Rock and Roll!

I just ran my first half marathon! I am saying it's my "first" since I might do another, although not for awhile. I don't think I trained as well as I could have (hard to find time with two littles and one of whom is nursing and doesn't like to take a bottle!)

I am so proud of what I did though, even though I was exhausted, and there were periods where I had to walk due to congestion, and I had to stop to pee because I had a nervous bladder and wasn't able to pee before the race began. When it got to the point where with every step all I could think of was having to go to the bathroom, I knew I had to stop. Thankfully I made it to mile 6 before it was all consuming.

As I was running the race, I was thinking of the things I normally do - Tito and the kids, what I was actually doing, especially with a heart condition, and having suffered 4 minor heart attacks. How awesome it was that I was running 13.1 miles...not to mention it was 4 1/2 months after giving birth via c-section. This half was something I actually had said I would never do and that I thought was "crazy". Well, now I'm on the crazy train, because I not only did it but I'm thinking of doing it again!

At about mile 9 I got really tired. I was dragging and basically I don't think I was running any faster than I could have walked. And then a man passed me who only had one leg and the other had a spring/running foot attached. And I thought, "I can do this...this guy is inspiring me." And then a little while later, when I passed some people who had shirts on that said they were running for friends and family members who had passed away from cancer, I remember thinking that everyone participating had their own reasons for doing it. My reasons seemed simple - to prove to myself that my body was able to do it after having Kawasaki Disease and being left with coronary aneurysms. To prove that I could do it so I could tell my children what I'd done and hopefully inspire them to someday do the same, or at least be active. And to prove to my husband and myself that I was dedicated to being in better shape so I'm around for him and the kids for a LONG time.

So I finished...and it was hard. And at one point I remember thinking that it was the hardest thing I'd ever done, even harder than having my kids via c-section and the recovery. The bonus is that recovery after a c-section is weeks, whereas after a race it's a few days. :) I struggled through the last two miles. I think part of why it was hard was that I didn't know where I was going, and I have a hard time judging how long I've got left if I don't know where I'm going. And I had chosen not to wear my GPS that tells me mileage. (Bad decision!)

Overall coolest part of the course was running through the I-90 tunnel...I took off my earphones to memorize the sound of thousands of feet going through the tunnel...amazing.

Here's some photos from the day:



Before we started...



My running club...we're doing jazz hands... :)



Before the race



You can't see it but this guy ran the whole marathon (26.2 miles!) juggling!


At the start!


Running through the I-90 tunnel...so cool!


Rounding the corner back into Seattle




Finishers (minus a couple of people who hadn't finished yet!)

House Hunters is fake? (Yeah, note the sarcasm...)

So recently there was an article in the Huffington Post about House Hunters being fake. The woman quoted in the article was someone who had appeared on the show and said the whole process was a lie, that she'd already purchased a home when they filmed and that the other houses they toured were their friends homes.

You can view that article here.

While this shouldn't be surprising to anyone, it's especially not surprising to me. Why? Because I contacted one of the producers of the show via the TLC website last June when we were starting the process of house hunting. The producer had me answer questions about when we would be closing on our home, and what overlap there would be between moving out of our apartment and into our new home. She told me specifically that they would only work with us once we had a closing date. We set up an interview by phone, and then they ended up canceling when I revealed to them that we were painting and doing some work on the house since we had a month overlap between moving out of our apartment and into the house. I also mentioned that we'd begun packing at our apartment and moving things over a little at a time. The producer said specifically that they wouldn't be able to film with things moved over or any work being done on the house. It needed to appear that even though we owned the house, that they would be filming in a home that we were considering to purchase.

I was a little disappointed to find out that this "reality" show was so staged, but it made sense in the long run especially considering how long some home purchases can take, and it would be very expensive to have production take place over a matter of possible weeks or months.

So I guess I can say I knew this before the lid was blown off this "secret" by this show participant! Now where's my article? :)

Paper Dot Mobile

So before Gaby was born, I decided I wanted to make a mobile for her room. I'd found several on Pinterest that I liked, but they were usually linked to Etsy, and I knew I could make one easily myself. I'd made this one for Santi before he was born, and I wanted something handmade (by me!) for her as well.

 

So I started looking online and I found a paper "dot" mobile to be the style that I liked the most. I went and grabbed some supplies (jump rings, needle nosed pliers, tiny hole punch (the one I have punches just a little larger than a pin hole) wooden dowels (12" long), and paper (I just bought 8 sheets of scrapbook paper (12" x 12") in the colors I wanted (pink, green and chocolate brown.)

 

I started by taking the jump rings and the needle nosed pliers and separating the rings.

When I was done, the rings looked like this:

 

I placed the rings on the dowels in four different spots (evenly placed on the dowel.)

After squeezing the first ring onto the dowel, I added a second ring below to hang the paper dots from:

When this was done, this was how the dowels looked:

I then took the pieces of paper (which I'd already punched into holes from the original 12" x 12" paper) and lined them up by size and took the tiny hole punch and punched a hole in the top and bottom of the circle.

