I Am Not A Runner

After I saw this video on Amber's blog, I knew it would be the perfect start to tell about what happened today.

This was me not quite a year ago (minus the man boobs). Noah was about 3 months old, we had some friends over for dinner, I was complaining about how I wanted to start losing weight so I'd be a little skinnier at Kara's wedding, they told me that they run every morning and I should start running with them. UGH. I HATE running. I hate any form of exercise/dieting/whatever. I've never been a fan of any form of physical exercise whatsoever. Reluctantly I agreed to start running with them cause the weight wasn't going to come off by sitting on the couch. I almost died that first day. I think I ran a total of 3, maybe 4, blocks before I had to start walking. And then I'd run a block, walk a block, repeat. It was horrendous. I was not a runner. Yet. 2 weeks later, both my knees were killing me and I had to stop running for about 3 weeks. Keith said I was walking around like a 92 year old, instead of a 29 year old. But I got new shoes, started running again after the knees stopped hurting, and kept going from there.

The route they run is about 1.8 miles long. I can't even tell you how proud I was of myself the first time I ran it without stopping. It took a LONG time to get there. Then winter came along and it was too cold and icy to keep running outside. So we started getting up even earlier and going to an indoor track to keep running. I decided to start adding in a lap so that I could eventually be able to run the route twice. By the time we were ready to run outside, I was up to 3 miles indoors and thought that was all I could do. The first day we went back to outdoor running (I think it was the end of Feb or beginning of Mar), I ran the whole route twice. Without stopping. WooHoo!!

One of the friends has since moved, and the other can't run right now... but I found 2 other friends to run with and so I've continued running. 3 weeks ago I decided to run my first 5k. I dragged Keith's brother, Arax, along with me. We got there ahead of time, heard them say to start lining up, and got ready to run. I had looked at the map the night before so I'd be prepared and when everyone started turning where we weren't supposed to turn, I wondered what was going on. I just figured they'd had a last minute change of plans and we kept going. We got to mile 2 and then they started turning again. There was also a half marathon going on that day. I had looked at the map for that as well and realized we were running with the half marathoners. ACK! We were so not ready to run 13 miles!! So while everyone else turned, we kept going straight and eventually made it back to the finish line as the other 5kers were coming back in as well. We ended up running 3.7 miles (a 5k is 3.1 miles) and did it in pretty good time. Oh, and did I mention it started raining about 5 min in to our run? And then the hail started coming down? Yeah, that was a lot of fun. But we did it. And we were proud of ourselves. Then last weekend there was another 5k. So we ran that one too. This time at the right time and on the right route. Arax hadn't run for two weeks and ended up grabbing Amya's scooter halfway through so he could keep up with me lol. We came in at 32:06. Not too shabby.

Today was another 5k. This time I got my running partners to sign up with me, Arax, our nephew Joseph, my bil & sil Noel and Carrie. So there would be 7 of us running together. I was pumped. Until 4am this morning when I woke up with horrible stomach cramps and had to make a few trips to the bathroom. I was up from then on, in a lot of pain. I couldn't run. I was SO upset. I was supposed to be there. I was supposed to run with everyone. I cried. Can you believe it?!??! Kathleen... crying about not being able to run? It doesn't even sound like me. At all. But it's the truth. I guess I'm now a runner. The amazing thing is, Amya ran it for me. She put on my shirt, got my number, and ran with my group. She came in 2ND out of our group of 7. (Arax was first - he said he felt so guilty about last week that there was no way he was going to walk or run slow this week.) I think her time was 35 min:something... I don't remember the exact time and she's already asleep so I can't ask her. Oh. I am SO proud of her. First, for filling in for me and second, for doing such an amazing job at it. Seriously. She is so cool. I'm so so proud of her and everyone else in our group who ran today. They did an awesome job. I'll post some pics tomorrow when I get them loaded onto the computer.

