Friends and family

Yesterday morning was spent with some friends.

Ella might have some competition!

Last night we had dinner with family. My brother and future sister in law are in town to work on wedding plans. It is always great to see them.

Bike ride

Ben has been enjoying riding his bike, but Sam is getting a little jealous. Last time we were out we gave Sam his shot. He was more along for the ride than going for a ride. Either way, he had fun.

Picnic

Every year Cross Point Church has a picnic in the park each month in the summer. They are always a lot of fun and we always eat way too much. This month we had a Mexican theme. You can't have a Mexican themed picnic (or any sort of Calaway outing) with out a pinata.

I don't know if Sam completely understood the concept, but he was having fun.

It rained for about 5 minutes. It was just long enough to get rid of the bugs that invade Lakewood every summer. I don't know what they are called. Everyone seems to have a different name for them, but what ever they are called, they are everywhere and they are annoying! Layla was nice enough to share her umbrella.

Sam and dad playing frisbee.

We are already looking forward to next month.

Daniel fast

Jon started the Daniel fast yesterday. For 10 days he is eating mainly fruits and vegetables. He can have some other foods like salad (no dressing), potatoes (dry) or certain kinds of pasta. Its very strict though. No sugar, caffeine, anything that comes from an animal, processed or bleached grains. Check here for all the restrictions. I am doing it with him for dinner as my way of supporting him. Dinner last night was ....interesting. We had salad, brown rice and vegetables. It wasn't bad, but it was in no way satisfying. By 9pm, I was starving. I don't know how Jon did it all day.

The boys and I headed to West Side Market today and got a ton of fruit and some veggies for Jon. We made a HUGE fruit salad. Hopefully this will spice tonights dinner up a little bit. After we add in apples and bananas, we'll have about 12 different fruits in there. It looks delicious. Too bad we can't add some ice cream, chocolate and whipped cream on there!

I'm so proud of you baby. You're doing great.

Another year

Yesterday was my birthday. As you know, I'm not a big fan of my birthday, but not celebrating in some way isn't really an option. So we celebrated, but kept it low key. The kids and I went to the mall and had a long lunch with Jon. Last night Jon cooked me my requested birthday dinner--breakfast pizza. He made my night by adjusting my age just a bit with the candles. After dinner we headed to Crocker Park for ice cream. It was great spending time with my boys and reading a bunch of birthday wishes on Facebook. Thanks everyone for remembering.

Yard sale

I co hosted a yard sale over the weekend. It was so much more work than I expected, but it was so worth it in the end. Check out my other blog for more details on the sale.

The Letter E

April was the Month of E. Since Jon was on vacation the last week of April, we decided to carry it into May. Here is what we came up with:
With all the running Emily and I did together, Ben became very attached to her. He was very excited to pose for a picture with her.

Bens cousin Emma and his friend Ella also start with E. We can't forget Elmo (who Ben was infatuated with for at least a year), Ernie and Elmer Fudd.

We celebrated Easter and colored Easter Eggs. Ben loves coloring Eggs and looks forward to it every year.

Bagels for breakfast with friends has become a weekly tradition. Where else would we go but Einsteins?

Ben mastered Elevator buttons a long time ago and has recently become a master Escalator rider.

We found some pictures of Elephants and learned some facts about them:

Elephants are the largest land animal and Elephant babies take 22months to grow in their moms belly!

We looked at the number Eleven (11) and realized that if you turn it on its side, it makes an Equals (=) sign.

We looked at some places on the map like El Salvador, Ethiopia and Egypt. We learned that we live by lake Erie and we live on planet Earth.

We revisited a Bible verse Ben learned a while ago. Ephesians 6:1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

We talked about E things around the house like Erasers, Earrings, Eyes, E mail and our Elf movie.

We talked about the difference between Easy and hard and Empty and full.

Finally we learned that Ecouter means listen in French. We're struggling with that in English. Maybe saying it in 2 languages will help him learn to listen!

Even though we spent 2 months on E, we didn't seem to cover as much as I would have liked. The list for F is twice as long as E so we're going to go get started.

Smile

They get cuter every day!

First time

Ben went on an "adventure" today with mom and dad. We took him to the movie theater for the first time. We saw Shrek 4 and he loved it. Ben did great. We shared pop corn and some candy. He stayed in his seat the whole time and he kept the talking to a minimum. He thought the screen was the biggest TV ever! As soon as the movie was over he asked to watch it again. It was a lot of fun to see his excitement in something so routine to Jon and I.

Sam spent the afternoon with my parents. It sounded like he had a busy day. I think everyone will sleep well tonight!

Since we usually have the stroller with us, Ben was very excited to get to ride the escalators!

