Last weekend Dave and Fawn came up here to visit. We had such a great time and the kids loved having Grandma and Grandpa here. Friday night we all went and saw the Blue Man Group. It was really fun. Dutch loved it, Maylee thought it was too loud and kept covering her ears and Talli just enjoyed playing on the steps and eating the candy until she was finally able to fall asleep in Daddy's arms. I loved it, it was a very entertaining, funny, clean show. Before the show we ate dinner at Treasure Island buffet.

At dinner....

The Blue Man Group... I wanted to get pictures of Dutch and Maylee with the Blue Man after wards but Dutch was terrified to stand next to him and nothing I could say would get him to. Maylee went and stood by him, kind of, she wouldn't get close and she was nervous. Silly kids! So I had to settle for a picture of both of them by the poster. The kids with their Blue Man Group light balls that they got. Saturday morning we went to Boulder City for breakfast, I have heard from a few friends that there is the best breakfast place there and we wanted to try it out. And I have to say it is pretty darn good. Then we headed to the Shark reef at Mandalay Bay. It was so cool. David and I have been watching a TON of shark week shows on Netflix and so we've been a bit obsessed with Sharks lately so this was super fascinating for us. Although everyone enjoyed themselves, it's definitely worth going. We had a great weekend. We love having Grandma and Grandpa come and visit and we are always sad to see them go.

Last Monday we met up with a bunch of friends and took the kids to Chuck-E-Cheese. The kids had a blast and were devastated to have to leave. They have asked me everyday since then if we are going to go to Chuck-E-Cheese in the night (since we took them at night time). Anyways Maylee was asking me again yesterday if we were going to Chuck-E-Cheese, so I told her I'm sorry sweetie we don't have the money to go again. And just now she climbed up on to the kitchen counter and found a dime and a penny and she starts yelling, "Mommy we do have money, we do have money Mommy. Now we can go to Chuck-E-Cheese. We do have money, see Mommy (as she held up the dime and penny)." Oh if only 11 cents could take the whole family to Chuck-E-Cheese.

Guess who is walking....

My friend Celynda was over today and Talli could not get enough of her. Normally she is a very reserve baby and doesn't like to go to anyone but her Mom or Dad. Well she did a 180 today and only wanted Celynda. Then she wanted Celynda to walk with her while holding her hands, and then we tried having her walk in between us AND... she totally did. She'll probably be walking like a pro by next week. I'm not so sure I'm ready for this mile stone, it makes her seem too big.

When Dutch was in preschool the other day Maylee and I had a tea party with her tea set. I cut up bananas and we drank some juice. Maylee thought it was the best thing ever.

Last weekend David and I made a super quick trip to Arizona. Hilary was getting married and my Mom was performing in her melodrama. We left Thursday when David got out of school. Forty minutes into the drive I realized I had forgotten my temple recommend, feeling devastated since the wedding was the number one reason for the trip, we turned the car around and then 1 minute later turned the car around again. Talli was already crying and we didn't want to tack on another hour and a half. Talli cried from Hoover Dam and finally cried herself to sleep five minutes from my parents house. It was a miserable 4 1/2 hour car ride. And lets just say I felt more sorry for David and I then I did for Talli by the end of the trip, haha! I thought we might both go insane after all that crying. Friday Tara and the kids came over to Mom's to hang out. I love watching Dutch and Maylee play with there cousins. They have so much fun together. This trip Maylee and Neela really hit it off. They played really well together, it was too cute.

Friday night David, Talli and I headed over to Hilary's reception. Her reception was beautiful and it was so much fun to see her again, it'd been too long. I just love that girl.

Saturday morning we headed over to the lakes with Mom to take some family photos. Having a Mom as a photographer you would think that I would take a lot more family photos, but I don't. I don't take nearly enough advantage of it. So we headed out to take some photos. Dutch and Maylee were doing pretty good for them but Talli wanted nothing to do with staying still. Taking photos with three kids is not an easy thing to do. I then realized why I don't try and do it very often. I think we got a few good shots but I'm sure another photo session will be needed to get the "perfect" one. Although I love the way this one turned out.

Saturday night was Mom's play. She did awesome! She is such a great actor and if it wasn't for her and the villian the show just wouldn't be funny. They completely make the show and they do such a great job. I just love watching her. I'm so proud of my Momma!!!

Talli Update

It's been awhile since I've given a Talli update and this little girl is growing up way too fast. At eleven months she can say, "Hi", "mama", "Dada" and "Uh-oh". "Uh-oh" is by far her favorite game. When riding in the car Talli can be heard from the backseat saying "uh-oh, uh-oh" over and over again. The other day she did it for 5 minutes straight, there is nothing that sounds cuter. She is picking up sign language really well and can already sign, 'all done', 'more', 'bye-bye' and 'eat'.

