The holiday run down. Picture style.

I am back! I never meant to leave you all but I have to just say as with many of you, I was over the top busy and when I did have a free moment I spent them with my kiddies! Oh yeah and some "me time" sprinkled in there, along side of jamming in some cooking/errands/and clean up from the holidays.

So here is the first of my picture roll I have for you all. This is the family Christmas pic from Adam's side of the family. We celebrated Christmas the Sunday prior at his parent's. I liked the separation of all the presents overload. Our children are all tricked out with plenty of toys and fabulous clothes, everyone was just so generous. A big thank you to all our family.

Eli, Poppi, Uncle Tommy and his girlfriend Danielle, Bo, Debbie, Adam and I. We tried very hard to get Boden to look at the camera and be happy with keeping his pants on but none of that worked as you can see!
Christmas Day at our house, again another attempt at the perfect family picture, this is what we got! Christmas Eve, Boden meeting Santa for the first time at Adam's family gathering his Dad's side has every year. Eli with Santa, this was so cute, he was just dying to hear his name get called up while having to wait his turn with all the cousins. We loved watching Eli this year, it was the best. I made sure before we left for the Christmas Eve gathering that Eli left his homemade sugar cookies out for Santa on the mantle, milk & carrots for his reindeer :)
Christmas morning- Eli is on his way to see if Santa ate his snacks we left for him and if he left him and Boden any toys!! My mom on Christmas Day at our house with my niece Melina & Bo.
The cousins. My nephew Ben is Eli's idol. Like seriously... anything Ben did Eli did right away. They are too cute together. They are the same age spacing as Eli is with Bo and I am already starting to see the similar things going on with Bo looking up to Eli. I love it!!
This was my lame attempt at making up for missing Christmas mass! We were all over the place and getting it together to go to mass Christmas weekend was tough. I took Eli to the church on the Tuesday after Christmas since I was home off from work. We visited Adam's grandmother (Mimi) who works in the parish office and walked over to the church to the see baby Jesus. I tried to explain Christmas to a 2 1/2 year old the best I could. Overall, Eli did understand that it was baby Jesus's birthday and it helped that on Christmas Eve the kids blow out candles on a birthday cake for baby Jesus. It's really cute.

So that was it! I have another post I am working on...that will go up this week hopefully! I want to get back on track over here with my routines :) Hope you all had a wonderful holiday season!

I'm getting faster!

Well hello everyone! I figured I would post a little about my workouts, what we have been up to, our lack of sleep, how quickly Bo has figured out how to get into everything, and just some random Christmas fun we have been having!

With regards to the title, not only is little Boden getting faster with his crawling I seem to be getting much quicker with my sprinting on the treadmill and my leg speed when I cycle. I have always noticed when I take a spin class that I just can't sprint very fast when we do flats. I felt like I was trying really hard but I just never had the endurance I guess.
I am happy to say with being consistent and taking at least 1 spin class a week since mid September (after the half marathon I ran) I am now noticing I am getting much better at it! Never had a problem with hills and jumps but now I am really working on leg speed, so that is a pretty cool accomplishment for me. Also, on the treadmill my sprinting has become much more intense. It could be because I know I am crunched for time(I go before work at 5:45-6:45am, and I want to burn as much in as little time as possible while fitting in some weight training) but I have noticed a huge improvement. I target 30 mins on the treadmill where my first 5 minutes is a walk to warm up then I run a mile at a decent pace 6.0-6.5, and the remaining 15 minutes I sprint on intervals where I allow 25 second rest/walk.
I noticed while watching Biggest Loser how hard they push these people to sprint on the treadmill and I know I had more to give in my workouts so I have kicked it up a notch. I am happy to report I can now sprint at 9.0! Obviously that is just for small durations of time but I am doing it. Since I can't get a run in on the roads due to limited daylight and my work schedule the treadmill becomes my friend during these cold winter months. Kind of like a "frenemy", I look forward to the spring so much when I am confined to my treadmill runs!

Speaking of getting faster, here is Bo working on his speed this past week too. He is one determined 8.5 month old to say the least, he wants everything his brother has and wants to do whatever he is doing!


Some other updates....our kids are killing us in the sleep department. Like literally we are walking zombies, last week my in laws took the kids for one night during the work week for us to catch up on sleep and it was FAN FREAKING TASTIC. I just don't know why Eli can't sleep until the sun comes up at the very least and why Bo keeps waking up at 3am looking to be held/get in bed with us crying his head off. I am so done with the musical beds in our house. In fact, our only wish from Santa this year is to have sleeping children! You know the kind that go to bed at 7:30pm and wake at a normal hour like at least 6am? A girl can dream.

