Easter 2011

We had an awesome Easter this year... perfect kite flying weather, especially since the the girls got kites...

Addison wasn't the best kite flyer.. and tried to sprinkle "pixie dust" on her kite since it wouldn't fly. 

 So, she enjoyed the bubbles instead. Although, Claire was the master kite flyer!

Easter isn't complete with an Easter egg hunt with a prize egg *Ahem* That my daughter found *Ahem*

James won the prize for the most eggs found and Claire? Well.. she won the prize for the most eggs found with a purse on her arm. 

Quite possibly my favorite picture ever. 

I love my girls. 

Halloween 2010

We had a low key Halloween this year... I was one busy lady that weekend. I took some pictures yesterday in their Halloween costumes, before it got too cold. 

I couldn't find Addison's Little Mermaid costume.. but she had two she wore, so I found the little red riding hood one. 

Classic for them. Seriously. 

Oy. I love my girls. 

Weight Watchers Week 1

            So, Week 1 was okay. I really had some moments of actually of trying to adjust my eating. In general, I really like fruits, vegetables, salad, but I am having a hard time with the portion control thing. And craving salty foods. I think it's because I am not drinking enough water, even though, I drink 4-6 glasses a day. I am going to try to bump that up to 6-8 glasses a day. 

I started at 150 lb

Week 1: 147

Not bad I don't think. Of course, who wouldn't love to be able to lose 10 lbs in a week, but let's be realistic. I have noticed that some things that I thought were okay to eat ARE NOT. Like, some frozen dinners. Some of those things are REALLY bad for you. And some things aren't that bad. Like some pizza. Yes, I said it. No, it's not pepperoni. It's the Mediterranian Chicken pizza from Papa Murphy's. 4 points a piece.. and when you feed your child half on your food... really not bad at all. 

I really hate not being able to eat what I want, but I know that I can't just eat what I want. I have to exercise control over my eating. I know this will get easier over the next couple of weeks, but I am trying to build life long habits here! 

Anyway, let's leave you with this shot of Addison that I took over the weekend. I am taking a natural light course in photography, and she really hates to model, but you wouldn't know it by this picture. This is probably my most favorite picture that I have ever taken. Period.         

Birthdays and Such

I guess it takes being a vacation to get me to blog about things that are a month old, but, oh well. My nephew Joseph, who just turned 14, and my sister both have birthdays during the month of May. 

Joseph's birthday was first, but John seems to think it was second. 

No birthday party is complete without pizza.

or lipgloss.

Claire thinks she sees something outside, but it's just a dog.

My Grandpa... he always sits in this chair at Moms, with an Alabama shirt one, which is weird, since I've never known him to know a score of a game. Unless it's the Braves.

Sarah had some technical difficulties getting the candles lit.

Go Bearcats.

That Aunt Rach.. she's a practical joker with black icing.

Bill... we don't normally let him in pictures.

Sarah's birthday was just a couple of weeks ago. She got overshadowed since she happened to be born on the date of the LOST series finale. 

Claire enjoyed her pizza from Sa Sa's birthday.

The Birthday Girl is fashionably late.

James... I think he is my apprentice for photography.

You can't let these two out anywhere together.

Addison loves to help open presents.

James charm that he picked out for his Mama.

Sarah thinks that black suede and leather are appropriate summer shoes.

She also has a good appreciation for raffia tied bows.

Oh James. I have a kindred spirit in him.

I think they had some good birthdays. As they are always filled with love and cake.

This Girl...

I have been pretty MIA lately and I apologize. The girls have been keeping me busy and while I have taken quite a few photos, there aren't enough hours in the day to allow for me to edit and trying to come up with something that doesn't resemble garble for the blog. 

My little Addison has been through some behavioral problems in the last couple of weeks at school. I'm not sure what is going on, but I think we finally got it cleared up. She has been picked on a lot, and I have to wonder if she finally started standing up for herself with resulted in going to time out 5 times in ONE day for hitting. It was a rough week for us. 

BUT, she never ceases to amaze me with some of the things she says and does, and here is a post completely dedicated to my first born. 

Her "tricks" as she calls them are becoming more and more bold and "dangerous" as she calls them, but it is stunning to watch her teach herself how to do hand stands, rolls, jumps, and her new attempt at a front walkover. The girl has never had any gymnastics training and I feel we could have a future Olympic Gold Medalist gymnast on our hands. She is so petite for her age, she weighs about 35 lbs, which is pretty thin, but she eats ALL THE TIME and never stops jumping. Her legs are ridiculously muscular. 

Some of her new sayings include: 

" My panties are getting too close to my butt." Which means, she has a wedgie.