NOT happy

Sam needed a hair cut almost from day 1. I've cut his hair several times over the last 19months, but Sam hates to have his hair cut so its never turned out well. Since Ben was in need of a hair cut, I decided it was time to go to a professional and get Sams chopped off. Ben went first. Sam watched closely the entire time. He seemed pretty calm so I was hoping when it was his turn, he wouldn't mind too much. Wrong! As soon as we put him in the chair he started screaming. He fought getting strapped in, he wouldn't let her put the cape on and he tried to push her away every time she got near him. A sucker and some bubbles calmed him down for about a minute, but by the end, I was holding his hands down and his head still. If you couldn't see him, you would have thought we were beating him --the screams were awful. We could have gone a bit shorter, but he had enough. I have no idea if its even or not. Even after I took them to Chick Fil A for some play time, he was still feisty and wouldn't let me get too close to his head. Lets hope he doesn't need too much therapy after all that trauma!

Before

During

Playing with friends

Still not happy!

Wordless Wednesdays: silliness

Thats what you get for "borrowing" our camera!

More Wordless Wednesdays here and here.

Its not so bad

A little over a week ago, Jon and I headed to a car dealership to turn in my Jeep. It was a lease and the timing couldn't have been more perfect. The lease was up just as the adoption home study was approved. I would have loved to get another Jeep, but with 3 kids, it just wasn't practical. I've been resisting a mini van and looking for suv's with third row seating. What I found just wouldn't work for us. So I caved. We ended up with a (used) mini van. Its a Chrysler Town and Country. It has a lot of miles on it, but it has every feature I wanted and then some. I still have a sun roof. That pretty much sold it. It also has a DVD player, leather, heated seats, dual climate control and power everything. The gas mileage is also phenomenal. That pretty much sold it for Jon. While I'm still looking forward to the day I can have my Jeep back, the van has already proved quite convenient and useful. For now, I guess its not so bad!

Another summer

Tuesday morning Corrie got on a plane for Idaho for the summer. She heads out every year, and even though we know its coming, it always seems to get here too fast. We had lunch with Corrie, Aaron, Prasti and the kids on Sunday to say good bye.

Sam still hasn't said Ben yet, but he has almost mastered Corrie. Unfortunately, he never said it for her while she was here. These are for you aunt Corrie:

13.1

After 4 months of training, I ran the Cleveland half marathon with 2 friends, Emily and Courtney. Overall, it was a lot of fun. The crowd was amazing, the volunteers and people cheering us on were so encouraging and the weather was perfect. We (I) struggled at the end, but we made it.

We turned the race into a huge celebration. We started Saturday night with a carbo load party at Emilys. Her roommates cooked us a pasta feast. We hung out with family and friends and had a great night relaxing and preparing for the big day. Emilys roommates volunteered at the race to support the runners with some music. Here is a sample of what the runners were treated to:

We had an early start to race day. The alarm went off at 5am, but we were too excited to be tired. We drove down together and took in the sights of 15,000 runners and all the supporters.

Potty row.

We each wore a Bible verse on our back. Mine was Matthew 11:28 Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

The crowd in front of us before the race. The blue banner in the distance is the start line.

Pacers were stationed through out the crowd and we lined up based on our projected end times. They let the hard core runners start first then the rest of the group. We didn't get to the start line until 7 minutes after the start of the race and we were definitely closer to the front than the back. The first mile was crowded. We passed a lot of walkers and slower runners. By the second mile we were in the groove. The adrenaline was pumping and we felt better than we had in a long time. Friends from church were stationed around mile 6. Jon, the boys and my parents were at mile 7.5 and not too far from them were some friends of Emily. It was so nice to see familiar faces. It really made a difference in our energy level. We went through downtown, Ohio City, Treemont, Edgewater and back downtown. People lined the streets to cheer us on. Bands played, music blared. There were dancers, drum lines and a few characters along the way.

By mile 10, I was getting REALLY tired. The end of mile 10 was uphill as well as most of mile 11. I don't know what they were thinking, but who ever came up with that route should be fired! After all the uphill, I was REALLY, REALLY tired. Emily was a great encouragement though and she helped pull me through. Knowing that my family was at the finish line was also a huge motivation to get it done.

We did it!

We ran 13.1miles with out passing out, requiring medical intervention or having to crawl across the finish line. We ended the day with a promise kept by Jon. We headed up to Mongolian BBQ with more friends and replenished all those calories we burned. I'm sore and exhausted, but I'm so glad I did it. Next up: Chicago marathon 2011!!

Dinner at Mongolian BBQ.

Thank you to my hubby for rearranging our schedule to accommodate all the week day runs and for giving up weekend time for all the long runs and recovery time. You're the best!

Allergies?

