It's Snowing!

Around 5:45 this afternoon, it started snowing!! Yeah!! It was snowing so hard that we couldn't see much of anything else around us. We were hopeful that it would keep up its intensity and we would have 2 feet of snow in the morning. Unfortunately, it has almost stopped snowing. All of these pictures were taken within the first 30 minutes of snow. It has not snowed this hard in a long, long time. The kids had to get their snow sliders out of the building "just in case." Kirsten started sledding when I thought it was too soon; however, she was able to sled almost all the way down the first time. Alec had to follow suit almost immediately. They also had to throw some snowballs at each other. So much winter fun!!

This was the first picture that I took of the snow falling. The picture is not that great, but it shows how fast that the snow was coming down. It is supposed to snow throughout the night, but what has fallen is already starting to melt now that the snow is not falling as steadily. If more snow falls tonight, I will take many more pictures tomorrow, and will post them.

Happy Birthday, Claire

It's is Claire's 10th birthday and we had an impromptu party for her at my mother's house. Lisa had planned a different party for a different day but the plans fell through. My mother gives the kids a treasure hunt on their birthday -- she gives them 20 one dollar bills but she makes them hunt for each one. She puts one dollar in each envelope with a clue for the next one. This hunt had to be in the house because it was raining. It was not quite as exciting (she has 7 acres to hide them in outside), but Claire had a blast. Tyler, Brandon, Preston, Claire, Kirsten, Alec, Jackson, Parker, Anna and Amber were all in attendance for the treasure hunt, gift opening, cake and ice cream. We had fun and the kids enjoyed everything.

I am trying to get inspired by Roan and Heather and get organized and get the kids to help more around the house. I get so many groans and complaints that I have just gotten used to doing it all by myself. They do help at times, willingly, but are not used to helping out everyday. I do realize that they will not learn unless I lead by example, which I am going to try to do this next week. It is so hard for this homeschooling mom to teach them school and then switch to mom and chore leader. I hope to learn how to do this better, as I know that they will be better adults for learning how to work hard now.

Kirsten and Alec have run three days this week and we hope to keep up with at least three days each week and sometimes 4 times a week. They are getting back to where they were when we stopped training, and they are getting excited about running a 5K that we know is coming up in April. They ran it last year and hope to blister their time from last year. I am still trying to walk lots and run little, but I have had an easier two weeks than the previous 5 weeks. I hope to get back in the groove of lots of mileage this coming week.

Couples Night -- Such Fun

On Friday night, Mitch and I were invited to a couple's night get-together at our friend Morgan's apartment. We had a blast eating, visiting, and playing games. The theme was Mexican night and the fajitas were great (even though I eat almost nothing Mexican) and after supper, we played some games. The first one was Battle of the Sexes and it was a true battle! The girls won, much to the chagrin of the men. We beat them pretty easily although the guys said that we got some really easy questions. We told them that women just know everything!! After that game, we played Cranium and the guys won that one, but only by one question. It was after 9:30 before we realized it and some of us had to get home to get kids to bed. We had so much fun. I love my children, but it is great to have fun without them every now and then.

Birthday for our friend Steven

Our friend Steven turned 10 on Friday and had a birthday party on Saturday. They live in Marion, AR. We had a great time at the party even though we all have a touch of the sniffles. His mom, Sherrie, made this wonderful cake. She always makes the cakes for my kids and always does a magnificent job. Alec watches Steven blow out the candles on his Star Wars: The Clone Wars cake. Sherrie used an airbrush to brush on the icing and made these edible characters for the kids to eat. Alec wanted to eat Anakin Skywalker and Kirsten ate the other Anakin charcter. The kids all wanted to pick out a different character to eat. They also had a big blow up slide and bouncer house to play in and that was a lot of fun for all the kids.

Kirsten and Steven's cousin Darby look at all the great decorations on the table and the cake. Sherrie also made a "cookie" cake out of sugar cookie dough. It was very good also. My diet went out the window yesterday, as I just ate and ate. Snack foods are so hard to pass by when they are right in front of you all day.

After the party was over, the kids played together, while the grownups watched the beginning race of the NASCAR season -- the Bud Shootout. It was a great race, even though our favorite driver wrecked before it was over. Actually, 20 of the 28 cars wrecked before it was over, but it makes for an exciting race that way.