We signed Eli up for lil' kicker's soccer program this past weekend a few towns over from us. I am so excited for Eli to have something active to do during the winter months and he needs an outlet as we all know! He is one high energy boy so this program is perfect for him, it is at an indoor sports facility and my friend Sylvia's son Jack will be in the class with him too. We just went to the open house last weekend and his first class is this Saturday. I will post some pics and updates on how it goes!

My to-do list this Christmas season is well underway, thankfully. The Christmas pictures have been done and cards have been mailed, yippie! Here are a few shots from our photo shoot. I have to say these little cuties in their matching pj's just melt my *heart*




We hope to see Santa this weekend with the boys to get the classic crying baby and freaked out toddler picture on Santa's lap! lol...

On Sunday we have "Tapas & Tinsel" at my in laws house, they have decided to start an informal Christmas gathering tradition the Sunday prior to Christmas so we are looking forward to that. I have some more Christmas cookies to bake up but 1/2 of my cookies are all done. Lots of wrapping ahead of me in the gift department and some odds and ends to pick up too for Christmas gifts. I have to stay focused this week, I don't want to be in the stores Christmas Eve! I have to admit I have been there before, this year I want to be sure I am not!

Do any of you find yourself in this situation on Christmas Eve?

Finally I figured out how to get video up!

Well here is the video of Little Bo doing his army crawl that I wanted to get up when I posted about this a few weeks ago. Big thanks to my friend Heather for giving me the hot tip of uploading to YouTube first. I had never done that but now I know what to do and guess what you guys are going to see videos of my kids all the time now! lol

Bo gets moving right around the 30 second mark.

Life is so busy!!

I know everyone is busy but dam I feel like my life is on fast forward all the time!

The last couple weeks we have had a few birthday parties which was fun for Eli especially. We also had a really nice Thanksgiving at Adam's parent's house and the day following we went to NYC to visit my grandparents where we did a 2nd Thanksgiving all over again. YUM. It was great to see my grandparents, Dad, Uncle and his family and my sister and her family. My grandparents were so appreciative of us bringing Thanksgiving to them this year and I could just tell they were so happy to be around all the grandchildren. Having a house full of all the young grandchildren and great grandchildren made them so happy. I just wish I could be with my Grandparents more often the distance makes it tough.

All the cousins at my Grandparents home :) Melina was SUPER excited because she just got that LallaLoopsy Doll for her early birthday present.

We also got our family photo shoot done for Christmas at our home and the pics came out great, we went with a family photo of us in our PJ's and I have to admit the boys just look adorable in their little Santa carter's pj's! My friend Chrissy does fabulous work, I just melt when I see how innocent my boys look in her pics! The Christmas cards have been ordered as of last night and I feel happy to check that off my list as well.

Just a quick picture of Eli & Bo here. When we asked Eli to hold Bo for a picture he immediately put Bo in a choke hold! lol...we really should have gotten that picture for the Christmas Card! ha

I have even started Christmas shopping to a certain extent, picking up things when I see them instead of waiting for a huge shopping outing has always been my preferred method so I have chipped away my to-do list in that department. My niece & nephew's birthdays are right around Christmas so I am always in shopping mode early, my niece turns 8 tomorrow and I just see her turning into the not so little girl stage and I get all teary eyed! Geez I am not even her mommy and I get sad. I was there in the delivery room when Melina was born (although very unplanned and I was totally unprepared for what I was about to see! lol...) and I think that is what gets me all teary eyed about her growing up. My nephew Ben is turning 4 this year on New Year's Day and let me just tell you that is the most appropriate birthday for him. He is a little fire cracker! ha. I love watching him play with Eli, Eli just soaks up whatever Ben is doing, it is adorable. So having said that I kind of go on a shopping spree because I am not only buying for Christmas for them but Birthdays too, I love shopping for kids it is the best!

Speaking of shopping for kids, I have done Bristol's Giving Tree and similar types of charity events in the past and I am participating this year again. My heart goes out to families who have such limited resources that their children suffer on the holidays. Christmas is about the little ones to me and just being able to buy a gift for a child who might otherwise have nothing on Christmas Day brings so much joy to me. I am got teary eyed when I pulled a little girl's tag off the tree at our local Stop & Shop the other day and she is 3 yrs old, in need of clothes and shoes and under "interests" what she has listed is "anything". Lots of kids had specific toys they would love to receive but she asked for anything. Needless to say I picked her and another tag for a little boy and I have shopped for them already. I just can't imagine growing up that way, we are all so blessed and lucky and we forget that at times. Moral of the story- go out and give whatever you can - time, money, a wrapped toy, etc. to someone less fortunate this year!

