{Fall Day}

Last weekend was gorgeous.... lovely weather, lovely colors....it was great. We spent the morning cleaning up playing in the backyard.

Nothing more to say - just look at my sweet baby.

 

{Broken Face}

On Monday morning Sean took Evette on his morning run. It was awesome - I slept in. 

Before I knew it, I was awoken by the doorbell ringing over and over again.... and you know how I feel about my doorbell being rung. I figured Sean left his keys or garage door opener inside.

I threw on my robe and ran to the door. 

As soon as I open the door he says, "Paper towels! A lot of them!" I just see blood and more blood. It was terrifying. 

About the last block or so of his route Sean lets Evette get out of the stroller and they walk home together - giving him a good chance to cool off. Apparently she tripped while holding her cup of milk and it went straight into her lip.

After some investigation we decided there was no use in going to a doctor. Her lip was cut, but not terribly so, and the top layer of skin on her lip was skinned off. Her teeth looked ok. 

Poor sad baby.

 We watched Mulan to keep her calm and happy. Her lip swelled up pretty bad - she wouldn't let me ice it - not even a Popsicle worked.

Look how far forward her poor little lip was! I gave her some meds to help with the pain but she could barely drink it out of the little cup because her lip was too fat. Broke my little heart.

It was hard for her to eat some things so we had a smoothie for lunch, but we were able to get some solids in her for dinner..

The next day the swelling went down some and she was mostly back to herself. She would occasionally point to her lip and and say, "E-dette hurt...." but it wasn't bad

Day 3 the swelling is mostly gone - her lips are still black and blue and we lathered them up in vaseline to keep them from scabbing up real bad. She was even well enough to shove this huge cupcake in her mouth.

She's doing much better now - minor swelling, can eat fine, lip is still is black and blue, though - probably will be for a while.

Thanks everyone for your prayers and love - we all survived :)

{Zoo Date}

After a couple crappy Mondays in a row I decided to take matters into my own hands and go on a Mommy-Daughter date to the zoo in hopes that that would make our Mondays better.

Guess what - it worked beautifully!

It was one of the best days I've had in a while! It was cold and wet and rainy but we were the only people at the zoo! We seriously ran into maybe 3 other families while we were there. We had the entire zoo to ourselves.

We went first thing in the morning and all the animals were out and about and we had front row seats.

We even played in the children's section for a little bit afterwards.

Evette was completely soaked afterwards and rode home in the car naked and covered with blankets.... she thought that was funny :)

Awesome zoo trip! We'll be going much more frequently now that the weather isn't stupidly hot anymore.

{Perot Musem}

Last Saturday we took a family date to the Perot Museum. It had been a while since we last went.

On the way up Evette said, "Oh no! Sun coming.... Hot eyes...." and then requested sunglasses. She's cracking me up these days with how she's putting together sentences. So proud of her.

Evette really enjoyed this saxy-fone player by the parking garage as well. Best $2 ever spent. Evette got her own mini concert of the ABCs with some dancing as well. She was in heaven.

Evette really enjoyed the dinosaur parts of the museum, of course.

And we had to take a picture of Sean in front of this oil drill because that's what his current work case is all about!

Evette loved to play and build...

 ....and so did her dad.

The children's section of the museum is pretty awesome.

 Her favorite part was playing in the water. This picture makes me laugh - Evette is giving this kid the stink eye for making messes all over the places. He was spilling water, and not sharing, and being crazy - Evette was not a fan of his behavior was did not hesitate to scowl at him :)

Fun date!

{Nap Time}

This story just needs to be recorded because.... well, just because.

So since Evette is no longer sleeping with a paci she is a little bit more of a light sleeper, especially during nap time. During her nap today, just after I finished my nutella and jam toast [delish] the freaking doorbell rang. Evette had only been asleep for maybe 30 minutes. I cursed that blasted UPS man under my breath [or maybe outloud...]. Did he not see notice the masking tape all over the doorbell? Seriously? Furious. And then I hear Evette cry. For his safety, I did not immediately open the door - I let him place the package and leave. I was afraid I might have chewed him out... or worse.

Anyways... I let her try to calm herself back down and go back to sleep. After about 20 minutes I figured that letting her cry more would just get her so worked up that she wouldn't go back to sleep at all. I, also wanting a nap, decided to go climb into bed with her so we could both nap.

She was excited for me to nap with her and we lay there quietly for a while. Apparently I had fallen asleep. After about an hour I wake up to the sound of crunching. I open my eyes and Evette is sitting up in bed, staring at me. A huge smile appears on her face and she shoves a pretzel in my mouth as she says "Mommy Happy!!"

Turns out I did not put away the pretzels from our Joy School snack that morning and Evette and climbed up on the counter and taken the whole huge bag back into bed with her.

I have no idea what she did for that full hour I was asleep - the house was still in one piece and she was happy, so it couldn't have been that bad. Not sure how many pretzels she consumed, though! She was so happy and let me nap [which I desperately needed] so there was no way that I could be mad at her. Plus, who doesn't like to wake up to snacks in bed?

Silly Baby.

13.1

About one year ago Heidi inspired me to try running. She'd never been a runner before yet last fall she prepared for and ran an impressive half (1:57:58, here's her write up of the run), so I decided I should give it a try, too. I ran sprints in my earlier years and always poo-pooed long distance running, but Heidi convinced me to give it a shot. With that in mind, we ran a half together last Spring, on Valentine's Day weekend and had a wonderful time together, despite the fact that neither of us were quite as prepared for a trail run as we should have been - I think we got around 2:30 but I'm not sure - here's the post from that race.

Then late this summer Heidi randomly mentioned a 10k that went through one of our favorite places in Dallas, the arboretum, so I signed up and ran a few weeks later (photos in this post). I loved that race and immediately signed up for a half marathon, the same one Heidi ran last Fall. I actually trained for it and loved experiencing the improvement in my speed and endurance over those couple of months of training. Pretty crazy that I now consider a four mile run to be short... I also loved being able to run with Evette - "Daddy more run!" she'd tell me while I was stretching before a run - she loved it.

I ran that race on October 26th and got 1:57:21, practically the same time Heidi got last year! I had a wonderful time. I was able to drive down with a couple friends, the weather could not have been better, the course was great, I was in-shape and ready, and I even met a new friend along the way who I spoke to for a few miles of the run. And at the end: my favorite ladies in the whole world to cheer for me.

The Ayres and I before the race

Evette eating oatmeal at the train station on the way downtown

Waiting for Daddy

Just a half mile to go!

Final stretch!

Gasping for breath like a beached fish... But I did it!

Wahoo!

On the train back home

 Can't wait for my next race... Not sure which it'll be yet (or how long - 26.2 seems rather daunting) but I'm stoked.