One of my favorites is, "What woo say?" Like, she just can't believe what you have just told her and she MUST hear it again.

"Don't do that Mama or am I going to give you a BIG tear up!" I have idea where she would've picked THAT one up... :)

Seriously.. Kid. I can't take it. You are getting too big.

Yesterday, as we were driving, John said, "Oh look, there's so and so( I don't even remember who he saw)!" 

Addison, without missing a beat exclaimed, "Holla!"

She is obsessed with Lady GaGa right now, as well as the Zac Brown Band. Her favorites are Paparazzi and Telelphone and ZBB's Sic 'em on a chicken( do not play this for your children, it's the most redneck thing I have ever heard and now I must listen to it on command.)

We have started working on Yes Ma'am and No Ma'am-- hello? It's the South, we have manners, people!

She also loves Alice in Wonderland.. which, honestly, this child watches more movies that I never saw growing up. But, I guess it means, I get to enjoy them with her and nothing makes me more happy. She is really getting into wanting make-up and lip gloss is an absolute MUST for her. She loves snuggling with me in the mornings and getting to snuggle on the couch after Claire has gone to bed with Mommy and Daddy. She loves to watch Gossip Girl and Tori and Dean with me and LOST is a Tuesday night must-see for her. 

She definitely has that red head temper but can be so sweet and loving it will bring tears to your eyes. She always thanks you for the smallest things and tells me how much she missed me when I was gone( even if it's just 10 minutes). 

I just can't wait to watch her rock the world, but I REALLY don't want her to grow up!

Disney World 2010 with a half-marathon twist!

Disney World was a blast this year!! Now get ready for a long story and a LOT of pictures!

We had a pretty good flight... Addison was a little iffy at times, but overall did really well. That may or may not be due to the fact that she fell asleep. We were supposed to take the Disney Magical Express to the hotel since we were staying the resort and lots of wondering around the Orlando Airport later found us in about a line with about a two hour wait to sign in to get on the Magical Express. We quickly decided that a taxi ride was in our best interest. We got the hotel( we stayed at the Port Orleans Riverside). Went to the room, got our bags and headed to the Wide World of Sports where the Expo was for me to pick up my packet and get my race info.

This was right before Addison shook up her drink and it spewed all over the place.

The entrance for the Expo... this is where I will tell you that the hotels had no idea what was going on with the Expo and they told us that there weren't any buses going from the host resorts to the Expo.. you had to go to other places and get on other buses to get there... not cool. But, we happened to ask a bus driver and he informed us, that YES there were buses going from our resort to the Expo...

The entrance to the Expo

Mom walking into the Magic Kingdom for the first time

Of course we walked into the park when a parade was going on... Don't BoomPa, GiGi, and Nana look excited to be here?

John, Dad, and I went and rode Space Mountain first and Dad lost his sun glasses.. he was a little bitter about it. We went and ate at Tony's Italian Restaurant for a lupper, and then went to see Princesses.

Waiting in line for Ariel

Me and Mom

BoomPa and Gigi

I'm not gonna lie.. this Ariel was a little scary looking.

Then we went to see the PhilharMagic which was awesome!

And rode the carousel

And then watched Wishes... can I talk about how cold it was? It was COLD.

P.S. This picture is so freaky I had to share it with you... Look at the ghost man!

Beautiful sunrise on Saturday Morning!

We went to Hollywood Studios on Saturday

Me and Minnie Mouse... Addison and Minnie's pictures disappeared from this post...

Me and Mickey

Mom and Minnie

Addison watching the High School Musical parade

We ate lunch at the 50's diner which was awesome! P.S. Order the pot roast.

Dad trying his hand at photography

Delicious onion rings!

We ate dinner at the Rainforest Cafe at Downtown Disney.. somehow Karen worked her magic and got us seated right away, I think wait was somewhere around an hour or longer... she wouldn't share her secret. This was how we felt about Addison during dinner... She ended up not eating and passing out on John.

