As this posts...

I'm likely...

slowly, for the next couple a hours, give or take an hour.
(And why didn't I find this t-shirt until a few days before the race??)

And, when I cross the finish line, along with the other novice peons, after the pros and elites have collected their mega-bucks, hugged their trophies, went home, showered, ate a meal, took a nap, read a novel and ate another meal.... I'll have done a race I swore I'd NEVER do.


I also swore I'd NEVER do a marathon. Hmm.....

Be still, my heart..

all those tuition dollars must be paying off.




And, apparently I'm not such a bad mom, either.
Yes, my little emergent reader did this on his own.
Then he took off mom and put up Leah.
Because he is charming like that.

Had I known...

when I signed up to run a half-marathon to top off my best fitness summer ever, that I would end up training through the first trimester of my most morning sick-yest pregnancy yet, I might not have signed up.


But, I did.


So, I trained.


I'm slow.


Not near the shape I want to be.

But, gosh darnit, tomorrow morning we're loading up the kids and driving to OBX to visit with family and run a half-marathon.

My goals:

finish
be alive at finish
finish before nightfall
(And, since the race starts at 7am, this might be doable.)

He had but one question..

upon learning he will be a big brother again.

"Will Leah stay?"

1. I'm not kidding.

2. After falling over laughing and explaining that we are a family and everyone stays, he replied, "okay, good, because she is my friend."

3. Whew.

My Family

The Dad, Al

The Mom, Megan



The Son, Joshua




The Daughter, Leah




The Tiebreaker, TBA

Shh....

Don't tell them, but all the candy is behind the iPod thinger on the fridge.
Also, don't tell them that while they were only allowed to have one treat, I had candy for dinner.
(Candy for dinner: STELLAR part of my training program for the OBX half-marathon!)





The inevitable post-sugar crash

I have just about had it...

with this,



and this.




Thankfully, these two are lovable, precious and cute no matter how miserable, snotty or gross they happen to be.

The Obligatory "Pumpkin" Post

Its that time of year when all the classrooms across the region flock to the local farms for the "pumpkin picking-hayriding-cider sipping" field trip and Josh was not exempt.

He loved it, named his pumpkin "Wagon" (don't ask) and got us thoroughly misdirected in the corn maze.

Good fun had by all!

The other side of the desk...

Tonight I get to go to Josh's "Back To School Night"! I'm kind of excited to hear what they do since I usually only get random muttering about trains and a few broken lines of the weather song.

And I think it is extra nice to be on the "other side".

I didn't have to organize a presentation.

I haven't spent the last 4 hour straightening, laying out papers, straightening some more, and trying to find little Jimmy's family picture that was stuck to little Susie's.

I'm not sitting there yawning thinking, "Heh, I have to be back here in about 10 hours. I'm tired."

Yeah for being the parent this time!!

Little Birthday for a little girl

We celebrated Leah's birthday quite simply this year with just Josh, Mom and Dad.

Her cupcake was the highlight, of course.



Second to her gift.



Which apparently required too much effort to open on her own.

Baby wearing?

Check!



Gentle Mothering...



Not so much.



But, I suppose a baby sling is handy when you want to jump off the side of the couch "hands free".

Ok, so we weren't quite...

ready to give up on summer.


Which is why we found ourselves back on the beach visiting with friends this Thursday.

And while I was all sweatshirts, blankets and brr...

the kids were all beach, swim and sand.

I'm pretty sure NOW we are officially done.

I think.

Two years ago...

this tiny person joined our family.

We named her Leah Suzanne.

Leah, because I love the story of Leah in the Bible and "Red Tent" was my favorite book that summer. By the way, "Leah" means weary. Which is fitting, because while she is rarely weary, she makes us very weary. Happy, but weary. Suzanne after one of her fabulous aunts.

And now she is two.

A very joyful, silly, adventurous, -ready-to-be-big-like-her-brother while still loving being our baby- little girl.

Happy birthday, baby girl!

Coloring outside the lines?

Check!

Alternatively titled,
"THAT is going to leave a mark!"

What to do...

while your sister rides your scooter?







Fish on the front lawn.


Naturally.

Leah adores..

pockets.

It started a few weeks ago. She is obsessed with shoving her hands in them. But by God's grace, she has yet to fall and smack her precious little chin on the ground for lack of hands. (She has split her lip for lack of any sense of danger, but that is a different story.)

I have a feeling I know where she picked it up.

She also adores "JACKY"!

Which is random, but this is how I caught the two of them watching "Sesame Street" the other day and didn't want to miss out on a chance to humiliate them ten years from now.

Our little scholar..

spent Thursday trekking through the zoo finding all the "M" animals because that is "The Letter Of The Week!" Which is obviously a very, very big deal.

*And, the "m" seeking genius is Josh.
I'm happy to report that Al and I have mastered most the letters of the alphabet and Leah has mastered the two that matter the most to her,
"N" & "O"!

He also insisted on about a dozen pictures of them all.

Which is why I have about 98 mostly fuzzy pictures of:
mamorsets
mole rats (A very, very unattractive animal)
mudpies
monkeys
meercats (My new favorite animal)
and a mule (Which is a donkey, I think, or maybe not, but decided just to go with it.)

Just one more reason why I love preschool.

Objects in motion..

are very blurry and a quandary for the frustrated picture taker,

but are still adorably girly and cute.

The Little Mr., Part II

Josh was super this morning.

He was flipping out to head out the door, starting at 6:43am sharp.

He was incredibly excited to put on his "not baby" backpack

He hopped, skipped and jumped his way to the drop off room.
Filled with about 100 very loud people. Crowded.

Enter a little bit of panic, which broke my mommy heart.

In the end, like a very brave, albeit terror-filled tough guy, he lined up with his class and marched off to the mostly unknown and in a heartbeat he faded into a mass of 3' bobbing heads.

And, at pick up, proclaimed his love for Mrs. L and all things PK!

Whew!

The little Mr.

starts "real" Preschool tomorrow.

And, frankly, I am ecstatic.

I don't think I'm one of those moms who gets weepy over stuff like that.
The boy is ready-to-go.
I miss my long morning runs and he misses spending 2 hours away from me a few times a week.
He told me so.

Hallelujah the day is here!

We did some cloud gazing today.
Which isn't the slightest bit related to this post,
but after 89 pictures that I took "playing with my camera",
this is the only one that turned out remotely decent.