In One Week!

I will be here and hopefully done by this time!  Mooseman is ONE week away.  I was on the course this morning riding and the bugs were TERRIBLE!  So bug spray it is.  I am hoping the weather is nice and that it does not rain. 

We arrived in NH late Thursday.  Already we have been to the emergency room for Aly, who has an ear infection.  Other than that we have been enjoying the grandparents and the weather.  It has been warm here...hopefully it will warm up the lake a little.  It is currently CHILLY!

Lets get this Party Started!

Big weeks ahead of us....now if only I could get the packing done.  We leave this week for our 6 week adventure.  We will stop back in PA briefly for Aly's preschool graduation but other than that we will be on the road!

We are headed to NH first and then stops in Toronto, Iowa, and Minnesota.  3 kids, two dogs and a van full of stuff if I ever get my act together.  We are excited to see all of our family and spend time with all of the cousins.  Mommy is not too excited about driving to Iowa with Jackson, since he really is not a lover of the car.

Off to pack!

Weekend Fun!

Someone might have missed their mommy this weekend.  The girls and I left for CT to do dress shopping for a wedding that we are all in on Friday.  We returned home on Sat and I was happy to see Jack.

Apparently he did great with dad...he was learning to mow

He had no problem showing me what he learned.  Aly spent the afternoon making us all crowns to wear for the family is all back together party.

Finally, our garden is beginning to grow.  We had a ton of rain this past week and everything has sprouted.  Ryan was making fun of our peas since they are not 2 to 3" apart.  Somehow planting with a  1,3, 5 year old makes that a little difficult.

Slowing down.....

So training is beginning to slow down as Mooseman is on the horizon.  I did my workout this morning and then confessed that I have been super tired and the eight two cups of coffee are not really doing the trick.  So I am taking a couple of days to rest..recovery really is not my forte but we will see how I feel on Sat.  The girls and I are headed to CT for a girls weekend. 
 
Jack - try as he might to show us his feminine side and domestic ability is staying home with Daddy.

 He did volunteer to do the laundry while we are gone

 

Meanwhile we took advantage of the whopping 2 hours of nice weather this afternoon and managed to nail down the clothed bath routine for the summer.  There will be no need to do laundry or baths since we will be spending our time at the water table apparently

I blame my mother....

for my inability to make things simple...We have the church rodeo picnic tomorrow.  We were in charge of cupcakes, 4 dozen to be exact.  So we decided to go with corn.  Maybe it is because I married someone right from the midwest. 

This was the finished product....ears of corn.  Seriously, it took the 3 girls all afternoon and a million jelly beans on these bad boys.  It was fun though. 

Weekend Fun

We broke out the water table and Jackson is in love.  Combine his knack of finding dirt anywhere and the water table and we are sure to have a muddy summer.  It took him all of about 5 minutes to get himself soaked from head to toe.

The sitter might never come back.....

Yesterday I had what I hope it my LAST really long bike ride and run.  I had a sitter come over in the afternoon so that I could get it done.  I was really really not looking forward to this ride for a variety of reasons but alas the sitter showed up so off I went.

I had not napped Jackson in anticipation of having a sitter and told her that we had gotten rid of the binky.  I was a little disheveled when she came, so I forgot to mention that he could have the binky at nap....well poor girl..Jackson never napped.   However, that was the mildest of her afternoon.

Apparently Aly and Brianna were working to terrorize this poor girl.  They told her that they could watch a certain show....cough SPONGE BOB cough.  and then they proceeded to tell her after the fact that they were not allowed to watch it.  Then at nap time, Aly threw a fit and Brianna went and hid.  Brianna hid in my closet for 20 MINUTES..without saying a word.  Apparently she scared this poor girl...who thought she had lost Brianna forever.

Needless to say, when I arrived home...5 hours later...she was ready to bolt out the door..I just kept throwing money at her saying please come back.  Hopefully she comes back next week since Ryan is away.

Happy Birthday Jackson

It is hard to believe that you are one!  It seems like just yesterday I was 42 weeks pregnant, waiting to find out if you were a boy or a girl.  I thought I would be happy with another girl, but truth be told you are truly a momma's boy.  Your smile lights my day every morning.  I have been truly blessed to spend every day with you. 

You came into a world filled with princesses, pink and purple, yet you have made your mark.  Trucks and balls and dirt have entered our world quickly. So has your brute force....you will not be deterred for anything..I think you get that from your mom.  You get something in your head and the determination sets in.  You certainly get your eating habits from your dad.  I have never seen a one year old eat like you do...you are truly a TANK!

Happy Birthday Jackson!

That is just how we roll

This is how we spent the early morning today.....I still don't know why it is more fun to pull everything out...rather than put it back in.

And Jack....well if it has moving parts...he is there.

This is the bike trainer....and Jack is obsessed with it.

Yale or Jail

We are most certainly blowing bubbles in our pjs in the middle of the afternoon.  One of those roll with the punches type of days.  NOT ONE KID napped today...and if this is the story of my week, where o where is Friday.

When I picked up the girls this morning from preschool Brianna's teacher pulled me aside.  Apparently Brianna had gone after Aly out on the playground.  She had one of those velcro mitts that you catch balls with and she proceeded to rub it in Aly's hair.  Oh dear...it took 3 teachers to get the think out and my drama queen was hysterical over losing her Rapunzel like hair.  Brianna's teacher who had Aly last year commented that one could go to Yale while the other one is in jail.