On a lighter note... We are making way with the Christmas decor in our home, one tree is up (our fake smaller one) and the fresh tree will be up on Saturday! I have watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation 2 times so far since Thanksgiving night and I can assure you it will be viewed many more times leading up to Christmas Day. God I love that movie, so funny!

And here is the finished product, it took me so long to get my act together to do this blog post that I had finished the tree already!

We also have a loft project we are doing for the boys playroom as their Christmas gift from us, the plans are in place and the project physically starts today. I am off from work tomorrow because I had some vacation days to burn so I am going to be priming and potentially painting if I can get to it. I am having so much fun shopping for the accessories that will make the loft complete, I think the boys are going to truly love their playroom even more than they already do after it is all done!

He Crawlin' Momma!!

Well our little Bo is officially on the move! Eli loves to tell me "He crawlin' Momma!" it is just too cute. I am having trouble uploading the video of the boys in the playroom with Bo crawling. It is driving me nutty! When I can get it to finally upload there will be proof! hahaha :)

Here is a funny pic of Eli "texting". Right before this he was asking me why he couldn't have coffee. This kid is too much! This weekend I am having a girls day with all my college girlfriends, I can't wait! We are going for manis/pedis, lunch & shopping at the outlets in Clinton,CT. 2 of our group are currently pregnant so we wanted to all catch up before things just get too hectic. It is so hard when you have kids to keep up with everything but these types of days are really important to carve time out for. This is just what the doctor ordered for this momma! And then on Sunday I get to see my best friend Sarah from home, she lives in VT and it is just so hard to catch up with the distance in between us so when she comes home I try my very best to catch up with her while she is here, hopefully soon Adam and I will be able to make a trip up her way. Hope you all have a great weekend :)

It's been too long!

Me with the boys at Costco when we visited my mom a few weeks ago. This was comical, Eli ate every sample at that store and Bo was just chatting it up with everyone he saw and loving the view.

Hello Everyone! I kept meaning to get my butt in gear to do a blog post but I was all over the place just trying to settle back in. We moved back into our home last Monday after work when our power came back on. We were officially 9.5 days without power. Sooooo done with that. Luckily, I have an awesome mother in-law who cooked us a hot dinner to have when we got home, did some laundry for us, cleaned out our fridge & freezer where it was so shiny and new looking, and even cleaned the grossness I have been meaning to get to on the bottom of my oven inside! I can't thank her enough, she is so helpful with things like this. She knows how to make life a little easier for us just when we could use it. Thank you, Thank you Debbie!!

I spent the rest of last week just trying to feel back in the swing of things. I didn't even get to grocery shop to re-stock our bare fridge until Friday night at 8:30 pm when I would have much rather be sitting on my couch cozied up with a glass of wine. But we were desperate and there is only so much literal crap one can eat "on the go". So I felt very productive Friday night even though I litterally had to force myself to go to the grocery store. On the way there I had a light bulb go off in my head. They have coffee at the grocery store when you walk in why can't you shop and drink a glass of wine or get a beer? That would have been so awesome Friday night, grocery shopping would have been 100% more fun to say the least!

Then Saturday my Aunt Lydia came up to visit with my cousin Danny's daughter Samantha. Samantha hadn't met Boden yet since they live in N.J. so she was excited to meet her cousin and play with Eli. We went to the park after a nice chocolate chip pancake breakfast at our house. Eli just loved playing with Sam. She is much older than him and he was keeping up with her on the playground while causing me near heart attacks left and right! Here is Samantha with Boden, this was his first time on that car and he was so thrilled! I was impressed how well he sat up on it.

Cousins!

I did allot now that I think of it on Saturday...After the park I met up with my girlfriend at Panera that I hadn't seen in a very long time. She has gone through a divorce :( but she seems to be doing ok now. It was great to catch up. Then at night Adam and I went on a date! We ate at PF Changs for the first time, it was yummy and I had the best $8 My-Tai :)

After the dinner we walked around the mall and window shopped, our mall is super high end and sometimes it's just fun to "pretend". Then we went to the Sleep Number Bed store in our mall and honestly if Adam was a go I would have purchased a dam King bed in a hot minute! He and I need a new bed but I refuse to go Queen again, and unfortunately we can't fit a regular King bed up our staircase, so if we went King it would be a sleep number bed, the one I fell in love with had a pretty price tag to say the least.

So we will keep dreaming about that for a bit, it was fun to be kid free for a night!

