Tag

Look at me playing along!  Go me!

Slower than cold tar on a January morning, but playing along none the less.
Thanks to Large Marge over at Taking It On, you get even more bloggy goodness from me today!
You lucky people you!

1- What are you most fond of accomplishing in 2010?
Truthfully?  Not having complete mental/emotional breakdown.  There were some pretty rough moments  in a few months of this year.  I was reading over my pregnancy journaling the other night and was reminded of the night about a week before Sam was born (when we didn't know how extensive his problems and care needs would be).  That whole day was just awful, the kids were disobedient, the house was an incredible mess...just about everything was going wrong.  And then I was trying to be all optimistic and put boy bedding on the crib when the crib broke.  That night I sobbed on my husband in a big way constantly repeating "I can't do this!  I can't do this!  8 kids, one who may need care 24hrs a day, you in school and working, what am I going to do?  How am I going to make it through a single day?  I can't do this!" It was not pretty.  He just held me and let me cry.  Poor guy.

On a happier note, I really am thrilled that I was able to run throughout most of my pregnancy and that even on the days I was sick (till 6 months), I was tired and I was awkwardly waddling along, I still sucked it up and got out there and tried.
Also that I started running again at 3wks post baby, and that I was able to eek out a half marathon this year, and before baby was 3 months old at that!  (paying for it now....but that's beside the point) 
 Oh,  and not my accomplishment, but I am super excited that my sweet husband figured out what he wants to be when he grows up and that he is in school working towards that.  1 more quarter till he's halfway done!  yay!  


2- What are your running goals for 2011?
Currently-to actually be able to run again.  for more than a mile and a half.
Sad.  (curse you knee!)
Already signed up for my first 2011 Tri, so I'm gunning to run that leg faster than I did last time I did this event, especially since my baby will be the same age as my last baby was last time I did this Tri.
Run 1000 miles.
Run my first marathon.
New PRs all the way around (5K, 10K and 1/2).
Anybody laughing at me yet?

3- What is your favorite race?
This year it was the Love Your Body 10K-running with a friend, beautiful course, perfect weather....the only thing that could have made it better is if I didn't have the stomach flu.
Overall probably the Provo Halloween Half Marathon.  Tons of fun, gorgeous course.  Couldn't make it work this year with as long as I would have been away from baby, but definitely looking forward to that one next year!

4- What is your favorite Holiday guilty pleasure?
Food.
Lots and lots of food.  Chased by more food and topped off with food.
Eating rules go out the window.  Does this surprise anyone?

5-What is your most embarrassing running moment?
I thought I was going to have a new one after that stomach flu 10K, but I seriously lucked out.
Really I've lucked out all around, nothing too bad has happened here.  I'm sure people who saw me were embarrassed for me during plenty of my pregnant runs this year-the early ones where I would gag and heave as I ran, or the later ones where I waddled as I ran.
I guess the only one that applies, and it was more funny than embarrassing, is when I was singing along to my music-quite loudly-thinking I was alone out on the trail in the middle of nowhere.  Turns out I wasn't alone.  The guy in the orange jacket got a serenade.  Hope he enjoyed it.

I'm tagging some local running peeps, MaryAnne, and Trish, and tagging Laurie too (I know you got tagged recently, but I think it was a different one...)  Any of you others that want to jump in and share, go for it!
You're it!

One more picture

Ok two.
Who could resist.

New pj's.
A new hat.
For me of course.  He really doesn't care what he's wearing, but dang it, I was not able to pass up that hat!

And look-there's a big fat smile that I haven't seen for days.
There goes my heart again.

Christmas

Christmas was fabulous this year.   For a million reasons.
The biggest one is pretty obvious....

And despite having had THE most horrible cold for the past week, he still managed to be congenial and return to his happy self for part of the day.  It was a treat to get a glimpse of his smiles again.

It's funny, by the time we get everything under the tree on Christmas Eve, I always feel a little overwhelmed.

It made me very glad that years ago we decided we weren't going to overdo it anymore.
By the time child #4 rolled around the amount of toys and children's items that were accumulating were completely overwhelming.  It was at that point when we heard about a family in my parent's neighborhood that for Christmas gifted "something you want, something you need, something to wear and something to read."  Brilliance!  We have based our Christmas gifts around that since then and it has been such a relief.  Less spending, less "stuff", everyone feels equal....it's fabulous.  They still get a 'Santa' gift and stockings and all that, but think about it-with as many kids as I have, even the scaled down version of Christmas adds up to a lot of things under that tree!  We also do a name drawing for a gift exchange with a sibling, and on top of that they have grandparents and aunts and uncles....yeah.  Still more than enough.
Actually this year was about as close to perfect as it could get.  Everyone felt spoiled, but nothing felt overdone.  It was great!