Spin Class

Yes! I finally did a spin class with my friend Morgan. She finally talked me into it. I really wanted to do it but was afraid of how sore I would be the next day. Mitch was able to come pick up the kids after Fit Kids class at the Healthplex and we went into the class. Morgan had prepared me for how hard it was. Coach Heather also encouraged me to go and repeated about how sore I would be. All in all, I did pretty good. I went easy on the resistance and did not increase as much as recommended each time. My goal was to do the whole class and not stop rather than getting partway through and not being able to finish. Some of the exercises I could not complete as hard as everyone else was doing it. The bike pedals took some getting used to as well as trying to stand up and pedal. I do not do that on my street bike and I also coast when possible on the road -- not so in the class, no coasting for the weary. I decided not to do to much of the up and down repetitive movements until my body gets more used to it. I have been doing lots of walking and lots of step-ups and I think that my upper thighs could not handle too much more on Tuesday during the class. I really hope that I can push harder next week and feel better about my fitness level. I just purchased new running shoes for me and also for the kids as all of ours were almost worn out. We hope to use these shoes for running only and thereby get more months of use out of them. Kirsten has a pretty bad cold right now and was not able to run much today. It was really windy and pretty cool and I wasn't sure how much the cold wind would affect her cold. Alec "fell" today and "hurt" himself and stopped running. I did not see the fall and did not think that he was really hurt but since I could not prove that he was not hurting, I let him stop running also. He is going to have to get more motivated about running or everyone else will leave him in the dust.

Just an Update

I have been too busy this week to do my blog. I have been logging miles and hours on the Wii Fit. It is addictive after awhile. Since I am writing it down on my calendar, it spurs me on to doing better every day and week. I don't know if I can keep up this pace or not; my feet are complaining now. This week I have pounded out 43 miles and logged 8 hours on the Wii. That brings my total for January to 168 miles and 30:15 hours on the Wii. My house is suffering from the lack of cleaning, but my kids are still getting schoolwork done, even though they wish that I would forget about it. I am not trying to brag about the exercise, I am trying to make myself accountable to myself and to my friends and family. If I tell everyone about it, then I have to keep up with the same level of activity. At least that is what I tell myself. The kids have begun running again and some days go better than others. Sometimes their heads are on playing and not focused on running. Coach Heather has given us a schedule and we are trying to get them to follow it. I hope after a couple of weeks, their level of focus will come up and they will not be wanting to play Star Wars (with light sabers and their cousins) as much. They are supposed to spend 6 weeks in Group A and then move up to Group B and then onto Group C if possible by June. We are proud of what they accomplished last year and are hoping for good things this year. They are struggling a little bit so far, but I think that as they get more comfortable then they will be stronger than last year.

EXERCISE -- GOTTA LOVE IT

Just an update to let everyone know that I am still on track with my exercise. Since January 1, I have walked 125 miles and logged 29 hours on the Wii Fit. I know that sounds a little excessive, but I am trying to counteract my love of food. I just have a hard time saying NO to those fattening chips and cheese and chocolate. I have had very little sweets this month and have almost cut out all soft drinks. I do slip up occasionally, although it helps that I have joined AFA's boycott of Pepsi products (and unfortunately that includes Mountain Dew, my favorite). I really did not have the caffeine withdrawal that I thought that I would have, even though I never allowed myself to have more than one a day. I think my focus on walking and staying active really helps. It also helps to keep track on my calendar what I am walking and other exercise. I am considering doing a spin class at the gym in New Albany, but am afraid that my walking everyday will hinder me from doing well in the class. I am trying to decide if it is worth it to skip walking that day to do the class. I have until Tuesday to decide about the class. I will post on Wednesday if I was brave enough to try it or not. Well, I need to get to bed so that I can get up early to walk -- Yea!, about the walking, not the early part.

Shaving Cream War -- October 2008

I came across this photo while scrapbooking today. I have not forgotten this day, but forgotten to post this picture to the blog. At the end of our Spartan Cross-Country season, Coach Heather organized a shaving cream WAR! Most of the kids had done it the year before and couldn't wait for this year. They all started out clean but they did not stay clean long. They ran around and played freeze tag at first; but then, she let them loose in a free-for-all. Even Coach Heather joined in the fun and tagged kids and was tagged many times. Thanks! Coach Heather, for a great time!!

Happy Birthday, Kirsten

We celebrated Kirsten's 11th birthday today with a pool party (in January, and it was snowing a little outside). Sherrie Thomas made this awesome cake for Kirsten. It really is a good as it looks, maybe even better. Her cakes cannot be topped by anyone, anywhere! We had 10 other girls at the party besides Kirsten. Scarlett was sick and could not come, and boy was she upset. Hope you get to feeling better, Scarlett. The others who came were Julie and Olivia, Hannah and Sarah, Martha and Margaret, Catherine, Claire, Sophie and Savannah. They had so much fun in the pool, I thought that I might have to go in after them to get them out. But, they really are all good girls and obeyed right away. They would have stayed all day if they could have. I took lots of pictures and video and Kirsten got some really neat gifts. Her best gift was that all the girls could come and they got to spend time together. I had made a "questionaire" for each girl to fill out about themselves. Then the girls got to guess who each one was. We had three winners with eight correct guesses -- Martha, Julie, and (Catherine or Hannah, I don't remember which). The game was fun and we all learned what each person's likes and dislikes were; such as, food, movies, books, sports and colors. It was a lot of fun to watch their faces as they tried to figure out who everybody was. This definitely will go down as one of Kirsten's favorite parties.

