Just for you Michael

I know how Michael loves it when I post about my running, but with today's 7 mile run in 25+mph wind (BRUTAL), and it being my last run of 2011, my total mileage for 2011 is 115 miles.  I started in October.  Maybe my New Years Resolution Goal should be to beat last years mileage.  Shouldn't be too hard since I'll have a full year to accomplish it =).  I find that I am much less likely to be disappointed when I have low expectations.

2nd tooth!

Max got his 2nd tooth (the other bottom tooth) on Dec. 22nd the day he turned 5 months old.  He has also started solids since then.  He's had green beans and carrots.  He's doing pretty well eating.  He still has a long way to go, but is doing better than Luke and Leta did at first.  Although, this might be because I started them on rice cereal and neither one of them liked it..

Already!?!??

Max got his first tooth yesterday. His front bottom right.  He's not even 5 months old yet!  This is so sad.

Gobble Gobble!

Over Thanksgiving our family drove 10 hours to Iowa City, IA to visit my brother and his family.  They've been there for over 2 years and this is the first time we've gone to visit them.  I'm a bad sister.  My parents also came for the weekend so with them, Michael and Audra's 2 kids and our 3, it made for quite a full, loud house.  But it was lots of fun!

We drove up Wednesday and brought bread, veggies and the turkey.  Kyle's CPA raises turkeys and gave us one so we volunteered to bring it for the weekend.  Audra did a great job with it and it turned out REALLY good and juicy.  We mostly hung out and watched the kids play with each other.  One evening my dad's brother and his family came over for supper.  It was nice to see them, especially considering how long it had been since we'd last seen them.  Leta quickly warmed up to Gary and Mischa...they colored with her. =)  Saturday Audra, Max and I stayed home while everyone else went to a play land at the mall (since it was rainy).  It was nice and quiet then!  And I managed to squeeze in a run (my only run that week).  Michael and Audra took us on a tour of IAC.  It is a smallish town with a very large university and accompanying medical schools.  It's a very pretty town and really seemed like a nice place to live with lots of nice amenities, especially given it's size.

Luke was all excited to sleep in Solomon's room with him, and did the first night, but then after that decided that he wanted to be in the same room as the rest of us.  Overall, this is the best long trip we've ever taken drive and sleeping wise.  Let's hope this streak continues as we're traveling to Ruidoso, NM later this month.

Well Child and Well Baby Check Up

Recently we went to see Dr. Stephens for Luke and Max's well child/baby check up.

Luke was 4 years in October, but I waited so that I could do his and Max's appointments at one time.  Luke weighs 34lbs (29%) and is 39" (17%) tall.  He is moving up on the growth charts people!  Look out!  We talked a little bit more about his tummy issues.  He's to continue taking his Digestive Aid for Milk.  He hasn't been complaining about his stomach as much but we are still somewhat limiting diary.  I watch how much cheese I let him have in a day and we're still buying him lactose free milk.  According to Dr. Stephens there are only 4 basic/important things: 1.  Eat dinner together  2.  Wrestle with dad  3.  Poop daily  4. Sleep well every night.  Going by those standards, Luke is doing very well and on days when he's pushing every single button I have, that's what I need to remember.  That and a little time in his room never hurt him ;)  Luke got 4 shots, poor guy and he managed to cry harder about them than Max did about his.  He got him so worked up that he got himself over heated and broke out in a heat rash and to make sure it was just that, we had to stay a while after the appointment to monitor him. Sheesh.  He did run a low grade fever (99-100) and complained of sore legs for a couple of days.

This was Luke's solution "to make sure Max doesn't go anywhere"...no he didn't enjoy picking up this mess before bed =)

Max is 4 months old, he is 24" (5-10%) tall and weighs 14lbs 6 oz  (25-50%)in a wet diaper.  Max is still very content and smiley.  He giggles easily and loves watching Luke and Leta.  He can roll over from tummy to back and back to tummy.  He just started a new schedule today and it is as follows:

8am-eat

9:45-10 down for nap

11:30 wake and eat

1:30 down for nap

3:00 wake and eat

5:00 down for nap

6:00 wake and eat

8:15 eat and bed

10:30 Dream feed

This is new as he is being moved from 4 naps per day to 3 and is dropping one feeding per day.  Up to this point he has been cluster feeding in the late afternoon/evening, so this will free up our time in the evenings to have a bigger window to be out and about if we want.