Here are some pics to share with you all of our cuties who leave us with little sleep these days. It has been pretty much crap in the sleep department at our house, these kids are so dam lucky they are cute and coffee exists!

Uncle Tommy with his nephews. When Tommy came over this past weekend Eli explained to him how he was "fitting wood with Daddy in the yard" lol...Eli loves to go outside with Adam when he is splitting wood. Just too cute.
Little Bo loves Cheerio's! Especially when Eli is shoving them in his mouth!
And this is what happens when Gma (Grandma) gets Eli in his carseat. Eli loved it! hahaha

Still out of power

Well I was hoping to get back to normal life by now and not living out of bags with 2 kiddies but that is not the case :( Connecticut Light & Power has made a promise to get the 99% of the people without power back restored by tonight at midnight. Adam and I just praying we are not part of that 1% at this point! ugh....Thankfully, our friends not too far from our house got power back late in the evening on Wed. night so after 4 nights camping in our living room and living with sponge baths and cooking on a camping stove we moved in with them for a few nights. Then during that time Adam's parents who also live really close to us got power back too so we have been living here since Friday night. Living out of bags is getting really old! But we are safe, warm and have hot showers things could always be worse. The overnight lows are getting very cold here in CT so this beats trying to stay warm in our living room sleeping on the couches near the wood stove that Adam would have to keep going throughout the night.

I guess you could say we have made the best of it, this week was very hectic with work and dragging ourselves all around but by Saturday I decided to go with Adam's mom to Stew Leonard's with the boys and that was really fun. Stew Leonard's is a grocery story but very entertaining for kids so they loved it and it was Bo's very first time sitting in the front of the shopping cart, he did really well! He was a complete ham, every time he saw people looking at him he started flirting! Just too cute.

I would love to post the pics I have that I have been meaning to post but since I am at my in-laws and they just got their Internet back I am just happy to be able to post anything! When I get back to normal life I will have some cute pics of the boys to share.

Oh one good thing - my gym got power back late Friday night, I am going today for a much needed workout, I am out 8 days now with absolutely no working out. Couldn't even fit in a run when I did get to our friends house with power Thurs. & Friday. It has just been so hectic, I don't do well when my life is all over the place.

So after the 5lbs I feel like I have gained this week with eating crap and on the go, today's workout I am sure won't feel like the best but I have to get back at it!

What a disaster area!!

Well we got hit pretty hard this past Saturday with a snow storm that I totally thought the meteorologist were hyping up. Last laugh was on me. It sucks, Adam measured that we got 16 inches of snow but the news reported we actually got 18 inches. It was such heavy snow coupled with all the leaves still on the trees and 50 mph wind gust it just became dangerous basically. There are down trees and power lines everywhere and it looks so much worse than after the Hurricane Irene up here.

We have been without power since 4pm on Saturday, cooking on a Coleman camping stove, trying to keep our food from going bad in our fridge & freezer, lighting our home with candles and sponge bathing. What a cramp. At least we have water since we are city water. Our homes are cold up here and there are shelters set up at the schools where there are generators if you need to seek that help. Luckily Adam just put in a wood stove in our fireplace early October so we are heating our home with wood and camping out in our living room. Our wood stove heats the house well with the blowing fan to push the heat around but there is no electricity for that so we have to all sleep in the living room to keep warm.

Eli is in his sleeping bag on the floor, Adam and I are on the sectional couch with our back aching as of now and little Bo has the best sleep in the house I think! He is in the pack n' play and getting a nice stream of heat off the wood stove so at least we are all warm.

It's these types of storms that make me realize how fragile our daily work/life system is. We couldn't do banking we needed to do yesterday because even lots of the branches for our banks don't even have power. I had to wait for 45 mins to get gas yesterday in a line only to find out they have premium only available at a hefty price of course. I was so worried with less than a quarter tank of gas that I paid for that premium gas happily! With sun setting so early it hard to get anything done when I left work yesterday I got home and had a 1/2 hr of daylight left and then we had to do our night routine all in the dark with candles. The boys luckily got a bath at daycare yesterday when they had power for a bit but they even lost power yesterday so now they are working off a generator. I have Bo with me at work today to make it easier since I can mix bottles here easier and all that. Eli is ok at daycare and the bigger kids all play together so he was better off there then at my work. At least my daycare burns wood in the fireplace to heat the house and they have a generator they are running some things with.