Riding the Four Wheeler with R.J.

R.J. kindly allowed the older children to drive ( or at least they thought they were ) the four-wheeler. What a cool guy!

Star Wars Fun

The boys all pulled out their light-sabres (and even shared them with their "new" cousins) and had a marvelous battle. When they tired of that, they went to slide down the "cliffs", which is nothing more than a section of the woods, that was excavated years ago. They had a wonderful time showing Dylan and Ethan how to get covered in dirt from head to toe by sliding down the dirt enbankment. Oh! how fun to be a boy!

My Cousin Amanda

On Monday, my first cousin Amanda and her family dropped by for a brief visit. They are on their way to California, from New York, to live for at least three years. Her husband is a proud Marine and is being transferred. They thought that it would be easier to travel the southern part of the U.S. instead of the northern part, due to the weather. They have two children, Dylan (8)and Ethan (4 1/2), who fit right in with our 10 kids, (my mother's grandkids). All the kids got along famously, and R.J. unloaded his four-wheeler and took them each for a ride. He was beginning to think that the line of children waiting for a ride would never end. But, he was an incredible good sport and even took most of them for two rides. We all traipsed through the woods and over to Blue Mountain College to show everything to my cousin. I have not seen this cousin in 17 years as that was the last year for our family to travel to New York to visit relatives. We had a very good few hours visiting and hated to see them go, but understood that they must finish their journey and get unpacked in their new house.

Kirsten and her American Girl

I took this picture of Kirsten with her new American Girl doll. My friend, Sherrie Thomas, is going to make her birthday cake and wanted a picture of Kirsten and her doll. I have no idea what the cake will look like, but I am sure that it will be spectacular, as always. Sherrie has been making the kids' birthday cakes for many years, and always does a marvelous job. Kirsten's birthday is on Sunday, but she is having a POOL party, (can you believe it?) at my boss's indoor pool, on Tuesday. He graciously offered us the pool house and we can hardly wait for the party. I will be posting pictures of the cake, party, and the girls. Kirsten wanted to have girls only at this birthday. We have always made a "Gi-normous" deal over birthdays in our house, but one of my sister-in-laws stopped big parties after age 10 and we thought that we would do the same. This party was supposed to smaller than it has grown into, but we are excited (except Alec, who will not be attending).

Busy Exercising

No, I have not stopped posting, I have just been extremely busy. Since January 1, I have logged almost 43 miles walking (with a little running) and have exercised on my WII FIT Board 10 hours in an effort to shed the extra pounds that I have been carrying for quite some time. I told myself during the Memphis Half Marathon that I would not run another step until I lost 20 pounds. However, I have the urge to run some and so I start running and keep at it as long as I can. I cannot run more than a half mile at a time comfortably, but I can walk for as long as I need to. We started school back this week, much to the chagrin of my children; but after we got going on it, they decided that it wasn't as hard as they thought that it would be. I also worked at the pharmacy several days since the first (that is the busiest time for the store). The kids have started back running and are not happy that it is not as easy for them as it was before they took their break. Mitch has started back working, finally. Cooper Tire had a mandatory shut down period for almost 3 weeks. He enjoyed his time being a housedad, for the most part, as he kept the children while I worked extra during the holidays. He was a great, awesome help for me as he kept the kids fed, the dishes washed, and the clothes washed. I know that he is ready to be back steady at his job and also time away from the house. I will try to keep posting and keep everyone up to date on our family.

Happy New Year!!

We want to wish everyone a very happy new year! Our prayer is for health and happiness for all of our family and friends in this new year! We visited some of our dearest friends yesterday, the Thomases, who live in West Memphis, Arkansas. They have a son, Steven, who is right in between our children's ages. We had a good time of visiting, so good in fact, that Alec decided to spend the night. If all goes according to plan, we will pick him up on Saturday. They gave our children some marshmallow shooters; the kids were thrilled and promptly went outside to shoot them at each other. Their dog was the happy one, however, as she loves to eat all the marshmallows. She was very quick and the marshmallows barely had time to hit the ground before she picked them up.