The flu has hit!

I guess it had to happen eventually, but Connor has the flu! It really hasnt been as bad as you would think. Just a high fever, and a runny nose. Of course Connor might have other aches and pains but of course cant tell me. He has been playing up a storm though which makes me think either the Motrin and Tylenol are doing their job or he really doesnt feel that bad. The nights have been a little rough. Mostly just because I cant sleep well and check on him often. My hands are so dry from washing my hands over and over again! I am just praying that Brad and I dont get it. The doctor told me that you have it at least 2 days before you start having symptoms. I got up and did my long run this morning in the rain since I didnt know how I would feel tomorrow or later this week. It was a 100% chance of rain and we got lots of it over night so needless to say we were running in the mud and some flooded areas for 9.7 miles! We supposed to run 8.5 but the rain washed away the chalk so none of us really knew when to turn around. I guess it is safe to say that I can definitely do 10 now. Ha! We were soaked and my body was completely numb from the cold. Not fun! I have a whole new appreciation for people who run in the rain on their own free will! Doing a race in the rain is one thing because that cant be rescheduled, but I dont think I will be doing this again, at least not in February! Glad it is done though, dont have to do a make up later this week.

This picture was taken before we went to the doctor yesterday. I had just got out of the shower and put on my hat and Connor wanted his too. He went into the closet and got this one. He wanted to be just like Mommy! I have to say it was pretty sweet. Daddy didnt really like his choice though. Ha!

Not a good picture of me, but I loved Connors sweet face!

Pops' little fisherman!

Last weekend while Mommy was busy with the baby shower festivities, Connor got to spend some time with Pops and Grannie at the lake. He had such a good time and even took up fishing while he was there. Pops found a Mickey fishing rod for Connor (dont worry- no hooks just a Donald Duck as bait!) It was precious and it didnt take Connor to figure out how to use it. I guess he was sort of familiar since he has a magnetic fishing rod in his bath tub that he plays with every night. Pops had to help him throw it in the water because Connor kept getting it stuck in the mud, but he definitely had the concept down! Here are some cute pictures that Brad and I captured before we left to go home. Thank you all for taking care of Connor for me so I could have some girl time! He had a great time!

"Dont fall in!" Grannie thought he was getting a little too close to the edge I think!

I love this picture! Pops is giving Connor his first fishing lesson.

It's Shower Time!

Make a Smilebox photobook

Last weekend I got to help throw a shower for one of my oldest and dearest friends, Darby! It is hard to believe that we used to play with our babydolls together and now we are really Moms! Darby had a great shower and got so many great things! I think in between this shower and the one she had on Sunday, Brock is set. Congratulations, Darby and Stan- we are so excited for you guys and cant wait to meet sweet little Brock very soon! I had a great time getting to spend the weekend with you. Your new house is beautiful and you all did an excellent job on the nursery!

Sorry, I know most of you have seen most of these pictures on Darby's blog already. Here they are again!

WOW!

Have you all seen this? No words... just WOW!

2-14

Valentines Day 2009

Morning: My morning was spent running downtown at 7 am in the most ridiculous Valentines Day getup you have ever seen! I wont go into many details but to explain there was an email sent out from our running group at Fleet Feet that said that they would like for everyone to wear red or pink since it was V-day AND if you wore hearts you would get some sort of prize. Well, we have one of those people in our group who wanted to take it to a whole new level! I got a call from Jamie and was told that we were going to get matching shirts and since I was one of the ones who didnt have to work that day, I was to go to find some decorations that we could assemble into some sort of outfit. Needless to say we looked quite hilarious and definitely turned some heads running through the college campus's of Lipscomb and Belmont! After the run we went to Noshville (who by the way has an awesome breakfast!) and turned quite a few more heads there as well! Ha!

On Friday night we got together to get everything decorated...

We wore matching shirts we got from Target in the pajama section.

Rebecca had the idea of making capes for everyone out of some cellophane for baskets and a heart that we found at Target.

When I got home, Connor was so excited to give me my Valentines present. Brad and I had agreed that we werent going to get anything for each other BUT being the wonderful husband that he is, he got me something anyway! I got the new running shoes that I had been wanting and some running socks! The next thing I knew Connor was walking all over the house with the bag on his head. It was hilarious!
Here is a picture of our fabulous capes! Ha! Rebecca named us the "Cupid Crusaders".

Needless to say we won the prize! Not sure what it is yet. I am hoping for a Fleet Feet gift card! Pretty sure that wont be it, but I can hope can't I?

