Goldfish. We are trying so hard to get you to eat more vegetables and a wider variety of fruits, but so far you're not thrilled with much. You'll eat a bite or two (sometimes) but that's about it. Hopefully you'll get there - we're not going to stop trying!

We haven't moved you into a 'big boy bed' yet, although we probably should have about a year ago! You started climbing out of your crib at about that time,and instead of biting the bullet and getting a full-sized mattress,your crazy mama forced you to learn how to climb out feet-first and put a child lock on the inside of your door so that you couldn't roam the house at night. This leads you to becoming our own personal alarm on mornings that we'd like to sleep in, as your loud voice gets amplified down your hallway to our room by you laying on the floor and hollering under the doorway that "Tobey's up! My sun's up! Mommy come get Tobey! Tobey out!"

The big boy bed will be here soon. (You know what this means, right? No more cribs in the house. Bittersweet!)

Totally NOT supposed to jump like this...but too funny not to share! (We did ask them repeatedly to not jump down the slide.) 

Toben, you pretty much always have a bruise on your forehead. You've had two black eyes this summer. You are one of the most enthusiastic and energetic little guys ever, and often that enthusiasm lands you on something like a coffee table. One of these days we pray that your coordination catches up to the rest of you!

We love you to the moon and back, Littles. You've added a dimension to our family that we didn't know we needed until you came along! May your love for your family and your love of life never change, but only grow. May you continue to learn about Jesus and grow to love Him. I know you've got Him on your mind quite a bit -- lately you've been telling me about all that Jesus has made, as in "Mommy, Jesus made my teefs (teeth)". Yes, baby boy, He made you. He made you so unique, and so very special.

How we've been greeted several times since Sunday... "Hulk SMAAAASH!"

The invite...for my memory

First Day of First Grade for the First Boy...

Caleb started First Grade this week!

I loved First Grade. Loved. My teacher was Miss Allgaier at Cimarron Elementary here in Katy, TX. She was a first year teacher and I thought she was the prettiest person ever with her beautiful red hair, perfect smile, and gold bead necklace that she wore often. It was also in first grade that I made my first best friend, Wendy, and had my first sleepovers. After moving two times during my Kindergarten year (attending schools in New Mexico, Kansas and Alaska), a whole year at one school was very exciting.

I hope this boy has a great year as well! He's pumped to have his buddy Noah in his class, and the big question is, "Will we ever have fish in the fish tank behind Ms. Hebert's desk?"

{Side Note: His teacher is a sweet veteran educator named Ms. Karen Hebert. We were running a tad late to Meet the Teacher night last week, and walked in just after she introduced herself and told a bit about herself. However, we walked in just in time to hear her share with the parents that she is a Christian, and feels it's necessary for her as a teacher to pray for her students, by name, daily in order to be the best teacher for them that she can be. Cue the tears threatening to fall from this mama's eyes! I appreciated knowing this about her -- and in that moment, any other information about Ms. Hebert became unnecessary. Thank you Jesus for Caleb being placed in her classroom!}

He was all smiles as he hopped -- and ran -- off the bus! It's been a great start to the school year so far.
Next year, I'll have two little guys hopping off that bus! Wow...

An Easter Pictoral Recap...

I love Easter. I think we need to celebrate Easter Sunday all the time -- why shouldn't we? He is Risen!!

We had a wonderful Easter Sunday this year. (We always do!) After celebrating with our church family, we ventured out to take family photos. I set up my camera on the tripod and remote fired the shutter -- the boys had fun saying silly words to "make the camera take the picture." It worked!

We then continued the celebration at my parents' home with my cousin, Anne. First off: the great egg hunt!




Mom had to take a picture of me... taking a picture of her... taking a picture of me... taking -- you get the idea.

After lunch and rest time for Toben, we stepped back outside for cascarones (confetti eggs) and water balloons! The boys didn't have any fun at all. (ha!)



Even the biggest boy there got in on the water fight. ;)

Our Four Year Old Turkey...

