don't judge me...

but apparently i'm not that bright. 

particularly when it comes to switching my brain from using a pc to a mac.

it's supposed to be super intuitive... but apparently that's only the case for the smarties.

in any case i just finished my first iMovie *roar of crowd* of the Christmas holidays.

that's right... Christmas.  don't judge.

you'll note there's only one picture from Christmas Eve - of Javier and his huge gash on his head from tumbling down 14 hardwood stairs in Nana & Richard's house.  marcus asked me not to include it, but i felt it was important for posterity sake.

oh, and the music was the first song i saw when iTunes opened up... let's be grateful it wasn't christmas music.

at this rate, maybe i'll catch up with the rest of my blogging... one day. :(

13.1

That’s the distance from uptown Charlotte, to South Park, through Myers Park & Dilworth, and back to uptown.

If you had told me, even 6 months ago, I would ever run.  I would have called you crazy.

Let alone that kind of distance.

But I did it… 13.1 miles.  A half marathon.  And no, I didn’t die, though at a couple of points during the actual race I thought I would.

I was supposed to start training in Quito.  But really, at that altitude, um, no.

I could barely breathe.

we cursed and swore that this was the worst idea ever.  My friend Cristin documented it all in this article.. of how a bunch of semi-in-shape-and-not-at-all-in-shape women one night on a dare decided running a half marathon would be a good idea.  It was May… we’d had a couple of cocktails… the race was in November… we could totally do this… right?

Then, suddenly, the weekend runs became longer.  A LOT longer.  And the date got closer.  A LOT closer.

my early-morning-pre-race-picture.  lululemon leggings, my jellybeans, gum, and yes, a large bottle of ibuprofen (no, I didn’t actually bring it with me).

a very blurry picture of the ‘electric lemonade’ girls… cristin, jenny, leigh, lindsay, kristi & amy.  those smiles were gone about 20 minutes after this picture was taken.

We did a great job… running at our own paces and in my case, dragging (literally at times) Kristi along with me because I refused to leave her behind (until the last mile when she said she was walking and I was like ‘girlfriend, I’ll see you at the finish line’).  We all finished and averaged anywhere between 10:30 and 13 minute miles (my best was early on…a 9:45 mile… apparently I was on crack at the time.. but I averaged out at about 11:40 a mile).

My girlfriend Anne said it best… something to the effect of, as moms… in particular stay-at-home moms, we need these kinds of challenges.  And it’s true.  Pushing myself to do this was scary but awesome and I ‘m so proud of my girls who overcame injuries, pregnancy, health issues, and general laziness to rock out this race. 

post race +1… cristin’s husband.

And yes, we’re already making plans to do it again.

she’s fine

Really.

She’s super fine.

Better than fine… because not only did this happen weeks ago (October 25th to be exact), but children are made out of rubber.

I’ve waited this long to add this to the book of this year because I couldn’t look at the pictures of her fall without crying.  Honestly, they still make me well up.

There’s no other explanation.

Because, if you fall backwards 6 1/2 feet when you weigh 30 pounds and are only four years old, something terrible is probably going to happen.  A broken arm, a punctured lung.  Something. 

She bounced.

But not her…and for that we are eternally grateful.  A nasty bruise on her cheek that lasted a week, and the chance to tell her classmates that she got to see the inside of an ambulance is all she got for her troubles.

A million thanks to Rebecca who said “I’m calling 911”, to the random dad at the park who saw me try to scoop her up and said “don’t try to lift her – she fell backwards and may have injured her spine”, to Mary for jumping back in to nurse mode and looking her over, and to Kate for sympathizing over my new hatred of this park and taking the pictures.

at home that evening, cuddling on the sofa eating club crackers.

boo.

This was Emi’s last St. John’s Halloween Parade.  I’m a little devastated.

In case you can’t tell (and why would you be able to), she decided to dress up as Izzy, the girl pirate, from the show “Jake and the Neverland Pirates.”  It was the world’s simplest costume, pixie dust pouch, leggings, and plain shirt, even if it lacked some pizazz.

all pirates need a map and telescope.

emi & graham.

On ‘real’ Halloween I organized our usual neighborhood get-together in the Talbot’s driveway/garage.

the ‘hood rats’ – john carter, graham, ethan, connor, baby tyson (aka the crying monkey), emi & isabella.

honorary pirates.  they didn’t stay out too long because as soon as the sun started to go down it got cold quickly.

our favorite bride came to trick-or-treat with us.

I was rather proud of my pumpkin carving skills this year.

dinnertime cuties

homemade creamy tomato soup, breadsticks and broccoli (with catsup of course).

yes, I’ve caved… I gave him back his paci… he’s never been happier.

riverbend farms 2011

This past Saturday we went to Riverbend Farms for our usual pumpkin picking expedition.  The weather this year was beautiful.  While we were there I kept flashing back to last year when I was heavily pregnant with the boys and being so miserable out in the field and Tulu having to practically break his back helping me on the tractor.  Yikes.  Flash forward a year… back with the Cankurtarans and this year we met Caitlin with Kyrie and Brooks as well.  Javier loved walking all over the place and Andres loved petting the pumpkins and checking out the animals.

check out Brooks’ boots.

love this girlie.

emipalooza 4.0

Yes, it’s October, and I’m just now blogging about Emi’s birthday party 6 weeks ago.   In order to avoid what happened last year (hello, 52 people at a 3-year-old’s birthday party – craziness – plus pregnant at the same time) we did things a bit differently this year.  During the week we had a joint party with Maisie and our playgroup pals.  The following Saturday we did a party with school/neighborhood friends.  Emi only wanted a bounce house and Hello Kitty themed stuff.  Unfortunately, her party was on the same day Hurricane Irene was hitting the Outer Banks and there was a lot of wind in Charlotte and the bounce house rental had to cancel at.the.last.minute.  So frustrating.  Thank goodness we had our backyard play set… between that and the wagons/riding toys/balls, the kids had a blast.  Thanks to Tia Ozlem for taking all the pictures.

My running joke is that if this is Emilia at four, I don’t know that I’ll survive her at 14.  While she can be sweet as pie most of the time, she certainly is prone to temper tantrums and fits of all-out crying and screaming.  She gets frustrated fairly easily especially because she wants to do everything by herself.  She loves her brothers dearly and is generally super sweet with them, but looses her marbles when they grab her toys or enter her room.  (She has a strict ‘no boys’ policy when it comes to her room).  She fights naps most days but desperately needs them, otherwise the late afternoons/evenings can be pretty dreadful.  She eats pretty much everything at this point (especially if there’s catsup on the side) and goes through phases where there isn’t enough food in the world to satisfy her. 

Overall our girl is an amazing budding athlete and student with a stubborn streak. We love you Puchis!

*At her 4 year check up she weighed 34 pounds (75th percentile) and was 41 inches tall, with a projected height of 5’5 – 5’7.  Her BMI was 14 (whatever that means), her spine is nice and straight, and her vision and hearing were excellent (which I found interesting since I can call her name a hundred times a day and maybe she hears me once).  She was super brave during her vaccines and didn’t let out a peep until the booster MMR shot (which does hurt).*