Kim and Alyssa at Noshville

Me and Jamie at Noshville (looking pretty tired after the run)
The whole crew minus Beth who was in Costa Rica on vacation. I am sure that she would rather have been with us! Ha!
Night: We had a much needed date night! We went to the Nashville Predators hockey game and then to dinner afterwards. It was great and we couldnt have picked a better game to go to! They were tied with the Bruins and we got to watch a shootout at the end as a tie breaker. The Preds won which made it even better! We met Brett and Hillary there and it was great to hang out with them as well since we dont get to see each other nearly as often as we would like. Connor spent the night at Nonna and Grandy's house so we had the entire night to ourselves. It felt so strange to go home and not have any responsibilites like bath and bedtime. It was a good thing because I was exhausted since I had to get up at 5 and we got home at midnight- way past my bedtime! We had such a great time though and a big thank you to my parents who gave us the tickets for Christmas and were the babysitters for the night on their Valentines Day. They insisted that Connor was the best Valentines present they could ask for. Here are some pictures from our night...

Brett and Hillary

Gnash was dressed as cupid!

Brad said that I was obsessed with Jordin Tootoo. I thought he was pretty cute so I took a few pictures!

This is the shootout where we won the game! As you will hear in the video they were yelling some not so nice things. I have decided that hockey isnt a real friendly sport. Also the camera goes a little crazy at the end. I was trying to get Brad on camera.

Happy Valentines Day!

We wish all of you a Happy Valentines Day and hope you can share lots of LOVE with your honey's tomorrow! Brad and I have a date night and we are so excited! Connor has been asking to go to Nonna's house all week and is very excited as he will be spending the night with Nonna and Grandy. Gotta love the grandparents! I hope you all have a very love filled day!

Connor looks like he is trying to eat the heart BUT he is really trying to give it a kiss!

Our little golf pro!

Brad has been working with Connor on his golf swing and the other night I was able to capture him in all his glory hitting golf balls in our living room. I know we are a little biased but we are amazed at how fast he is picking this up. He is hitting the balls really good now. So good that we have to make sure that he isn't too close to the windows of the house when we are outside. He can hit them pretty far now. Of course when we are inside we use the plastic ones! Watch and listen...gotta love the sound effects!

This one's for you Grannie and Pops!

Thank you for Connor's Valentine present! It truly made his day! And thank you everyone for all of the Valentine cards from everyone. Connor really enjoys opening them!

Early spring!

Like everyone else in TN we have really enjoyed the weather the past few week! Here are some random pictures of Connor enjoying the sunshine!

Connor wanting Mommy to blow some bubbles.

a little mechanical work...HAPPY because its time for some golf!

Lining the ball up and making Daddy proud!

Look at that hard swing!

...so hard that he took a little fall!

Safety pins and thrifty crafts

Safety pins... you might ask? I have found many great uses for this often forgotten and taken for granted household tool! One is that I now need one to hold up my pants- Yahoo! The running is finally paying off and I am starting to tell a difference in my clothes. What a relief! I was getting very discouraged and wondering what I was going to do to actually lose some inches. I am always amazed at how I can run 8 miles (yes, I did it on Saturday! Woohoo!) and burn that many calories and still build muscle so that my weight is exactly the same. However I am not one of those people who focuses on the "perfect weight". I just want to be in a certain size in my clothes and feel "good". Ok enough of that, the other reason I have found a new respect for the safety pin is because I finally have made curtains in my bathroom and dining room with those awesome little things! Thanks to Missy Davis, I have recently found one of my new favorite blogs the Nesting Place. When I saw on Missy's blog that she had made some very cute valances for her windows, I decided that it was high time I got that piece of remnant fabric that I bought for my bathroom a year ago and do SOMETHING with it! I found the Nesting Place blog and looked at all of her great ideas and inspiration to make what she calls a "window mistreatment's". It is a window treatment where you dont do a lick of sewing! Nothing against sewing but I dont know how and dont have time to learn SO I was so excited to see all of the great things that you can do with some fabric glue, safety pins, straight pins, and a little work. 45 minutes later I made a "mistreatment" for my bathroom and it only cost me $8! I purchased some remnant fabric at Joann's for like $3, the trim was half off and ended up costing $4, and the lining was $1 for this treatment. Everything else I ,and it was "sew" easy!

Safety pins to make the pleat...

The final product...

I also made this to go in there also and all it cost me was $1 for the mat! I used an old frame, used the extra fabric from the windows, some ribbon, and printed our monogram on some cream card stock paper. Cant take credit for this idea either... also came from a blog that I came across on Nesters.



