On the mend

Is there nothing more precious than bathing beauties? Best medicine EVER!

My Mother's Day went better than I thought, although I wasn't really conscious for much of it which I consider a blessing. Thank goodness for antibiotic and leftover pain meds from birthing the babe I was able to sleep (read comatose) through the yuckiest parts. Although I have to say when I was awake I was not a happy person to be around. I am embarrassed to say that there was much murmuring and gnashing of teeth (read worse than a baby) coming from me for the hours I was awake.

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Thankfully I have husband who takes it all, kids who miraculously napped often and long, and grandparents to whisk away kids when not napping. Plus it is hard to be in a bad mood when your toddler keeps telling you "Happy Moders Day". Or when you tell her you love her she replies "sanks".

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I took great comfort this morning in getting back into my usual routine with some deep cleaning projects and soup making. I'm not 100% better but I am sure getting there!

This has got to be some kind of cruel, cosmic joke.

So everyone has different things that they look forward to on Mother's Day. I especially love going to church because our ward finds subs to fill my class and there is usually some kind of special get together the last hour for the women that usually involves a chocolate fountain.
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I had a fun activity planned for Olivia and I tomorrow, with a yummy Mexican dinner on the menu. None of that is going to happen now.
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I have been hit, and hit hard with mastitis. They only reason why I am even blogging this late at night is because I am waiting for my prescription to get filled. The pain is so all consuming and the only thing that is not pushing me over the edge is typing. Otherwise I might be crawling the walls right now. I have never felt this horrible in my whole life, no exaggeration.
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And of all the days for me to get it, I get it on Mother's Day (well Eve, but I do not for see myself feeling good enough for church tomorrow). Seriously?!?! ON MOTHER'S DAY?!?!?
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And what really gets me (well let's face it I am not in a positive frame of mind right now) is this whole illness is here simply for the fact of taking care of my child, nourishing my child. All for the sake of wanting to do what I feel is best for my babe by breastfeeding exclusively, this is the day that I am initiated into mastitis-hood. I would not be crawling out of my skin with pain if it were not for the fact of MOTHERING MY CHILD. I might be a little bitter about my crazy cosmic joke, but couldn't it have just waited until Monday? So I could actually enjoy myself tomorrow?
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My washcloth has cooled off now, and I need to go get a new hot pack. I sincerely hope everyone else's Mother's Day will be better than my own!

You must read this

Kaitlyn told me that I should check out this blog and read THIS
I have since gone back to read it multiple times.
You should read it.
Make sure that you have indisturbed time to do so, you need to read it in one sitting.
It is one of the most amazing things.
Just wanted to share.

Creature's of habit

So while I do not strictly adhere to a schedule with my kids, I like to go with the flow and get out of the house if the mood strikes (and if I have a car that day), I really enjoy our daily routines. Especially our morning one.

I make the girls' breakfast while Olivia entertains Bianca and gets herself into her green chair (as she calls it). Olivia gets started on her breakfast (today cinnamon toast, blueberries and turkey bacon) while I feed Konks her jarred fruit and rice cereal. Bianca then has a dessert of cheerios while I scramble me up some feta cheese eggs and canadian/turkey bacon.

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Today Olivia made a slide with her sippy cup and slid all of her toast slices into her empty blueberry bowl before she would eat them. I eat my breakfast with my enormous glass of crystal light (citrus splash flavor) to the beat of Bianca's legs kicking against her highchair, that girl does not slow down for 5 seconds.

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It doesn't take me long to eat my breakfast and while the girls are finishing up their food I load all the dishes in the dishwasher and clean the egg pan. We clean faces and brush teeth, or in the case of the babe we brush gums. Olivia's clean up job is to pick up the cheerios that fall to the wayside and put them in the trash while I get Bianca cleaned up.

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Sometimes Olivia and I will share a piece of fruit, sometimes songs are sung to Bianca to keep her happy while her food is heating up. Sometimes a toddler is especially hungry and asks for more courses. Every time it is relaxed, easy.... total perfection.

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There are a lot of things that normally go to pot throughout the course of the day, but it is really comforting to me to know that we always start the day in an easy, casual manner. Smiling at each other, eating together either quietly or loudly. I love rotating whatever Olivia's breakfast menu is... eggs, oatmeal, cold cereal, slices of apple... But for me it is always eggs. I love my morning eggs!
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It's mornings like these that I want to remember.

Love this stuff

Since embarking on my new healthy lifestyle I have been enjoying finding new and delicious and LOW calorie foods to add to my menu. Kaitlyn turned me on to almond milk and I absolutely LOVE it! I had tried soy and it always seemed to have a weird after taste to me and rice milk was always too watered down tasting. This almond milk is divine. It is creamy and thick (not watery tasting), the original has a slight sweetness to it. I love it with my all bran because I normally add a little sugar to it, but with the almond milk it is perfect. I also love how it is only 60 calories for a cup. I love that I can make my usual breakfast taste even better all while cutting out a lot of calories! Yea to healthy living!

Just in case you doubted

Here is the pictorial proof:


As you can tell this is pre-race. We weren't quite as enthusiastic at the end of the race. It is so much fun to do this kind of stuff with your friends. Kaitlyn and I were running buddies, and so were Beth and Katie. Katie got a really bad cramp near the end of the race and had to walk the last few miles. She is such a stud that it took me right up to the last 200 meters of the race to catch up to her, when she was running she got that far ahead of me (and I was running continuously). Even though it was so frustrating for her to get injured like that she was still so encouraging to me as I caught up to her. Such a testament to me of what good sportsmanship is all about.
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It was such an awesome day!

I ran to the base of Mt Doom

Well okay, I didn't really go to Mordor because, let's face it, it's not like Mordor really exists. But this mountain sure did look like it.

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I ran my first half marathon today. It was in Snoqualmie and the course took us out to the base of Mt. Si. It has to be one of the most majestic mountains I have ever seen, I didn't even get to see all the way to the top because it was raining and misty. Kaitlyn and I were running partners and we kept joking about how we needed to run faster because the Orc's were after us.

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The theme of the race was Cinco de Mayo, it was so fun! They had mariachi bands playing in the beginning and part way through the race. Besides walking when we drank at the water stations, Kaitlyn and I ran the WHOLE WAY! I was really tempted to walk the last mile or so but I kept seeing Kaitlyn a little bit ahead of me, and I kept thinking that if she can keep going so can I.

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I ran the 13 or so miles in 2 hours and 28 minutes, which doesn't seem very fast at all by race standards, but it was a lot faster than what I was expecting to finish at. It was such a wonderful sense of accomplishment just to finish and I am so happy about what Kaitlyn and I were able to do together. We had a lot of fun keeping each other entertained so we wouldn't stress out about it, until we hit mile 9 when I had to stop talking because I was really starting to feel it.

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It was also my first time trying GU, which is like an energy gel in a little packet to help you along the race. They were real tasty (vanilla bean and tri berry flavors)! Of course trust Vashti to find one of the highlights of the race involving food!

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I am excited to do another one and try for a better time. There is a half marathon in Bellingham in October (I think) that would be fun to run in. This race was also cool because there were friends of mine running in it too, so when we would pass each other we would cheer each other on. Suzanne was a freakin' stud and raced in in like 1 hour and 47 minutes or something crazy like that. It was so cool to experience something like this with dear friends.

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My legs feel like they are going to fall off, but I am so happy to have competed in something like this!