Talli's favorite game to play with Dutch is on her push car. She sits on it and Dutch pushes her "super fast" (his words not mine) across the living room and she just laughs and laughs. If she sees Dutch playing with the car she yells from across the room and crawls over there as fast as she can to sit on it. And other times she climb up on the car and sit there and "yell" until Dutch comes and pushes her. It's all too cute! She loves to swing at the park and the other day she figured out how to go down the slide all by herself. She climbs up the steps crawls over to the slide, turns around and goes down on her belly. Of course I'm supervising and amazed by this little girl. She has discovered that I keep all the kids dishes in the bottom drawer in the kitchen and she can be found in there 10 times a day throwing everything out of that drawer. Drives me a little crazy. She has also discovered that she can sit in the drawer. Last week while I was out grocery shopping David said she had climbed in the drawer and threw and the dishes out. A few minutes later she started crying so David went to pick her up thinking she was stuck in the drawer and couldn't get out. She "yelled" at him and then he realized she didn't want out of the drawer she wanted him to get all the dishes again so she could throw them back out. She ate her first Popsicle the other day and LoVeD it! She loves to play in the fridge when it gets opened and does not appreciate us taking her out so we can close the door. We've all been enjoying this beautiful weather, I love keeping the back door open and Talli loves having the back door open to go in and out when ever she pleases.

Talli wants so badly to do most of the things that Dutch and Maylee can do. One being sitting on the couch. She feels so left out that she can't sit on the couch with them. So to prevent tears, I take a cushion off the couch so she can climb up and sit and play with Dutch and Maylee. Talli reminds me so much of Maylee. She is a wild, crazy, spunky little girl. She has a mind of her own and will not be persuaded otherwise. She can figure way too much stuff out on her own, she's always keeping me on my toes. I love every single little thing about this precious baby girl. We are truly blessed to have her as part of our family.

MARATHON!!!

For years now I have been saying that I want to run a Marathon one day (see this post here #74). When I wrote that 2 1/2 years ago I very vividly remember thinking that I would never actually be able to accomplish that. I've always hated to run, I never ever believed that I would be able to over come that. And then yesterday I ran my goal, my Marathon. It was the most amazing, incredible experience. I am so proud of myself for being able to finally conquer this goal and to prove to myself that I can do what ever it is that I set out do to, even running 26.2 miles. I started training for this big event back in September with my friend Hailey. But then I got cold feet and decided to just do a half marathon first. After running my first half marathon, I finally changed my thought process from believing I couldn't run a marathon to Knowing that I COULD run a marathon. And that was a pretty amazing realization. So then I began truly training for my Marathon. I think a lot of people don't realize the months and hours of running that are put into training for a marathon. During these last 5 months I have run somewhere around 415 miles. These last seven weeks I have had a long run every Saturday, 13 miles, 15 miles, 16.8 miles, 20 miles, 18.6 miles, 14.4 miles and then 18.7 miles. I started to feel burnt out, I starting to question why I was doing this to myself, my kids still aren't sleeping great at night, most mornings I was complaining to Hailey about the lack of sleep I had gotten that night (sorry Hailey), I'm still nursing Talli, it was a lot of work. But I kept pushing through, I knew it would be worth it when I crossed that finished line. Then I started looking at the website of the race I had decided to run. I decided to run the Red Rock Marathon race because it was the only race I could find on a Saturday that was about the same time that my training would be up. And then I started to panic. The elevation for this race was intense, this was a marathon for experienced runners, not first timers. I talked to several people from Vegas who said that it was a hard course and they couldn't believe I would do it for my first race.

Elevation Picture (we're talking close to 1000 feet elevation change)

So then I got on active.com and starting frantically looking for another Marathon that would be on a Saturday (I don't run Sundays and that's when all the races are) and I couldn't find any. This really bummed me out because I knew that my time wouldn't be very impressive running this course and I knew that I had trained for a decent time. My goal was 4 hours and 30 minutes and after looking at this elevation and course I was hoping just to beat 5 hours. Then 2 weeks before my race my friend found out about a race near St. George Utah that was suppose to be a much better course. I looked into it and strongly considered doing that one instead and then realized that I would have five more weeks of training and it landed right during David's block week, it just wouldn't work out. So I mentally prepared myself for Red Rock and had settled on the idea that I wouldn't get a great time but as long as I crossed that finished line that was all that mattered. Five days before my race I started to really feel unprepared, I started questioning whether I had trained enough, if I was truly ready, I even told David that it would probably be better if I didn't run at all, then run and not be able to finish. He gave me tons of encouragement and despite the freezing cold feet I was getting, I was still excited for this race.

