30 July 2013

{Our TWO Weeks} - 7/15/13 - 7/28/13

There life goes, getting even busier again!  July just might be the busiest month on record.  Not only are summer festivities in full swing, but both Mike and I started new jobs!  There are not enough hours in the day....








Madden is one busy boy.  Although he has started his "tantrum throwing", he still has his sweet moments which make up for all of it.  My favorite is when we tuck him in bed at night and say "Night Night, Love you".  And he responds "Love you!".  Awww, makes my heart melt. :)











Mariah is really growing up before our eyes.  Every day I can SEE that she got taller and if we mention that to her she is SOO excited and a huge smile beams from her face.

She has also been busy packing up her backpack in anticipation for preschool.  She even has us "pretend" to drop her off - we give her a hug and kiss, tell her to have a great day and she just smiles and looks so proud.  (Hopefully the REAL drop off in a couple weeks goes just as smooth!).






Mike and I ran the BIX on Saturday.  I wasn't able to train for it as much as I should have due to some hip pain I've had off and on, but all turned out OK!  The weather was AMAZINGLY cool, which is PERFECT for running.  I was able to cut 8 minutes off of my time from last year and Mike finished about 30 seconds before me.  He did awesome for his first real race and I was happy with my improvement over last year! :)







Mariah was on a roll these past two weeks - I tried to document everything she said and here's some of them:


  • "Hey Mom, guess what!  I know all my letters and I can count to 24!"
  • "I don't like sun - I only like music, ice pops and suckers!"
  • "Mom, why do you live in the garage?"

I have no explanation for any of the above - except maybe bullet #2...



EVAN'S 17TH BIRTHDAY

My brother Evan turned 17 on July 23rd.  What? 17?  Some days I feel like I'M still 17 - and he's a whole 11 years younger!  We celebrated with good food and an ice cream cake :)  Mariah even made Evan a little card that she was SO proud to open with him.  She loves her Uncle Ev :)





INFORMAL 10 YEAR REUNION

On Saturday, July 27th I met up with some high school friends for an "informal" 10 year reunion.  We had a blast looking through the year book and catching up on what everyone had been up to!  It's incredibly hard to believe that high school was 10 whole years ago.  Thankfully our old age didn't keep us from having a good time (some more than others - ahem - MIKE) ;)




Madden had a BLAST with the sprinkler with all the HOT days we had!

We enjoyed many laughs watching Madden vs. the sprinkler :)


15 July 2013

{Our Week} - 7/8/13 - 7/14/13






Uh oh!  My sweet little Madden is starting to get an attitude lately.  He's always been a laid back, go with the flow guy - but this week he started throwing mini tantrums and yelling "NO!" when we would ask him to do something.  I guess that's how it works as they inch closer to 2 - and being that he turned 19 months old this week that makes him closer to 2 than to 1!  How can it be?

My favorite phrases from Madden this week include: "shoe-ies" (shoes) and "see me" (which means "help me" - that one took a while to figure out!).









Mariah was all about crafts this week!  She spent a lot of time coloring, painting and making perler bead projects.  Our poor neighbors often get the bulk of Mariah's craft projects.  There is a 4 year old girl that lives across the court and Mariah likes to drop off presents at her front door.  It's pretty cute!  Mariah is also really into puzzles lately and its amazing how well she does with them!  We hit up a garage sale on Saturday and scored 4 puzzles for $2.  I love good garage sale finds :)









Mike started his training for the Bix this week.  I had no idea he wanted to run it, but he came up with a training plan and has been sticking too it!  On top of his road biking, that is.  It will be a fun thing to do together :)

I started a new job this week!  I am really enjoying it and it's a HUGE bonus that it's close enough to my house that I can run home for lunch and have some "extra time" in the morning and evening.  I knew that 45 minute round trip to Rock Island everyday for the last 4 years took time out of my day, but it's CRAZY how big of a difference it makes.  It's so nice to be working in public accounting again :)




My friend Megan shared this video earlier this week and let me tell you, this is 100% Mariah.  There's not a day that goes by where getting dressed is "easy"!

On Friday, Mariah refused to wear ANYTHING we picked out so we told her OK get yourself dressed.  She finally came downstairs wearing a glittery neon green skirt and an black embroidered air show t-shirt, with pink and white striped socks.

I asked "Mariah, are you REALLY going to wear that?"

Her response: "Yes I am because it makes me happy"



Whitewater Junction!

After a huge mom fail having the wrong dates for swimming lessons on Saturday morning and being that the kids were already in their swimsuits, it only made sense to head to a local pool!

It was our first time at Whitewater Junction in Rock Island and we had a blast!  We got there at 10AM right when they opened.  Mariah had fun trying out all the slides and there was plenty of fun things for Madden to do in the zero depth pool.






We had a great morning as a family and even worked in some of our own "swimming lesson" skills with the kids :)


Is "DIVA" the right word?

Oh, and as a side note, Mariah wore her goggles around her neck the entire time, refusing to put them on correctly.  Makes total sense, right?