And I guarantee you I'll be there running next weekend with all of them. I think there's at least 6 more 5k's I'm planning on running this summer. Now to work up to the 10k. :D

Recent funnies....

Maricela: "I sing INCREDIBLE" (after singing along to a song on the radio)

Maricela: "Elena, you have a pimple."
Elena: "No, Mari, you mean a beauty mark. It's a beauty mark."
Maricela: "No. It's a pimple."
Elena: "Mom, tell Mari this is a beauty mark!!!"

Me: "Mari, you need to go get your clothes for today."
(she comes out with a nightgown)
Me: "No, Mari, not a nightgown, an outfit to wear today."
Mari: "What's an outfit?"
Me: "You know, pants and a shirt. An outfit."
Mari: "That's not an outfit, Mom, that's a UNICORN."

I asked Keith to go get me a can of chicken broth to use in cooking the dinner. Our food storage is in a root cellar outside, so I usually ask him or Amya to get me something (usually chicken broth) I need from it because I hate going out in the cold and I'm lazy (Yep, I said it) and they're usually nice enough to fetch me whatever I need. So Keith was putting on his shoes to go get it and...
Amya: "Dad, where are you going?"
Keith: "To go get some chicken broth for Mom."
Amya: "Mom uses a LOT of chicken broth, Dad. Women don't got chicken broth, Men don't got dinner."

(Keith made me try a grapefruit he had cut up that he swore was sweet, knowing that I hate grapefruit)
Me (making a gross face while  chewing the NOT sweet grapefruit)
Téa: "Mom's making a face....Mom doesn't like the grapefruit....Mom's trying to spit out the grapefruit...Mom hates the grapefruit...Do you hate it Mom?...Yep, she hates it! Mom hates the grapefruit!!! (like she's a sports commentator or something)

buckle up, it's gonna be a long ride

I realized the other day that I have not been updating like I used to. I've posted scrapbook pages and a few tidbits here and there, but I'm not keeping track of what the girls are up to... and that's what the original plan for this ole blog was. So I'm gonna try to stay more on track with keeping all y'all up to date with the goings on of our household. Here goes.......

Amya got her ears pierced this month! Or to quote her, she got her "earrings pierced". I think it sounds cute when she says it like that and Keith keeps trying to correct her. She was so brave. She sat right down, let the lady clean and mark her ears, and then counted down for her to pierce. It hurt a little bit, you could tell she was kinda cringing for the second one, but she was a trooper. Didn't complain at all, cause she knew it would scare the other girls.
We plan on getting theirs done too, but we're waiting to find a time when there are 2 girls working so that they can do both ears at the same time. That way it won't be as bad for the younger girls. Keith has said since before Amya was born that his girls couldn't get their ears pierced till they were 18. I fought him on this, as that was a rule for me and I HATED it, but he wouldn't give in. Then while we were in Hawaii, he saw some pretty flower earrings and said "Wouldn't those look pretty on my girls?" and that was that. He is such a softie! :)










Amya also started 3rd grade! I can't believe how old she's getting. We braided her hair the night before so it would be curly and she was very pleased. I think Spanish will be a little harder for her this year, as the Spanish teacher is pretty demanding, but she should be able to do it. We'll just have to practice speaking it more at home because that's where she's the most behind.











Elena continues to be our reigning dance queen. She dances all over the house. And it doesn't matter what type of music she's listening to - rap, classical, hispanic, jazz, reggae, etc. - she's got a special dance for everything. She goes right along with the beat and makes up moves that totally go with the music. We seriously need to put her in dance classes. In this picture, she's trying to do the chicken dance. A lady on the other side of the railing was doing it, and Elena was copying her every move. She also loves to try and do gymnastic tricks. Cartwheels, somersaults, hanging upside down, she's way into that.

