Happy Birthday to me!

Happy B-day to me! I am (gulp) 31 today! You know 30 wasn't so bad, so I suppose 31 will be just fine too. Scott bought me a carpet cleaner for my b-day and he even used it already! When I got off work yesterday he had the living room floor cleaned. I know, I know, men are not supposed to buy that kind of thing as a gift, but honestly it's what I wanted. Flowers are great, but they die. Jewelry is wonderful, but I can only wear so much at one time. Really- keeping our house looking nice is way more important to me anyway. I take pride in keeping a clean house, so when it's gross, I feel gross. Make sense?

Anyway, I will be spending my 31st b-day at a stranger's wedding. Oh well- that's the life of a photographer's wife! The kids are going to spend the night with mom and dad so that Scott and I can go out after the wedding. It will be nice to not have to worry about getting home right away so that grandma can go home. I don't know what we are going to do, I would like to go out to eat and maybe have a couple drinks. I would love to go somewhere that we could dance a little, but there isn't really a good place for that around here- Buck's is too country for us. Oh well, we never have really been big partiers so why start now?

Well, I'd better go get ready for today's wedding! Have a piece of cake for me today!

Running cuz it's fun!

The girls are participating in the Sioux Falls Running Club's cross country races again this year. It's 3 Wednesdays, no cost, no "competition", just running to run. Haley's group has to run 1 mile, Hannah's group has to run 1/2 mile. The first run was last Wednesday. Yesterday both girls improved on their times from last week. I made a deal with them that if Haley can run her mile in under 9 minutes and Hannah can run her 1/2 mile in under 4:30, I will take them out for supper and to coldstone after the last race. Yesterday Haley ran her mile in 9:29 and Hannah ran her 1/2 mile in 4:59. Both girls want to run with me every night to practice cuz they really want cold stone! I really like these "races" because although there is a timer up, there are no prizes for the fastest. All of the kids get a popsicle when they are done, so they all feel like they've accomplished something. I think it's a great way to get kids out and moving! Here are a couple pics I took yesterday as the girls were running. The one of Haley is as she is finishin up her first lap- she had to run 2 laps. The one of Hannah is supposed to be her "finish line sprint".

Big news!

Nope, just kidding. Got you to start reading though didn't it? Not much happening lately. I know I passed a Sunday and didn't do a weigh in report. That's cuz I am working on revamping my diet plan. I hit a wall with the last one and need to come up with something different. I think what I really need is some kind of implanted device that will render me completely paralyzed every time I try to eat something I shouldn't. I don't have a problem with getting up in the morning and working out. It's the evening munchies that win out in the end. But, lucky for you, I won't be writing about my weight for a little while. Maybe my next diet will be a secret and one day you will see me and exclaim "Wow, you're hot!" A girl can dream right?

Work is starting to settle down. The new dr is still trying to get in her groove, but it's coming along. The reception department has lost a few people recently so I have been spending my down time helping out on the phones. Boy am I glad I don't do that full time anymore!

What else is happening.......we had a bridal show on Sunday, it was busy but we didn't really have a lot of people that were talking to us. I think with our pricing, we are going to be a lot less busy. I'm not sure what I think about that. I guess as long as we are busy enough to keep the same amount of money coming in, we should be ok. With the economy going to crap, I wonder how much people are really going to spend on their weddings anymore. Might be lots of Vegas weddings in the future.

Haley made it on to the "lego league" team at her school. They are going to be building robots for a competetition. She is pretty excited. It will mean some afterschool meetings and probably a Saturday or two, but I think it's great that she wants to do some more creative, critical thinking kind of things. You can never go wrong with that kind of experience!

Well, I suppose I should get ready for work. Seems like it's going to be one of those days where I am just not in the mood to work. Too bad I think one of my supervisors is going to be working my front desk today. Guess I will just have to pretend to be working!

Have a good one!

Can you catch a spider with a clamp????

This morning Hannah was getting ready to take a shower when she noticed a cute little friend in the tub......

Of course, being Hannah, she wouldn't dream of stepping into the tub and disturbing him. When mommy wouldn't go help her, she resorted to calling for Will. Will went in to check out the situation. From the living room , we could hear him say "Don't touch him Hannah, I will be right back." Will went to his room for what I assumed would be either his hammer or screwdriver, but lo and behold he comes out with a CLAMP! At this point I thought, "I have got to get a picture of this!"

