catch up

i have been the worst blogger lately. i'm lucky if i get two posts a month in. so, in the next week or two i'm going to try to post all the stuff we've been up to over the last few months. let's start with the los altos hills pathways 10k that ben and i and some friends of ours ran on may 10. this was seriously the hardest race i have EVER run... and i think that includes any of the marathons i've finished. well, maybe not THAT hard, but take a look at the elevation profile:
ya, seriously psycho. ben totally rocked it. he finished in 46:27 and got 1st place in his age division and seventh place overall! now we have this trophy on our dresser that literally looks like they nailed 2 blocks of wood together. that's brook, kaylynn's boyfriend, with ben. he finished third in his age group. he luckily ended up with a nice medal instead of a trophy that looks like a... well, you know.
as for myself, i wanted to get under an hour and i did it just barely coming in at 59:54. that's about seven minutes slower than my fastest 10k time, but i'm just happy i finished alive. thanks to lindsey, who kept me going on those crazy hills... and for e-mailing me her pictures from the race as ben and i, once again, forgot our camera. here's some shots of all of us loco runners after we finished.

the girls
the boys
all of us
afterwards, we all met at hobee's for a delicious, high calorie breakfast. if you ever run across a hobee's in california, i suggest the blueberry coffee cake. divine. it was a totally fun morning.

up tomorrow (or the day after)... santa cruz camping bliss!

giveaway

click this to enter to win this:

totally darling. good luck to you and good luck to me! :)

ummm...

so this morning, we're sitting in church and kadin starts singing, "bow chica wow-wow, bow chica wow-wow..." ben and i couldn't stop laughing. nice songs we teach our kids, huh?

and proof that kadin is seriously one of the sweetest kids around (usually)... i was laying on the couch today after church and kadin climbs up and says,

"do you want your bwankie on, mommy?"

"yes! that is so nice of you, kadin!"

"here you go, mommy."

he throws the blanket that we keep on the back of the couch on me still folded up. as i'm unfolding it and throwing it over myself he says,

"there you go. is that good?"

geez, i just wanted to kiss him.

family portraits

my friend, meghan, snapped some fabulous family pictures for us a few weeks back. here are some of my faves:




check out her smugmug page if you live in the bay area and want an amazing photographer that doesn't cost too much. and click here to see more shots of our silly little dudes.

livin' the life

was anybody as excited as ben and i were on tuesday for the release of coldplay's new album viva la vida? we pre-prdered it on itunes two months ago and what delight to have it magically appear in our itunes library overnight. this music really makes me happy.

i think i'm losing my mind...

does anybody else scream at their children at the absolute top of their lungs occasionally? or all the time? maybe i'm PMSing or something. here's what happened at lunch today:

i throw a bag of popcorn in the microwave and go do something else while it's popping.

joel climbs onto a stool to watch the popcorn pop and opens the microwave door half-way through the popping process.

me: (screaming as loud as i possibly can, mind you) "what in the world are you doing?!! don't ever, ever touch the microwave!! you just ruined this bag of popcorn!!! (insert more shouted ramblings here) AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" (and i seriously just clenched my fists down at my sides and hollered "ah" as ear shatteringly as i could)

joel: he looks at me bewildered for a couple seconds and then says, "it's okay mom."

wise words indeed from a 3-year-old.

all this over a bag of popcorn that probably cost 50 cents. just tell me i'm not the devil, please.

the joy of pictures

a couple of months ago, our boys wiped a bunch of stuff on our computer clean somehow. i sat down to our trusty iMAC one afternoon and all of our programs were missing EVERYTHING... no songs in itunes, no favorites on my firefox window, NO PICTURES IN IPHOTO. i seriously cried. we're talking a couple thousand pictures documenting our lives for the last few years. so tragic.

yesterday i was trying to find something on our hard drive and... low and behold, there were all of our missing pictures. hiding safely in the shared folder. they had somehow been erased from iphoto, but not completely from our computer.

i cried again.

so i spent all afternoon yesterday going through all of our pictures that i had mourned so tragically. pictures are so awesome. i had to share a couple of baby pictures of my precious boys.

this is joel at about 7 months... how can anyone resist that huge, "charlie brown" noggin with those enormous, twinkling brown eyes?! you can't, i tell you. :)


this is kadin at about 2 months... have you ever seen such darling squeezable jowels? i think not! :)

terrified

yep, i'm freaking out. i started potty training joel today. i have no idea what i'm doing, but i'm doing it anyway.

he's running around naked right now... well, he actually has a shirt on, but no pants. i've heard that's the best crash course and usually really successful. he's sat on the potty a few times today already, but no action yet. i'll keep you posted... hopefully, with good news.

**update**

so today it went... okay. he had a couple of accidents, which i'm sure is totally normal for the first day. by the end of the day, he had gone pee in his potty at least 10 times, so i think he's getting the hang of it. i think he's scared to have an accident, though, so he spends long stretches of time sitting on his potty and wants me or ben to sit there with him. i seriously spent several cumulative hours sitting on a stool next to him, while he read and i read and he waited and i waited. i kept asking him if he wanted a break, but he wouldn't get up until he had gone. sweet kid. the first time he went in the potty, he was so excited. he started laughing and smiling immediately and said, "i get M&Ms!" all in all, a successful day, but we are totally EXHAUSTED!

dinner time

well, ben is on a business trip for the third week in a row and i just couldn't muster the energy to make my kids a well-balanced, nutritious meal for dinner tonight. i really can't muster enough energy to do, well... anything. this traveling stuff for work really bites. anyway, lest you think you are a terrible parent because you can't get your kids to eat enough veggies, rest assured... here's what we had for dinner tonight:

milk, ritz crackers and graham crackers.

all the nutrients you could ever want, right? after that we walked down to the chevron on the corner and bought:

oreos, keebler soft batch chocolate chip cookies and pringles.

this all after they had a delicious lunch of:

gogurt, granola bars and spree candies.

here's to a better tomorrow with more green stuff and less dairy, sugar and refined carbs!

just me and the kiddos...

from the mouth of joel

this morning i got back from a run and began to stretch. from over his bowl of cherrios, joel looks at me and says, "how was your run, mom?"

15 minutes later...

kadin spills his entire glass of milk all over himself and the floor. his bottom lip starts to quiver, signaling a good cry coming on. i start to reassure him, telling him it's okay, and joel says, "it's okay kadin, mommy will clean it up."

so sweet...

usually.