He has not started solid foods yet but I imagine he will soon.  I would like to wait until after we get back from our Christmas travels to start that so I don't have to worry about that while we're gone to Ruidoso with Kyle's  side of the family.  Ruidoso is a small ski resort type town in the mountains in New Mexico.  We spent our first Christmas there after we were married and it was gorgeous and so much fun!  I'm sure Kyle will be spending some time skiing, which will be nice for him as he hasn't skied since I sent him for his 30th birthday and hopefully I'll be able to get out and browse around in all the cute shops they have in town.  Vicki likes to kick me out to have better quality time with my kids and I don't mind AT ALL!   

Anyway, back to eating.  Dr. Stephens introduced a new "food introduction" schedule that he's switched to since Leta was a baby.  

1-Veggies (green first, then yellow and orange)

2- Meat/Veggie combo

3-Fruits

4-Cereal

Instead of introducing rice cereal first, he's now placed it last.  He said there have been recent studies showing nutritional benefits to introducing it last and that many babies don't really care for it anyway.  I had thought all babies loved rice cereal before I had kids, but Luke and Leta both preferred oatmeal, but really didn't care for it much at all. In fact, Luke pretty much hated it.  I have pureed green bean and have them in the deep freeze, but I haven't worked on anything else yet.  I imagine I will stock up next trip to the grocery store.

Comparison Time!

Luke at 4 months

Leta at 4 months

Max at 4 months.

Since the pictures of Max really at 4 months are all farther away and not up close, here is a recent close shot. He's only 3.5 months in this picture, but you get the idea.

Granola!

Kyle's mom made him some granola for Christmas a couple of years ago.  He really liked it and the bag was gone in no time.  I finally got the recipe from her just this fall and I've been making granola like it's going out of style.  It's good on yogurt, plain and with milk as a cereal (which is how I prefer it).  It's originally a Southern Living recipe, but you know how I like to tweak things.  So here's my version:

3 cups regular oats, uncooked
1/2 cup vanilla whey protein powder (or omit and add another 1/2 cup oats)
1/2 cup sliced almonds
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup wheat germ
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla
1 bag dried fruit

Combine first 6 ingredients in a large bowl.  Stir well.

Combine honey, sugar and oil in a small saucepan.  Cook mixture over medium heat, stirring until sugar melts and is thoroughly heated.  Remove from heat and add peanut butter and vanilla, stirring well.  Drizzle over oat mixture, toss gently to coat well.

Spread mixture into a jellyroll pan.  Bake at 250 for 50-60 minutes stirring gently every 20 minutes.  Add dried fruit.  Let cool completely.  Store in an airtight container.

Cute pics and a few runs!

I took all of last week off from running as my knee  hurt really bad the previous long run...and I ran with it hurting for quite some time (which wasn't smart) but I was back at it again this week.  Tuesday was a treadmill run and this morning I ran outside in the balmy 36* weather and returned from my run covered in frost.  I didn't know I could frost.  But I can.

 Tuesdays run on the treadmill because it was raining.  This includes a .36 mile cool down.  I set the incline at 1% and really try to work on my "speed".

My run today was a tough one.  I felt like I was running through mud.  I felt sluggish and like I was working WAY too hard to maintain my pace, which is slower than it has been. Probably the cold had something to do with it.  Yeah.  That's probably it.

Sorry for the poor quality of the Max pics.  They're taken on my touch at church (during class!) last night.  And the Luke holding Max pictures are from tonight.  See how up-to-date I am?!?

We've been busy around here.  Last Thursday we had a couple college girls over for supper.  Monday evening my cousin, Analisa, and two of her friends stopped by and spent the night.  They had just finished walking 60 miles in 3 days for the Race for the Cure.  I hadn't seen Analisa in a long time so it was nice to catch up with her.  Luke and Leta were in not-so-rare, but pretty unpleasant form that night.  An audience of THREE! to perform for!  Kyle was gone Tuesday night, and we had a couple of college girls over for supper tonight (different ones).  Tomorrow night is a Body & Soul girls night here, plus an afternoon birthday party.  Saturday I'm co-hosting a baby shower, Sunday church and small group at our place, Monday friends over for supper..whew!  I'm tired just thinking about it! But it will force me to keep my house relatively picked up, so that will be nice.