She wears dresses or skirts EVERY day, unless we make her wear shorts. Even while biking, she has to look her best. :) She's learned how to tuck her skirts under her b*m when she rides so they don't get caught in the chain. She gave me a little scare yesterday. She was upset about something she was coloring, so she started to throw a hissy fit. She threw her head back and hit it on the cement blocks we have lining our front garden. Obviously she started to cry and I told her "That's what you get for throwing a hissy fit". Not
a lot of sympathy from me.
She came over to me and leaned up against me, so I started rubbing her head where I thought she had bonked it. My hand got wet. I pulled it away and, sure enough, it was bloody. I ran her inside and Keith and I washed off her head and tried to see how bad it was. Keith didn't think it needed stitches, so we just put pressure on it till it stopped bleeding and then borrowed some super glue from our neighbors and glued it shut.

In Téa news, that girl is CRAZY!!! I think she is, by far, our biggest tomboy. She is SO into doing tricks on her bike, playing in the mud, wearing Spiderman, Diego, Transformers, etc. stuff, runs around without a shirt on, and LOVES bugs. She has about 10 different tricks she does on her bike like standing up, riding with no hands, no feet, one hand, one foot, feet over the handlebars, etc. She is such a little stunt devil!! I love this picture of her riding with one leg behind - it looks like she's been amputated at the knee....crazy kid.


She also LOVES to color. She literally colors every day and does SUCH a good job. She tries so hard to stay in the lines...she gets this intense look of concentration on her face while she's working.
It is SO cute.

On to Maricela.....I cut her bangs yesterday. They weren't long enough to put back, but they kept getting in her eyes, so I decided to cut them. We think she looks pretty darn cute with bangs. Also, Keith decided it was time to potty train her. So she's been wearing und*es this week and doing pretty good with them. She doesn't tell us she has to go, we just make her go all the time. She's had a few accidents when we've forgotten to take her though. So I'm not too sure SHE'S ready to potty train, but Keith is. He thinks if we keep taking her, she'll eventually get the hang of it. We'll see how that goes.

so frustrating

I AM SO ANNOYED WITH BLOGGER! I have tried to get this posted three times now and it keeps messing up my post. So I decided to split the update into two posts and hopefully it won't mess up again. ARGH!!!!


So to finish up with Maricela, she gave us a scare yesterday also. She already had a doctor’s appt scheduled to have a wart removed from her finger. About 20 minutes before we had to leave, she was running around in the backyard and ran right into a pitchfork. She got a nice little puncture wound on her leg right where her leg meets her foot. We cleaned it out and figured the doctor could look at it too. So he did and said it should be fine and put some steri-strips on it to help it stay together while it healed. Well after she woke up from her nap, she was crying and saying her “footy” hurt. I thought it had just fallen asleep and tried to calm her down. But about 10 minutes later she was still crying and when I sat her down she cried even more. We quickly figured out that it was her puncture wound hurting her. She couldn’t put any weight on her foot at all and started to cry if it even looked like someone was going to touch it. I was afraid it was infected and we’d have to go back to the doctor’s.
But after some Tylenol she started limping around on it and by the end of the night she was running around like normal.
Keith was joking that it was more like a stab wound and now she can say she’s a true Mexican. Okay. Maricela is also a huge copycat! If anything is said in this house, it’s said twice because you can always hear her little echo. She ADORES her older sisters and follows them around all the time, trying to be just like them. So if Téa’s out doing bike tricks, you better believe Maricela is trying to do them as well.








We went to a demolition derby two weeks ago and had a blast! I was not too keen on going, but once we got there I had a lot of fun.






It was cool to see cars crash into and knock over the cement barriers and one even landed on top of a barrier! Keith and the girls really enjoyed themselves and we all had a good time together.

Last week we went to a ward luau and that was really fun as well. Amya kept calling it a lu-how. Anyway, Amya entered the watermelon eating contest for kids. It was a race to see who could eat the most slices in 20 seconds. While Amya didn’t win (she ate 3), she did go on to eat 7 more that night. I love the little bit of watermelon dripping off her chin in the picture. And Maricela had so much fun playing that she zonked right out as soon as soon as we got home. She loves this little chair.