Will was leaning way over the edge of the tub holding out his clamp saying "come here little spider, come here". Well little spider would have nothing of the sorts and mommy finally had to intervene with a kleenex. Poor Hannah almost had herself a heart attack when I tried to hand her the spider filled kleenex. One quick flush and our new little friend was gone.

Later Will had to go potty and he said he needed to use mommy's bathroom. When I asked him why he said cuz he didn't want to pee on the spider!

Life with Will is never going to be dull!

Life thru the eyes of a 2 year old

Oh excuse me 2 1/2 year old. I don't really have much to blog about but there have been some cute Willisms lately that I thought I would share.

Ask him how old he is " I am 2 1/2." (he's not really- he won't be officially 2 1/2 until 10/18)

Ask him what his name is " Will, W I L L, Will" Sometimes just for good measure he will add an extra l or two when spelling his name.

At precisely 4 45 this morning Will was crying for me. It wasn't the usual "mommy, I have to go potty", so I peek in his door and ask him what is wrong. "Hannah stole my lawnmover". Well my dear little bubba, Hannah is still asleep way up in her bed, so I don't think she has your lawnmower.

The other day we were at Amy's and she and I were talking about the weather and how pretty soon we will be playing in the snow. Will piped in with "you can't play in the snow until you have your glubs on" And somewhere in the conversation about why there isn't snow "the snowblower needs to make it snow and it's turned off right now."

When I asked Will what he was going to do with daddy today "we are going to do stuff with screwdrivers"

At last but not least- when he hasn't pooped for a couple days and finally is able to- he has to look at it and always says "it's like a baseball!"

Have a good night!

Blah blah blah

That is how I am feeling about my diet. BLAH freaking BLAH! Yup, it's Sunday and I got on the scale and YUP- my weight went up again. Today will be bad cuz we are having kick off Sunday at church so there will be food and then we have a potluck at Dr Bell's house tonight - so there will be lots of food. That means that I have to kick my will power into high gear the rest of the week. I know what the problem is, I just can't stop myself from snacking. I need to redirect my energies into working out or something instead.





This past week was pretty uneventful. Work was still pretty stressful, but that should be getting better slowly. There was a surprise this week- Travis is home! He showed up unannounced on Thursday and is here until next Sunday. He stopped by the studio on Friday and got to see Will, so he stopped by the house yesterday to see the girls. Hannah decided he was pretty comfortable to cuddle with. I did get Will close enough to him to get a picture of all 3 kids with their uncle.


The weather has been pretty yucky the past couple of days. Hannah's soccer game was even cancelled yesterday due to rain. It's looking pretty dreary today too. Guess we won't be at the Sunday School kickoff too long if the rain comes. That's ok- I think Scott has some running around he wants to do today and then it's off to the potluck!

Seriously, is it Friday yet?

This has been a really really long week. I don't know if it was being at work at 7 two days in a row, the stress at work that I'm not used to dealing with anymore, not going running in the morning, who knows- probably a combination of everything, but this week has seemed neverending. Tomorrow is finally Friday!

Got an email from mom this afternoon saying that Travis is home. Huh, didn't expect that. I'm not sure what prompted this visit and he probably won't tell me either. Hopefully we will get to spend a little bit of time with him. The girls love picking on him so I am sure Will is going to as well. We don't have a wedding this weekend so they won't be able to spend all day Saturday driving him crazy like they usually do when he is home.

Not much else going on in my life. Scott is trying like crazy to get more sessions at the studio. Seems to be working a little - he has booked a few family sessions for the next couple of weeks. I don't know what happened to our big plan of trying to get caught up this summer, but we are no farther ahead than we were in March. Might be a long winter for us. I guess we just keep plugging away and doing what we can with what we have.

Well, Scott is out shooting tonight and the kids are getting ready for bed. Maybe I will crash a little early too.

stress is very bad for my diet

Well I'm not stuck at 147.8 again this week- nope- went up. ARGH! I am a major stress eater and this week was very bad for that. I am back up to 149. Know what that means? This week I am going to have to torture myself. I think it's going to be about time to start working out to dvd's in the morning again. It is getting really cold during the night and the daylight time is getting much shorter. I think Tony Horton (p-90x guy) and I will be spending our mornings sweating together again. I hope to still be able to get some running in - probably in the evenings. If the weather warms up a little again I can run in the dark too.

We had a wedding yesterday- outside- in the rain. The ceremony got done just as the rain started to get more steady. Good timing right- well, the couple didn't see each other before hand so we still had to do all the pictures. At least we could get in to their reception location and we took all of the pictures there. Worked out fine and the couple didn't even seem too stressed over the deal.