Did you all enjoy a wonderful Thanksgiving? We did. After participating in our local YMCA's annual Turkey Dash (I ran the 5K and then joined my crew for the 1 mile family walk), we spent the day over at my parents' home with my cousin Anne for a very laid-back and relaxing meal and afternoon. The boys then spent the night and next day with Gram and Papa while Ryan and I tried to make the most of some Black Friday specials. We've done this the past several years. Sometimes we come out feeling like we've practically stolen some items, due to the combined discount of deals and coupons. That didn't happen this year, but we enjoyed our day together anyhow!

On Saturday we celebrated our Logan's fourth birthday (which was this past Monday, the 28th) with a little bowling party with family. There's an obnoxious amount of photos below from our time at the bowling alley -- it's safe to say that fun was had by all! Logan, for whatever reason, hates it when people sing "Happy Birthday." It's one of his many quirks, I guess! For all his quirks, though, he's such a great kid. He's really grown and developed into a fun boy this year, and his ingenuity and creativity blow me away sometimes. I'm excited to see how he grows this coming year... I like four-year-olds. :)

The Second Half...

...really felt like a First all over again! It's been nearly seven years since I last ran a half-marathon, and my life has completely changed in the years between races. Before, I was teaching full time, Ryan and I were training together on the weekends (he race-walked the full marathon that year), and we didn't have any little ones and didn't know if we'd ever have any little ones!

Oh how things have changed. It was much harder to get into running this time around (people, ladies don't lie when they say their bodies change after having a baby! or three!) and I felt much slower. BUT, I had some incredible friends who were in it with me. These two ladies had never run a half marathon before, so we were all learning and training from the beginning together. Through the past six months, we've experienced several highs and lows together, and had some of the cheapest therapy around while taking it to the pavement at 5am on Saturday mornings and 9pm on Mondays, Tuesdays, and/or Thursdays. These two are like sisters to me in this time of life, and I am so grateful that we have been able to reach this goal together.
Here's Erin with her bib number. This was at the Expo the day before the race. We drove out to San Antonio on Saturday, checked into our hotel, and walked over to the Alamodome where the Expo was held to check in for the race. There were all sorts of vendors at the Expo, selling all manner of running/walking/biking gear as well as so many other fitness goods. After walking around the Expo for a bit, we went back to the hotel to freshen up before going to an early dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. It was then back to the hotel for an early bedtime.
This is Jessica. This was her first night away from her little boy, who will turn one this week! She accomplished two very major - and very different - milestones this weekend!
And then there's me. (Not gonna lie... I was excited to have a 'girls weekend')
We all laid out our clothes for the next morning, went through a mental checklist of what we needed to do after waking up, and went backwards on a timeline from the start of the race to see when we needed to wake up and when we needed to leave to go to the start. 5:45am was the time we set our alarms to wake us, and we had to laugh because it was "so late" for us to wake up in order to run together!
We had some shirts made for us, just to have a bit of fun. All three of us have major sweet tooths (should that be teeth?), so it seemed appropriate to have these little slogans on our shirts. Honestly, I'd run for all three of these things! Ha!

Here we are, 6:45am on Sunday, ready to walk out to our corral in the starting area. We were in corral 25 -- they had organized groups into corrals to start in waves so it wasn't just a mad stampede at the beginning, and to spread the runners out. There were over 30,000 participants in this race, which was both a full and half marathon.
The start line was directly out the doors of our hotel. Nice! However, we had to walk about six blocks to get to our corral. Oh well!
It took us about 30 minutes to actually cross the start line after the initial gun went off at 7:30am to begin the race. Two hours and forty-four minutes and 13.41 miles later (according to my RunKeeper app on my iPhone) we crossed the finish line! It was a very HOT morning by running standards. The starting temperature outside was in the mid-sixties, and when we finished the announcer said something about it being 76 degrees. When you run, your body "reads" the external temperature as twenty degrees warmer than it actually is... Plus, factor in about 60% humidity... It wasn't easy. All three of us had moments were we struggled, but thankfully we were in it together and took turns cheering each other on.
This is one heavy medal!! I am so proud of Erin, Jess and myself for accomplishing this goal of finishing a half marathon together! We've already signed up for another one -- March 4, 2012 will find us running the streets of New Orleans! Hopefully we'll have cooler weather, but I know that's a gamble at that time of year just as it is here in Texas in early November (apparently). At any rate, I've got some great running buddies who make this all worthwhile.