Try this at home - LOVE it!

I consider myself a low maintenance girl. I usually leave the house with my hair in a ponytail and no make-up. Being the mom of 2 boys meant that styling hair was not really anything I had to worry about, except on that rare occasion when Fred & I had someplace to go, besides a date night to Target & a movie.

BUT

Now I have a girl! Mia is a princess, and she will sit patiently as I brush, comb and style her hair - as long as I promise that whatever I'm doing will be "fancy". Now, in the '80s I could tease, braid, style like nobody's business, but I'm a little out of practice. Still I had to share this CUTE heart braid that I've been doing this month.

Like it? This was my first attempt, and I've gotten MUCH better at making the heart look pretty good, even with my daughter's baby fine hair. I had BIG plans to get this post out prior to Valentine's Day. Seems to be a theme with this blog. Oh well, I think it's still worth posting simply because the site that I got the idea from has TONS of cute hairstyles. It's called Adopt a 'Do, and the mom who writes this blog is super talented and comes up with tons of great ideas. There's even a video tutorial for the Flip-Braided Heart (that's what it's called). Trust me, if you have girls with medium/long hair, you want to check out this blog.

Catching Up

The problem with treating my blog like an online scrapbook of sorts, is that I get bogged down with chronology (is that even a word?). I feel like I can't move forward until I've covered everything that's already happened - but a lot of events are worthy of a great entry, so on days when I can barely string to words together (let alone sound intelligent or witty), I just save it for later.

Can you see the vicious cycle???

So, humor me as I catch up on the last 5 months of my life. It's really more for my benefit than anything else. Maybe then I'll be able to move forward with my blog life.

If I were really tech-savvy I would have a video clip that fast forwarded through these events, complete with music -- but I'm not, so you'll have to use your imagination.

We took the kids to see The Boss! This was their 3rd concert - their first was Toby Keith, and earlier this summer they went to AC/DC. They spent hours making signs. No...they didn't get shown; our seats were too far away - but they had fun making them.

Yes, my overtired son FELL ASLEEP mid concert. Out cold. He slept for about 4 songs - it would have been more, but I forced him to get up to see Bruce perform with the Dropkick Murphys. (I didn't want him to complain that I made him miss the best part of the concert).


My in-laws took the entire family to Atlantis Resort for 4 days!!! We swam with dolphins, conquered the slides, relaxed by the beach -- all 14 of us.

School started, and while my two boys were happier to go back than this picture would suggest, Mia was super excited to go!

My mom came to visit! We took Mia to the American Girl Bistro - so girly.

During our Expedition Everest trip, we visited this magical place...
What is it, you ask? Give Kids the World - the most amazing, fun, pixie dust filled place that ever existed. It's deserving of several blog posts, and I can't wait to get back there to spend some time volunteering.
The best part of the Expedition Everest trip (no, it wasn't running)was being able to see all of my Mom's Panel friends. All 16 of the 2009 group and several of the 2008 group made it down for this fun weekend. Plus, I got away with Fred for a few days as an added bonus.
The weekend of our 10K, we stayed in the same hotel where President Obama was speaking. This car? He wasn't in it - he was in the next car. He waved at us - sadly Fred missed it while he was taking a picture of this car.

HALLOWEEN - Thing 1, Thing 2 and Cinderella - yep, I made them all - never again (someone remind me that I said that next Halloween).

My baby turned 3!!! Another birthday another chance for me to make some insane cake.
You can see last year's creation HERE. And don't worry - if anyone thinks I'm favoring my little girl - the boys get the same effort, I've just been too tired afterward to blog about it.

After Thanksgiving, we took a trip to visit our favorite Mouse.

When we got back, Fred got an early Christmas present - SNOW!!!
Lots of Snow

Then it was Christmas...
There you have it a quick recap of major events that were worthy of a blog post or 2. I've set the bar pretty low, so my blogging should definitely be more consistent in 2010. Although, I'm already a little behind on that "post a week" resolution (sigh).

EE5K Update

Okay, I know what anyone who's been here in the last several months is thinking. EE5K update? What about a, "where the heck have I been" update. It's coming, I promise. One of my resolutions for the New Year is to keep this blog updated at least weekly. There. I said it. I WILL update my blog at least once a week in the year 2010.

(Okay, since I'm still editing this post on 1/6/10, I guess my New Year's resolutions aren't working out as planned *sigh*)

So...

Last time I wrote, I was training (rather unsuccessfully) for the Expedition Everest 5K on September ??? That date has come and gone, and I know you've been dying to find out how it went.

Well...

I'm not going to lie. It was hard. A week before the race, I still couldn't run a mile without stopping - pretty pathetic considering I trained for 20 weeks. There was no miracle that occurred during the race - I still couldn't complete the first mile without stopping to walk - but the important thing is that I did complete the race (in a torrential downpour, no less!)!!

Since then...

I've entered several other races. Fred has caught the running bug, although he's much more competitive than me. My kids have also run a couple of races with me - although it's tough when your 8 year old runs faster than you. Luckily, my mom's panel BFF, Jodi, lives nearby so she can run with me. We even completed a 10K (albeit in last place - you can read about that adventure HERE), and we are training for the Princess 1/2 marathon in March.

In case you're wondering, I DID finally complete a 5K without walking on November 28th, 2009!!!

And yesterday (really, yesterday - 1/5/01)? I ran 11 miles!!! Well I ran in cycles - run 10 minutes, walk one -- but still, 11 miles!! I couldn't move afterward, and I'm not really looking forward to upping that distance, but I've come a LONG way, don't you think?