The stocking line up-since once they are filled they are too heavy to hang back up:

I have a lot of kids.
(still not sure how the cereal, 2 liter bottle thing got started, but they asked about it the whole week before Christmas, so apparently they like it.  Everyone *must* have their own hot cocoa, and yes, that is marshmallow cream as well.)

The kid line up:

I have a lot of kids.
Waiting for the music to start that signals the living room is no longer off limits and the real morning may begin.
(and yes, those stairs are still unfinished.  But hey, at least we've narrowed down the carpet we want.  Now we just finish saving for it.  Eventually.)

Dallin was sick

but was feeling a little better after finding his long-awaited pirate sword.

The younger boys finally got their bunk beds-and all the kids thought it was cool that they got to open such a giant gift.
Jacob felt the need to direct their unwrapping efforts-

Lincoln has practically lived in his fire suit, and for the past three days has walked around saying "I knew Santa would bring my fire suit, I just knew it!  I knew he would come!  Best Christmas ever!"

Makes me smile.

The big boys had a basketball themed year-each getting a new ball and tickets to a Jazz game.

The girls are growing up, I felt a little boring to be fulfilling their wishes of an ipod dock/stereo and a jewelry box with jewelry, but it made them happy.

And it was nice to be able to indulge in some little girl gifts as well-there is nothing like a new doll on Christmas morning.  (am I the only mom out there who LOVES the smell of a new doll?)

Even Sam got in on the action, which the kids loved.

The aftermath was a whole lot of happy kidlets.

All in all, a fabulous morning, a wonderful day.

Even if we are all a little bit crazy.

who has a lot of kids

Twas the Night Before Christmas.....

And at 11:23 they still aren't all in bed!  Ack!

The three oldest are hanging out, playing a game with Dad.

The Lego Hogwarts game is awesome by the way.

Hopefully you are tucked snugly in bed.
I am about to go get all the presents out and fill stockings and all that good stuff.
So for now I leave you with my rag-tag crazy herd, and the closest thing we get to a decent picture with a couple of sickies and a case of the Christmas crazies.  And a preteen who is in that "I'm too cool" stage apparently.

Love the Christmas jammies.
Can't wait to try and squeeze them all on to one couch next year!

I am so looking forward to the kids tomorrow morning, especially Charlotte, who was so excited we thought she might have an aneurism when she got to unwrap a deck of Uno cards today.  It was fabulous.
The baking is done, the wrapping is done, and now it's time for me to be done.
Good night all, and Merry Christmas!

Brothers

I was going through some pictures recently and found this one:

Taylor with Sam, back in October.

I love it.  I can't help but smile when I see it.
It reminded me of a similar picture....

Same big brother, different baby boy.

As I continued to look through pictures, I found others of my boys that I loved.

Ok, so it may not always be fun (as evidenced above), but the good times definitely outweigh the bad.

It is so fun to see the relationship between these boys!

I know they drive each other crazy, and sometimes they think they hate each other.

But brothers are a great thing.

I have two myself,  my younger brother AJ

and my older brother Christopher,

who we sometimes refer to by his Indian name, "experiments in facial hair".
Ha!
That picture was taken as he was getting up to sit on the saddle so we could sing Happy Birthday to him back in September.

What a good sport.

Despite the fact that we all live within an hour of each other, we don't see each other all that often.  When we do we have a great time.
On Thanksgiving my older brother laughed so hard I thought he was going to pass out.  Which of course made my sister and I laugh so hard I thought we were going to pass out.  I wish my younger brother would have been there.

It's nice how you appreciate some things a little more as you grow up.

Like brothers.

HBBC Check in. And stuff.

OK. that little novocaine induced angry elf that stopped by yesterday is gone.

Phew!

Not nearly as much pain/tenderness as I expected today, much to my relief.  And I've got to hand it to this new dentist....he just called to check on me, see how I was feeling and how my mouth was fairing.  At 6:30 at night.  I mentioned there was a rough spot where one of the fillings is, he said it's likely just a little extra composite, but if it's annoying to stop by anytime and he'll take care of it.  Two thumbs up dentist.

We got a bunch of snow overnight-woke up to 8 new inches (the kids measured) and it kept snowing for a bit after that, so we ended up with a little more.  Absolutely beautiful!  And it kept the kids thoroughly entertained all day.  My beautifully peaceful untouched snowy front yard (one of my favorite winter things) is no more, since the kids built an igloo there after all the play in the backyard tromped that snow too much.  It may not be picturesque, but it sure is cool.

Also, Sam is sick today, it's hard to be ornery when your baby is so sad looking.  Poor kid is floating around 101* and is just sleepy and miserable....hopefully it leaves quickly.  His sad little whimper of a cry is just, well, sad.

