Slice of Life

Halloween time means a trip to the pumpkin patch. The one near us is mostly bounce houses with a few pumpkins, but the girls had a great time. Which was awesome because the past two years we have gone were a waste of money. However, Aubrey finally seems to be over her fear of bounce houses, and Cora doesn't seem to share that fear.

Some of their best friends, Faith and Cosette.

Love these two.

Aubrey has started to read Cora books, and I'm super impressed how close her stories match the actual words. 

 I run by the new 49ers stadium (in the background) on my favorite trail. We definitely live in a cool place. 

This little cutie is enjoying the 1:1 time we get during Aubrey's preschool. 

She rules the house and does all the things Aubrey won't let her do. Wearing Aubrey's princess dress is definitely at the top of that list.

Not the greatest pictures because they were taken at night, but we finally upgraded from a Civic only household and bought a new Honda Pilot. We had all the money for it saved for a while, but I have a hard time buying big things. However, the drive home from Disneyland did me in, and we are definitely enjoying the extra space. 

They have the best dad. And they have been waking up far too early lately. 

This is what happens when a helpful sister gives her a marker while I go to the bathroom. And then I have to take the marker away. She wasn't too happy about that part. 

The girls had dentist appointments today, and I took them to Chick-Fil-A as a reward for having no cavities. They were having a great time in the play place when Cora had quite the stinker. And... big mom fail because I had no diapers. I changed it and put Cora in underwear on the way home. She proudly proclaimed, "I'm potty trained!" She is definitely not, and I'm not really ready to go down that road again yet. 

We have a busy few weeks coming up... this time of year always seems to fly by.

Disneyland: Part 3

On Wednesday, Steven and I woke up very well rested. I don't think my parents could say the same thing since they had the girls in their room for a sleepover.

After we woke up, Steven and I went down to the gym for a run. We both love to run outside, and so after 3.5 miles on the treadmill, I just couldn't take it anymore. We finished our allotted five miles running through Downtown Disney and around the Disneyland Hotels. It was really fun, even if we got extremely weird looks from everybody on their way to the park.

Then we quickly got ready and met my parents and the girls for our character breakfast. My mom got the girls all dressed up in princess clothes and they were so excited:

However, by this point, they were both extremely low on sleep and acting quite horrible. We kind of wished we could send them back to my parents :)

The breakfast was great, and ridiculously expensive. But, it was a much better way for the girls to meet the characters instead of wasting hours standing in line.

 After the character breakfast, we changed into our swimsuits and went swimming. It worked out great, because the slide at our hotel was broken, so they let us go swimming at the fancier Disneyland Hotel that had three pools and a bunch of water slides.  We love swimming. It is one of our favorite things to do as a family.

After swimming we had to say goodbye to grandma and grandpa. Lots of tears were shed. We put an exhausted Cora down for a nap while Steven took Aubrey to watch Disney cartoons in the movie room.

We explored Downtown Disney one more time, and the girls especially had a great time at the Lego store. Aubrey and Steven spent the late afternoon building their new Lego set while I tried to keep Cora from destroying the hotel room.

Dinner, ice cream, park, baths, bed, and that was pretty much the end of our Disney vacation. We got up at 5 again to drive home. I love Disneyland and want to go back already.

Disneyland: Part 2

On Tuesday we went to Disneyland. We got up early once again for the Extra Magic Hour. Extra magic hour started at 8 am on Tuesday, and this is what the gates already looked like at 7:30. On a Tuesday. In October. California Adventure was pretty light on crowds, but Disneyland was crowded.

We are the crazy parents because we spent our extra time waiting for tickets to meet Anna and Elsa. We also met Belle later on in the day. We got in line to meet other princesses but after a half hour and only moving a few feet, we managed to talk Aubrey out of that idea:

 Lol... I love how Cora is a blur in almost every picture. She is at such a busy age!

And if that wasn't enough for Steven, this is how he felt after paying $33 for two plastic princess necklaces. 

Aubrey was such a brave girl. She pretty much went on every ride she could. Some of the bigger ones were a great idea (Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, etc.) Some were not a good idea. I did not know that they added a scary ghost feature to Space Mountain for Halloween. And.. Star Tours was a little too realistic. She came off the ride saying, "I didn't think we would ever come back to Disneyland." 

Cora loved every minute with her grandparents and all the rides she could go on. She especially loved exploring Toontown while we switched off to go on some of the bigger rides.

Rides, grandparents, and princesses. Definitely favorites for both of them.

Riding "It's a Small World."

We were getting in line for Splash Mountain with fast passes and we saw Steven's aunt and cousin getting on the same ride. We went on the ride with them and it was great catching up for a few minutes.

We had such a great day. We left the park around six to eat dinner in Downtown Disney. After that my parents took the girls for a hot tub/sleepover and Steven and I ran back to ride a few more rides for a date night. We were the first there and some of the last to leave. That is a good day at Disneyland. 

Disneyland: Part 1

We just got back from a GREAT vacation to Disneyland. We seriously had so much fun. We left early Sunday morning and got to LA in time to watch Conference with my sister. We were really lucky in that my sister's family and my parents also came to Disneyland with us. My brother had to work, but we missed him.

