Reminiscing

This week I pulled out my rubbermaid full of old pictures (I know, I know...I need to organize) and I sat on the floor for way too long reminiscing and pulling out old pictures. Here are only a few that I loved.

Mom and me.

Quitcherbellyakin-do you even remember this???

Nauvoo 1995?

One of my favorite memories-going to the Thanksgiving day parade in Chicago with Sally and Valoy when them came to visit. Nov. 2003.

Skydiving! August 1998

Hattie and Kyle. Jan 2003??

We've been WAITING!!!!

WE HEART THE AMAZING RACE!! We have been waiting for so long for this season to start. We are so going to try out next year. T minus 12 hours and counting.

8 months old!

Our Westy boy turned 8 months old yesterday! He is sure moving and keeping us super busy. For some reason, I kept a picture of Ryan when he was 7 1/2 months old in my calendar book. I also conveniently found a picture of the girls when they were the same age. I had to do a little digging for my baby picture but was able to finally locate it (Thanks dad!). So, for the sake of journaling, here is a comparison of our family members at 8 months old.

Westy boy at 8 months. He's totally in love with wheels.
Me

Neeley

Ryan

Hattie

Could be one of those days...

Medusa lives here at my house. Every morning, this is what I battle.

Feel sorry for me?

Kilkenny

Okay, everyone knows how much Ryan loves shoes, right? Not just any shoes, but NICE shoes. Even more than his love for NICE shoes, Ryan loves really GOOD shoes for various purposes. He has been running, biking, and swimming for years and as a result, has had trouble with aches and pains in his lower back, knees, calves, etc. He heard about Vibram 5 fingers and did a lot of research on the benefits of running with minimal foot gear. The "marshmallow" over-priced, over-marketed athletic shoes of today are doing nothing but injuring runners. Why is it that ultramarathoners, track runners and racers wear the most minimalist shoes? Some even wear sandals or go barefoot and are NEVER injured?

Anyway, Ryan purchased himself a few pairs of Vibram 5 fingers and never looked back. His running pains have all disappeared!

Now, I am a much slower adopter of the 5 finger shoes. I personally don't hate them, but I'm not that serious into shoes. AFter Ryan finished reading Born to Run (see earlier post) he handed it over to me and i kind of rolled my eyes. I enjoy running about as much as I enjoy meat loaf. I can swallow it, but don't enjoy it at all. Despite my reticence, I have run quite a bit in my life and even attacked a marathon. After the marathon, I was certain I could never run again. My knee was so sore I didn't know how I was going to walk. To this day, every time I run more than 5 miles, I feel my knee throbbing. Easy solution? Don't run more than 5 miles at a time!

Again I digress. Ryan passed me Born to Run and after some eye rolling, I started reading. WOW. Great book even if you are not into running at all. Long story short, I myself was inspired to test out minimalist running shoes. Instead of going straight for the uber minimalist Vibram 5 fingers, I purchased a pair of Saucony Kilkenny racing flats last week.

I have been running on these bad boys all week and I can't believe how great I feel! And even better- NO KNEE PROBLEMS!

SO, moral of the story, pick up Born to Run by Christopher McDougall and get yourself a pair of racing flats. (Or Vibram 5 fingers if you are brave.) And even if you aren't a runner, the book is still worth your time.

A GREAT book

I just finished a fantastic book and I'm always on the lookout for a good read. This one had me at "hello." Tori Murden McClure is the first woman to row alone across the Atlantic Ocean and she is one tough nut. She tangles with a few hurricanes, is stalked by sharks, and encounters great disappointment as well as eventual triumph. GREAT BOOK. I highly recommend it.

Exhaustion

Okay, I SO should be getting kids hair done and ready for school, but by way of stalling, I just had to document this. Have I ever mentioned that I HATE the 5:00 evening hour? I absolutely despise that hour of my day. I am exhausted, Westy needs a lot of attention, dinner is usually burning (if it is even prepared), neighbor kids are all over my house, Ryan is still a long way from coming home, and in the rush of after school events, it looks as though a bomb went off in my kitchen. I'm usually at my WORST from 5-6, or 7.