And who would have known I would be so happy to come to work! I got here yesterday and they have power, the town I work in is about a half hour from our area so they got hit but not as hard as us. So I have some normalcy while I am here, I can get online and I got to charge my cell phone up yesterday so that is super helpful. We don't have a land phone line either, that is down as well. Everyone is pitching in to help out each other where they can but it is just devastating to drive around or try to and see how many blocked roads there are and crazy power lines just hanging all over the place.

The storm was so bad they canceled Halloween over here, it will be re-scheduled when the kids can walk safely on sidewalks and power is restored. Just crazy. This all happened on October 29th! I hope this storm is no indication of what our winter will be like. Right now Connecticut Light and Power is telling us that Friday would be when we could possibly get power back but it could be longer. The way it looks I am not holding my breath...I haven't even seen them working on the lines at all they can't access them there is so much debris. But the National Guard is supposed to be helping out as of today so I hope that will make for a quicker restoration of power.

There is one big lesson to be learned for us over here. INVEST IN A GENERATOR!

Hope you are all doing well and are safe and warm where you are :)

Sesame Street, Bears and Chunky Wrists!!

Last I left you all I spoke about potentially making the Sesame Street Live show and we did! Eli loved it and behaved so well, he only had ants in his pants for the the last number so I would say overall he did fabulous for a 2 year old. I went solo with Eli because I figured having Bo with us might be a bit much since Adam had to work the whole day. Luckily I had Adam's parents I could count on to come over and watch Bo for me. It was also really nice to spend one on one time with Eli. Here was the view from our $26 seats. I thought the view was great, and I didn't want to invest too much money into really expensive seats not knowing how well Eli would do for the duration of the show.
This is Eli taking in the show, he was in awe of the characters and that they were actually on stage! He particularly enjoyed seeing Oscar the Grouch for some reason and The Count. Most of the Sesame Street DVD's Eli gets to watch on long car rides focuses on counting and Eli loves The Count!

Now onto the CRAZY sh*t that went down this weekend at 8:45am on Saturday in our backyard.....
YES THAT IS A GIANT BLACK BEAR!!!!!! Seriously enough to make me want to sh*t my pants. Literally we don't live on a huge sprawling piece of land in the middle of no where, this is just nuts. This bear ripped down our bird seed feeder and had a tasty treat in our backyard for about 20 mins. When he got up and I saw how big he was I had to take this picture. Even Adam the hunter said he was a big boy! I am so worried about future sightings on our property and around us. We have to watch the boys closely of course even though I know it is rare to see a bear on your property but this is too close for comfort for me. Also, Eli is obsessed with the bird feeder and now we are taking that thing down, I can't even begin to think about what I would have done if we were outside when this visitor decided to stop over. Thank god we were all safe and on the INSIDE of our sliding door in our home!

Look at my chunky wrist!!! hahahah... Bo's wrist are my most favorite part of him and his chunky cheeks of course! He is turning 7 months this Wed. and I just can't believe how fast it all goes by the 2nd go around. I just want to keep him little forever. At the same time I say that I also love watching Bo interact more with Eli. He makes Eli giggle all the time now, Bo's little chuckle is just so adorable you can't help but giggle back at him! On the milestone front...Bo is sitting well when placed in a sitting position without falling over immediately and he is trying his hardest to try to crawl! I would not be surprised to see him crawling full force very soon.

And here is Bo loving his bath time (we have tried to bathe both boys together which will make life easier of course but Bo isn't quite there just yet). On the workout front...I am keeping up! I continue to amaze myself with sleeping some nights less than 5 hours and scraping out a workout still. The boys have been doing pretty horrible on the sleeping front for the past 2.5 weeks. Bo is getting up at least 1 time in the night and it is driving me nuts. Sometimes Eli is up and needs us to bring him back into his bed or tries to get in bed with us. Just for the record Eli is the worst to sleep with! Geez.. I love that boy but he can't keep to himself when sleeping!

Getting back to the working out on limited sleep, I know that isn't great, but I am determined to keep up my consistency. I don't want to fall off the wagon just because I am tired. I mean the way things look right now these boys are not going to straighten out their sleeping issues when I want them to. I can't wait around I may never get sleep for the next 10 years of my life!

Right now I can only get in 2 outdoor runs a week because of the limited daylight coupled with my work schedule. So I do the gym 2-3 mornings a week and then I fit in my outdoor runs on the weekend or I sneak out of work early 1 day a week when I am not too busy. This is why I end up slowing down with my running consistency after Thanksgiving. I get my Turkey Trot in on Thanksgiving day and then succumb to the treadmill for the winter months. I find it so difficult to get in a run when there is such limited daylight and I am a baby for the cold! Running in snow is NOT an option for me and I figure I have to enjoy my workout if I am going to do one. And guess what...freezing my ass off while running just doesn't jive with me!