Sunday was race day. I had to wake up at 3:30 am and get ready to get on a bus at 4 am. EARLY. It was probably in the 30's when I was waiting outside. It was COLD. I ended up taking John's windpants from the 90's to wear to the race and I was SO glad to have them. I wore those pants, a long sleeve t-shirt and a sweat shirt over my race outfit. We got dropped off around 4:15 or so and I waited in line for a port-a- potty for 20 minutes or so. I had to drop off my bag of crap and said goodbye to my sweatshirt and John's windpants and was super sad about it. I kept the long sleeve t-shirt with me. We then had to walk another 20 minutes or so to our corrals. There were 5 different corrals which had different start times. There were over 13,000 people registered for the race. I was in corral D which meant I started around 6:18. My legs were so cold they were numb. My joints were numb. I don't think I mentioned that I had almost completely lost my voice and sounded like a 12 year old boy going through puberty. Our fairy godmother was there to start the race and they did a fireworks start for every corral. It was a sea of people. I couldn't really start running until mile 2 or so because there were SO many people, but I couldn't feel my legs moving anyway. There were port-a-pottys about every 1/2 mile or so, and there was always a line! We ran the four lane headed into the Magic Kingdom. Between miles 3 and 4 I stopped and took off the long sleeve t-shirt and tied it around my waist. I didn't want to just toss it if it wasn't going to bother me. The family was at the Magic Kingdom waiting for me and I gotta tell you, it was so awesome running through there! I must say that they had characters about every mile and you could stop and get your picture taken with them. I didn't take a camera and was super sad about it. I saw everyone you could imagine!

The guy with the spiky hair ran in a blue tutu. He passed me about mile 2 and John said he came through the Magic Kingdom a good 45 minutes before I did.

Hey look!!! Here I am!!!

I wanted to stop and talk, but there were too many people in my way to get over to the side.

I wasn't able to run as fast as normal, A- because of all the people and B- my legs were so numb I couldn't feel them . I hit the wall around mile 8. It was so weird. Mentally, I was fine through the whole race. I knew I could do it, because, I am going to honest, there were some women in there that looked like they hadn't ever ran a day in their life. But, my legs wanted to run away from my body. My hips ached, my knees ached, my ankles ached. My neck muscles were so tight. I stopped and got some Bio-Freeze for my knees a couple of times and that seemed to help. I stopped and got a couple of Clif Shots and those seemed to help. I also stopped and stretched and that felt amazing!!! Mile 8-10 were on a 4 lane headed out of the park and there were TONS of people coming through the other way since the parks were opening. They would honk and stuff. Don't you know there were thinking, "What the crap are all those women doing running in tiaras and tutus?" Mile 12 was through Epcot and it was the hardest one. There wasn't a big running area and the park was open, so people where trying to get places, but also there were a lot of people cheering us on! It weaved a lot too. Knowing how close I was was always an inspiration. I was hurting all over, but tried to give myself that physical push. As I saw the finish line, I was looking for my family. I wanted to be able to see them. My dad and Karen were the first I saw of the group and I'm going to be honest, I teared up. I didn't run the whole way, was way past the time I wanted to finish in, but I did it and not a lot of people can say that. I ran 13.1 miles and have lived to tell the tale. I missed the medical tent with the ice and I could have definitely used some. My mom was the first person I spotted after the finish line, when they were coming to see me. I was proud that she got to see me do it. I was surprised she actually came because she hasn't been that supportive of the running. Karen has probably been my biggest cheerleader about it. The first thing Addison said was that I didn't wear the shorts that she picked out. I guess you can't please everybody!

Minnie and Mickey at the finish line!

How cute are these girls? Who's with me for next year?

What about this guy? He passed me at some point. The back of his shirt said "Running 13.1 miles for a kiss from a Princess."

Oh look! There's me!

All in all, it was an awesome first half marathon. I would totally do it again. I am already thinking of my next one... maybe Nashville at the end of April?

I gotta tell you this awesome story. Before the race, they showed a girl would had broken her ankle and couldn't run. They let her husband, who was in the Army, run for her. He ran in his Army fatigues with a sign on his back that said he was running for his injured Princess.

Also, something else I must share. There were 3 men to cross the finish line before any women did. I think that is super tacky, as it was a Princess race and no men got a medal of any kind. Most men were running with their wives. Stay with your wife and let a woman cross first!!!

After the race, we went back to the room and I showered and told my muscles and joints how sorry I was. Then we headed back to the Magic Kingdom. We headed to see TinkerBell.

Addison and Tink.

Addison was scared of Terrence, but I wasn't!

Me and Addison in Minnie Mouse's house.

John and I rode Splash Mountain, and the Big Thunder Railroad and I gotta say, that may have been my last Splash Mountain. The water was COLD and I got soaking wet. Not a fan.

John and Addison getting some candy before we left.

Monday, I felt and looked like an old lady walking around, but it was totally worth it. I'm ready to do it again. So, I think I can officially call myself a runner and say I am quite addicted. A BIG Thank You to all of you who supported me, tracked my progress online, and all of your well wishes. It is an accomplishment, but I think with running there is always a longer race or a faster time. I wanted to finish sub 2:45, but my official time was 3:04:58. I was 8237 out of like 11,000 finishers. A full hour ahead of dead last. I finished!!!