Sunday Funny

I really need to separate Sunshine's booster and River's car seat. She has way too much fun back there where I can't see what she's doing.

The latest instance (I didn't take the pic till we were in the house):

And a few days later:

A past instance can be found here.

I'm sure there's more to come :)

Swimming Lessons

This summer Sunshine did swimming lessons again with our favorite swim teacher, but we did them at a public pool since the family that owned the pool we used to use sold their house.

Pro: This meant Sunshine was able to practice swimming up and down the Olympic-length swim lanes and really work on the different strokes.

Con: I couldn't get any great pictures this time.

Pro: River had fun with the baby pool and the splash pads.

Sunshine has really progressed with her swimming skills and really likes being in the water now.

River really likes being in the water as well, which is a nice change from Sunshine at his age. Back then she was terrified of the water and would hang on to us with a death grip around our necks whenever we took her in the water. Unfortunately, River also likes dipping his hands in the pool water and then licking them. So gross!

Mr M came with us one day and we had River slide down the baby slide. It didn't go quite as we'd hoped.

yay! this looks like fun!

{note that Mr M and River have the same swoopy curl in their bangs :) }

wait, I'm not sure about this...

maybe it'll be ok...

get me out of here! I don't like this!

Yeah, he wasn't impressed with the slide. He does like everything else though :)

Toy Bins and Toy Shelf {Stash-buster Project)

I was decluttering the house, but I put that on hiatus for two weeks while I built several pieces of furniture to help with organizing things. This is one of the pieces I built.

While I was decluttering the basement, I decided to finally get the toys under control. I also needed to pull out the baby toys and make room for them. And I needed to make room for the play frig I'd promised to build Sunshine. There wasn't room with the toy shelves we had, and I realized awhile ago that the drawers tended to swallow toys and never get pulled out. Out of sight = out of mind.

The toy shelves I built a few years ago worked for awhile, but it was time for something new. They looked like this originally:

And then I loaded it up with Sunshine's toys. I loved the baskets and drawers, but they made it difficult for Sunshine to see her toys, so she only played with a small percentage of them.

Fast forward a few years, and this is what it's been looking like recently (this is actually after I tried to organize everything and realized it just wasn't going to work):

While trying to organize the toys better, I realized that the stationary shelves really didn't make for efficient use of the available space.After sorting and organizing and buying some clear bins (so the kiddos can see which toys are where and actually play with them), it looked a little better, but the bins hang over the edges. And there's no way River could get any toys in or out of the drawers.

After deciding that the current toy shelves just weren't going to work and I needed to build something that would work better, I headed over to Ana-white.com and checked out the plans. This time I opted for open bins on the bottom so that River would be able to easily see and pull out his toys. I used this plan but modified it so they're a bit narrower than the previous drawers so there would be room along the wall for the play frig.

the brown wood is cabinet grade plywood from my stash

the white wood is plywood I purchased

I also built a new shelf system to go above it. I made up the design for this based on the previous shelf unit and what I wanted changed. This time I made the shelves adjustable to accommodate different size bins or baskets. That's been a major pet peeve I had about the last shelf- there was wasted space because of the stationary dividers and shelves.

I got this far, then decided I wasn't liking how it looked where the shelf sat on top of the bins. Plus I wanted to make it harder for the shelf to slide off the bins.

So I added some trim to the top and bottom of the shelf. I believe it's the trim you put around doors, but it worked very well for this purpose, and I was able to use pieces from my stash. The top trim looks kind of like crown molding and the bottom trim overhangs the bins just enough to keep everything lined up and in place. The trim goes a long way toward making the shelf look more finished.

I thought the front bottom edges looked plain and unfinished so I added strips of narrow trim I had in the shed.

Each shelf runs all the way across, with a center support in the front and back (I attached adjustable shelf strips to them as well as to the sides of the shelves).  The center supports keep the shelves from sagging in the middle should they get a bit overloaded. They also help stabilize the shelf box. The center support in the back is behind the backing so it doesn't show, but still does the job.