Next I tackled the dining room. Now my Mom actually sewed these for me, but we weren't sure exactly how we were going to hang them or how they would look after she finished. I didnt want to use rods and planned on using hooks of some kind to hang them. I played with them for a while, trying to drape and fold and nothing looked right. I decided to make them out to be soft cornice's for the windows and simply "pinned" them with safety pins to fold how you see it. It is still missing something. I hadnt planned on using trim on these since Mom put a contrasting fabric on the top and bottom, however I still may do so. BUT it will be glued as "Liquid Stitch" is my new best friend! I also plan on doing some sheer fabric panels on the side windows to add another texture. I want lots of light coming in and dont want to cover up the windows too much. Thank you to Mom for making these for me so I didnt have to get out my glue and pins! *NOTE- something else I did was hang all of the treatments way above where the window actually is to make them appear larger. This is an old design trick that I always used for my clients but saw that the Nesting Place highly recommended it as well.Last but not least, I made this with a small left over piece of fabric that came from my guest room to hang in my kitchen. I had a small area of wall space that desperately needed something. Again...old frame, ribbon I already had, and printed this from my computer on some card stock. It is amazing what you can do with old stuff just sitting around the house. I cant wait to see what else I can create! I wanted to share this with each of you because if it wasnt for Missy's post I would still be looking at bare windows! I hope this can provide some inspiration for you all to make your home a happy place this spring! And once again a THANK YOU to Missy!!

No turning back now!

So I did it! I registered for the Country Music 1/2 marathon last weekend! There was a coupon out there, so I thought it would be best to take advantage and use it before the expiration. WOW, I totally got sticker shock when I looked online and saw that to enter the race it was $100! With a $10 coupon and the added fees at the end it came up being $96! So, like I said there is no turning back now!

The training is going well. We are running 4 1/2 miles two days a week, usually a day of cross training and then on Saturday we do the long run with the Fleet Feet crew. Every weekend it increases a mile. Last Saturday we ran 7 miles and it was very challenging to say the least. Keep in mind that running 4 miles is more than I have ever done, so when they told me 7 I thought "this should be interesting". This week we are running a different course than we have the past two times and they said it would be the first challenging run. "Hello", I think doing 8 miles in itself is challenging enough but now they have to throw in the hills! The trainer even sent out a separate email trying to calm peoples nerves about the hilly course we would be running. Needless to say I need your prayers to get me through this thing! The weather has also been so cold and that is a new one for me as well. I never would have thought that I would be running outside in 20 degree weather. However, as long as you have the right clothes after the first 10 minutes your body heats up and you dont even think about it. Tomorrow morning at 5 it is supposed to feel like single digits, SO we are running inside and since I love my treadmill at home so much better than those at the rec, I will be doing my run on my own. Please pray for me to do this on my own. It is so much easier with other people keeping you accountable!

I wasnt going to post about this because I didnt think anyone would care, but I have had a couple of you ask me about updates and thank you to you guys! You are so sweet to think of me.

I will be in this picture in April 2009! I am excited about this run. It is unlike most marathons because there are bands playing and cheering you on the whole way through. After all we are called the "Music City"! After reading some message boards online I heard most marathon runners say it was their favorite. Since it is my first I wont have anything to compare it to, but I am sure it will be very exciting and so worth it in the end!

Funny Boy

On this day, every time I would try to do a video of Connor he would stop what he was doing and act silly! Enjoy the laugh!

Children's Storytime at Nashville Library

Today I had the great privilege of meeting my sweet friend Carrie and her son Hayden for "children's story time" at the Nashville Public Library. Carrie had heard of it from some of her friends who have taken their kids and recommended it. I have been to the library a couple of times since it was built and it is a beautiful library! Hayden and Connor had such a good time at the story time. They had puppets and all. If you ever have the opportunity to take your kids, I would totally recommend it.

Carrie, I thoroughly enjoyed our visit and having lunch afterwards! Thanks for meeting me and Connor. We have to get the boys together more often. Love you sweet friend!

Connor and Hayden getting ready for the show. Connor was eating his fruit snacks as you can see (his mouth is a little crooked!) Ha!

Connor was a little scared when this "green" thing popped out of the door.

I took this picture to show how many people there were. Actually there were more, my camera wouldnt zoom out any further. They must have been regulars because they were singing all of the songs by heart!

Connor and Hayden wouldnt go up to the stage but I thought this pic was so cute!