Not too much else going on. The kids start Sunday school again today. I am not teaching this year. I just decided to take a break- when Will starts I will probably offer to teach his class for a couple years.

I hope it is nice out today. Maybe I can get an afternoon run in or something. It is dark and cold this morning and Will is up so I don't think I will get out before I need to take a shower.

Well, Will is yelling for me. Must be done with breakfast!

Monster Free!

Will has been more afraid of noises lately and he is just sure we have monsters in the basement. He was telling everyone about it Monday night so grandma Meyer told her she would get him some monster spray. Well that sure got his attention! He was very excited about the thought of spraying to get rid of monsters! Last night she brought over a spray bottle of "Will's anti monster spray". Boy oh boy was he a happy one! He spent most of the evening monster hunting. He stood at the top of the stairs and kept spraying thru the railing towards the basement. He says next he needs to bring it to Amy's cuz "Amy's got big monsters too". Funny kid- smart grandma!

Well the new dr started yesterday and I had the biggest headache when I got home. Unrealistic expectations mixed in with overworked frusteration made for a rough afternoon. We just need to get thru the next couple of weeks and hopefully everything will even out for everyone.

On the workout front- with the headache I had yesterday, I didn't run last night. I did go this morning though and made it 3 miles again. It was awful cold out though! My hands were numb after the first mile and I didn't sweat until I got home and in the house. Think I will need to break out the sweatshirts pretty soon!

Blame it on the rain.....

I didn't go running this morning. Not cuz I am lazy or didn't want to- I woke up to rain at 4:30 and decided then that I wasn't going to be able to run outside today. I did do 20 minutes on the elliptical though and if it is nice tonight I hope to go running after supper. Seriously I do, I promise.

Yesterday should have been a day to get stuff done, but really I did more relaxing than doing. I did get a lot of laundry done and got the house semi picked up. We had my folks, Scott's folks and Amy's family over for a mini potluck. I just thought it would be nice to have a relaxing end to the weekend with everyone. The kids got to spend some time playing together and the grown ups got to have a good sized meal without a lot of fuss. I like having everyone over, especially when the kids can go outside for awhile. They have so much fun together that they get a little loud in the house. I am glad that they play so well together though. I also like having both sides of the family over at the same time cuz I think it's great for my kids to see everyone as one big family instead of two separate ones. Maybe it's just me, but I like it.

Back to work today. Our new doctor is starting today so this next couple of weeks should be real interesting for me. Since I have never met her I have no idea what she is going to expect from me. I have already figured out that she is not very organized or into paperwork so that will keep me busier in itself. That's ok though, I like to be busy and as long as she is pretty user-friendly we will be just fine.

Well, I suppose I should get to it!

how to know you had a good family outing......

1. At least one person has really sunburned at least one part of their body . Check- mommy has pretty purple shoulders.

2. At least one person has nearly fainted from the excitement. Check- Hannah collapsed in the middle of the midway. We can call it excitement if you wish, but I think in reality she got a slight case of heat exhaustion.

3. At least one person lost their lunch. Check- Will threw up his supper, lunch and snack all at once in the car on the way home. He was trying to finish his sandwich so he could have his cookie and he choked.

So all in all we must have had a great day yesterday! Actually we did have a good time. We spent a good 8 hours at the state fair. Steve and Colleen and Amy & Cameron & the boys were all there too. The kids had a great time on the rides. It's so fun to see Haley going on all the rides, she is such an adrenaline junkie! The other kids follow her and go on all the rides too, but she is truly the one who is having the most fun.

Other than the fact that it was 90 degrees, 40 mph winds and felt like we were in the middle of a dust storm all day, I think everyone had a good time just being out and doing something. There are so many things we could/should have been doing at home, but sometimes you have to just stop and enjoy life instead.

Today will probably be a little more of doing the could have/should haves but that's ok too.

Well, yesterday was Sunday so I did do a weigh in. I was really worried cuz my will power has completely disappeared. I have still been running everyday, but eating has not been well controlled. Well, I am exactly the same weight as I was two weeks ago, not up not down. I guess I should just be thankful it didn't go up. I did up my running distance again. I ran a little over 3 miles yesterday morning. (yup and then I walked in the wind all day) I am taking today off of running cuz my legs are all cramped up from all the walking yesterday. I think I deserve a day off once in a while don't you? If you said no- shut up and run yourself! Besides the wind is still blowing this morning and I am not in the mood to fight it.

Well, I suppose I should go take a shower and figure out which of the " to get done before it snows" things I want to try to get done today. Happy official end of summer!