 

After finishing punching the holes, I lined the circles up in the pattern I wanted.

I then followed the same procedure with the jump rings and pulled them open, but instead of attaching them to the dowel, I placed the rings in the holes punched in the paper circles and squeezed them shut so the paper could still move a bit but wouldn't fall off. I did this with the whole line of circles all the way down.

After attaching all of the circles together, I attached them to the dowel with the top jump ring.

 

 

I repeated this with all four lines of circles and attached them all to the dowel. When I was done, I joined the two dowels together with a ribbon (wrapped around the two) and used it to hang the piece with. Here is the finished product:

 

And I'd have to say Gaby enjoys looking at this mobile hanging over her crib! I had a banner with her name on it made as well using the same paper so it all matches.

 

Father's Day 2012

We had a great Father's Day weekend. The weather wasn't great, but we didn't let the grey skies get us down and headed out on Saturday for the Washington State Brewer's Festival. We'd heard of it before, but had never been, so we packed up the kids and decided to go.

The thing we noticed immediately when we got there and were walking in with our double BOB stroller was that there were SO many kids there (and mostly little ones.) I can't tell you how many times we've brought the kids to places (happy hours at family restaurants with friends, other festivals) where kids were allowed but no one else really brought them and we were looked at like we were crazy or just really out of touch to bring them. So we really liked that aspect. They had a whole section where they had blow up slides and bouncy houses for kids to go on. We let Santi out to run around in it for awhile, but he didn't want to go on the bouncy stuff, which was fine with us because all of the other kids were a lot older (and rougher) than he is.

We had a great time walking around, and sampling the different beers. We got some food for Santi and then let him run around some more before heading to the playground outside of the festival area. Santi had a great time running, sliding and going on the swings. And Gaby even got to go on the swings for the first time! She liked it but was over it pretty quickly. After leaving, we headed home with two tired kiddos (both fell asleep in the car on the way home.) We made dinner when we got home, and after we all ate, put the kids to bed and hung out.

Sunday morning, after a sleepless night due to Gaby waking every couple of hours, we went to church, then to eat lunch and then came home for naps. Tito enjoyed his gifts (some handmade things from the kids, and a new toolbox from all of us) and we had a nice dinner and put the kids to bed and went to bed early ourselves.

Gaby treated us to waking up every hour from when she went to bed through this morning. After talking to some friends, I've realized she's in a 4 month sleep regression period. We never went through this with Santi (he slept through the night from 6 weeks on and has never had sleep issues) so it hit us out of the blue. From what I've read it's really normal, but that doesn't mean it's not hard! And no real sleep is even harder!

All in all it was a great weekend though - here are some photos!

On the way to Brew Fest!

 

Someone has discovered her tongue and it is out all the time!

 First beer of the day!

New bubble wand!

 Happy girl!

Santi blending in with the crowd!

 Swinging!

First time on the swings!

Playing with her big brother's truck

Bubbles!

More closet organization!

Another project I tackled in May was organizing my front hall closet. It served a purpose...many purposes, actually. It housed the vacuum, games, coats, shoes, hats, diaper bag, computer bag, and other random odds and ends.It wasn't completely out of control, but I just wanted some more order.

I took a trip to Ikea to get some bins, since they have the cheapest ones around. I had some wall organizers that are actually supposed to hold things like saran wrap, and plastic bags in a pantry. But since we have such a large kitchen, we don't have a need for them so I decided to see if I could use them in this closet. I also had a wire shoe rack that had been in the garage and I brought it inside.

So here's the before:

 

 Just not serving a great purpose

I took about an hour after dinner one night and pulled everything out and reorganized it and put it all back in. Here's the after...I love that this project took so little time!

 

I used the racks on the wall to hold an extra purse, as well as my running stuff so it's all in one place and easy for me to grab when I'm headed out the door.

 

I added the hooks on the back wall to hang things like the diaper bag and an extra backpack.

 

 

Shelves above the hanging area. I have hats, gloves, etc in one, extra blankets and toys in another, and games in the last two.

I love little projects like this that take about an hour, but provide a better result than I'd expected!

Garage Organizing

Our garage has served as a dumping spot for all things that didn't fit into the house since we moved in here last August. We kept it as organized as we could, but without shelving and just a bunch of random nails, it was pretty difficult. And then we had a yard sale, and when things were done, everything just got shoved back into the garage with no organization. Plus, we were storing some things for my younger brother as well.

Here's the before...and yes, these photos give me anxiety because it's so messy (well, messy for me!):

 

So I got to work. We bought some shelves, and some hooks to hang the stuff up that we needed to hang.

It took me three days since I only worked on organizing things when the kids napped or after they went to bed. But finally, finally, I'm done! Please ignore the random table in the photos below...we are trying to sell it on Craigslist!

 

The white shelves right next to the door to the house will be for extra storage as well as for our emergency kit supplies. We're hoping to also get a freezer to keep out here to hold extra food. I'm so happy to be in the garage now. And, I'll be even happier when I get rid of that table! :)