Andrew and Lisa's Wedding

They got married in May. I wanted to blog about it. I don’t know why I have not yet, but here is what I remember.

Emaleigh wore the dress that Addie wore when Kevin and I got married 4 years prior. It fit her perfectly, she was a pretty princess. Emaleigh started walking a couple of weeks before the wedding so she wanted to be held not so much. Addie Belle wore the dress that she wore when she went to the daddy and daughter dance in February. She loves weddings. She called Lisa a princess. She was awfully curious about the princess’s tattoo. Andrew and all of his groomsmen were princes. Addie told us she will not cry when she gets married and she also let us know that when she gets married she will dance with all of the princes.

She and Lucas made fast friends with the flower girl who has a name but the pretty much just called her the flower girl. She was a mini celebrity to them. Lucas was handsome in khaki pants and a white polo shirt. They all had a great time and it was I who crashed the hopes and dreams of dancing into the night. It was a very sweet wedding in a little secret spot in the Texas Hill Country. Andrew and Lisa have since moved into their now home and Andrew has already begun faking illness to get out of attacking the honey do list.

Pictures Can Lie

These nearly angelic images give no real idea about the trouble these two can get into...and fast.

The day this photo was taken of Lucas, we were at my company picnic. There was a bouncy castle there and Lucas bounced four out of five hours. How Mary managed to snap a photo of him standing still is beyond me. He has grown out of his really strong desires to find trouble and get into it. Now he just has tons and tons of energy. So I take him running with me. Some people run with their dogs, I run with my three year old. Sometimes.

Emaleigh has an incredible love for climbing. Greater than the other two ever did at 1 yr old. Lucas was known to climb into his high chair if he was hungry before he was able to tell us. It wa his way of communicating. Emaleigh climbed onto our kitchen table last Tuesday when the kids were eating dinner and started stealing food. I keep saying, maybe she's hungry. Stuff like this happens alot, but she will never eat her own food. I mean I can prepare three of the same and she still prefers Addie's food.

She is going to keep Kevin and me on our toes for a very long time.

Photos From My Girls Weekend

Dancing at the Farmer's Market

Kevin and I took Mom and the kids down to the Pearl Brewery area one Saturday morning to have lunch at the Farm to Table Café.

There was a group there playing music. Have you ever seen an electric violin? That was a first for me. The kids wasted no time getting to the dancing. I love how the three of them are all so naturally inclined to boogie. I was surprised though to see Emaleigh doing ballerina arms. Where did that come from?

This only gets more and more fun. YES, they’re a handful…but I couldn’t even begin to count the ways I am blessed to have them in my life. My life is so full now.

Catching Up Blogging

Well I have sort of slipped out of my good habit of keeping the blog up to date. It was by accident, but certainly Ms. Emaleigh has had her hand in it as well. I can’t complain too much. I don’t mind spending most of my free time answering to her every need. But that doesn’t leave too much time for updating my blog or even my facebook status for that matter. I believe my facebook status right now says “I hate running…” I wrote that three weeks ago, or was it four, when my training for the San Antonio Rock and Roll Half Marathon began. Half Marathon, that’s 13.1 miles, not 6 as my friend thought last year when he signed up for it. The last thing I really blogged about was my trip to Florida to see precious Zoe. Well what you might not know is that since then I:

*went to Colorado to spend an extended weekend with my girlfriends Trish and Abby. The three of us, and Emaleigh (see above), flew into Denver and after a great dinner at The Black Pearl, we headed south and west to Del Norte, Colorado where my folks have a retirement log house. Del Norte was perfect for a getaway. With a population of 1,674 down-home folks according to the Chamber of Commerce, Del Norte was exactly what we needed to slow down and spend time with each other rather than running around each other without getting the opportunity to visit. We had some ideas about adventures we might take while we were there, but ultimately, slowing down and relaxing at home seemed to fit the bill. We did spend a day in the shops on Grande searching for deals and we also had lunch twice at The Organic Peddler / Peace of Art Café. Infact, if you are ever in the area it is a really sweet place to stop in. The building is really unique corkwood construction. My mom kept saying that and I was thinking, OK, OK…but it was worth talking about as much. Oh yeah. I forgot to mention something. Ivy was present as well. She so generously raced from spending time with me in Florida to get to Del Norte in time to de- winterize (i.e. kill flies, dust, move or hide mouse traps and turn on water and electricity) the house so it would be ready for us. I am certainly thankful for that as I know the last thing we wanted to do upon arrival at 1 a.m. was deal with those sorts of pests. Mom likes to take care of me still. I am pretty lucky for it. It’s very nice to have friends like these. I hope we get to do this kind of visit many more times.

*started training for the half marathon. I DO NOT hate running anymore. Now I hate being injured from running and wish my knee would hurry up and get better so I could get back out there and run some more. I have turned a new leaf as far as running is concerned. But I think I will always need the support of a running group or at least for a while. I want to find softer ground to run on, like marshmallows. I have really enjoyed tracking my workouts on http://www.mapmyrun.com/. That also has been an encouragement for me. I love to go out for a run/walk and come home and map my route. Generally I have been running in the neighborhood, but on Saturdays I run with my running group. We start near the Pearl Brewery from the running store, Run Wild Sports. I started, without realizing it, with a defeatist mentality. I would start each run, first it was 1 mile then 2 and so on…thinking, “I am not a runner, I’m going to run a little bit but I am not a runner so before this is over I am going to stop and walk”. I continued like this thru the first two weeks. On the third Saturday, I ran with Catherine, the very young owner of the running store. She gently encouraged me along to rum the whole way, 3 miles, and I did it. And I think now that I may be a runner. My breathing has been fine, me knees not so much, but I have overcome my mind and I am moving on, I will run 13.1 miles come November 15.

