Monday Mayhem - Bring on a new week

This past week was insanity. I chalk it largely up to Brad having been gone for 4 days last week and then having 2 meetings in the first half of the week. Add in soccer practice and our produce day and it made for a very insane first half of the week.

Add in the following factors (AKA the bad stuff):
*Garrett hit a classmate at school on Wednesday. Grounded for the rest of the week. No TV, no friends, no fun to be had at all. As most moms tend to do, I took it personally that he would make such a bad choice. Sigh.
*I saw a dog get hit by a car on Wednesday during my run (you really have to know how much of a dog person I am to get why this would be so upsetting to me) . . . we stopped to help, and hopefully the poor thing is recovering well. Of course, I couldn't bear to let my dogs out of my sight for a couple days . . . logically, the entire thing shouldn't have affected me as much as it did, but I'm in this weird stage where I am terrified of losing my dogs and that really didn't help.
*Brad has been sick
*The boy refuses to sleep in his own bed after midnight, which means I haven't slept well in days.

The good stuff:

*Downloaded a chore chart from Motivated Moms on Monica's suggestion, hoping that will help me with the whole balance thing. Because if there is one thing I am TERRIBLE at its cleaning my house.
*Coffee and a nice chat with Shelah on Friday, because darn it, it had been that kind of week for us both.
*We had to break out a lot of the 3+ Discovery Toys this week for Summer. Little girl is getting big, which is both sad and super exciting. Here she is doing the Busy Bugs.
*My boys made me a wicked cool butcher block cutting board. I LOVE LOVE LOVE IT (and Brad made the bread too!)
*Girls Night Out at the Winery. There was a lot of dancing involved, which made me a happy camper!!
*I managed a 20 mile week, and with all of the insanity, I can say that in the fitness department it was a REALLY good week. 2 short, relatively fast runs, yoga, a long bike ride, kickboxing, zumba, and two FABULOUS weekend runs on Key Biscayne.
*The weekend runs on KB get their own bullet point--14.5 miles in 2 days. A gorgeous sunset on Sunday to help me get all nice and centered for this week. Explored some of the trails in Crandon Park on Saturday, saw a spotted eagle ray jump out of the water, and just generally let go for a couple of hours. Absolutely beautiful weather. I honestly have NO CLUE how I remained sane before I became a runner. These two weekend runs have made me feel all nice and centered and ready to tackle whatever comes next.

I am so very glad to be starting a new week. I really hope it is better than the last one.

Zoo Fun

We went to the zoo today and met up with friends Monica, Alora, and Corbin. Garrett and Corbin are good buddies, and we haven't seen each other since BEFORE our trip to St. John in September. Alora and Summer seem to be made of the same naughty-girl cloth, which made the excursion both refreshing (no, I am not the only one with a crazy little girl) and insane (where'd they go???)




This one pretty much sums up Summer's devil-may-care attitude. She is standing on top of an elephant. Insanity.


We went to the Members Only showing of the new "Scoop on Poop" exhibit. I found it to be crass. Picture videos of various animals pooping. Yeah. Really. And then there was this, which Garrett found hilarious:
But the outside part, which I assume was only for this one day, was pretty cool.

Identifying skulls (Garrett correctly guessed this one was a big cat).
There was a matching game involving containers of poop and pictures of animals. Although I did not watch this closely (chasing Summer down), Garrett must have done well because he got a little poster.

There was also a poop race--of course Garrett wanted to do that. You scooped poop and filled up your bucket. Garrett was the smallest AND slowest of course, but he took it very seriously and had a great time. Although at the end, he said "Pee-eww, I am never getting that close to poop again!" When I got home from my run this afternoon, we had a message that he won a $5 gift certificate to use at the zoo for his participation, which was nice.



Leaving the zoo resulted in a meltdown on Garrett's part, but at least he cried and threw a tantrum while walking back to the car. All in all, a decent day at the zoo. I was a little nervous about going, since Summer is such a handful and we haven't gone too many places since she was potty trained. I must say though, I am STRONGLY considering one of those little leash backpack things for her. I simply can't keep an eye on Garrett when she is around, because if I stop looking at her for one second, she will be off. AND she totally doesn't listen, which is not cool. Really, the word "brat" fits her well. Going to have to work on that.

Camera = found

As suspected, it was in the soccer bag.

So, photo catch up.

First day of soccer:
(Thanks Carrie for the hand me downs, he wears them proudly to EVERY practice)
And Summer insisted on her own picture.
Warmups (crappy light!)

You can see how excited Summer is about it all--she really wishes she could play too :-)

And from today, making garbanzo bean and rapini pita pizzas-big hit.
Pardon the nakie girl. She's hard to keep clothed these days. 3 days on my own = tired of chasing her down and insisting she wear clothes.
Garrett got a black eye at school today. He says that one friend tripped over another and ran into him, he fell into another friend and hit his face. You can't see it very well, but he has quite a shiner. (And what a goofy face).
And last, but not least, Summer "swimming" in the bath tub. She loves the water.