Busy Bee's

I guess you could say Adam and I have been busy bee's over here. This past weekend we had another baptism to attend and I also took the boys by myself to March Farms in Bethlehem, CT to go apple & pumpkin picking. Eli even did the corn maze this year with his cousin Abby!

Here is Eli with his cousin Abby, they are too cute together!

Some other things that have been keeping us super busy - Adam's plumbing business (started just about 6 months ago is doing well!!) work, life, fitting in the much needed exercising/running, oh yeah and keeping up with 2 young kiddies!Overall, Adam's business has been doing well, he has been steadily busy and has managed himself through a very steep learning curve with all the "office work" that comes along with owning a plumbing outfit. He is impressing me more and more each day and I am very proud of him. If only I had more time where I could help him out I would. As it is I am barely getting things done that I need to get done around our house. Lots of times the things I want to do get completely compromised and I have to remind myself that Adam is working hard on building his business. It gets tough having to constantly change my plans for outdoor runs I have planned or errands but we are trying to work it out as best we can. I am finding myself only getting to surface clean my house (this is killing me. I didn't earn the nickname "Monica" from Friends for no reason!).

Getting back to our trip to the farm this weekend...the weather was SO HOT . I met Adam's Aunt Peg & Cousin Abby there, Eli loves playing with Abby. Peg was a super huge help with the boys. BUT lets be honest - a 15 lb. 10 oz. 6 1/2 month old baby strapped to your body while picking apples and dodging bee's is no fun. I was also trying to keep Eli from picking up rotten apples and or eating them. I was sweating, and a bit cranky but didn't show it as best as I could. I did an early morning workout that day too, and juggled 2 kids the whole day solo, it was rough! Thankfully in the evening we went to dinner with Adam's family without the kiddies and I enjoyed a fantastic Cosmo and glass of wine!

This picture that Aunt Peg was able to get of the 3 of us basically sums it up. I wanted to rub my eyes just like Bo is doing here so bad!


Right after the weekend I have been super busy at work, and I even had to travel into NYC yesterday and be a city girl for the Metlife Stable Value Conference(sounds fun right?). It was a long day of traveling, I got home at 8:15 and I had to wear a suit, I hate wearing suits. In fact I hate it so much that I brought a change of clothes once I got into my minivan at the train station at the end of the day!

No gym this morning for me (it's Adam's day anyways) but I have been keeping up with my morning workouts I am happy to report. This weekend I think we are taking Eli to see Sesame Street Live if I can get tickets, if it happens I will be posting some fun pics very soon!

Hope you all are well :)

Boden's Baptism

I have been quite busy over here this past week getting thing ready for Bo's big day this past Sunday. Between making preparations for the reception that we held at our house and our regular day to day the week seemed to slip right through my hands. I even took Friday off prior to the Baptism so that I could get some shopping done, thankfully I did that. Trying to fit it all in on Saturday would have been way too much for me.

Here is a picture of Boden's God Parents Rob & Sue with us. Rob &Sue are very close friends of ours, in fact Rob has been best friends with Adam since elementary school days. He is also the reason why Adam and I know each other and vice versa!

More pics from Bo's Baptism.

Grandparents & Great Grandparents picture
My mom and Dad

The four of us
We also took Eli for his first pony ride on Saturday at a nearby farm. Here are some pics of Eli enjoying the farm.

"Look a birdie!!"

Eli was hesitant at first but once Daddy got on a horse and showed him it was fun to ride one he saddled up! His cousin Lauren is in the pink sweatshirt, she was a helper at the event.

Half Marathon Pics!

This pic sums up the race day weather we ended up having, gorgeous!

Yeah I was working quite hard here....must have been the area of the course where I was told it was "smooth sailing" from here. ha.

Sealing the deal. Crossing the finish line!

Surftown Half Marathon

Well the half marathon was this past Sunday and it went really well! The start was early at 7:30 am so we got into RI the day before and got our race packets. The race packet pickup was at Olympia sports where I scored some really snazzy Puma sneakers that were on clearance for $33. Sweet!!

Ok Race day- the weather was perfect, it looked like it was really chilly because of the wind but Traci and I quickly realized we had 1 extra layer on that we didn't need. Since we had 15 minutes to kill before the start, we went back to my friend Sylvia's beach house (they hosted us for the weekend) to drop off our jackets & we get one last pee in! The race started on time and there was a quick little hill that was super narrow at one point and very uneven pavement right around mile 3-4. Like scary pavement where you NEED to watch where you step so you don't roll an ankle. That was a *dislike* for sure.