However.....once my kids go to bed and my house is picked up and quiet, I'm a whole new person. I'm usually trying to get lunches made, backpack packed, clothes ready for the next day, and trying to regain my mental toughness to deal with the next day.

As I was shutting down the house last night, I grabbed my camera and had to document these. This is a normal sleeping position for Neeley. Actually, anything is normal with her. I have no idea what is happening in her brain.
And, by comparison, Hattie is perfectly asleep in her top bunk without even getting in the covers. She doesn't want to mess up her bed.

Westy has a small cold, so I propped the top part of his mattress up. Of course, he thinks it is different and fun so he plopped himself downward. Nice. Let all the fluids drain to his face.

He likes to move it, move it...

This boy can skootch, army crawl and now can crawl on hands and feet. He certainly can get anywhere he wants to go. He's still getting the hang of crawling on his hands and feet, but it's like a whole new world opened up for him. A new world for us too. He escaped to the girls room yesterday and I found him with a little trinket in his mouth. Perfect size for choking.

He focuses on something interesting on the floor then starts to crawl by getting into some kind of yoga downward dog move. BAM! He's outta here.

Doesn't he look like he's taking his own picture?

PEACHES!!

I think my "peach meter" is full. I love how every year we order our annual boxes of fresh fruit and eat our little hearts out. Last year, we ordered a 32 pound box full of beautiful Utah peaches and ATE THE ENTIRE THING! We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves last year, but we were pretty peached out. So this year, after some inspiration from Tristen, I decided to try my hand at bottling them. They turned out BEAUTIFULLY. In fact, so beautiful that no one is allowed to open them. Ever. They look too beautiful on the shelf. And if they do open a bottle, they must savor every single bite and have the following dialogue (out loud so I can hear): "Mom, these are SO delicious and worth all the time you put into it!"

Instead of just one box of peaches, we ordered two this year and I have even had enough to make quite a few batches of baby food and frozen sliced peaches for smoothies and cobbler. Next year though, I may just stick to one box of peaches.

More Cowbell

I have had a few people ask what "More Cowbell" means. Ryan and I get a good giggle every time we see this. The video quality is not great, but you get the idea.
http://www.funnyhub.com/videos/pages/snl-more-cowbell.html

We gotta have more cowbell.

United Steaks of America

Dominic Episcopo, an artist out of Philadelphia, takes photos of everything from high fashion to food, celebrities to celery. I thought this was pretty clever. "The United Steaks of America" uses ribeyes and sirloins alike to carve out our country. Who thinks of these things???

Images from our week

We made it through another week! Our favorite things this week:

I am thoroughly enjoying this book. Is about the greatest art con in history. Fun reading.

Lindsey and Britt were out of town for a few days so we jumped on the chance to steal Max for a while. Neeley and Max had a blast at the Children's Museum. You may not be able to tell, but in this room the kids stick on bean bag spiders on a vertical conveyor belt and at the top, a fan flicks them off and they go flying across the room. All Max kept saying was "This is AWESOME!"

In one room of the Museum, the kids can paint a house. This house has been painted so many times it is staring to look super lumpy and kind of gross, but the kids still gravitate to it every time. I overheard Max say to Neeley: "I am a GREAT art director. "

Is Westy posing?

These note cards from Linda and Harriett are absolutely wonderful. I love fun notecards and this they sure have some pretty groovy stuff.

Hi, it's Ryan. Remember me? I've hijacked the blog to say that one of my favorite things this week is this book below...very interesting read. Rethink the techno running shoes that cost a fortune. The Terrahuma tribe of Mexico have the secret. Fun read. Ok, here comes Taani...have to go...I took over her blog...does that mean this was called a "blogjacking?"