A Day at a Time

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Running in Richmond!

Richmond Half Marathon
America's friendliest marathon (and half marathon).
Clear blue skies and temps in the 40's.
13.1 miles in 2:12.
PR by almost 20 minutes.
Best running partner in the world!
Awesome!

Friday, November 11, 2011

Ready to Roll.

After a long day cooped up in the car on Saturday, a restless Saturday night, and a grumpy Sunday, we were thrilled to wake up on Monday to an unseasonably gorgeous day and a yummy breakfast cooked by Cami.

The sunshine and good food gave us some good positive energy, and we were ready to roll....

literally....

in fact, with a hill like this, the urge to roll or run down it proved to be completely irrepressible for certain members of our family...

like everyone aged below 30...

At first I wasn't too happy about all the rolling and running considering the fact that the hill we were on was Hill Cumorah....

but seeing as there were no signs forbidding it, or fences to prevent it, combined with all of the kids' happy smiles after their bad-mood-Sunday....

I decided to soak up the kids' smiles and go with the fabulous picture taking opportunity....

and somehow when they declared Hill Cumorah their new favorite place to visit, I just couldn't mind that much.

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And I'm throwing in this last picture, because this statue at the Hill Cumorah visitors' center is one of my favorite depictions of Jesus Christ. I love that He has a subtle smile on His face, emanating the gentleness I envision Him having and I love the painting of the Sacred Grove in the background. The familiarity of the wooded background scene seems to give an air of approachability that really connected with me. Beautiful!

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Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Minnesota Blood?

Lara: Uff-da! Look at the attire of my children compared to all the wimpy people around them. It sure looks like a few of my kids might have inherited a bit of Minnesota blood....

Random Imaginary Person: Ish! Either that or their mother needs to do weather/clothing checks when they leave the house.

Lara: Oh, fer Pete's sake, it was 45 degrees out that day....practically balmy. Eh?

Random Imaginary Person: Ya, sure. Whatever you say, Loh-ra!

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Monday, November 7, 2011

Less Miserable than Yesterday and Les Miserables

Apparently I confused people, even in my own family, with yesterday's post. Yes indeed, we are in NY for a four-day weekend off of school. Yes indeed, my kids were complete and total stinkers yesterday. Yes indeed, I enjoy saying indeed today.

I would love to post about how the kids were sooooooo much better today than yesterday, but since I left my camera cord at home (yesterday's picture was a cell phone picture taken of my camera's display screen), you'll have to wait for those more cheerful posts.

Instead we'll go back a week and a half or so to October 29 (with a little background story first)....

When Glen was serving in the England London South Mission a few eons ago, it was a mission tradition that every Christmastime all of the missionaries would come into the West End and watch a performance of Les Mis together. They would come decked out in their missionary finest and fill up the entire balcony with a sea of black and white name tagged missionaries. It was a memorable experience for him which made him a life-time fan of the theater and Les Mis in particular.

So when the Kennedy Center announced that Les Miserables was coming to DC for about a month or so, Glen excitedly bought tickets for the entire family. We wanted the kids to be able to appreciate the experience, so in preparation for the performance we listened to the soundtrack repeatedly for months on end. We knew we had finally succeeded in preparing them when Ellie could sing every single word to "Castle on a Cloud" complete with the British accent.

When the big day finally arrived, everyone was giddy with excitement (except for Spencer, who wants it to be known that he doesn't do giddy).

Other than having them close their eyes for "Lovely Ladies," and "Master of the House," the performance was fabulous-o! The actor playing Jean Val Jean was amazing and I could have listened to the Eponine actress sing all day. It truly was an amazingly unforgettable performance!

Then, when the show was over, we walked outside and were greeted by this sight....

SNOW....in October!!!!

Much to the chagrin of the kiddos, the snow did not last very long, nor did it stick on the ground enough for them to enjoy it....but it did make for some pretty pictures. And for some grandiose plans about some future snowstorms that will hopefully prove to be a bit more fruitful than this one.

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Thursday, November 3, 2011

A Gift from the Heart

What do you give to someone you love when you have zero money?

You give a gift from your heart.

And for Ellie that gift from the heart was spending an hour (missing much of Emma's birthday party) carefully crafting hand-decorated paper goody bags for every girl at her big sister's party.
(NOTE: Emma had her own bag too, but Ellie was putting the finishing touches on it still when this picture was taken.)

The girls were sweet and gracious to Ellie and seemed to genuinely enjoy their one-of-a-kind goody bags. Then, just a few minutes after this picture was taken, they were excitedly putting the bags to use with loot from the pinata.

Sweet girls!

Emma's 11th Birth-o-ween!

As many of you probably already know, Emma is our very prompt child, who arrived right on her due date eleven years ago. Her due date being Halloween.

At first, we had mixed feelings about her sharing her birth date with a busy, sugar-filled holiday, but when her baby hair came in bright red, we knew that she was the perfect one to be our pumpkin baby!

Since those red-headed toddler days, her hair has muted to a beautiful shade of light-brownish-red, and our sweet and thoughtful "tweenager" is outgrowing her clothes and shoes faster than we can blink.

When she was young, we'd go to friends' Halloween parties where, out of kindness, they would sing her the "Happy Birthday!" song and she'd be totally convinced that the whole party was for her. It was a pretty sweet deal for us. Then she got older and it got harder and harder to make it a special day for her. We tried all kind of tricks...opening presents at breakfast time, since the evenings were always so crazy. We'd make a cake for the weekend before her birthday, since eating cake before trick-or-treating always seemed a little like sugar death.

This year, though, we got lucky. She had her birthday planned out for months in advance. Most parents might cringe at this kind of agenda, but me, not being a big party planner, LOVED IT!

First, we had the family traditions...

Crepes for breakfast (this time it was lunch), with eggs/bacon and Nutella/whipped cream, cooked by Daddy....

Picking her favorite dinner. She picked Navajo Tacos.

Taking cupcakes to school, to share with her classmates...

After the family traditions were all done, it was time to put Emma's Birthday Plan into place....

Which included, inviting over just a couple of friends, to come in their costumes.

Making this cute patchwork pumpkin craft...

hitting a pinata (mommy's stipulation was that there not be anything edible in the pinata)...

eating an orange dinner + some mummy dogs....

A delicious jack-o-lantern cheesecake... (Her only request for her cake is that it be something pumpkiny and this one fit the bill doubly with the fact it was made with pumpkin and looked like a pumpkin. She loved it! )