Anyway-
As the title suggests, I'm publicly checking in on this little challenge.  The Holiday Bootie Buster Challenge if you missed that the first time around.  Just a couple more weeks left....time to kick things in to high gear.  I'm nowhere near the level of those who will win, but after a couple of really pathetic weeks, I'm anxious to hit a big number again.  Week 1 was 38 points, week 2 at 27.5-just shy of my goal of 30 points per week.  Then I got that nasty cold.  And so did everyone else.  Then my knee issues decided to peak, plus the performances and parties and all that jazz really cramped my points.  A sad 16.5 in week 3, and a really sad 13 in week 4.
Working to change that this week!  So far I'm at 8 points for today alone (woo-hoo!).  Today is also the first time I have been able to run-at all-in 10 days.  That nasty achey soreness turned into a fully seized knee mid-run on the Friday before last.  Made for an interesting few hours.  I've not ever had a body part just plain stop working on me and be stuck in one position so that was a new experience.   The good news is that I was able to hop off the treadmill without falling.  Thank goodness!  Falling on the treadmill is one of my fears.  Apparently I've watched too much Biggest Loser or something.  I wasn't able to run much today, I hit 1.65 miles when I started getting those shockwave warnings in my knee cluing me in that is was time to stop running NOW, but I was able to walk it off without any pain so that is encouraging.  I also made it through a boot camp class this morning with a mostly cooperative knee.  Reeeeeeally hoping it will continue to do better and I can avoid a dr for whatever this issue is.

The other challenge I signed up for was the Maintain Don't Gain challenge.
Happy to say that it is smooth sailing there too!  Thankfully I'm doing a little better than just maintaining, and actually have dropped a couple of pounds.  Let's see if I can succeed in not regaining them over the next week!  This whole accountability thing works well for me!  The small jeans fitting is a big motivator too!  Don't want those to stop fitting after I've finally made it back to them, and done so faster than after any other babies!

Speaking of dropping a couple of pounds, I was sent a book to review that I am really enjoying.  It's called Cinch!  by Cynthia Sass, and I can't wait to give it all a try-on my guinea pig husband!  He's dying to drop some weight since that whole schoolworkfamilycrazylife thing has caught up to him over the year and he's packed on some pounds.  Great info about healthy eating, and some fabulous recipes too.  Review when I finish the book....and I think we need a giveaway with that review too.  Oh, ok!  Giveaway it will be!  Stay tuned for that, just in time for New Year's resolutions.

And now I'm off to cuddle my sick little guy, while Aaron is out taking his last final of the year!

Happy Tuesday!

I no longer hold the title

Until today I did.
This morning I still planned on holding it.

The title of being the ONLY member of my family (parents and siblings) that hasn't had a root canal.

I went in this morning for a couple of fillings and a crown.

When I say a couple of fillings I mean four.

You remember that post about not loving dental work so much?  Yeah.  Today cemented that even more firmly.

After five shots-FIVE!-to numb me up appropriately, the work began for that stinkin' crown.  After a lot of drilling the dentist turned to me and said, in a sightly worried tone, "uh...did anyone mention the possibility of a root canal?"
Through my numbed mouth I mumbled out a few sentences that he was able to interpret correctly to indicate the fact that I had been alerted to the possibility of a root canal-WAY off in the future.  The reason we were doing the crown was to avoid needing a root canal for now and hopefully for a very long time.
Turns out once he was in there working on the tooth it was worse than they thought.
Lucky me.

Impromptu root canal it was.

My appointment was at 10.  It is now 5pm and my face has almost regained feeling.

I sat in that chair for almost two hours.  After all the garbage for the root canal we moved on to fillings.  One side-the side with the root canal-went fine.  The other side, well, he started drilling.  And I started feeling it.  Um, ouch.
Enter more shots in my mouth.

Seriously, can you tell how much I thoroughly enjoyed this morning?
(please not the extreme sarcasm here)

I have said I would rather give birth than do dental work.  I am not kidding.  My word, I even look better after I give birth than after dental work!  I look like I've been in a stinkin' boxing ring all day.  Seriously. The swelling and I swear my eyes look black...I had to stop at the bank on the way home and as I apologized for my freakish inability to speak clearly due to the dental work, the teller said, "that's no fun...you really should go lie down I think...."

That's encouraging.

I came home and took 3 Ibuprofen and 2 extra strength Tylenol.  If you know how I feel about pills, you know this is serious for me.
At least I am tolerable now.
I hope.

I sincerely hope your Monday morning was more fun than mine.

Swollen, partially numb and hungry, who still hates the dentist.  And the stinkin' elf who wants to be one.