Whew! I hope that was a good catch-up for anyone who cares and I’m really going to try to not get this behind again.

new scrapbook pages

So I've been a pretty busy scrapper this past week, but I couldn't post any of the pages till this past Friday. Then things got busy, and I didn't make it here to post them on the blog till now. I made three pages for Sya's Blueprints, as she had a grab bag that came out with the re-opening of the Scrap Matters store. We couldn't post our pages until the grab bag was available for purchase. Then last week, I was accepted onto another CT, this time for Jeni Hopewell, who also sells at Scrap Matters. She also has a grab bag out in the store, so I created a page using things from her grab bag. (In case you don't know, a grab bag is kind of a mystery. They're usually around $3-4, but you don't know what's in them till after you've purchased them. But they're always worth way more than what you pay for them.) So without further ado, here are the pages (the first three are using templates from Sya's grab bag and the fourth uses a template from Sya and stuff from Jeni's grab bag).....

credits

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Last, but not least, there was a speed scrap over at Scrap Matters this morning and this is the page I made for it.

credits

Amya's Curls

We experimented with french braiding Amya's hair, leaving it in for a few days, and then taking it out to see how curly it would be. Amya was SO happy when she saw her hair! I can see us doing this a lot more often in the future.....




But next time we take pictures, we'll make sure she hasn't been drinking KoolAid right before. :)

A Dad and his Girls

I made this page for another templage challenge, this time at a different site. Dani Mogstad is a designer I love (I've bought tons of her stuff) and she has a blog that I visit. There are challenges every now and then, including a template challenge every month. I usually get the template, but don't bother to enter the challenge since I never win anything. Since I just won that last challenge, I figured why not enter this one as well? So here's my entry. And even if I don't win, I'm really happy with how this page turned out.

For credits, click here.

General Conference 08

I had signed up to take the 'expert' scrapbooking class from Jessica Sprague back at the end of April, but I never did any of the assignments. It was nearing the end of school and I had so much going on that I was never able to get around to doing them. I finally sat down today and completed the first page. It took forever! There were so many intricate things she taught us to do on this one. I am loving learning more and more about digital scrapbooking. Hope you like the page!
Funny from today - I made dinner for Keith and the girls, and I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out. I kinda made my own recipe by combining a couple other ones. And it was a hit! All the girls and Keith loved it. After dinner Elena was talking about how glad she was that I had made dinner and how much she liked it. Then she said, "That dinner made me feel SO good! It made me feel like I have lots of friends!" So silly. Then later she was dancing and singing and asked me, "Mom, aren't you glad you have a daughter like me who loves to dance and sing?" She is so cute!

Happy Father's Day!

These girls sure do love their daddy! And does he ever spoil them! Keith picked out these dresses for them in Hawaii and was excited to see his girls wear their new dresses. Keith is such a great father. I'm really grateful to have him in our lives. I couldn't have been a teacher this past year without his help. I love you Keith!

And Happy Father's Day to my dad as well. I love him. And my girls love their Papa. They love for him to "shake" them and "check their teeth" and all the other things he would do to me and my sisters when we were young. He's a great dad and a great papa and we all love him a lot.

take a guess...

as to where we are right now.....

easter dresses

I did it! Two pages in one day. What do you guys think of this one? I love looking at pictures of the four of them together. I have all these hopes that they'll be the best of friends and grow up loving each other and all that sentimental motherly stuff.......

bike girls

This is my week three page for the class I'm taking. It ends today and a new one starts tomorrow and I was two pages behind. Now I'm only one. I'm gonna try to finish the last page tonight as well. I am loving the spring weather. I'm so afraid of the girls getting really sick that I hardly let them out at all during the winter. The weather's been getting nicer and we've been able to play outside lately. And now today it's snowing. Ugh. I know we need the moisture, but I hate being cold! Hopefully it will warm back up soon. Hope you like the page!