Trick or Treat!

 I feel this is an accurate representation of Luke.  This picture was taken at Body and Soul during our "Salsa Fellowship"

 Obi Wan

We went trick-or-treating with our friends, the Hayes again this year.  In the same neighborhood as last year. The kids had a lot of fun.  At one house Luke got an apple from one of the houses and we let him eat it.  He took a couple of bites and said, "This apple isn't good.  I want an apple from home.  I want a HONEYCRISP apple."

Knock Knock Night

This past Wednesday night we made our 3rd annual return to Quail trip for their chili and Knock Knock night.  It was great to see people we haven't seen in a long time and see how old we're getting how big their kids are getting.  We went with the Hayes' and here's the best picture from the night.

I'll try to get a better picture of the kids in their costumes.  Luke is Obi Wan (sp?), Leta is a ladybug, Max is a pumpkin and Karter is (in his words) a "Yes Sir".  That's what I'm talking about.  Get them a costume that actually teaches them something USEFUL!

5 miles!

1st 5 mile run down the hatch.  My knee started hurting at 1.75 mi.  What's up with that?  Pretty decent pace though.  I'm icing it right now so it should be completely healed in about 10 minutes, right?

Remembered!

Yesterday's Luke-ism that I forgot:

Luke finds a random tor yesterday and says, "I've been looking for this for YEARS!!!!"

Also, on the day he picked out his Halloween costume with Kyle he came home with an Obi Wan costume VERY proud of his light saber and says, "I would've been Elmo, but he didn't come with a sword."

Seen and Heard

Luke-ism from today. (There were 2 so far, but I forgot one...)

Me: Did you tell Leta thank you?
Luke:  No.  Because we do not have to say thank you to people who live in this house.

I quickly corrected him, don't worry.

Since I got all excited on Tuesday and didn't check my training plan, I ran .5 miles farther than I was supposed to.  Oh the HORRORS!  Anyway, I didn't want to repeat THAT mistake today ;) especially since it was raining outside so I opted to run on the treadmill. I'm glad we have it for mornings such as this, but boy was I glad to get off of it!  Bor. Ing.  Since running on the TM is easier, I set the incline at 1 and got truckin'.  I did .25 mile mostly walking warm up and a .25 mostly walking cool down.  The slowest I ran was 6.1  increasing my speed intermittently until I started the last full mile, which I started off at 7 mph and finished at 7.5mph.  I thought I was going to die.  That's pretty speedy for the likes of me.

I went to see my friend who's  PT and she looked at my knee yesterday.  She gave me some stretches and some strength training moves to do.  So we'll see.  My knee felt pretty good today.  Started feeling it around 3.3 miles, but either it stopped hurting or I was to distracted by thoughts of possibly dying from running and wondering how long it would take Kyle to come and find me.  Up next: 5 mile run on Saturday.

Luke's tummy

Luke has been saying his stomach hurts a lot lately.  And for a long time.  I KNOW at least a good month now, possibly two.  He is eating, sleeping, behaving and using the toilet normally.  He is also fever free.  At first we were concerned, but then when he was never sick, we began ignoring it.  But he persists. I don't really think he's using it in a manipulative way because we don't really cater to him or his tummy and require him to eat when we eat and what we eat etc. and it's not getting him extra cartoons or special privileges. So, begin the good mother that I am, a month or two later, I finally got him to the doctor.

Dr. Stephens couldn't find anything wrong with him either so I am to journal about his stomach complains for 3-4 days to attempt to get some sort of base line and then completely take him off dairy and see how that affects his tummy.  In a way I hope it's NOT dairy...because that's probably his favorite food group! But, in a way it is and that we get this tummy problem solved.  Kyle was allergic to dairy for a while as a child, which I didn't know at the time of the Dr. visit or I would've mentioned it.  Does it run in families?  Anyway.  Here's to hoping his little tummy gets to feeling better.

And here's a few pictures of Leta and Max since Luke was in so many recent birthday pictures.

 All the pictures to this point were taken this morning, so that's as recent as you can get!

Vicki got this shirt for Leta and it is perfect!!!! for her.  Describes her to a T!