When I built the last toy shelves and drawers I used pieces of 1x2 to attach the shelf unit to the drawers and keep everything from shifting around. While effective, it didn't look super nice, so this time I used pieces of a metal strap with predrilled holes. I cut the strap into pieces with my Dremel, grabbed some screws and washers, and attached the bins to each other and the shelf to the bins.

I liked the baskets we had before, but toys tended to go in and never come out again, just like the drawers. So even though I personally prefer things neatly hidden, I ended up using clear plastic bins for the toys so the kiddos can see the toys and actually play with them. Now there's room for both Sunshine and River's toys and they take up less space. Win-win! Using up some of the wood in the shed is another win. Slowly but surely I'm using up the wood we have stashed in the shed.

We will be selling the old drawers and shelves at our yard sale along with some of the toys that used to be in them. I think the new set will work out a lot better for us :)

Trail Running

Of the safer variety :)

I took advantage of driving Sunshine into town every day for Irish music day camp a couple weeks ago and hit the trails in town a couple times.  I did the same thing last year.

One morning I hit the nice flat bike path. Mr M was home sick so I left the sleeping River with him and enjoyed a nice long solo run. I did about 4 miles and managed a decent pace, though I could tell I have not been getting my mileage in. I do enjoy how scenic the bike path is.

A couple days later I put River in the jogger and we headed up a local mountain. Ok, it's not really a mountain if you're from the west, but they call it a mountain here. This is the same trail Sunshine and I used to visit a few years ago (here and here). It was about 2 miles up and 2 miles down, but I'd decided I wanted to get 5 miles in, so I ran a loop at the bottom several times to get my mileage up and ended up doing about 5.25 miles.

The first little bit is nice and flat, but then it's all up hill from there. I did not manage to run all the way up, but I was able to run a decent percentage. Since I was also pushing River in the jogger, I was happy with how much I ran. I was able to run all the way down and then alternated running and walking the loops at the bottom. It was a tough workout, but it felt good.

I like the boardwalk paths that make up a good portion of the trail. They make a nice change of pace from asphalt and the treadmill. 

River slept most of the way up and back, but he sure didn't look comfortable. I guess babies don't get stiff necks like grownups do :)

Goodbye Trailer

It was a bittersweet moment last week when we said goodbye to our little travel trailer.

I mentioned at the beginning of the year that we were selling it, and while it did take longer than we thought, the timing is right, and we got what we were asking for it.

We enjoyed it while we had it, taking it on a five week trip and a four week trip, plus some weekend trips (Outer Banks for one), but it's time to move on to bigger and better things. Specifically, an RV with more space.

Realistically, it'll be a year or so before we have enough saved up, but it was time to sell the gas-guzzling truck, so we'll be roughing it for a summer or two. In fact, next summer is a road trip summer, so we'll be trying out some ideas I have to work around the absence of the trailer and still accommodate our food issues.

We sold it to a couple who were so excited to get back into a trailer (their last one was destroyed in a storm a couple years ago) that they were driving from our house directly to a campground. So I know they'll enjoy it :)

Sunday Funny

hamming it up at Hobby Lobby

Sunshine was trying to get me to commit to something on a specific upcoming day, but I told her that was our anniversary so she wouldn't get to do it.

I then had to explain what an anniversary is.

A little later she asked me "so, what are we doing for our anniversary?"

My response? "YOU'RE not doing anything for MOMMY AND DADDY'S anniversary. And we don't know what we're doing yet."

She was a little disappointed, but then bounced back with a request to go to a friend's house while we went on a date.

Third Grade Curriculum

River loves doing what Sunshine does

This year we're continuing with the curriculum suggestions from The Well Trained Mind that we've been using, with just a few changes. Follow the links to see what we did in second grade (and end of second grade) and first grade.

The subjects we're covering this year:

Reading, writing, spelling, grammar, math, science, history/geography, music, art, Japanese, Latin, phys. ed, and religion.

We're continuing with the books we've used in the past for most of the subjects since they're working- we won't rock the boat. We're also doing pretty much the same extra-curriculars as last year.