Overall the beginning of the course was pretty much flat up until 6-7 miles. The elevation map could have been wrong or I just don't know how to read a dam map but the freaking course was quite challenging right around 8 miles. Thankfully we have run lots of hills over our training and we got up those hills just fine and recovered quick off them. Kinda frustrating when a guy on a bike working for the race told us it was pretty much smooth sailing right around 9 miles when stopped for a pee break for Traci. Yeah he pretty much had NO IDEA what he was talking about.

My other suggestion would be to have more water/gatorade stops after the 7 mile mark. Early in the course it was very often and I feel like after mile mark 7 we could have used an extra one or two than what was offered. Other than that I would definitely run the race again and I hope they offer it again next year!

Now for my results -

1:59:29 official time (but this includes a 1.5- 2 minute pee break)
9:07 mile split

We finished exactly 50th percentile for the whole field of runners & in our age group (30-34).

Not bad for a race with allot of head wind! I wasn't expecting it to be windy. DUH. It is beach side. I have no idea why I didn't factor that in. But, I did expect the wind to be on our backs at some point but that really never happened....would have been nice for my time if it did!

In comparison to the last half marathon I ran I would say I was better conditioned for this one and more confident. My time reflected the same as last half marathon I ran when you consider taking out our time for our pee break. I wish that this year was faster but the head wind was definitely a factor and that narrow portion of the course that was super crowded.

My recovery seemed a little rough this go around. I was really tight on Sunday and Monday. Yesterday was so-so and today I feel great. I think Sunday the long car ride home from RI(about 2 hrs) and literally walking in my house for 20 minutes and getting back into the car off to Adam's brothers house with the boys/Adam's parents was not the best idea in hind sight. Too much sitting in the car too soon post race that's for sure. I didn't rest my legs at all until 9pm at night and at that hour it was too late. If only Sunday post race could have been more relaxed for me.... this just wasn't going to happen with 2 kids. Ahh...the good old days where I could race and come home and just relax. Those days are gone!

So now for race goals...I don't know really. I just want to race as frequently as possible (smaller stuff - 5k's, 5 miles or 10K's) until it gets way too cold up here and I become a treadmill runner for the cold winter months. I have a 5K I am eyeing this weekend and then a 5 miler around the corner, we'll see...

10 miles... check, Drink my butt off ...check!

So I guess all my worrying about last weeks lack luster training due to the weather was for nothing! Saturday morning was perfect running weather and Traci and I rocked our 10 miler! We could have ran forever it seemed, we ran 9:24 mile splits!

Saturday night we had a house party in honor of my birthday it was a blast, so much fun to be child free and drinking it up! I really felt like I deserved the night after that 10 miler and we were partying it up until 2 am. Haven't done that in very very long time! Only problemo was on Sunday morning when I woke up at 6:30am. My body would not let me sleep in it was the worst. I can't stand that so much, I desperately needed the sleep but it just never happened.

We went to the Polish Fair on Sunday, it was a tiny little fair but we went for the food. If I could eat Polish food at least 1 time a week I would be a happy girl! YUM!

This week is a taper week on my training, so I am feeling good and the weather is totally cooperating. It will get colder for the weekend but I am ok with that, I am anticipating some great race day weather, a slight chill in the AM and a breeze from the beach. I just got a race description and the coarse is primarily flat with one short steep hill so you just have to climb that as fast as possible. Sounds like I can deal with that a-ok because I am used to hills over here. This is the first time they are having this 1/2 marathon so I am sure there will be some things that are good and some that are bad but overall I think it will be a great race!

Training Update

As I mentioned in one of my previous post I am training for the SurfTown Half Marathon which is coming up right around the corner on the 18th of this month. Training has been going really well, up until this week grr...The rain coupled with the sun rising later each day has totally put a kink in my training. Having said that I missed my 5 miler yesterday and today it looks like I am missing my 3m or cross training that is on my schedule. Today is Adam's mom's birthday (Happy Birthday Debbie!! ) and tommorow is my 31st birthday. We will be having his parents over for dinner tonight and I feel like getting in a treadmill run today is even going to be hard. I have done very little treadmill running because lets face it, it sucks! I only run on a treadmill when I am desperate. Today might be that type of day but it will only be if I am lucky to get out of work here early enough...

