The baby girl at 10 months

Oh this child.

She keeps us hopping!
Every time I think "the next kid must be easier!", that next kid proves me wrong.  I guess my first clue from her should have been crawling at 5 months.

I know every parent always says it, but I really can't believe how fast the past year has flown.  It blows my mind that she is already ten months old and that in a matter of weeks she will have her first birthday!

Emily is all sorts of wild and crazy.  Her little personality has never been anything but obvious, but it is coming out more and more recently.  This girl is a show off!

She decided to take her first steps before she even hit the nine month mark, making her the earliest of our kids to walk.  She had been cruising for a while, started standing on her own right about 8 months, and then at 8 months and almost 3wks she took those first steps.  Three big ones.

Crazy kid.

She is a climber too, which really...well...at this point it's completely normal that my babies remind me of monkeys.  Now she has started stacking things to climb on.  Really?  Way too early for that.

She has cut 3 of her top 4 teeth over the past couple of weeks, that 4th one is so darn close.  If you numbered them from right to left 1-4, she cut 1 first and looked like she was going to cut 4 for the vampire look.  That darn tooth 4 is stubborn though and 3 beat it out.  So she had an awesome snaggle tooth look going for a few days.  Then tooth 2 popped through, and we have got to be close to the set of 4 being complete any minute.

She is an amazing eater and has a taste for some fabulous foods.  One of her favorite lunches is quinoa with black beans and chicken.  Another favorite is one we had last night; sweet potato chili.  She could not get enough!

Despite the fact that she inhales food she is still a little peanut, weighing in at her 9 months appointment at 15lbs 6oz.  Between all of the nursing and the constant eating you'd think there would be a little more substance to those chunky thighs of hers, but apparently she burns it off as fast as she can pack it down and is all just fluff.

Snuggly, cuddly fluff.

With cheeks that are still threatening to take over the world.

The most kissable squeezable cheeks there ever were.

And since she has also decided to finally become a decent sleeper again (it's been a long 6+ months of up every 2 hours!), everyone is a little happier to see those cheeks when she's up for the day by 6am.

The marathon that wasn't

In a perfect world, last weekend I would have been a few hours south running the Sand Hollow Marathon.

I hate to break it to you people, but it's not a perfect world.

Though I was good with my decision recently to let it go, I still found myself kinda wishing on Saturday that I would have been there.  Although life wouldn't have allowed it anyway and then I would have drowned in guilt while running the entire thing if I had driven down there and tried to have something else make do at home.

It was warmer there.  That would have been nice.  On Saturday we woke up to this:

 After a week of super warm temps recently, which allowed me to start working on the running tan lines

(woohoo! Yes it was tan not burn, not sure why the pic looks so pink), it wasn't my favorite thing to see.

Especially since I woke up at 5:20 and realized that I was supposed to have my oldest at the Middle School for Science Olympiad at....5:15.  Whoops.  Knowing the plan was for the bus to leave by 5:45 I yanked her out of bed and figured it would be ok because I can make it to the Middle School in less than 15 minutes when all the stars align.  Then we opened the front door.  Dangit.
It took 30 minutes to get there.  That above pic was taken about halfway home (at a stop sign. I promise.) In a spot where the snow was light enough for me to actually stop at a stop sign.  On the way there we just rolled through them.  Because it was 5:30 on a Saturday morning and there were pretty much no other cars out and I knew that if I tried to stop I was going to just slide right off the road in my behemoth van.  It's super awesome to not be able to see more than about 20 feet in front of you.
Good news was that only the teacher and one other student had made it to the school at that point so she didn't get left behind.

Next up was getting child the third to Battle of the Books with her teammates.  Thank heaven for one of the other moms knowing how awful the roads were and volunteering to take the girls in her big old 4 wheel drive truck so I could go back home to my other kidlets.  So I could get Taylor back to his scout campout.  And hope Aaron could get home because he had been working an overnight nursing shift and some of the roads he had to take to get home had been closed.  Awesome.  

It turned out to be a marathon weekend after all.  Just not of the race variety.

But hey, had I raced I would have missed driving one of my kids somewhere and running into this around the corner.

Really?

Even out here we don't see that every day.

I did log 26 miles and change over the weekend, so there's that.  Finishing my long run and feeling like I could have gone 26.2 was nice.  It wouldn't have been a fantastic finish but for some reason just knowing that I could have run that race placated my crazy brain.
8 miles at pace on Friday (in a ridiculously wicked wind), and 18 (and a little bit) on Saturday, mostly slogging through all of that unplowed snow.  I tried to take a picture about halfway through when I slowed down to fuel, but my phone froze.  Guess it was a little chillier than I realized.
The storm did blow over by the time I was wrapping up and I got to run the last three miles on actual road because the sun had come out and the snow had melted off the blacktop.
18 miles of squishy wet shoes and only one teeny tiny blister on the top of one toe.  Amazing.
Finishing 18 miles feeling really good, also amazing.
Excited about running 20 next weekend.  There is something about running 20 that just feels awesome.  Not always physically awesome, but awesome none the less.
7 1/2 weeks till Ogden Marathon.
Getting excited!

Be a Princess

Once upon a time little girls everywhere aspired to be princesses.
It was cute, it was fun and no one complained.

Then feminism happened.
(Don't get confused here and think I have any desire for things to be like they were back in the day when women had no rights and no vote and no voice.  Because I don't.)

Somewhere along that road though, the word princess became a dirty word.
The masculinization of women became the goal, rather than embracing the strengths that inherently belong to women.  If you dreamt of a Prince Charming you were weak.  If you hoped for a knight in shining armor you were dependent and delusional.  If you focused on feminine traits and the strength of being kind and gentle, you were shunned.