After Sams run in with the sheep a couple weeks ago, we decided to do some allergy testing. After we started thinking about it, we started to think allergies were a real possibility. Sam usually has a runny nose. It clears up for a week or two and then its back. We always seem to be around someone thats sick so we didn't think much of it until now. We went to the doctor this morning and did a basic scratch test. They looked at 19 different things--dogs, cats, dust, spores, pollen etc. It was all negative. Not even a hint of anything. In a way thats great news, but it doesn't explain his persistent runny nose. To test specifically for sheep, lanolin or the hay, we would have to do a blood test. The doctor told us to hold off on the blood test since its not very often Sam is around sheep and he really has never reacted to anything else. He just told us to keep track of any symptoms. If we see any pattern or if anything gets worse we can do another test at a later date. So we know he is not allergic to our animals. We don't know why his nose is always running. We do know we wont be taking him to the farm any time soon.

Boys room

We decided a while ago that someday Sam and Ben would share a room. Bens room is big enough, they love being together and I think they'll have a lot of fun with it. Since the arrival date of our girl is completely up in the air, we decided to move Sam into Bens room now so they have time to adjust before we throw the stress of a sister into the mix.

We borrowed a crib from a friend to move Sam into until he is ready for a big boy bed. We set it up Friday night. Sam was a little upset, but it actually went a bit better than I thought it would. Both boys were asleep after about 45minutes. Sam didn't sleep well that night, but he's had worse nights in his room. Their first nap together was awful. They both fell asleep after almost 3 hours of fighting and crying. By then, it was time to get up and neither were happy. We get a little better each day. They are taking longer to fall asleep, but they are getting sleep. They both slept till 8:40 this morning and the first sounds I heard from them were giggles.

Making this move means we are close to getting our girl, but I'm a little sad for Sam. We set up the nursery specifically for our boy. My step dad painted animals on the walls for him. We spent way too much time picking out a rocking chair for all those late nights with Sam. That room has been his for 18months and in 1 day he lost it to make room for someone who isn't even here yet. I'm sure after a week or two they will both start to think of it as their room, not just Bens, but almost everything in their has just been Bens. I hope Sam doesn't feel like a permanent visitor in there.

Comorodary

Sam loves his big brother. He follows Ben around the house, he wants what ever toy Ben has, he laughs when Ben laughs and cries when Ben cries. He spends most of his day driving Ben crazy, which I guess is exactly what his job is as little brother. About a month ago, Sam even started following Ben to time out. When ever Ben is sent to the time out spot, Sam follows him, sits down next to him and waits until Ben can get up. We've tried to take Sam out of the room, distract him or just tell him no, but he finds his way back to Ben. Most of the time, he'll sit there quietly and let Ben serve his time, but every now and then he likes to take a few jabs and really annoy his big brother. Last night was one of those times:

This morning at play group:

We had a break through with Ben last night. When we restarted our potty training effort, we would ask Ben every 30minutes if he had to go potty. He would always say no and we would always make him go anyway. A couple days ago I decided to test him and see if he would tell us if he had to go. He never said a word, but he wasn't having accidents either. I kept letting him go and he kept his underwear clean. The boy definitely did not get the Purdum bladder--you can thank me later Ben! Finally last night, he looked at us and said the magic words, "dad, I have to go pee pee." And he did, in the potty. Of course today, the mega bladder was back in place and he held it from 9am until nap time at 1:30pm. We're just going to keep waiting to hear those magic words again!

Oreos and Twinkies and ears, oh my!

A friend of mine told me about a restaurant by the airport called The Midway. It sounded delicious so Jon and I rounded up some friends and headed out last night to check it out. They only serve fair food. Cheese on a stick, corn dogs, fries, elephant ears, funnel cake and fried everything. The portions are huge so we all got to sample a bit of every one else's food. The fries weren't the best, but the onion rings melt in your mouth. The fried Oreos were heavenly--- all of the desserts were. I highly recommend for the next time you need (a lot of) sugar with out the crowds.

The weekend

We had a busy weekend to wrap up Jons vacation. We headed to Whips Ledges Saturday morning for a hike and picnic. The men and older kids hiked while the women and little kids made sure the blankets didn't blow away. It was a little wet, but I think everyone had a good time.

Saturday night we headed to the Calaways to celebrate Kasens 3rd birthday. The kids spent most of the night playing outside with the new toys, but managed to pull themselves away for some cake.

When we got to church on Sunday, Sam proved he was just like his brother. Sam has discovered dads drums so when he saw them, he walked right past dad and asked to play. He's already a pro!

I headed out for a run with the girls Sunday night while the men had dinner and watched a movie. We had a great week with dad and were sad to see him have to go back to work.