In case anybody is still interested.

We had a fun Halloween this year. Isabella was a spelling bee, Ayva was a tooth fairy and Lilly was a lion. I decided that I was going to make costumes for the older girls to save some money and to get a bit more creative than I have in the past. I pulled out the old sewing machine, dusted it off and tried not to let my lack of sewing skills deter me from my goal. (I might have cussed a few times but I never quit) So here are some pictures.

Lilly the Lion. Roar!!

It is hard to tell from the picture but Ayva has a big white molar sewn on her leotard.

Bella's costume was inspired by her new habit of trying to spell out everything she says.

In other news...a few months ago I decided that I wanted to paint our kitchen cabinets. Eventually I want to change just about everything in our kitchen and it seemed logical to me to start with the cabinets. To make a very long process story short, it was a lot harder than I thought it would be but I love how they turned out. Before they were just your standard oak cabinets which the previous home owners had put some s shaped silver hardware on. Now they are a nice cream color with aged bronze hardware. Oh, and Peter put up some trim on the top. Ta da!

A half, and full and a new beginning

Last weekend I ran my first ever half-marathon. I did the Salt Lake City Half with my brother, Forrest. I put in a lot of work over the past few months in preparation for this big event and it paid off. The weather was perfect for the run and the route was mostly down hill, all except for the last mile or so up state street (that sucked!!!). My brother did amazing and finished in 1 hour and 44 minutes. I met my goal of coming in under 2 hours by crossing the finish line at 1 hour and 58 minutes. I would definitely like to run it again and try to better my time. I did learn a few things this time around. #1 - Don't stop running. I stopped to use the port o potty and wished I would have just held it because trying to get going again after you have stopped is very difficult. #2 - Try to run with a buddy who can help you mentally re-focus when you feel like quitting. Running can be so much more of a mental challenge than one may think and it is helpful to have someone who knows when to give you a little push. Over all I am proud of myself for completing this challenge and am now looking forward to Ragnar.

Last week we also celebrated ms. Lilly's first birthday. We had a little picnic for her and invited my family over to join us. She had a good time and enjoyed her first taste of sugar, the cake. I had made some "clean" cupcakes and after sampling one early in the day I decided that I might need a backup dessert just in case nobody liked the cupcakes. (The cupcakes were made with sucanat which is dehydrated sugar cane juice and the bittersweet chocolate so the flavor was a bit strong) So I whipped up a "dirty" chocolate cake with "dirty" frosting and raspberries and boy am I glad I did. Delicious!!! As hard as I try to be a clean eater, every now and then I do need a little dirty. hehe

Along with turning one ms. Lilly got to have a check up with her doctor. We were excited to see that she had reached the twenty pound mark so we could turn her around in her car seat. Although my pediatrician said that the new recommendation is two years before they think children should be turned around. Two years? That's nuts! Luckily the law is still one and twenty pounds so I turned my little Lilly around.

This week also marked the beginning of ms. Bella's soccer career. She is on the yellow hornets team and loves how they get a treat and juice box after every game. Ah, the simple joys in life.

It is very entertaining to watch, well as much as I get to watch while I am trying to keep Lilly from eating rocks and abc gum. Here's some pictures.

A bit of an update

Time for an update.

Lilly has 4, almost 6 teeth, she's climbing and crawling around as fast as she can and is sure to leave a mess wherever she goes.

Ayva is enjoying her swim lessons but that's about it. You gotta love her but she does spend most of her days unhappy about something. I am hopeful that she will grow out of this phase soon but I have been hoping that for months now.

Last week Isabella received the Climbing Higher Award at school for always doing her best work and for being a good example to others. She was so excited about it because they do a small video of the award recipients and then show the video on the classroom tvs. Then later that day she was out on recess and ran into a pole that some construction workers had pulled out from the ground to cut and left unattended. Bella didn't see it and ran right into it with her face. Luckily it just left her with some scratches and didn't turn black and blue.

That's her on the bottom right hand corner. Yeah Bella!

In other news...I have officially signed up to run the Salt Lake half marathon in April and have commenced my training. I have had 3 long runs so far with the longest one being 8.5 miles and things are feeling pretty good. My ward basketball team came in second place in our stake and we are now going on to play in a regional tournament. It has been so much fun to play again and I will be sad when it is over.

Peter is still working a lot. However, he has found time to start our garden. He has about a dozen seed starters going in egg cartons with everything from green beans to watermelon. He is anxious for the weather to warm enough for us to start digging up the back yard and establishing our own farmers market. I'll keep you updated.

Picture Tag

My dear friend Paige tagged me to open up my sixth folder and post the sixth picture in that folder. Little does Paige know but I just clump all my pictures together and only have one folder. However, I don't want to be a party pooper so I decided to just post the sixth picture from my single folder.

This picture was taken early summer 2007. Peter took a parent and tot swim class with Ayva and is teaching her how to blow bubbles in this particular picture. We found out early that Ayva would definetly need to learn how to swim because she exhibited very little fear of the water. She continues to take swim lessons and loves it when the teacher lets her jump in from the deck. "No help, please" she'll tell them.

Thanks for the tag Paige. It was fun taking a look back at this photo.