Running

After 8 weeks of my running training, I'm somewhat starting to feel like a runner. That's saying a lot! Running has never come naturally to me, and used to just hurt my entire body to even run 5 minutes.

My first Half Marathon is just 4 weeks away. It's the Best Dam Half Marathon, which starts at the Deer Creek Dam in Wallsburg. The route goes along the lake and then through Midway and into Heber. The biggest advantage of living nearby, is that I actually get to train on the marathon route.

This morning I had Joe drop me off at the dam. While I started running, he drove to the top, parked the car, and rode his bike down to meet me. By the time we met up, I was at 3.5 miles. I was able to keep running most of the hills, and even outran some guy that was behind me from the beginning. The run felt great most of the time, with just a little energy slump around 5 miles.

I'm definitely not the fastest runner, but am happy with my current 11 minute mile. At that pace, I'll be able to run the half marathon in 2 hours and 23 minutes. 

Signing potty

With Ginger I did some baby sign language, which helped a lot to prevent tantrums. With Miles I'm starting him at an even younger age of just 6 months. He's not signing anything back yet, but I can tell he understands what I'm saying. When I sign "milk" for example, he starts smiling and laughing (or freaking out if he's really hungry) Apparantly babies will start signing back as young as 6-9 months, so hopefully he and I can communicate soon.

And then there's this

Yep, I bought Miles a toilet seat. Of course we've all seen the babies with that silly "poop grin" on their faces. They have to work extra hard to get their business into a diaper that's smashed up against their bum. So when he smiled like that the other day, I decided to just sit him on the toilet and see what happened. He wasn't a big fan of the hard toilet seat, so the next time I was at wally world I grabbed him a contoured cushioned toilet seat. Since we've had it in the house, he's already peed in the toilet 4 times, and pooped twice. It's so silly and yet also super exciting. Maybe he'll soon learn to sign "potty" to me, and we won't even need to do diaper laundry anymore. Can you imagine? I can't!

End of summer / beginning of school

 As the new school year has officially begun, I can take a deep breath and look back at our summer. It was pretty laid back, with only one trip to California. We kept ourselves busy around Midway.  Winter participated in cheer, to get ready for the football season. She had a lot of fun doing it, and even got to cheer in the Heber Parade

 When Joe was around, he worked on projects with the kids, including building a bird house with Ginger. Ginger goes out to the backyard daily to check if any birds have moved in yet. No luck so far.

 Miles decided he was a big boy, and learned to sit up all alone just before turning 6 months.

 My big kids still like to build castles and dig holes in the sand. I wonder how much longer that will last

 It won't be long before Sterling will be at my eye level!

 Ginger is still a very girly girl. She loves pink, and her flowery sandals. However, she also takes after her dad and loves to go moutain biking with him.

 We went for a little campfire picnic with the Calderwoods at Whiskey Springs just days before it went up in flames.

 We day-camped with the Judds up in the high Uintahs for a day. Tiffani sure knows how to get Miles to giggle!

So here they are the morning of their first day of school. 

Winter starts 5th grade at Timpanogos Intermediate school in Heber. As I dropped her off she gave me a hug, and I couldn't help but wonder if that's the last time she'll ever give me a hug on the first day at school in the middle of the schools hallway

Sterling starts 4th grade at Midway elementary. He's turning into quite the cool kid, who even wants me to spike up his faux hawk.

Ginger is starting 1st grade, which means she'll be at school all day. She's excited to eat lunch at school, and gets to walk to and from school all alone (with Sterling)

So now Miles and I have the house to ourselves. It's very quiet in here. And when I clean something up, it stays clean! That is, until the kids get home from school. Winter said she will miss hanging out with Miles all day, and I'm sure Miles feels the same way.

Wellness Challenge

In a few days I will be starting an 8 week wellness challenge. It is supposed to create good habits by giving points for doing things like drinking water, exercising, and not eating sweets. It should really help me loose the last 10 pounds from Miles' pregnancy, plus help me to have better habits. The hardest things to change for me is not to eat sweets (6 days a week) and to eat more vegetables. The ironic thing is, that these past few days before the challenge have been extra hard, since I keep thinking I won't be able to do this or that once I start, so my eating has been aweful. That might just give me a big sugar crash....  The challenge goes until the day before the half-marathon I started training for. The running is going fairly well. The first 2 weeks were definitely the hardest.