The rest of Sunday was spent driving to Anaheim, checking into our hotel, and getting ready for the next day. We stayed at one of the Disneyland hotels (Paradise Pier) and it made our stay really convenient. Steven says that I am getting spoiled. The girls wasted no time in getting comfortable around the hotel and enjoying the view of California Adventure:

On Monday we got up really early (5:30 am) so that we could be ready and at the park to take advantage of the "extra magic hour" we got by staying at the hotel.

We rushed right to Carsland (along with everybody else) to ride the Radiator Springs racers. Aubrey is 39 inches tall and all the fun rides start at 40 inches. So we did what any good parents would do and bought her cowboy boots with a one inch heel :)

Our family on the pier:

We did a lot of stroller bumper cars to keep these kids happy during all the walking:

Cora was giddy the whole day. One of my favorite memories was watching her dance like crazy during the Disney Junior show. She knows how to shake her hips. 

So glad that we could spend the week with my sister's family!

New Bed

A few weeks ago, Cora figured out how to climb out of her crib. That was a sad day. I am completely amazed at people who manage to keep their kids in cribs so long. Aubrey climbed out at 18 months and Cora made it to 20 months. Maybe I should stop taking them to all those gymnastics classes?

Anyways... since Cora's method of climbing out involved a dramatic face plant into the ground, we were forced to turn her crib into a toddler bed. It has been a rough few weeks sleep-wise around here. As Aubrey tells everybody, "Cora likes to have a slumber party every night."

When we switched Aubrey to a bed, she was kind of scared and would run to the door and pretty much stay in her bed. Cora... could care less where we are. She gets into EVERYTHING. And, keeps Aubrey up at night. And climbs into Aubrey's bed at six in the morning. Ugh. Aubrey has even been taking naps a few days a week because the poor girl is so tired. I'm hoping the novelty wears off soon.

She is pretty adorable even if she is trouble.

And... a few phone pictures because that is all I seem to take now.

Some of Aubrey's school work. I love watching her learn new things. Her little preschool is really amazing. I'm so glad we found that place.

Fun times with friends. Aubrey had poor Max dressed up as a princess from head to toe by the time his mom picked him up.

They always want to wear my clothes. And my shoes.

We joined the YMCA so we could have a place to take the kids swimming. We have also been enjoying their kids classes. I took the girls to a dance class on Friday. Aubrey took it very seriously...

And Cora spent a half hour inspecting her belly in the mirror.

It feels like life just keeps getting busier, and I'm not doing the best job at documenting it.

We are so excited to go to Disneyland next week as a family. I think I can guarantee that I will take hundreds of pictures there. 

Running

I just finished my first official 10k race this morning! I would be feeling all relieved and accomplished, but Steven and I have signed up for a half marathon on November 1, so I have that training in my sights now. And.... the thought of more than doubling what I ran today makes me feel very tired. Let's pray all the training pays off!

I still don't know if I can call myself a "runner" yet, but here we are. I have never really been a distance runner. I did sprints and track until I was 14, but running was always something that seemed not very fun and painful. I have always been active and done pretty much everything (spinning, cycling, swimming, soccer, yoga, etc.) to stay fit without running.

Back in May, my good friend convinced me to run this race today. It was a 5k/10k race, so I agreed and thought to myself, "well... I at least need to make sure I can run the whole thing!" So I started running and signed up for the 5k.

Once I started running and watching my 5k time go from 31 to 26 minutes, I decided that maybe running wasn't such a horrible thing and I decided to run the 10k today. And now, the more I run, the more I love it. I just may become a runner for life.

As a mom, I am loving having tangible goals outside of motherhood. On crazy days, I love to put in my headphones and just run away. It clears my head, and I am getting faster. I'm still new to running, but I think that if I put in the time and work, then I have the ability to run some decent times.

Anyways... the race today was fun but not what I was expecting. I woke up this morning and my stomach hurt. It hurt a lot. I thought that it was just pre-race jitters, but it became clear when I got to the starting line that I was not feeling my best. I definitely need to figure something out for future events, because I did not feel good.

I got to the run and had a great warm-up chatting with friends and stretching.

Then they lined everybody up, with the 10k runners in front, then the 5k runners, then the 5k walkers. There were about 200 women there with about 40 running the 10k.

We started out and I watched three ladies just sprint ahead really really fast. They were clearly going for like 7:00 minute miles, which was definitely way faster than me. There was one other girl who ran just ahead of me the whole race, but I stayed and finished in 5th place the whole time.

The first five miles my splits were between 8:20-8:55 minute miles and while I didn't feel good, I was doing pretty well. Then at about mile 5 my stomach really started to hurt. I was frustrated because my legs and lungs felt great.

 I have been running 5-6 miles a few times a week, so I was frustrated that I was struggling. My last mile was 9:38, which was way slower then I was hoping. But.. I pushed through and managed to finish in 55:22. My goal time was anything under 56 minutes, so I met my goal!

I'll admit that I didn't feel great at all during the race, but I definitely learned a little bit about how to push through when in pain.

I had the cutest little cheerleaders at the end of the race. I love my family so much, and I was so excited to see them.

After the race, I grabbed some water, and we took some more pictures with friends:

Then Aubrey and Cora practiced racing through the finish line, and we went home. It was a great morning, and I look forward to future running events. I seriously never thought that I would ever say that, so it feels great :)