disney friends

this is the first page i've done from our trip to disney in october.....

click here for credits

I'm not totally happy with it, but I'm tired of working on it. :) Oh, this is another 2 pager.

snow day

While I was helping my neighbor become addicted to this digital scrapping thing (hi Amy!!), I started another page of my own and finished it tonight.

beautiful face

so I totally wasn't planning on doing a scrapbook page. I came up here and was organizing my scrapbook supplies and came across a few tutorials. I started messing around with them, trying to figure them out and try them out so I could remember how to do it, and then after I had spent so much time on that, I decided to turn it into a page. So on this page, I learned how to make it look like the ribbon was threaded through the letters, and a better way to brighten eyes than the one I had been using. And then Amya came up here and was giving me suggestions on what to do on the page - "I want a little more blue....Can you add some purple? It's my favorite color....I don't want that glittery thing to be touching me (it was over her hair)" and so on. So I guess we both made it. :)

keith doing his "karate"

Keith has this pretend karate stuff he likes to do with the girls and they just eat it up. I don't know how much more of an explanation I can give without just showing you. So without further ado........

training woes.....

so, I think Amya might be claustrophobic. We have this big box that the girls are using to play house with. It was Amya's turn to go in and she went in with the baby. Elena and Tea were outside and they closed up the sides. All of a sudden we hear Amya SCREAMING "I have to get out! Let me out! Please, I have to get out!" and she was kicking the box. The girls quickly let her out and she came over to me and started crying. I asked her what had happened and she said she got so hot and she couldn't breathe and she just knew she had to get out of there. I felt so bad for her. It took about 5 minutes for her to calm down. She's playing with them again now, but she's being very adamant about them not closing the box on her. Poor little girl.

Here's a Tea funny. I came home today and Keith had Tea in some und*es. I told her to make sure she told me if she had to go, and then let her play. I go in the bathroom a little later and there's a nice little puddle on the bathroom floor. At least she made it to the bathroom, right? Anyway, I'm making her use the p*tty and I tell her I'm a little mad at her. She says "You mad at me Mommy? You mad at me? I not mad at you. Why you mad at me?" I had to laugh. And she's been dry since then. I can't believe she's not trained yet. I'm totally slacking. Amya was trained well before she was three and we started with Elena way before she turned three. We're still having some problems here and there, but she's done for the most part. And here Tea's turning three on Monday and we haven't even tried to get her going. Maybe since we waited longer she'll train faster? I don't know. I guess we've started though. It's so annoying to do the whole p*tty training thing. Sometimes I'd almost rather just change diapers than clean up puddles all day long. Hopefully hers will go smoother than Elena's. Amya really spoiled us.

I'm gonna try to see if I can hook my camera up to this laptop and get some pictures up. And also some cute video of Maricela holding a puppy. Maybe I'll be back later.

november desktop

I was going to put this up with the last batch of pictures and forgot. So in case you were wondering, this is what my November desktop looks like. Mom, if you want to put it on your computer, just tell me and I'll email it to you. Hope you like it!

more pictures

Here are some more pictures of the girls. We raked up all the leaves in the backyard and the girls had a blast playing in them!












And here's a picture from Halloween. We didn't really do much this year. The girls just picked costumes out of our costume box and we went to the mall to trick-or-treat. We took their two friends from next door with us. As you can see, Elena is wearing the Jessie hat (from Toy Story) with a princess dress and a gun. She was Princess Jessie. :)


Amya had backwards day at her school and came up with this whole outfit by herself. I was only going to put her hair in a side ponytail and then she said "Wait! Do my bangs on the other side!"So we did that, she wore her shirt and pants backwards, she has on my socks, and two different shoes. She really had a lot of fun with it.


And here's Maricela in her pretty birthday dress from my mom, when she was barely starting to walk.