Closer to my goal

OK I'm still a long way away from my 5K goal, but as I've said, I just need to improve my distance a little at a time. Today I did just that! I ran 1.47 miles! It's kind of a disappointment to be sooo close to 1.5 but that just means I need to work a little harder next time.

I would really like to buy a reliable pedometer that would accurately measure my distance as I'm out running. I think that if I knew today that I was .03 miles away from my halfway point that I would have kept going. I bought a new iPod last week and have heard that there's some good apps that could help me but I'm having issues with my iTunes account so I'm waiting to get them resolved before I can look in to it a little more.

On to the fun topic... my little 2 year old! Autie is talking up a storm these days. Unfortunately I only understand about half of what she says. The sad part is that I can see her frustration when I don't understand her! We just do a lot of repeating around our house. She is so much fun to be around. She is a bright, funny, curious, precious, kind-hearted and sassy little girl and I'm so lucky to have her in my life.

We started regularly going to Sunday School at the church down the street from us and
Autie and I are both getting a lot out of it! She seems to really enjoy the class and teacher and a couple of weeks ago she came home singing a song that I didn't recognize. She was very persistent in singing this and repeated it over and over for a long time! She would dance around marching and then would yell what sounded like "Ahhh-saa!" The next Sunday I went to the teacher and asked what they sang each week and she said that we were welcome to peek in on their worship time when they do all of their singing. My mom snuck in and I'm positive that she found which song Autumn was singing! So cute!

Untitled from LaNell German on Vimeo.

Happenings

Over the last couple of weeks, I seem to have hit a plateau in my running. As I posted a couple of weeks ago, my personal best was about 1.3 miles and I was proud! But if I am going to run that 5k in November, I need to keep going a little further. It just wasn't happening though! I have still kept my 3-5 times a week plan but just couldn't get back up to that 1.3 mile mark. Today I was determined to beat it and set out for my run. I just ran until my spring was gone and I felt that each step was a burden on my body. I got home and clocked it and found that I beat my best with 1.44 miles! Go me!

This weekend a very exciting thing happened in my family! My sister Kate gave birth to her first daughter, Drew Frances. I was allowed in the delivery room and actually got to see little Drew enter the world and I must say that it was the most incredible thing I've ever witnessed. It seems that when I was giving birth to Autumn I was on a different planet because I didn't watch and I guess I wasn't in the frame of mind to really pay attention. But I am so thankful to Kate and Ron for allowing me to be a part of that wonderful moment. I am constantly amazed at how strong, amazing, and resillient women's bodies are. Not only do we create a life, but we grow one in our body for 40 weeks and then to top it off, we make food for the baby! Miraculous for sure. So help me to welcome my new neice who was born February 25th at 11:01pm. She was 7lb 1oz and was 20 inches long.

I am so in love with her already and can't wait to see her grow in to the beautiful amazing person that she is destined to be!

A New Goal

These last couple of months, I've managed to make some time for me, which is definitely hard to do as a new mom. In this "me-time", I have discovered something that has never even remotely interested me in the past... Jogging! I began this journey last July in the dead heat of summer. I started out with a walk. What began as a tool to help me finally shed the baby-weight became not only something to do, but something to look forward to and to be proud of!

When I started, I walked. Period. I walked almost every single morning. My neighborhood route was 2 miles and I felt great! I started to see the weight come off. After a few pounds, I started to think, hmmm, maybe I can jog to the end of that block. And I did! It was challenging but seemed to be fun! I liked to get home and look online to see how far I ran. And although it was only about .25 miles in the beginnning, it was a start! Over the last few months, I've seen my distance get farther and farther. A couple of weeks ago I hit a mile! I was so proud. I had never run a full mile in my entire life. All this has made me want to keep going and push myself. And I've set a goal that I need to record somewhere so I cannot back out. So here it is...

I will run a 5K this year! RUN! The race I'm reaching for is the Susan G Komen Race for the cure in November. It's totally doable!

I still have a long way to go to reach my goal, but every day is one more step to achieving this goal. Today, I ran 1.31 miles. Hopefully I'll be able to use this blog as a way to keep myself in check.

Not only has this exercise given me a little of my figure back, it's given me something to really look forward to. It's just a little something to recapture a little of "me" which is so hard to do when my whole life has centered around my precious little angel for the last 2 years!

Autumn's first hair cut!

We went to get Autie's first haircut today! We were a little aprehensive because she barely lets me comb it, but decided to give it a try anyways. We went to one of those kids haircut places and the first thing that she wanted to to is to get in one of the cars that are the salon chairs.


Once she got up in it, surprisingly it was really easy for Amy, her hairdresser, to do her job! They had a movie playing for Autumn to watch and of course there were all of the buttons in the Barbie Jeep that she was sitting in. They wet her hair and saved the first cut curl in a little baggie for us to keep. She sat patiently while the rest of the haircut took place and even let Amy blow-dry it!

She then got a treat when they painted her fingernails. It was a real day of beauty!

I almost started to cry during the whole process, but Jeremy snapped me back to reality when he started laughing at me. The other moms in the salon understood, though!

We left with a beautiful little bob, baby pink fingernails, a commermorative certificate, and a little curly lock of hair. It was a great trip, one that I will never forget!

My almost-updated kitchen!

