C25K: Week 6

When I agreed to run in a 5K in June, I thought I had lots of time to prepare. What I didn't take into account was the horrible allergy issues that I would encounter along the way. The high pollen count has delayed my training but I'm getting there. I am 3 weeks behind on the training and when it comes time for the race I will only be on week 8.



But after tonight's run I feel good. I feel like I could have kept on going. I'm not sure if it was the weather or if it was my beagle girl, Shiloh that I decided to take with me since my Ipod wasn't charged. She did a great job keeping up with me, but I must say by the end she was trotting behind me instead of pulling me. Miss Shiloh was great company and I think she may become my new running partner. Pushing my baby boy in his stroller is great fun but I need to get my training done before I am going to add him back into my runs.

Party Time and Some Pictures

Due to my lack of blogging I am having to play catch-up today. So here we go....Scott's first birthday party was on May 2nd and it was great. It was our first time having visitors at our house, other then our parents. I believe we had around 25 friends and family that came and you could tell that Scott could tell that it was his party. He had so much fun chasing his cousins around and licking his cake. I made an Elmo cake and he wasn't quite for sure what to do. So he put his hands on it and then tried to lick it. Despite the fact that he was pink from the Elmo cake afterwards, it was a lot of fun.

This year I celebrated my second Mother's Day. Last year Scott was a mere 2 weeks old so I was still excited from his entrance into the world. So this year we joined my brother and sister-in-law, my mom and her boyfriend, and my sister-in-laws parents at the horse track. They had gone last year and had a good time so we decided to go with them this year. At first I wasn't for sure how it would work out having a 12 month old at a horse track. Needless to say we had to keep him busy. With walking around, checking out the horses, and going to the petting zoo area, Scotty seemed to have a good time. He even picked a winning horse for one race....he picked the wrong horses for the next two. It was a lot of fun and I think it will be fun to make it a tradition.





And finally we got Scott's one year pictures back from our photographer and they are fantastic. Mary from Emme Elle Photography is amazing and does such great work. I had to share some of the pictures here.

My Baby is One!!

This past Friday on April 30th my little guy officially turned one year old. I truly can't believe that a year has gone by. People will tell you that you should take it all in and appreciate each moment because it goes by so fast, we these people are right. I swear it feels like the day we brought him home from the hospital. While waiting for the nurse to check us out we were trying to figure out the baby carrier. Once we had that figured out we were ready to go. And now here I am watching my baby walking, running around outside, eating adult food like he has done it for the past entire year. It really hit me the other day at work. I was showing a co-worker his one-year pictures and she said he really looks like a toddler now. She pointed at his pictures that I have all over my desk and said just look at him. I did and I realized at that point that he was only going to get bigger and that every moment with him is special. One day he won't bring me a book to read to him instead he will yell bye as he is running out the door to meet up with his friends.

He went to his one year doctor's appointment today and weighed in at 20 lbs and is 30.2 inches tall. Our doctor said that he is doing great and to continue the transition to whole milk. He enjoys whole milk, so once the last of the formula is gone that's what he is getting. We also had a birthday party for the little guy this past Sunday and once I have those pictures downloaded I will share.

No matter what this kid will always be my baby, whether he is 6'7" or 30 years old. I love him so much and I can't wait to watch him continue to grow into a fantastic young man.

1st Year Photo Session....Check!

Who knew there was so much to do when a baby turns the big age of 1. There is the doctor's visit (scheduled for the week after his birthday), the big party of family and friends (scheduled for two days after his birthday) and the pictures, which we had done today. I found Mary Long of Emme Elle Photography, who specializes in taking pictures of children and I found her on Facebook. She lives in our area so I scheduled an appointment for Scott, and to have a family picture taken.

Scott was a star!! He was so happy and excited to be there. We took a family picture in our Chicago Cubs jerseys and the little guy paraded around with some baseballs and a bat. Mary got a kick out of him and kept saying how good he was. I'm sure her job can be challenging when you have a little one that doesn't want to cooperate. Scooty also took some pictures in a dressier outfit, some overall shorts, and then in his diaper. We attempted the smash cake picture but I must say my child was not all that enthused with his cake. I have no idea where he got that trait from because I love cake.

Mary did a great job and I highly recommend her when you need some great pictures of your kids. In a week I'll have pictures to share. Now it's on to preparing for the big party....

C25K: Week 3 and Horrible Allergies

I started week three of the C25K this week. Monday was good but then yesterday I hit a wall. It's these allergy issues that I can get rid of. When will this stop?? It was hard to catch my breath. I felt like I was running in place but somehow managed to pick up the pace and end pretty well. My actual pace has gotten better and tomorrow I am going out without pushing the little guy in the jogging stroller. Hopefully that will increase my pace even more and hopefully my allergies will get better soon.

Check out some pictures of me and Scotty getting ready for our jog!

Adventures in Cake Making

My cousin Kim got married this past weekend and I made her cake.....that's right everyone I made her cake. First let me say that her wedding was delightful. It was very simple and sweet since it was both Kim and Joe's second marriage. So when she was planning the big day she mentioned that Joe was going to make the wedding cake. I thought to myself...why would he want to do that when he has plenty of other things to do on his wedding day. So I offered, as my wedding gift, to make the cake. She, of course, said yes!




So after months of non-planning the time came. I took Thursday and Friday off from work in order to work on the cake. I was told very little about the cake: heart shaped, blue, and 100-125 people. So that's what I did...I made a cake for a little over 100 people that was heart-shaped and included blue accents. The final result was great (at least that is what I was told) but it was the process that became annoying.

I bought almost the perfect amount of supplies. I started baking on Thursday morning and I was plowing right through until the incident.



I had just put the crumb layer of icing on the bottom layer of the white cake when my baby boy woke up from his afternoon nap. I pushed the two layers of cake to what I thought was the middle of the table and went to get him. A diaper change later and I came to find my older beagle craning his neck to eat as much of the white cake as he could. As you can see he took such a big chunk out of the cake I had to remake the white cake. I must say Ted Beagle is one lucky beagle, because I really could have tossed him out on his beagle rear-end and not cared one bit.



This in turn caused a delay in everything. By Thursday night I was exhausted and my back and feet hurt. So my wonderful hubby offered to stay up with me to make the white cake and he made the icing for me on Friday morning. Once we got down to my mom's house icing the cake went pretty smoothly. We delivered the cake on Saturday morning and from then it was out of my hands.

The lesson learned from this experience was that detailed cake making is difficult, always put your cake near the back of your kitchen counter, beware of counter surfing beagles, and take some time before you attempt to make another.....at least a few weeks.

Wordless Wednesday - Can We Go Outside?