No idea where the camera is

I haven't seen my camera since last Monday (The little one. Thankfully the SLR is tucked safely away upstairs, I just never think to grab it lately). It is PROBABLY still in the soccer bag I took to our first day of soccer, but I haven't actually gotten around to looking for it. Things have been insane, but fun around here. Rundown of the highlights:

-Garrett LOVES soccer. Its his favorite thing.
-Summer also loves soccer, and is endlessly annoyed that she can't play. She has fun kicking the ball and screwing up the boys' practice though.
-We've been hanging with the neighbor kids A TON. Garrett just can't get enough of them, and neither can Summer. We've had lots of play dates lately.
-I've run 35 miles since the 1st, and finally splurged and got professionally fitted for shoes. I also nailed down my race schedule for this year:
2/5 - Hearts and Soles 5K
3/26 - MOVE IT 2011 Budget 5K-who's gonna join me?
5/1 - Budget Half Marathon
5/15 - Tri Miami Sprint Triathlon
9/18 - Key Biscayne Triathlon Trilogy International
11/20 - Muddy Buddy South Florida.
12/18 - Yippee, I'm 30 Budget Race (10K?)
I should be able to do the Tris for free if I volunteer at other events. Brad is going to do the Muddy Buddy with me, although I don't know if we will be team-mates or if I'll team up with my friend Queenie and let her hubs and Brad eat our dust. LOL!
At any rate, Brad's been running more too. He's done 2 4 milers this week, which for him is a lot. He usually says if he wants to go more than 3, he'll take his car.

-Brad is traveling for work AGAIN. We miss him. 'Nough said.
-Garrett was off Monday and is off again on Friday. It rained ALL DAY on Monday.
-My boss is out of the country until the end of February. Last week was a scramble to get things done. I'm looking forward to less chaos over the next 6 weeks, but still have a ton of stuff on my to-do list.
-Summer = insane. She's just a mess. Jumping on the bed, throwing herself on the ground when she doesn't get her way. I hate the 2s. Good thing she is so darn cute, or else I would have duct taped her to the walls long ago.
-Garrett's teacher asked me to help find some stuff for their study of the continents. It was nice to contribute to his class, and his teacher is my FAVORITE person these days. She's just fabulous :-)
-We're applying for Kindergarten. I can't believe it. And Garrett CAN NOT WAIT!
-We started grinding whole grains to add to all of our baked goods. Everyone loves it, and I think health-wise it has so much to offer.
-NBC 6 was here last weekend to film a piece on Annie's Buying Club. It aired yesterday!
-Garrett is really starting to focus on sight words at school. Insanity. He's getting big. He really enjoys all of it. We've had some very good days lately, which is so nice!

That about sums it up. Sorry for the lack of pictures, we'll try to do better this week!

Monday Mayhem

Surprise, surprise. Things have been crazy around here. THERE'S something new and exciting. Work, a dead battery in my car, Lowe's craft, and general stuff that needed to be done around the house are included in the less exciting stuff we had to do this weekend.

Garrett's good friend Aiden, who we haven't seen in a while, had a birthday party this weekend. Garrett was stoked to get to spend some time with him.

On Sunday we went to the Beaux Arts Festival at UM. The kids did great, and we all had a good time.

Picnic snack

They had a fun little craft area where the kids could do projects.Garrett worked VERY hard on his mask.

Despite being on-the-go all weekend, Summer managed to not have an accident. She remedied that today, but she's doing so great!

Garrett had a busy day today-he went to school with the Shuman kids, then went to My Gym with his little friend Alex. He had blast, of course. I got a ton a ton of work done--my boss is leaving on Friday for 6 weeks so we're busy.

Garrett starts soccer tonight-he is SO very excited. In fact, he is putting on his gear as I write this post and getting a little upset that I'm not helping him put on his shoes.

Random fun from the past week

So far the first week back to normalcy is going well . . . Garrett is happy to have his friends back and be back to school. I'm managing to make the most of my mornings and finish up what's left of my backlog for work.

Here's some pictures of the fun we've already had in 2011.

Trip to Biscayne National Park
All that Garrett wants to do when we go there now is climb one of the trees.



Experiment-Air has weight

Coloring our calendars for January


Fun with Bear (he needed to go potty!) Summer is so cute with him, she holds his hand and feeds him, asks to brush his teeth, etc.
Now, back to it!

Experiment - Air Takes Up Space!

At the beginning of Christmas break, we picked up several science books from the library with loads of experiments. We did one at the beginning of break with an egg and vinegar that proved enlightening for ALL of us. Here is a quick photo account of our experiment earlier this week to demonstrate that air takes up space, even though you can not see it.

Garrett copied the date and title of our experiment in his book and drew pictures of his observations.
Cork floats.
Put cup over cork


Air in the cup displaces the water. Cork is not under water, but is at the bottom of the container. Science is cool :-)
And, just in case you were wondering, Summer ate berries and supervised while we did this

Goals for 2011

Personal goals for 2011:

-Blog more . . . since I don't keep a journal or scrap book, this is IT.
-Make a book of blog posts in case blogger ever decides to die, for the same reasons listed above
-Run 600 miles and do a total of 1000 miles total in multisport (bike/swim/run)
-200 hours of fitness
-Do at least 1 triathlon, 1 actual 5K, a budget 5K, a budget 10K and a budget 13.1 at some point throughout the year. I have seven events on my wish list right now (5 are tris), but we'll see how that goes.
-Read/Listen to 20 books . . . I really am loving getting back into reading again
-Go on a mommy-cation to see Allison, or have her come see me
-Take Garrett to Disney for his birthday
-Read my bible more. Planning on doing the Bible In 90 Days program, just not ready to add that in to my New Year until we get into the swing of things.
-Give myself 30 minutes of still, peaceful quiet once a week. As much as I love working out, that can not continue to be my only me time if I wish to stay sane.
-Unplug a bit more. I've spent entirely TOO much time on Facebook this year. Going to try to limit my internet time to quick email/FB checks in the AM and at lunch.
-Moonlight ride on Shark River Valley with hubs
-Daytime Shark River Valley ride with Garrett
-Take my kids camping
-See my Grandma if she makes it stateside this year.

So very grateful for for my family and fabulous friends. Hello 2011!!!