Here is to a great start to the week!

our little garden

We had a great start to the weekend...the weather cooperated for the most part and we got some of our plants in our new little garden.  I think Brianna got more dirt outside of the garden than in but all in all we made it work.

I let the girls pick out the things we are going to grow this year.  They picked tomatoes, pumpkins, peppers, and cucumbers.  We also are going to try a watermelon, but I dont have a whole lot of hope for that one.  Of course we will do several small rows of peas for the Iowa in us!

Not sure how this garden will fare with our 5 week departure from PA looming ahead but hopefully it will survive. 

Jumping for Joy

Last week we were in CT and we visited friends who gave us a bunch of boys toys....I think my friend Jen thought that poor Jack would be dressing in princess FOREVER.  Jack has been loving this zebra....or anything that moves, can be thrown, or banged for that matter.  THANKS DEMARCO FAMILY!

We have been busy enjoying the weather and playing outside.  Jack stands at the door and points to the swing on a regular basis.  We have about 3 more weeks in PA and then we begin our long (5 week) long summer trip to NH, Toronto Canada, and then to Iowa.  While in theory it was good on paper,,,,I am starting to think that I might be insane...or by the time we get home in July for sure I will be done.

We are excited to see family and friends...and I am super excited to race in NH and IA.  Maybe if I start packing now I might be ready!

S'mores and more.

This face pretty much sums up our weekend.  We had great weather and Aly had just finished her first s'more of the season. 

Brianna was still working on hers.

I got to spend Sat in the Philly with Brooke and Ryan worked on the yard while the kids were playing.  It had not been mowed in 10 days so the grass was LONG!  This afternoon we built the planter boxes so this week hopefully we can get the garden in!  

I had a great week of training since we were in NH.  I was able to get up to the Mooseman course twice and experience the dreaded hills on the bike and see what the run course was like.  My parents were awesome helping out with the kids so I could get some great training in!  Thanks mom and dad.  It is hard to believe in less than a month it will be here.

We must be at Grandma's

Brookes Birthday Bash and Easter

We celebrated Brooke's 30th on Friday...it was determined that the last time the girls got a picture was 2004 - before any kids...time to update that one!   The Jackson girls

Then we allowed the kids...yep we were surely outnumbered

Easter was a blast...as you can see - all seven cousins

Jackson and Lyla - checking out the egg hunt goodies

The mad dash for the eggs

Callum would only pick up sports related eggs...the rest he just ran right by

Barry spent a good amount of time trying to get Callum to use the chipper instead of the putter

Here is is....what a good dad! Too bad Callum really did not care!

We HEART NH

We arrived on Wed night and we have been on the go since.  Ryan left for Las Vegas and Chin.a early Thursday morning.  We have been enjoying the outside weather and all of the new indoor play places around

Jackson was OBESSED with these ice cream cones at the play place this morning.....he sure does take after his daddy!

Tonight we are off to celebrate Brookes 30th birthday!

UMLY Sprint Tri

I did the UMLY Sprint Tri yesterday.  It was WINDY and COLD.  But before I do my little race recap of course I have a funny story about the kids.

When I got home it was so nice out I packed them all up and took them to the park.  There is a little park near our house that has a little dirt track around the play equipment.  The girls played for a while and I had Jackson on the swings. 

Then all of the sudden Aly lines up at the track and annouces that they are starting the half marathon soon so everyone needs to line up to race.  Brianna runs over and they do one lap of the track.  When they get to the end I announced that they each won for the 3 and 5 year olds.  We get home and Brianna lets Ryan know she ran a half marathon and won - crack me up.

Okay onward to my triathlon.  The swim was in an outdoor heated pool.  The forcast said a high of 60 - so at 7 am it was about 48 out.  Ummmm - that was chilly.  Coach Mary had written a prerace warmup - which I did about 15 minutes before the start of my swim wave.  The problem arose when they were late with the start.  40 minutes late...I froze.  On that pool deck waiting for them to start - it seemed like eternity.

We finally got in the water and were off.  The first 200 seemed like a warmup...but I never really got that warm, and then it was done 7:18 for 450 meters  Boo - getting out of the water was the worst.  The transition to the bikes was about .4 mile from the pool.  I think that was my fastest run of the day because I knew I had a dry shirt.

Onto the bike...which has been not that fun lately.  I got on and started off..it was hard to change the gears since my hands were so cold.  The ride was a loop through the ritzy mainline area, rolling hills, and plenty of wind.  I just kept hoping that the sun would come up.  I still need to learn how to ride up hills as it seemed every hill that came I thought I might fall over on my bike.  I headed back to the Y and was hoping that my legs would cooperate for the run.  Bike was 30.04.

The run...honestly my feet were numb when I got off the bike - I think I need toe warmers.  It took almost 2 miles to feel my feet and that was a weird sensation.  I have been working hard on my running, so I had high hopes for this.  The run was hilly and by the end I just wanted to be dry and warm.  26.31 for the run

Overall my time was 1:07.56 and I was 2nd in my age group and 5th overall women.  I was happy with this.  Initally I thought I had placed better but got the results online today.  Honestly this was really the first time I have really raced and I think only the third sprint I have ever done. 

Mooseman is next....I just better like my bike a little more!

i think i work best under pressure

15 minutes until the b-day party and I finished.