09 July 2013

{Our Week} - 7/1/13 - 7/7/13



Madden communicates with us SO well that I sometimes forget he's only 18 months old!  Lately he's been nodding in response to questions we ask him: "Madden do you want to read a book?" ::Nod:: and says "mmhmm!".  Then runs off to find a book.  He's even put some phrases together like "go grammie's house".  Oh, and he LOVES Elmo all of the sudden, too!  We can't even go for a quick car ride without the Elmo music playing.  Fun times!
Mariah, oh Mariah.  Everyone said that terrible twos are nothing compared to "terrible threes".  I totally didn't believe you guys because the twos were bad enough.  But I get it - TOTALLY get it.  And many say the fours are even more "terrible" - so this time I'M GOING TO BELIEVE IT.  Gosh I love the girl, but now even if we tell her "NO" repeatedly, she has the knowledge and strength to do it anyways.  So - to anyone that has raised a child past the age of four I commend you! :)  It surely isn't ALL bad though!  This week Mariah wrote "MOM"!  So proud and excited to see her learning so much!  Preschool will be here before we know it and this girl is READY!

Mike and I spent the day after the 4th of July having an "US" day.  We started the morning at the gym where we attended a couple group classes.  I lucked out and did a Zumba class while Mike did a "Fitness Frenzy" class (AKA: circuit training x 10).  He made me join in on the last 20 minutes - it was quite the workout!  After that we did some yardwork and then went to lunch (soup, salad and breadsticks at Olive Garden!).  The rest of the afternoon we spent shopping and relaxing.  Then we met up for an ADULT evening in LeClaire with my family.  It was a GREAT day and a nice little "break" from our busy schedules!




I did the firecracker 10k on the 4th of July.  It was a hilly, challenging race (why do I keep picking those?!).  Thankfully the weather was nice and I was happy with how the race went!  Next up: the BIX!



"Mom and Dad - you are NOT listening.  You need to go to timeout and can't come out until I tell you!"

(Hmmm... I wonder if she hears this a lot?)



4th of July Fun & Sprinkler!

We had a busy week/weekend with the 4th of July holiday in there.

The kids enjoyed the parade on Thursday morning.


The rest of the weekend we spent a lot of time outside and even broke out the sprinkler to cool us down on Sunday afternoon.  The kids didn't know what to think of the sprinkler and spent most of the time running away from it :)





I hope you had a great FOURTH! :)

We sure did!



02 July 2013

{Our Week} - 6/24/13 - 6/30/13




Madden was all about giving hugs and kisses this week :)  There's nothing sweeter 
than an 18 month old trying to give you an open mouth kiss on the cheek!  He also mastered blowing bubbles at swimming lessons on Saturday.  He was putting the bigger kids in the class to shame!

Madden had his 18 month check up this week.

His stats:
Weight: 23 lbs 14 oz
Height: 32 inches

My little boy is getting so big!!




Mariah is an ATHLETE.  Pretty sure this comes from her father, because any one that knows me knows that my athletic ability and my competitiveness is less than great.  HA

This week she mastered swinging a bat AND bumping a volleyball off of her forearms.  She's also doing great at catching a ball and she's been a frisbee-throwing champ for months now. 

OH!  And her swimming lesson teacher said this week that she was the BEST swimmer in the class.  Pretty sure she was beaming from ear to ear all day on Saturday. (Hey, now that swimming ability MIGHT have come from her momma!)

She makes us proud :)






Mike & I did an ab challenge for the entire month of June.  We really stuck to it and only missed a day or two for the whole month - which was REALLY good for us.  The final day (June 30th) we successfully completed 100 SITUPS, 200 CRUNCHES, 2 MINUTES PLANK and 60 PUSH UPS.  If you told me a month ago that I could have done that I would have laughed and said NO WAY.  But here we are at the end of the month and we DID it!  I have never felt my abs like this before- unfortunately there's still some layers on top that need to go away to show them off (haha).  In July we have plans to try out T-25 and maybe a CORE challenge as well!  Can't wait :)



Mariah's favorite phrase lately is "Jodie said....{fill in blank}".  Jodie is our day care provider and unfortunately get's blamed for a lot of Mariah's demands.

For example, one morning this week Mariah insisted that she couldn't wear the brown shorts I had picked out, stating "Jodie says I can't wear those shorts because they are too scratchy and she doesn't like them".

I also found out from Jodie that Mariah uses this phrase a lot during the day as well: "Jodie says you can't play with that toy and you need to give it to me so I can play with it".

YEP.  Poor Jodie.  Glad she's a good sport about it ;)

She has other tactics as well.

Like this weekend as we were getting ready for bed she said "Exercise is good for you, right Mom?  So that means I can go outside and ride my bike now!"

BUT MY FAVORITE THING THAT MARIAH SAID THIS WEEK:

"Aye, Aye, MAYBE!"

(Her attempt to act like a pirate)
(Maybe = Matey.  hehe)




ENJOYING SUMMERTIME!

We enjoyed the nice weather this weekend (well, Sunday at least) with a walk/bike ride with the kids.  Mariah is SO fast on her bike - we had a hard time keeping up.





Madden enjoyed riding around in his little car we picked up at the second hand store earlier in the week :)




We even ventured on the bike path for a little bit.  At one point a biker was approaching us and Mariah freaked out, headed off into the grass, jumped off her bike and threw it to the ground.  I had NO idea what she was doing, but she informed me that she didn't want to get hit!  Oh, how I wish I had caught it on video because it was HILARIOUS to witness.



We even used the first harvest from our garden this week - BROCCOLI!  YUM :)



Gosh I love these kids.

Even if they are crazy... I guess we can only blame ourselves for that, right? ;)