My First Half Marathon!!

So almost 4 months and 40 pounds after I started training in January I ran my first half marathon last weekend. It was in Hurricane, UT and I loved it. The few weeks leading up to it I was a little worried because I pulled a muscle in my leg and it was taking forever to heal. I just really didn't want to have to run 13.1 miles with pain in every step. I was very blessed! My leg felt great the whole run. It was very hard, but so worth it. I remember in November talking with my girlfriends about running, and I said I don't think I could ever run anything more than a 10K (6 miles) I can't believe I actually did it.
Here are some of the pictures from the run. I don't have the pics from the finish line yet, and after. I'll post those when I get them.
If you want to read more about the race and my journey there you can go to the other blog I did with my friends about our progress HERE.

We drove there Friday night and went to pick up our packets.

Then we drove the course to see what we were in for the next morning.

We woke up WAY TOO EARLY!!! It was 3:30 Vegas time, (4:30 - UT) to drive to Hurricane from St. George. It was cold and early. We spray painted our hair fun colors for the race.

I ran the race and reached my own goals I had set for myself! YAHOO!!

This is back at the hotel after finishing. One last pose to show I did it! (That is my time card in my hand.)

It was so great being able to do this with good friends. It made the journey that much easier.

Tell it like it is!

I've been so sick of Hayden and Rebecca's messy room. We can spend forever cleaning and it is destroyed in 5 min. or less. Notice I said, "We" not they. So new rule. Whatever they don't clean before bed gets put in a trash bag and put in the garage and they have to earn it back. Hayden and Rebecca were so proud of themselves last night for cleaning up all by themselves, and it made me so happy. I was telling them how great it was, and it made me happy. I asked if they feel good too.
Hayden said, "Yeah, mom. I like having a clean room. You should clean your room."

Easter

About time I got my Easter post up huh! We had a very eventful and fun Easter weekend. It started with a great party at my friend Maria's house. She is such a great host. Her house was FULL of kids and it didn't even ruffle her feathers. We all had a wonderful time. We had a delicious lunch and then the kids stayed in the living room and answered good Easter/ Conference questions while a lot of the adults hid the eggs in the backyard.

(Do you see all those kids!!! She's amazing for hosting!)

When it was time for them to go in the backyard to look for the eggs they were all huddled around the door just waiting for the "go-ahead."

And they're off!!




We really are blessed to live in such a great ward with wonderful members. I LOVE our ward family!
Rebecca loved finding all the Easter eggs. She didn't really want to eat the candy, but just loved finding a lot, and opening them.

She wasn't too keen about sharing with Sydney.

Here is Hayden hiding behind his basket - showing off his eggs.


Sydney just had fun pretending to be a big girl. (Who am I kidding, she is growing up so fast, she is a big girl!)



After that party we went home and relaxed for a couple hours till we went over to Jerry's brother, Barry's house for an Easter/ Welcome home/ Good Bye party for Joe and Bonnie. (Post on that coming later) After another wonderful meal the kids got to have another Easter egg hunt. These eggs had candy and some had money. Ooh, the kids loved that!



Jerry helping Hayden and Rebecca find some eggs.

Looking through their loot!

Saturday between conference sessions we colored Easter Eggs. We are total party poopers, but believe it or not this is the first Easter we have dyed eggs with our kids. They've done it at parties, but we always run out of time. They loved it. (Please ignore the almost naked little boy)



Rebecca was terrified and in tears on Sat. night because she DID NOT want the Easter bunny to come hide her eggs. She just wanted me and Jerry to hide the eggs. Honestly, when I was growing up we loved Easter, but we never thought there was an actual Easter bunny that hid our eggs. Jerry and I don't really push the Easter bunny, but at the same time it's a fun little Easter "thing" so we'll see how long the kids actually believe. We are really lazy about Easter so the kids were with us when we bought the presents, and Hayden found the dollar store presents that I had hid in the garage, so they know we do the presents, and they assume the bunny hides the eggs. What do you do? What do you tell your kids?
Anyway, back to my story... she was terrified of the Easter bunny, so I told her maybe we could hide her eggs this year.
They were very excited Easter morning to be able to play with the toy they got. And it was actually quite nice for them to have something new to play with during conference.
Uh, I mean, no, my kids sit perfectly still and listen to all of conference. haha. This way they played quietly and we could listen.
I love having General Conference on Easter Sunday. I just love conference anyway, but what a great time to remember our Savior and the Resurrection by listening to the Prophet and Apostles speak. It was a great conference and I can't wait to get the Ensign to read through the talks again.
Happy Easter everyone!