The changes:
Last spring we started using a math workbook from Target while continuing with Life of Fred. We'll start Singapore math when she finishes the Target workbook. It's ironic that the cheap workbook is working a lot better than the expensive Math-U-See and RightStart Math books. Too bad we didn't discover that before I bought all those expensive materials.

On the up-side, as I've decluttered I've unearthed all our unused/discarded curriculum and plan on selling them and getting at least some of our money back. The books that we liked I'll save for River. I'll only need to buy the workbooks and consumable pages for most of the subjects so it will save us money.

Last spring we finally bit the bullet and purchased Rosetta Stone Japanese. I never got around to setting it up before the end of second grade, but I got it up and running for third grade. So far it is working so much better than everything I tried to do with Sunshine. Well worth the money. I purchased the homeschool version and you can make different accounts for different family members. Four total, I think? I haven't spent a lot of time on it yet, but I've been able to zip through what I have done. I'm remembering more than I thought I did (though I have a long way to go before I get to my previous fluency level), and I've been able to start using more Japanese when I talk to the kiddos.

We started Latin this year. We're using Prima Latina, and so far I like it. It seems to have enough repetition for Sunshine to remember things, but not so much that she gets bored. I will say that we skip over the prayers in Latin since they don't have any application for us. There's also a cd that we listen to for help with pronunciation. Sunshine commented on the lady's southern accent :) 

I'm looking forward to learning enough Latin and Japanese that we can read Harry Potter in those languages. We don't have them in Latin yet, but we own all the books in Japanese and we even have the audio version of the first book in Japanese. It was ridiculously expensive a few years ago because we had to purchase it from Amazon Japan, though the price for the second book isn't quite so bad, so maybe we'll add that to our collection. They're great listening practice though the narrator talks super fast so you really have to concentrate.

So that's what we have planned for the year, along with our extra stuff that I wrote about here. This year I'm going to try really hard to keep to our schedule so we're not playing catch-up at the end :)

too cute!

Play Frig {Stash-buster Project}

the play kitchen area is complete: frig, sink & stove, and wall shelf

I promised Sunshine a long time ago that I'd build a play refrigerator to go with her sink and stove. Since I was in a building frenzy making things to help with organizing and decluttering, I decided it was a good time to finally follow through with that promise.

I modified this plan, making it taller since Sunshine will be playing with it, and the upper shelves will allow her to keep things out of River's reach. For awhile, at least :)

I used about 12' of 1x12 for the sides and doors, but only purchased an 8' board. The doors, top, and bottom were cut from leftover 1x12 pieces we had in the shed. I used 10" wide pieces of wood from the scrap pile for the interior shelves and a piece of shower board for the backing. The shower board was sitting around from an experiment in using it as a whiteboard (FYI: shower board doesn't work super well if you like to use a lot of colors like I do). I added hinges and handles from Lowe's to the doors, plus some magnetic catches to keep the doors shut.

This was an easy build and painting it took more time than the building. And now Sunshine has plenty of space for all her play food, I can check another project off my to-do list, and I used more of the wood pieces in the shed.

Second Race for August: Trail 15k

view of the SUPs as the trail circled the lake

Saturday I ran my first trail race and I bit off a bit more than I could chew by doing a 15k. That's 9.3 miles, in case you were wondering.

To say I have mixed feelings about this race would be an understatement.

It had good parts, but it definitely had bad parts, too.

Here's the rundown:
This was the first year for this race, and there was a very small field of runners. I didn't count, but I think there were only 15, maybe 20 people running. I think it was closer to 15, though.

As I mentioned before, it was my first trail run. Picking a long race for my first trail run wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done.

I'm not very spatially aware- I can (and have, on many occasions) trip over nothing. Rocks and roots = trouble. The course was very hilly with lots of roots and rocks. So naturally, I turned my ankles multiple times.

Because I kept turning my ankles I almost quit before the third mile. A month before my half marathon is not the time to sprain or break an ankle, and there was a very real possibility of that happening. However, I realized that by the time I made it back to the start/finish area I wouldn't have that much further to go, so I kept at it and didn't quit. I just tried to be even more careful, though that got harder the farther I went. The tireder I got, the less I lifted my feet off the ground.