More recently it seems to be swinging back to somewhere in the middle.
I know some people that are hugely bothered by this.  I'm sorry if you're one of them.
I'm glad that it's become ok to celebrate being feminine again.  And I'm grateful that more people seem to realize that feminine doesn't equal weak.  Very often the quiet and enduring strength of women is the most amazing strength there is.

I saw this little clip yesterday.



It actually made me all teary.

I am blessed to be a part of a religion, and really a culture that celebrates the divine nature of women.
After I shared that Disney clip on Facebook, a friend sent me this link.



Love it.

Be amazing.
Be a force for good.
Be a Princess.

A week of firsts

Last week was a week of firsts here.

The first run in a tank and skirt.  Yippee!!  I cannot begin to tell you how happy this makes me after working to get through runs like this one.

This week was also the first stroller run of the season.

Happy to have this view again!  Even if it was windy enough that it felt like pushing a brick wall.  I forgot how much harder it is to run with the beast than on my own. Between growth of kids and shrinking of me, the stroller weighs more than me now.  

I may need to time these better during the day as Emily wasn't exactly thrilled this time.  She voiced her displeasure for most of the last two miles.  It was easier when she was tiny and immediately went to sleep.  We'll work on that.  I think she's just irritated that she isn't running herself.  She'll learn to love it again.  I have faith in her.
We had to wait till the afternoon to run since it's still pretty darn chilly in the morning here, which meant Lincoln joined us on his bike.  As though to make a point, mother nature couldn't just let the wind be a bother, she had to send plenty of tumbleweeds our way.  It made for some good laughs.

We went from celebrating the fact that the weather was creeping up to the 50s and shot right to 70 degrees yesterday.  70!  That's a fabulous first for the year.  Too bad we'll see snow again in a few days.

It was Emily's first time in the backyard swing.

She loved it.
The older kids loved it to.  I LOVE that they loved it just as much as she did.  It is so awesome that they get to share in the fun and joy of a little one experiencing life for the first time.

It was also Emily's first time swimming.
(don't worry, we were indoors of course)
We have been blessed with kids who love the water and she is no exception.  Sadly, I didn't get the camera out till a half a second before she was done.   Like DONE done.

But I still love that picture.

It was Sam's first time at this pool and he had an absolute blast.  He could not get enough!
I'm also happy to report that Aaron and I survived our first trip to the pool with all nine kids and no casualties.  Though I am always in headcount mode, I think I counted to 9 more times in that hour and a half than I ever have in my life.  And then there were enough other kids in the pool that I went to the name rundown every ten seconds.  MaliaTaylorAlainaJacobDallinLincolnCharlotteSamEmily.  MaliaTaylorAlainaJacobDallinLincolnCharlotteSamEmily.  MaliaTaylorAlainaWait a second, why can't I see Jacob? Oh thank goodness there he is!DallinLincolnCharlotteSamEmily.   Good times.
Really good times.

sometimes you need a little change

I can't be the only one that sees hints of Spring and is ready for something new.

I do love winter, and the peaceful perfectness that comes with a fresh blanket of snow, and all that good stuff, but goodness I am SO ready for change now!  A month ago I was chomping at the bit to be done with winter and cold and being stuck inside.  Ready to start cleaning out the house, the yard and anything else that gets in my way.

I decided I needed a little trim.

I decided that beige was boring.  "They say taupe is very soothing", but it was time for a change.

And now there is a lot of blue.  Aaron loves it when he goes out of town for the week and comes home to things like this.  (I'm only being slightly sarcastic)

Yes, we changed the burned out lightbulbs too.
Only a peek at the dining room change because I still need to change out the curtains in the living room and figure out the rug situation there.  I did find the *perfect* rug, but it's Anthropologie.  And $998.  So that's obviously not happening.
 The dining room curtains are changing too and there will be photos back up on that wall but we work in stages here.  Which translates to hopefully I can find the right frames within the next month.

And yesterday, after a number of dry and MUCH warmer days (first running tank tan lines appearing!  yay!), I hit the trails.  Amazing.  I headed up to ZigZag.  (also seen here with the fam)  It was gorgeous.  I forget how amazing getting off the road is.  Running is amazing and therapeutic anyway but taking it one step further and charging up the side of a hill is completely invigorating.   That is definitely a change I need to make more often.

The scent of self sufficiency

Can you smell them?
Yes, I'm asking you people a few states away.

I am all for self sufficiency.  I want my kids to be functional starting when they are young.  So far I feel like we are doing a pretty good job there.  But one of the drawbacks is burned eggs.

A couple of my children like to make eggs for breakfast.  Big fat thumbs up.
But one of these children has decided that to be "done" eggs must be slightly brown.  Um, no.
Light fluffy yellow scrambled eggs?  Breakfast perfection to me.  Not to him.

"Mom!  Those are still runny!  They aren't done!"

I can attest to the fact that they are not runny when I make them, as I have a serious aversion to runny eggs.  We even have a running (ha) joke about runny eggs stemming from a breakfast incident 13 years ago where Aaron and I were served "scrambled eggs" that were cooked in a saucepan.  They required a saucepan because they were much the same consistency as a sauce.  Eww.  This is why if you are ever at my house for breakfast and we happen to be making scrambled eggs you will hear one of us say "the eggs are done!" about 23 seconds after pouring them in the pan when they are obviously, painfully not done.

My dear child who has said paranoia about eggs that are actually yellow is the one who likes eggs the most.  Browned, dry eggs.

And so my house stinks like burned eggs.

Windows open, back door open, new Scentsy blocks melting...all I smell is the overcooked eggs.
Ah, the smell of self sufficiency.