The Easter presents

In the morning, it didn't matter who hid the eggs, she was excited to find them!

They each got a cute little stool. I think that's Sydney's favorite present. They had fun watching a movie that night on their chairs. (Rebecca's broke the next morning. Surprised??)

Disneyland

OK, So I'll be the first to say that my kids have been spoiled! Sydney has been to Disneyland more times in her short 13 months, than I had up until I got married. But what can I say?? I think if Jerry could live in Disneyland he would. In our defense, Ebay for tickets and Priceline for hotels are our friends. We were able to go to Disneyland last week with my brother & Sis-in-law, Joseph & Angela and their cute kids. It was so much fun. A lot of work, but tons of fun. We realized that when you have two families with 6 children under the age of 6 it is kinda busy. The only thing that would have made it better would have been one more day to just hang out at the hotel, let the kids swim and play with each other, and enjoy some relax time. The time just went too quickly.

Hayden and Rebecca were so excited when we got there Monday morning. They couldn't contain their excitement.

I realize Sydney's eyes are a little funky in this picture, but I still wanted to post it.

She was excited to ride on Dumbo.

We were lucky to catch Peter Pan hiding in the bushes!

Main Street

The beautiful castle. I think Rebecca was the MOST excited about the castle. Because it meant princess!!

Waiting in line for "Small World"

Hanging at Toon Town

I think the thing Hayden was looking forward to the very most was the Lego store in Downtown Disney. The kids had been saving up money for a couple months before we went but we told them they couldn't spend their money till the second day because I didn't want them to buy something, but see another thing they wanted more the second day. It didn't matter for Hayden. He knew all along he wanted to buy Legos. He was so excited to go there. He and Ethan, his cousin are both Lego fanatics.

Indiana Jones has Hayden caught by the neck.

We also loved California Adventure. The Bugs land is so fun and cool to see.

No, not a great picture of our whole family, but believe it or not it was the best one we got in front of Mickey.

Here is Joseph and Angela and their cute family.

We went home on Wednesday, but we didn't want to get back into real life, so we stopped at Knotts Berry Farm before coming home. We just walked around the shops and by the little lake. We like to go there and feed the ducks.

It was a very hot day so the kids wanted to put their hands in the fountain to cool down. Next thing we know they were soaking wet, but very refreshed.

I'm so glad we were able to go. I think it gave us the vacation bug. A few days after we got home Jerry had already scheduled our next trip to Disneyland, next month. This time we'll be going without the kids though!!

Fun new classes

We decided to put Hayden and Rebecca in some fun classes at the rec center. Hayden is in a T-ball class, and is loving it. I'm so glad. He played soccer last spring, and he liked it, but when we asked if he wanted to play again he wasn't so sure. We figured we'd let him take this class to see if he even likes playing. It is a hit. I like it because it's just a small class that is teaching all the skills and he loves getting up to that Tee and hitting the ball. he's actually not too bad either!

Here he is up to bat.

Rebecca has got some natural rhythm. I've been so excited for her to turn 3 so she could take a ballet class from the rec. center. She LOVES it. She wears her leotard (or as she called it her "ratatioulle" for a couple days because she couldn't remember the name) pretty much every day. The class is for 3 - 5 yr. old girls, so there are a lot in there that have been there for a while, but it's still a beginning class and she is having so much fun. I'm so glad we live close to the rec. center that offers such fun and cheap classes for the kids.

Before her firs class.

Showing me her own ballet poses that she created.