I finished last for the first time in my life. Other than when running the two mile in track, but that doesn't count because it's track, which can be soul-sucking, unlike running through forests and neighborhoods.

The next day I was so sore from the exertion (so many hills, trying to keep my balance- trail runners must have great core strength) and from all the ankle turns- I could feel those from my feet to my knees. My ankles are still feeling a bit stiff and sore today, but all the muscles and whatever else I strained are feeling better.

a look at the trail behind me

I actually really liked the course if you took out the hills and the roots and the rocks. 99.5% of the course was in the trees. It was so peaceful and gorgeous!

The weather was great too. It was 60 when we started and only got up to 70 by the time I finished. Combine that with all the shade under the trees, and it made for great running conditions.

Despite all the hills, I actually felt stronger going up the later hills than I had the hills at the beginning. I'm not sure if it was because my muscles had warmed up, or if they were remembering the hill work I'd done, or what. Even though the race finished on a slight incline I was able to finish strong and didn't feel completely spent.

I'm ok with finishing last. It was a very small field of runners, it was my first trail run, and it was a difficult course. Also, no one was behind me to see me fall flat on my face when I tripped on nothing. Literally. There was nothing in the trail, yet I managed to trip and fall. Luckily, that was a much better place to fall, since I landed on dirt instead of rocks and/or roots and I didn't get hurt. See- you can even find a silver lining when falling :)

I love running through the trees in parks. My favorite high school cross country courses involved treed parks, and trail running is reminiscent of those races. However, I'm really not sure about doing more trail runs. My lack of balance and tendency to trip makes it unsafe for me to repeat this race unless I can somehow improve my balance and stop tripping on everything. I was talking to another runner during the race and he mentioned a trail half that I've had on my race list for awhile, and he said that one was a lot flatter and easier. If I can find trail runs that take place on flat trails without lots of obstacles, I'm willing to give them a try.

and the trail in front of me

I'd initially hoped to finish in about 2 hours, but was on track to finish in about 2:15 or 2:20. This is the farthest I've run since the Disney half a year and a half ago and I wasn't sure how the trails would affect my pace, so I was guessing at what my pace would be. However, the race ended up being a bit short (8.5 miles instead of 9.3 according to my Garmin), and I finished in 2:06:58. There is a small chance my Garmin was off because of all the trees, but I don't think that was the issue. Either way, I was expecting to run longer than I did, so I hadn't used up all my energy and had a good surge at the end.

This is probably the longest run I'll do before the half on Sept 20, so it was supposed to be my dress rehearsal for the half. I kind of dropped the ball though. Friday night I was gathering my stuff and realized the shot bloks I had were out of date. Which makes sense since I hadn't bought any since the Disney World half marathon, a year and a half ago. Oops. One package was only a couple months out of date instead of more than a year out of date, so I used that. I didn't notice any problems, so bonus for me. I thought I used enough Body Glide, but I did end up with some friction in a few places, so I need to remember to lube up better, especially between my toes.

My big issue was my pre-race food. I had ice cream Friday evening, but I thought I'd eaten it early enough that it wouldn't be a problem. Dairy and I don't really get along right now, but it's hard to say no to Blue Bell Pecan Pralines and Cream. Good thing Blue Bell Spiced Pumpkin Pecan is out of season- SO yummy! Unfortunately, it still gave me problems.   -- [TMI ahead!] --    I woke up not feeling great, but managed to spend enough time on the toilet that at least that wouldn't be a problem during the race. My stomach still wasn't feeling great though. I managed to gag down some egg yolks and mashed sweet potatoes, and by the time the race started my stomach had calmed down. The egg yolks and sweet potatoes didn't come back to haunt me and even seemed to help me with my energy levels. Toast and peanut butter may have worked for pre-race fuel back in my pre-gluten free days, but it's just not an option these days. I'll probably repeat the egg yolks and sweet potatoes the morning of the half.

