Valentine's Day

So I am almost a week behind in blogging but with the week we've had it's pretty understandable. Last Monday's Valentine's Day was sweet. We kept it pretty low-key and stayed at home. However, it included roses, delicious dinner, a cute two-year old in his new shirts, grandparents, and chocolate truffles that I made from a recipe on Bakerella's website.

Gavin has been into robots lately, so I think he was pretty proud of his new shirt. The robot applique I bought a while back and ironed it on. Then I tried my second attempt at using my sewing machine and sewed around the edges. I found myself asking many times why I picked such a hard piece to sew for one of my first projects. Then I hand embroidered a heart on the robot. I think it's Valentines enough for a boy but he can wear it all year too.



Gavin happened to catch his MeMe and Grandaddy outside so we made it a photo op. The shirt he is wearing I made using this tutorial. It was really easy. I'm thinking Gavin may have several different spring shirts using the same technique.


And let me introduce you to my Valentine. You may not recognize him with his new haircut. Although the dark picture doesn't show it off that much.

I'm glad he's been my Valentine for the past 11 years. Love ya' hunny!

The Run Down

I cracked my self up with the punny title to this blog, but I'm sure no one else will find it as humorous. After a few days of no running due to late nights of parent conferences, I got back on the treadmill and was so happy to see that I cut down a minute and a half on my mile. Now it "only" takes me 13 minutes. I continued on for another half mile but had to stop. Dave's grandfather was so kind to watch Gavin while I ran, but I didn't want to wear out his generosity.

However, this morning my mother and law and I went to the stadium and this time I was able to do the mile in 12 minutes! What I think what I was more happy about is that I did a complete mile with no walking and most of the 3 miles total was jogging. One of my hamstrings was tightening up, but in all I feel pretty good. If you ask me tomorrow, it might be a different story.

Running the Race

I admit, while I consider myself pretty athletic, I am not at all passionate about running. Give me a volleyball or basketball court, baseball diamond and let's not leave out a kickball field (old school) and I'm right there in the mix. But ask me to run a distance longer than a sprint and I immediately break out into a sweat and I can feel the air escaping from my chest.

Well, my mother-in-law asked me to join her and a few thousand others in a charity 5 K fun run event for the SPCA. I'm not sure who thought fun and run needed to be next to each other, but they had better consult a dictionary next time. I had an approximate idea how long a 5K run was, but to make sure we are all clear it's a grueling 3.125 miles. I can hear all of you half and full marathon runners laughing at me.

I've been exercising pretty consistently three to four days a week for the past five months, but the treadmill was something I had tried to avoid as much as possible. The elliptical machine and hundreds of jumping jacks and butt kicks were more my forte for cardio. However, when I saw that most websites recommend training for a 5K in six weeks and I barely had four, I thought I had better start some serious running. It just had to be the one time of year, that we have freezing temps and my chest tightens at the thought of running outside.

After a brief warm up, I hopped on the treadmill and took off attempted not to seriously injure myself by falling off the back. I was able to get one mile in 14:30 (minutes, not hours), which is probably slightly faster than a turtle's pace. I was happy that 9:30 seconds of that was running and at the end of the run, I felt like I could keep going. I'm going to try to beat my time and increase the amount of running most days of the week. And hopefully, soon I can take it to the pavement. And no, I don't mean falling on my face.

In a town that easily reaches degrees breaking 100 in the summertime, we actually had a "snow" day. We are going to use that term loosely because all we really saw was ice. Although it would have been fun to play in the snow, I'm not going to complain because I enjoyed being home with both my boys. Gavin thought it was appropriate to mark the occasion with not just his usual two hats, but rather four.


He was rather proud of his two blueberries and asked me to photograph them. Then he had to check out the picture.


Oh, but that wasn't good enough. He wanted a shot at being the photographer. I warn you, this next photo is an extreme closeup.

It gives you a pretty good look at the chipped tooth he got a few weeks ago.

Lately, I've had it on my heart to start teaching him mini Bible/craft lessons and found this book at our local Christian bookstore. And since we were "snowed" in what better day to start than the present.


I just went for the first lesson, and although the title says it's for ages 2 and 3, the lesson spoke to this almost 29 year old and holding tot. We have some big changes going on and it's nice to know that if God can take care of the sparrows then he can certainly take care of little ol' me.

The idea behind the craft was for Gavin to color the bird and then we would glue birdseed all over it. Well, Mr. Smartypants did not find that acceptable. The birdseed was only going on the bird's beak where he (the bird, not Gavin thankfully, although I had to tell him for the first time not to eat the glue) would eat it. The next photo is not the best quality, but I love the expression on Gavin's face. And if you look closely, you can see the bird eating the one little piece of birdseed.

"Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows." Luke 12:7