So heres to keeping my hopes up for no rain tommorow and a safe 5 miler run in the dark before work! I have a 10 miler planned for Saturday morning which marks my longest run since my last half marathon last summmer. Last weekend I ran 9 miles with Traci and we ran it in 1.5 hours (pace was 10:00 min miles) I know I could and have run harder than that but the goal of the day was to get through it. I had a crummy nights sleep and it was humid, didn't help that I had 2 glasses of wine the night before. (you know the old story...I should have stopped at one!) In the end we felt good but those first 2.5 miles were quite miserable. Running is funny like that at times. It's almost like I need a 3 mile warm up sometimes to get into my groove.

Next week is a taper week which I know is very important to training effectively but having had these 3 past days makes me feel like I need to go all out next week. I know that is not a good plan so I just need to get focused for tommorow's 5 miler and my 10 miler on Saturday morning. After Saturday's run it's a party night for me, whooohooo!! Our friend's are coming over to our house for drinks and a casual night of pizzas and hanging out on the deck in honor of my birthday. I never had a birthday celebration for my 30th last year being preggers and all so this year I said what the hell, who cares if I am turning 31! I don't feel any older (for now...ask me in the morning on Sunday after I can't recover like I used to!). The night will be a nice break for us too without the boys. Adam's parents are taking these cuties for an overnight!



Here we are at the Goshen Fair this past weekend. Eli seemed to really enjoy the fair this year again, he loved the animals even more than last year obviously and the rides were so much fun for him! He even went down the giant slide with Daddy. Here they are enjoying the ride!

Eli's 2nd Birthday Party Rain Out & Indoor camping

Well it happened. The rain hit on Saturday and all our efforts of moving Eli's party start time up and crossing our fingers for overcast weather were gone. We made the best of it with an indoor party and to be honest it was total chaos, people everywhere, toys everywhere and kids lucky they didn't get stepped on pretty much!

My only saving grace was our established "playroom" we have now! Yay! Most of the toys stayed in there, the room got TRASHED but the kids had a blast so that was good. There were 14 kids including Eli and 3 babies, and like 30+ adults!

Eli had a good time, he was a bit overwhelmed at the start though. I noticed him under the small tent we had our on deck right off the slider sitting there eating his cheetos enjoying some quite time! lol

Here are some pictures from the party.
This picture below does not do any justice to just how bad that playroom looked after the party, I took this before things got out of hand but I was very happy we have a playroom to contain most of the mess!

And here is the birthday boy totally loosing steam right before presents. Poor kid! He was yawning but made it through them all, the party wrapped up right after that. Eli got a bath (thanks Meme'!) and went down for a few hours to sleep.

Once Eli woke up he ate dinner late obviously and then we watched Alvin & the Chipmunks. It was our first real sit down on the couch and watch a movie together type of thing and he did great! Something about those chipmunks! He went to bed late and I was on pins & needles about Hurricane Irene (well tropical storm after all) that was starting to hit us while Adam had no worries off doing his Fantasy Football draft pics in the evening at his friends house! This kid. Seriously?!?

Sunday we woke up to a windy morning and LOTS OF RAIN & we thought we were in the clear and wouldn't you know 11:30am we lost power. That sucked and what sucks even more is indoor camping. I like camping and all but that is when I am away vacationing on a lake or something, inside your house not so much fun!

Adam's parents were out of power before us too so there was no where really to go...parts of our city are so much worse off with terrible flooding and lots of damage so I really can't complain we are at least dry up on our hill. Adam's parents got power back late in the day on Sunday but we decided to tough it out for the night and as of yesterday we moved into their house because we were told it could be up to 7 DAYS! Our house and the few houses around us are low on the totem pole for priority, they are trying to restore power to mass quantities of people first. We'll see what happens. Crossing my fingers our power will be back soon and our freezer in the basement is cold enough to keep our food from going bad. That would just suck.

Hope you are all safe and sound from the storm :)

Very Special Day

Happy Birthday to our little Eli! You are 2 today and we can't beleive how fast time has flown past us! You make all those around you laugh and amazed all at once with your ways :) We love you so much and hope you enjoy your party this weekend with all your pals and family around you!

To think 2 years ago you were this little nugget who had just arrived into this great big world *tear*
God it is so hard to watch your kids grow up! Geez...now I see how it was for my mom! I just want to freeze time, I snuggled Eli so much last night and this morning, more so than usual of course! I just can't get over how fast time goes by....

This is one of my fave's from over this year...Eli was a year & half here just before daycare one random morning, I just love his little boy face here :)



Next post will be fun filled with Eli's party details! Have a great weekend everyone :) I have a long run I need to squeeze into these next few days that are full of planning and prepping for Eli's party but it will get done! Let's hope this Hurricane Irene stays off the coast of CT and Saturday's weather for Eli's party remains nice out!