I don't have any more races scheduled till the half, so now it's time to focus on running and race prep. I'll be under-trained, but I prefer that to over-trained and injured.

August 8.5 miles:                  2:06:58       first trail run
August 2 mile:                     ~40 min?    Mud Run with Sunshine
2nd July 5k:                         35:27
July 5k:                                 34:15
June 5k:                                38:11          Ran with jogger
May 5k:                                39:23          Ran with jogger
April 5k:                               37:40          Color Run
March 5k:                            37:33  
February 4.5 miles:            1:49:55        Mud Run
January:                              ---

10 Months

This is a bit late because of my laptop troubles, but better late than never.

River is getting so big. He's also getting braver- he will stand on his own for a few brief seconds. He will also walk while only holding one hand. He's not quite steady enough to walk on his own, but he keeps trying and we fully expect him to be walking before his first birthday.

He's got sonar ears. The slightest sound wakes him up and it is almost impossible to sneak up or down the stairs if he's in bed but hasn't actually fallen asleep yet. Or even if he is asleep. I finally realized that this has been a major contributor to my problems getting downstairs and on the treadmill in the mornings. He hears me, wakes up and wants to eat, and throws off my groove. We ended up moving his crib into the guest room and putting it in a corner so it wasn't right next to the door like it was in Sunshine's room. We also bought a white noise machine and since he's no longer in Sunshine's room we close the door most of the way (she doesn't like the door being closed). Between all those things, he's now sleeping better and it's possible to move around the house without waking him.

snuggling with daddy while waiting for me to feed him late at night

River got his first bug bites- mosquitos and a tick :( Luckily I found the tick right away and it was a baby one, but still. It's very rude of them to munch on our baby.

He likes mirrors.  He likes to look in them and smile at himself and whoever's holding him. He knows that there's a mirror above the love seat and if we're sitting there he wants to be lifted up so he can look in the mirror. If you don't lift him up he'll try to climb up to look in it.

He has figured out how to climb stairs. We showed him how in the hopes he'd learn how to do it safely, but we inadvertently gave him the confidence to try it on his own. Oops! Not long after that, I found him 6 stairs up when I was letting him crawl around the house. We have gates on either end of the living room and a door to the basement that we keep closed, and that works as long as we're in the living room. but if I'm in the kitchen he doesn't like being left in the living room by himself. Now that he's figured out stairs it's not safe to let him roam the kitchen and library area anymore since he can access the stairs from that side of the house. We've installed another gate between the kitchen and the library since we don't really want him yanking all the books off the shelves. This means there's gates on either side of the stairs and we have the ability to better control what part of the house he's in.

River's third tooth came in, this one is one of the top front teeth. He has the other three top front teeth working their way down now. I'd forgotten just how sharp tiny baby teeth are, especially when they're coming at you from both sides. Ouch!

visually inspecting the wood

gotta taste-test it also to make sure it's ok

He really likes to make raspberry noises with his mouth. He still likes to put everything in his mouth too. He really uses it as a way of testing things out and seeing what they feel like.

the leaf did not taste as good as he thought it would

but it did make fun crunchy noises

He's already trying to keep up with his big sister. She was running around the house the other day and he was crawling as fast as he could after her, his hands going "slappy slappy slappy" on the wood floor. Sunshine does a good job of playing with him and showing him how to do things.

playing with a truck while waiting for mommy's chiropractic appointment

River loves playing in the kitchen. He's always opening cupboard doors and the pantry door and trying to find things to play with. The measuring cups and funnels are a current favorite. Though he has managed to scare himself pretty badly when he pulled a stack of pots and lids out of one cupboard. They didn't land on him or hurt him, but the noise was loud and he freaked out.

we've pulled the knobs off the stove because he can bat at them and turn them on

For some reason, he likes to carry his shoes around. Sometimes he wants them on, other times he just wants to crawl around with his shoes in his hands.

see his little shoes clutched in his fists?

Our sweet baby boy is rapidly becoming a mischievous little toddler boy. More details on that next month :)