Christmas, 2013

A Merry Christmas...

New jammies.

Paint your own tea set.

New baseball bat.

New Ivy and Bean book.

Jolly Holidays

School and nap schedules have kept us away from the Children's Museum for awhile, but we made it back for Jolly Holidays with some friends and had a great time.

The girls sat on Santa's lap.

Kitty was not interested in the slide, so we snuggled the wee one while our friends went down the slide.

Waiting for our turn on the carousel.

Monumental Marathon

My good friend, Jessica, inspired me to train for a half marathon.  Though I've been 'running' for a few years, I had yet to do any serious distance training.  

I'm only sorry I waited so long.  I had a wonderful friend who ran hills with me on Wednesdays.  I was pleasantly surprised by how much I loved the longer distances.  My good friend Adam started running the longer distances with me, and we had a great time.  Couldn't have asked for a better running partner!

I injured my knee about three weeks before the race and spent a week RICE-ing and worrying about not being able to run the race.  Early distance tapering.  I got some slow, short runs in before the race and was feeling optimistic.

The day of the race was chilly, but sunny.  The course was beautiful.  I felt great all the way through mile 9, and then some dude was out blasting music from Rocky, which totally got me through the next couple of miles.  J and the girls were watching for me at the final corner and I sprinted to the finish.  I was pleased with my finish time: 2:28.  

Halloween, 2013

Halloween fell on a Thursday this year.  For whatever reason, I was particularly dreading trick-or-treating this year.  So when the weather looked to be absolutely terrible on Halloween night, I was so happy.  Perfect excuse to get out of trick-or-treating while saving face.  Except then the city just changed the day of trick-or-treating to Friday.  Thanks a lot Indy.

So Thursday morning while the girls were in school, I scrambled to put together an indoor Halloween party.  They went on a scavenger hunt in the dark, indoor trick-or-treating, and to finish it off we played Halloween Bingo.

And then we went trick-or-treating on Friday.

Kitty found this ladybug costume that the girls wore when they were babies.  

Size 18 months. 

 "It fits!" she says.

It does zip up.

Halloween just wouldn't be Halloween without a little costume drama.  I messed up with the bat wing purchase, but check it out, I MADE these bat wings.

Kitty's Friday costume.  So many choices!  I was personally more fond of this costume than the ladybug.

Apple Orchard

Looks like we did a lot more in October than I thought.  Yay for two weeks of fall break.  

We spent the morning at the apple orchard with good friends we don't get to see often enough. 

Baby love

We were so happy for the much anticipated arrival of the girls' dear friend's little sister.  Of course, we loved her right away.  Kitty and I snuggle with her every chance we can get.

Conner Prairie

The last part of fall break got chilly and rainy, but we squeezed in a trip to Connor Prairie with our good friends.  We enjoyed the Civil War era portion of the park before it started raining: 

 Rolling bandages...

 Marching with a soldier...

 Dipping candles...

 And petting animals.  There was a sheep wandering around the barn, and Kitty followed it around for a good amount of time, getting her petting in whenever it stopped.  

Once the rain started, we spent a bit more time indoors in the art area.  

Fall Break

For fall break, we cruised on over to Ikea in Cincinnati for bookcases.  

More bookcases!

Another day we took the girls down to do the paddle boats on the canal.  It was an absolutely lovely day, couldn't have asked for a better time.

Sad, hungry, Charlie Brown girl.

We all felt better after lunch at Bru Burger.  BEST veggie burger I've ever had.  

Pick out a pumpkin day

The yearly pilgrimage.  We met Kitty's class at the local pumpkin patch and took our little hay ride through the fields to pick out a pumpkin.  

Kitty

This kid is a card...

She loves the Biscuit books and got her very own Biscuit dog for her birthday.

(Which we sadly lost today, many tears).

Clifford ears from school.

Cookies and milk with her best buddy.

Sidewalk chalk in the rain.

Build-A-Bear. Because there is no such thing as too many stuffed animals in her world.

 

Astronaut week at school.

Then there was this fish...

Boo turned seven (seven!) in August.  We had a lovely day: we had lunch at Le Peeps, saw Despicable Me 2, cake at Cheesecake Factory, and then for the big birthday present, we let her pick out a fish.  

Yes, I allowed it.

But only barely.

But she looooooved it.

Unfortunately, she had some weird allergic reaction (to the fish?  To the fish food?) and her poor little face got red and puffy, then puffier and puffier.  She ended up missing three days of school, and I was a little bit of a wreck for three days til all the swelling went down and there were no airway problems.

'Fair' is where you go to see the pigs with Grandpa

We've missed having Grandpa around to go to the fair with us.  We were happy to have him back with us this year.  

 It was the year of popcorn.

Little Hands on the Farm, always a favorite: 

  

 And the real reason we come to the fair: