A Whole Lotta Stuff

We've been getting pickup truck loads of mulch to till into our garden this fall. It's always a family project getting the mulch from the truck to the garden. My job usually involves taking pictures and making sure everyone takes their shoes off before they come inside. This last load turned into a playground for the kids ....

Maybe mulch makes children grow as well as vegetables.

Way Up There

Who came out of the shower saying they had a surprise?
Hayden

What was it?
A pencil eraser

Where was it?
He had just blown it out of his nose

How long had it been up there?
A week

Who thinks that is cool?
An 8-year old boy

How many people can say that they've run a half-marathon with a pencil eraser stuck up their nose?
A mighty small number

I'm with them!

I hope that having athletic people in my family makes me look athletic too ...
We headed off to Richmond, VA last weekend for the Suntrust Richmond Marathon. This is Cletus' fourth marathon and his second time running in Richmond. As a cheerleader, this is by far the easiest marathon to watch. They make it quite an experience. After all, it is called America's Friendliest Marathon.
Hayden had also trained to run. He was planning on racing in the 8K. The 8K started at 7, the half-marathon started at 730, and the marathon started at 8. Even though we left the hotel at 6:30 and it was only about 6 miles away, we way underestimated the amount of time it would take to maneuver our way around in downtown Richmond with several roads blocked off. So, after quite a lot of stress and some tears, we got Hayden to the starting line about 10 minutes after the 8K group had left. He was devastated. While I was parking the car, Cletus convinced him to run the half-marathon! What a brave boy ... here he is with the deer-in-the-headlights look. He took a cell phone with him, and off he went!
Meanwhile, Cletus got ready to run his marathon. The shorts he is wearing are some that I made for him to wear around the house as pajamas. They have brightly colored frogs all over them. Anyway, it turns out that they're super comfortable to run in and he got lots of compliments on them along the way.




After 5 or 6 phone calls along the way (mile 8: "mom, I'm doing great .. I don't even feel bad at all! mile 10: "mom, I'm starting to break down" mile 11: "mom, mile 11"), he finished! I was so proud of him! As I saw him coming down the last stretch, I started crying. He got a huge cheer from the crowd as he finished. As people were remarking on his age and being quite surprised and impressed, I was crying and saying, "That's my boy!". For those of you (like me) who aren't runners, an 8K is about 5 miles and a half-marathon is 13 miles. Quite a difference. What a trooper!




After Hayden finished his race, we still had about an hour and a half to wait until it was time to cheer Cletus over the finish line. Luckily, there was food, music, and a juggler/magician that had my kids entertained for about an hour.


Hayden was so transfixed watching this man, it was quite entertaining for me. His favorite was when this guy juggled batons that were lit on fire. He just couldn't get enough.

He is the parting shot before we headed on home: Greg (a friend that came along with us and ran the marathon with Cletus), a freezing cold and sore Cletus, and a tired Hayden. It was a fun (and busy!) day and we were all happy to get in the car and head home.

By the way, where is my medal for entertaining a 2-year old for 7 HOURS in downtown Richmond while we were waiting for our boys? See those blue porta-potties in the background? We made too many trips to visit while we were there. Kate was really interested in them and wanted to touch and explore inside. I have been in many porta-potties in my life, but I have to say that those were some of the most disgusting, over-used potties I have ever seen. Kate touching anything inside grossed me out so much that I made her fold her arms the whole time we were inside - hopefully she doesn't relate this at all to praying. I started making her fold her arms after she pointed to the urinal, touched it inside and said, "what's that?". Hand sanitizer was our closest friend.

So, after Cletus finished running and he was in quite a lot of pain and discomfort, he asked me to remind him how he feeling right then in case he ever wanted to attempt running again. He compared how he felt to childbirth.

The comparison must have been quite far-fetched, because he's already signed up for his next race.

The many faces of an 8-year old

Hayden has always loved putting on a show for us. He is our drama boy. Anything that will make us laugh is his agenda. He is pretty entertaining ....

His pretending to fall out of his chair while we were camping face,

His Harry Potter spell-casting face at Halloween,

His Halloween Busch Garden trip with dad face (also called, mom would never let me get my face painted like this if she were there face)


Looking polite over his birthday cake and getting ready to blow out these cheap candles that melted down to the cake in about 20 seconds face,


My favorite, his sweet baptismal face,

And, finally, his Cub Scout face. He has been a scout for two weeks and has already memorized that scout oath and the motto.

Happy Birthday, Hayden. We love all of your faces.