Jeremy and I bought new countertops for the kitchen about a month ago and have been anxiously awaiting the install. There were a couple of delays, but we were finally going to get them and started our demolition this week. Jeremy ripped out the majority of the counters last weekend but left the sink in as long as possible so we wouldn't be inconvenienced all that much. Jeremy also decided to stain the existing cabinets for an updated look so he started doing that this last weekend as well! Although he only got 3 pieces of the bottom cabinets done, I just know that the results will be stunning when they're all done!

Last night, Jeremy and I took out the sink and dreaded the next couple of hours without a sink or dishwasher in the kitchen, but knew that the pain would be worth it.

Our installer showed up today and began putting in the countertops and I was immediately in love. I am SO glad that Jeremy began staining the existing counters because I have to admit, the beautiful new counters do not look good with our existing cabinets at all. However, the stained ones are absolutely beautiful against the counters that we chose. After seeing everything go in, I was so glad that we decided to get this done. It really adds a lot to our little kitchen!

About half-way through, the guy doing the installing called me over to show me the worst possible thing... a big crack in the sink!! I don't know if you know the story behind my sink, but it was a really big deal for me. I knew the type of sink that I wanted and set out on the Internet to make it a reality. I located a little store in Northern CA that stocked it and placed my order. Mind you, this was back in July that all of this was done, so this dream sink has been sitting in the box that it was shipped in in the middle of my garage since it was delivered by FedEx. I called the store in CA and was promptly reminded of their 7 day return policy and also of the fact that I should have opened the box when I received it! I told the guy that I realize that I should have, but the truth is that I just opened it and it's cracked! He told me that he would have to "see what he could do" and would call me back. Really, though, how the heck was I going to take the 50lb sink out of the box to check it? I would have never gotten it back in :) He did call me back, and after reminding me once again of their 7 day return policy and what I should have done, he said that as long as I was willing to pay for the shipping charges, that he'd ship me another one, even though, as he had to throw in, most companies wouldn't do that.

While I am grateful for his cooperation and willingness to bend, the fact remains that I have half of a kitchen, and it's not the half that you'd want if given the choice. We are going out of town over the Labor Day weekend which will soften this blow a bit, but I guess we'll be eating out and washing Autumn's sippy cups in the bathroom sink (that just doesn't even sound sanitary, does it??) until the new one is here and installed. I'm guessing that will be about a week.

Below are the pictures of the kitchen as it looks at this time. I actually like that Jeremy's only done some of the staining becuase I'm able to see what it would have looked like if he had decided against it. You can also see the lovely hole where my sink will someday reside.

I've decided that the red walls no longer go with our new design, so that will be the next to go. Poor Jeremy is going to be busy for the next couple of months... When he's done with that I'm sure I'll have thought of something else to add to my "honey-do" list.

Our little mommy

I want to let you know what this little stinker is up to! First off, I never thought that any toy that we could ever purchase would ever live up to Bubby. As you know, Bubby goes with us everywhere! Last Friday, we went to the pool at the Y with Erin and her son Hutson, daughter Bailey, niece Rian, and nephew Griffin. Griffin is only 9 months old and quite a chunk, so we brought along our little umbrella stroller to haul him around in. When we were leaving the pool, Autie decided that she needed to be the one pushing Griffin in the stroller. She pushed him out of the pool, all through the Y, and out to our car in the parking lot. She actually got mad at me when I took her away from the stroller to put her in the car.

On Saturday, I went to Toys R Us and checked out what they had for baby strollers and found a mini version of the umbrella stroller we have. I brought it home and Autumn has been inseprable with the thing since. The only time she would walk away from it would be if Bubby got left behind. We actually had to fashion a way for her to be able to bring Bubby with us, since he is too good to ride in the stroller and she couldn't figure out how to carry him and push the stroller at the same time.

I took these pictures today on the way home from Erin's. We usually just ride over in the stroller, with me pushing of course... Today, Autie had to push her own stroller to Erin's, both ways. When we got home, she had to finish the walk by taking a couple laps around our yard/cul de sac. Her little face was so red from all that walking I had to put an end to it and get the girl some water. She is so strong-headed, I wonder where she gets that from...

I will say that Bubby has not been replaced by any means, but that may only be because the stroller doesn't fit nicely in her crib at night.

Playground Daredevil

Today, Autie and I went to the park, as we've been doing for months. On a normal day, I follow her as she climbs up the stairs of the playscape, crawl/walk around the little circle at the top, and then she sits on my lap as we go down one of the three slides. Today, I went up the stairs with her, and she went straight to the swirly slide and tried to hurl herself down head-first. I panicked and grabbed her little feet at the last second. She screamed at me as I pulled her back up, and put her on my lap to go down the slide. I realized that her screams were her way of showing her ever-growing independent streak. So, at the bottom of the slide, I decided to let her try a solo flight. I watched in amazement as my little one go up the stairs all by herself and run to the slide and go down, once again head-first! Luckily I had my camera and was able to catch one of the many runs.

Autumn at the Playground from Karen Wallace on Vimeo.

I swear, we were there for an hour and it was the same thing over and over. I guess that I knew this day was coming. She is growing up so fast and I am realizing that she is gaining more confidence and independence every single day (much to my dismay!).