*Found out that the Mathletes in Action event that I am on the committee for is on November 14^th. Oh No!!!! This event is awesome, it is held on the court at the AT&T Center where the Spurs play. We use the game clock and buzzer for our timed events. Wait until you hear the game buzzer at the end of complete focused silence. I wouldn’t be surprised to find several #2 pencils at the top of the AT&T Center. The Spurs Coyote always makes an appearance and entertains while we are feverishly grading tests to rank competitors and get ready for awards. The schedule of the day is identical to the official MathCounts competition. It serves as a practice test for all of the kids, grades 5-7, who will be competing in the official competition held in February. Exceptions are, we can’t begin until the visiting NBA team’s morning practice is over, and we have to be off of the floor ASAP, I mean now, not another minute by 2 p.m. It is always stressful and I am always completely drained and sore at the end of this day. It will be interesting to see how well I do on my aforementioned run the day following!!! This event has always been in October during pre-season. All mathletes and volunteers get a ticket to the game at night. This year there were no pre-season home games on a Saturday and so we are having it in regular season. Word on the street is that the NBA does not like this. Go Math!!!

*and registered Addie Belle for school, Kindergarten. Can you believe it? Addie, my big girl is starting school. She’s very excited. She already got to meet her principal at registration and on Friday August 21 we will meet her teacher. The Judson Independent School District has a very strict dress code. I have been spending some time this week buying clothes on eBay that fit the description. NOTHING that she already owns does fit into the guidelines. It is rather boring.

I have sort of been waiting to blog about anything because I wanted to accompany with photos. I think I will upload a photo only blog later.

Little Boys Will Be Little Boys

Lucas did it. He finally had the injury I expected based on his activity level. See the big gash he got in his head last night. The story as I understand it is that Lucas was out of his bed in the dark peaking in on Emaleigh who was crying in her crib, when he thought he heard us coming (or for whatever reason) and decided to run back and jump in his bed. Only his foot slipped on a book that was left on the floor and instead of landing safely in his bed, he dove right into the bed frame and hit his head pretty hard. Blood was gushing from the little, less than an inch gash on his head. Kevin and I had a full two seconds of complete panic, frozen and everything, before we jumped into action. I got Emaleigh. (When we heard Lucas start crying we both jumped up, but I ran to Lucas and he ran to get Emaleigh out of her crib, so we switched) He picked up Lucas and went to the kitchen with him to look at the wound and try to calm him down. Emaleigh and I got a washcloth (the first one I found was pure white) and wet it with a little cold water and brought it to the boys in the kitchen and then went back to search for Band-Aids and aquaphor. The bleeding stopped fairly quickly with pressure and we bandaged him up and calmed him down, he’s pretty tough. Then we all went back to the kid’s room to calm Addie down who was beside herself with worry. We kept Lucas out of his room to just monitor him for about 30 minutes before we let him go back in his own bed. Addie was still wide awake and needed to talk to Lucas to know he was ok and was so upset when he said for her to leave him alone because he was tired. She slept in the crack between their beds to be closer to him. This morning I told him we would probably need to go show the doctor his head today. He asked to please see the nurse and not the doctor. I think he said the doctor doesn’t know what she’s doing. Where did he get that?

Florida Girl, Zoe!

My mom treated me and Emaleigh with a quick trip to the sunshine state to meet my new niece, Zoe Claire Garcia. It was awesome to get to see my sister in full mommy mode. Jenny's got that natural nurturing instinct. And she was pretty generous sharing Zoe snuggles. I got to hold her a bit. Jenny even skipped baby baths all week just so I could bath Zoe when I got there. Ms. Zoe was calm cool and collected for the most part. Emaleigh had a great time too but she was less interested in Zoe and much more interested in Ziggy, my dog nephew and Zoe's big brother. I wish I had a better picture of him but he did not like the red eye on my point and shoot camera. I will replace this photo when I get a better photo from Jenny, hint hint.And then she definitely soaked up some Aunt Jenny and Uncle N8 love too.

My plane left from the Orlando area on Sunday at 3:30 but we took off from Lakeland at 10:30 am so we could use the trip to fit in another visit with family. My childhood friend and cousin who lives in Winter Garden, Florida. We stopped by their home for a quick lunch and visit. She and her husband, Mr. RB, have two son's. The oldest will be 3 in October and played very nice with Emaleigh, sharing his toys and showing her how they all worked. Her baby was born only a couple of weeks before Zoe. I love this picture with the two of the in their infant carriers still snoozing. Both of these have plenty of hair that they could spare some to my one year old who is still as bald as the day she were born.

Ofcouse we managed to get one rare pictire of Jenny, Dawn and I all together. It has been so long since we were all together. I think it was at my wedding four years ago. I hope we will be able to update this photo sooner than four years from now. The trip was quick and the visits were both entirely too short, but I am glad that I got out there anyway. Sometimes you take a day for a trip you'd prefer to bee a week long just because that week never comes along. Maybe at the end of 2010 we can all reconvene in a mountian town to chase all of our toddlers plus one more from Texas in the snow.