Friday night the kids and I ate lots of pasta for dinner, my sweet running partner dropped off flowers for good luck/good job, then when David got home from studying we hung out together until bed and then I tried my hardest to get a good night sleep. It didn't happen. My mind was so busy, I couldn't shut it off, I finally fell asleep sometime after 11:15 and then I woke up a 1:30 and again at 3. And I'm pretty sure I never once fell into a deep sleep. Finally my alarm went off at 4:15 in the morning, yes I said 4:15, the race started at 6 and it was a 35 minute drive to the buses that would shuttle us in to the start. So I was a little worried about being sleep deprived. This race is a very small race, not a ton of people, just a small little family that puts it on. Their rule was that every one had to be shuttle in, runners and spectators and the spectators could not drive the course and watch their runners. The road was too narrow and they didn't have permission to close off the whole thing, so they were looking out for our safety. Although after running it I realize that people still drive the course and cheer their runners on, oh well, we were obedient :) So I got to the start and prayed that David would be able to get the kids ready to make the last shuttle so he could be at the finish line. I talked to lots of people at the start before the gun shot and all of them were amazed that I was running this race for my first marathon. The DJ asked if there were any first timers and only about 5-8 people raised their hands. I wasn't feeling super encouraged by that. But the gun went off and off I went. And I felt GREAT! I couldn't believe how good I was feeling. The first 5 miles are always kind of a mind game. You feel every little kink in your body and my mind is playing all these mind games, but I was finally able to tune out myself and just run. The first 14 miles were smooth sailing. The first 8 miles were all up hill but it was still so early on in my race that I hardly noticed. Once I hit mile 8, the downhills, I took off. I'm pretty sure I had never run so fast in my life, I wish I could have had a Garmin with me to tell me my pace, because I'm pretty sure I was running a 6:45 to 7:00 pace for the next five miles. The people that I had been playing leap frog with for the first 8 miles suddenly could no longer keep up. And I never did see them again. It was a good feeling. Mile 15-17 were tough, straight uphill again. At mile 17 I got a little relief, a small down hill appeared. And then 17.5 to 19 straight uphill again. That hill was pretty tough, I couldn't believe how many people were walking. And to brag a bit, I never once, not once walked, I ran that entire thing, every single hill. After 19 it was downhill again, with a few rollers. And I was still feeling good. I never hit the "wall" that I've heard so many people talk about. But I knew I still had one really big hill to finish. That hill was right at mile 23, I could feel my legs and my hips screaming by that point, my Ipod died, so it was just me and that hill. I kept on pushing, past a lot of walkers and made it up that hill. From there it was all down hill again. When I reached mile marker 25 I just kept saying right out loud, "I did, I did, I actually did!" The adrenaline kicked back up into high gear again, I was still feeling strong and then I rounded the last corner and I could see the finish line. And then I spotted David and the kids and that was an incredible sight to see them there cheering me on. Only point 1 mile to go and it felt so good and then I saw the clock, 4:22:00 it said when I stepped on that mat. The announcer called out my name and I was done I had finished my first Marathon. My official time was 4:21:36. That was the most incredible thing. I kept saying during my run, your goal is 4:30, come on you can do that. But some of those hills when I was running at snail pace I thought for sure I was coming in at 5 hours. I was so thrilled to have beat my goal.

I walked over to David and the kids, Maylee ran out to hug me and then I walked up to David and got a big hug and congratulations from him. I kept saying to him "I did it, I ran a marathon". It felt so great, my legs felt like jelly but it didn't even matter. I was done, I accomplished my goal. We hung out there for a while, waited for the official times to be posted, ate some post race food, talk to a few people and then boarded the bus back to our cars.

I think Talli must have been feeling a bit heavy here.

It was such a pretty run, I ran right in those mountains back there.

This truly has been such an awesome experience. I'm so grateful to have such a great running friend. I know that I wouldn't have done this if I had to do all those runs by myself. And it was so great to have a friend to chat with 3 days a week before my kids were even awake. I've loved running with Hailey. Most of all I'm grateful for David. He has been so great through this all. Never once gripped about waking up early three days a week with the kids while I was out running. Never once complained about my 3 hour runs every Saturday for the last 5 weeks. Always was willing to let me take a nap after those runs when I just couldn't keep my eyes open anymore. Always encouraging. Thanks David, I love you, you're the best.

This was a great Marathon, I learned a lot through it all. I feel like a stronger more confident person after this. And it won't be my last Marathon, I'm not done running yet.

The official times were posted online tonight. 175 people ran this Marathon (see I told you this was a tiny race). Anyways out of 175 people I finished number 72. I feeling really awesome about that. In my age group of women, I came in at number 8 out of 15, right in the middle. Pretty proud of that too.