Great Dad

So, today is Hayden's birthday! (Where did the past 8 years go??) As a surprise, Cletus took the morning off of work and he, Kate, and I went to have lunch with Hayden at school. Hayden got to choose 2 friends to come and sit with us at a separate table. We were talking and visiting with the kids, and Cletus was attracting more and more students over to our table to visit with us, to practice his Spanish, and to learn all of the names of the kids in Hayden's class. They LOVED the attention. Hayden's best friend looked at Hayden and said, "You've got a good dad". Then Hayden said, referring to his friend, "he doesn't have a dad". His friend told me that his dad is in prison, that he did some "bad stuff" and that they kicked him out of the house. I thought about how I was feeling guilty for making a cake mix in a 13x9 pan for Hayden's birthday, how I'm just not that creative when it comes to birthdays and celebrating, etc. How all of us give ourselves guilt trips. But when I listened to Hayden and his friend talking at lunch today, I realized that I did one pretty important thing right. Hayden has a great dad who loves him, plays with him, teaches him, sets a good example for him, holds the priesthood, wrestles every day when he gets home from work ... The other little things like a boring cake don't seem so important. I get to give my kids a great dad for their birthday.

Off to Medoc

We headed out for our fall family camping trip last weekend. We waited until the last minute to decide where we were going to go in hopes of finding a place where there wasn't a forecast of rain. We settled on Medoc Mountain State Park, north on 95 just south of Roanoke Rapids. It's a beautiful park. Despite some cold weather, and a few reservations on my part about strapping things to the top of the car (I trust my husband, I really do ....), we were off. Luckily, it's only about an hour away. Cletus is the man with the camping skills! He does all of the hard stuff - and he likes it! He made several great campfires for us. Kate didn't like the smoke getting in her eyes, but the rest of us enjoyed it. There's just something about sitting around the campfire with a bag of marshmallows and a cup of hot chocolate!

I chose to put in this picture of me, because the others that Cletus took resembled someone who had just been wheeled out of surgery. Camping and pregnancy mixed don't bring out my most beautiful qualities. But luckily, my family doesn't care. They think I'm beautiful - or they just don't care - I don't know which.

Hayden and Kate had so much fun playing together in the tent right before bedtime. The older Kate gets, the better of friends they are getting to be. Hayden is learning to be more patient, and Kate is learning not to scream so much. They were very sweet snuggled together in their sleeping bags.

Kate was just a picture of beauty this day when we went hiking. Her pink shirt and her little pink cheeks were too cute with her long curly pig tails. She had so much fun exploring and finding treasures along the path. We quickly learned, however, that taking a 2 year old who has been potty trained for 2 weeks on a camping trip with underwear on is a recipe for disaster. After an incident with poop that probably should have resulted in a bathtub, and another with wet clothes (including shoes) on a cold day, we resorted to the few diapers that we brought. Luckily, she was okay with that.

I love this picture of Hayden! He is .... not the most photogenic child. Don't get me wrong - he is handsome in every way - he just doesn't smile well for pictures. But this time, he was asking us to dare him to jump off of this bridge into a pit of leaves quite a ways below, and he was loving it. I caught a real-life Hayden smile. He did jump, by the way. And, he also set up our tent all by himself!

Here is the afore mentioned packed car. Notice the two bikes, scooter, tent, and various other things strapped onto the top of the car. And, the extra firewood we found on our hike packed into the back of the car ("for next time, of course" is what Cletus said when I asked him WHY we were bringing home firewood). But, honestly, Cletus did a knock-out job packing the car. Let's just say that I said a few prayers as we were driving home.

It was a great trip - the fall colors were amazing, the kids had fun, and it was heaven to be home in a heated house.

Our sweet campers.

An Explanation

First, I need to nominate myself for lame blogger of the year award. Unfortunately, I do about as well writing in my journal as I do updating my blog. But there is an explanation ....
We are expecting a baby! I've been miserably sick for weeks and weeks. Maybe months ... I've lost track. Maybe I never really felt well. I can't remember. It's all a blur. But my mind tells me that I'm only 11 weeks along so I really couldn't have been sick for most of my life, like it feels. We are all really excited! I'm due April 7, which seems like a really long ways away. But we have a lot of getting ready to do. We're going to bunk the baby in with Kate, so we need to get their room ready. We will need to get a bigger car ... and, the baby is the size of a fig right now, so I guess it needs to do a little bit more growing.
Kate talks about the new baby every day and Hayden is really wishing for a boy and not "another boring girl".
So, I've been lame at blogging, but at least I have a good excuse.