It's hard to believe that school starts again next week. The summer has been long, but at the same time it has flown by. I can't believe it's been almost 3 months!

The new house has been amazing. It's so much easier to keep a nice home clean, because there's nothing more discouraging than cleaning for hours, and the place still looking like a dump (the old apartment). Now I just need to get a cleaning schedule locked down so it will always be nice and clean and tidy (kids in school should also help that).

Best head of hair

I realize my blog has become somewhat Miles oriented, but he's just changing so much and of course uber cute. Wasatch County hosts a large fair every year, and this year also a baby contest. Babies between 0-36 months go head to head in several categories. Most of these don't really apply to Miles (like a crawling race), but the perfect category for Miles is: "Best head of hair". He has the best hair by far of all my kids. He is also entered into the "Stud and Stunner Beauty Pageant", and Photo Contest. With this contest in mind, we took this 6 month picture

He was pretty fussy, but time was limited. We didn't get a smile, but I actually think this look is cuter anyways. Not sure what he was thinking, but maybe something along the lines of: These people are completely crazy, what kind of family have I ended up in? 

Cuddling

Miles has never been a cuddly baby. This makes me sad sometimes, especially when he is straining his back and neck to see what is going on around him, instead of relaxing into my shoulder.
Tonight, after his late night feeding and bath, I was wishing he would just relax and snuggle, and thought of singing to him. I started with the Dutch lullaby "slaap kindje slaap", and immediately he stopped straining, and relaxed and gazed into my eyes. So we sat for about 5 minutes, gazing into each others eyes. These are the moments I live for as a mom.

Another fun little fact about Miles at 5 months old, is that he has discovered himself in the mirror. I don't think he realizes he's looking at himself, but he just smiles from ear to ear. The older kids can also get him to giggle, which is just adorable! Miles loves music and being outdoors. If he's fussy, and nothing else seems to work, we take him outside where he'll be happy for long periods of time. I've never met a baby before Miles who didn't only not mind the wind, but actually seems to enjoy it!

This week we've started packing to move to our new house. It's a short sale which can take a while to finalize, but we're going to rent the house until we close on it. The house is here in Midway, and on a really nice street with many other young children. We hope to stay in this house for the next few decades or more. I realize that with our moving history this seems like a long-shot, but we've never really felt like we wanted to stay somewhere forever like this. Fortunately the previous renters have moved out, so we are able to bring over some boxes and things slowly. I've been packing a car load full, dropping it off at the house every day. By the time we officially move next week, most of the little stuff should be done (which is the most stressful part of moving for me)

I still go to the gym regularly, and just started training for my first half-marathon this week. I'm not sure what I was thinking, signing up for that, but it should be good for my endurance. Running still hurts, but when I look back to running in Texas, the hurting in the chest will get better over time. Dance Trance is still my favorite exercise class. We started practicing for a flash mob, and the kids are also practicing. What surprised me the most was the enthusiasm Sterling is showing for the dancing. I expected him to be embarrassed or flat out refuse to try, but he's totally going for it. That makes me happy.

Joe's been in Moab all week to help Mark McGee with the boyscouts. It's been lonely without him. Not surprising really, because I've been living with him for the last 12 years. And they have been great years. I can't imagine my life without  him.

Yosemite National Park

After camping, we drove Tioga pass through Yosemite National Park to get to Kelly's mom's house for the 4th of July. We avoided Yosemite Valley in fear of gridlock and hoards of tourists, but felt it wouldn't be right to drive straight through. We found a short 1.2 mile hike up to May Lake. It was the perfect length for the kids, and we were rewarded with beautiful views of the mountain lake

Later in the day we visited Columbia, a gold mining town. Everything was closing down a bit by the time we got there, but it was fun to see the blacksmiths at work, an old-time bowling alley, antique wagons, and a fun candy shop.