hair, more dirt and power tools...

here are some more pictures from today. I decided to use the clippers on Jason's hair. I had to chase him around the yard, but I got it done and it looks pretty good if I do say so myself. Makes him look much older and even more like daddy. He got to play w/ daddy's drill while Lily enjoyed playing in the mud.

I'm trying.

I went over to my friend Rebecca's some time ago and we headed outside to plant some seeds. When we first went outside I started getting really uptight about the mud Jason got in immediately and the fact that the kids (my kids) were making an enormous mess trying to put dirt in pots then dump it out all over the place. Rebecca reminded me that it really wasn't / isn't a big deal if they make a mess. So I relaxed adn let them just play. They had a blast and got super messy. I'm not trying very hard to apply this principal to our overall day time routine. It's surprisingly hard for me to do.

I went and got seeds, seed starter and little containers for myself the other day w/ the intention of having the same kind of fun at our house, but it has taken me well over a week to get my mind around it. Today I decided to go for it. I won't lie.. first I tried just taking the kids outside and secret squirrel doing my planting myself. I then decided that that was dumb and going against what I was trying to do ... so I gave each kid a spoon, a planter and opened the bag for us to share. I got my planting or sowing or whatever you call it done and the kids had a blast. When we put them down for their nap Jason said, "play dirt. play shovel." He was loving it. Here is the aftermath.



Some more photos

Piggies by daddy:


Hangin' w/ mommy (Mommy's shiner is a la Jason):


Night night play w/ our animals:


Training is a major mental block for me right now. I was supposed to do a 3 hour ride this a.m., but it got canceled b/c it's cold and was supposed to rain.. puts me on the trainer tonight for movie night.. BLAH! My head/heart is SO NOT in this right now.

Diapers and willful children

So I'm am full bore clothe diapering, but I was put to the test on day one. On Jason's first day in his new diaper we all hit the gym. After my two hour work out I thought I better check the diapers before we got in the car to head home. Jason had been sitting on Jill's lap when I came in - she says she can smell poop a mile away - well not today. I almost stuck my finger in this poop of the century. eek! Into the bathroom we went. I was getting 'prepped' for the change and I looked down and saw some poop on the floor. I thought, "excellent he's put his hands in it." I checked his hands and nothing. that's when I knew I was in for it. I got him up on the changing table and ever so gently removed his pants. Thankfully the diaper had contained 99% of it all, but it had gotten on his pants a bit... and OH MY GOD... it was the biggest poop ever. I tried to get it into the toilet, but to no avail. I got to take the whole mess w/ me. Might need to cut down on the green smoothies! ha They both proceeded to poop their brains out that day. I guess they just feel that much more comfy in their new diapers. I'm persevering and it's okay. On earth day I asked Tom what he did to celebrate and told him that I played in poo all day. NICE!

Our new washer and dryer showed up, BUT they forgot to order the brackets for stacking so we couldn't stack them and the space we have for them upstairs isn't quite deep enough to hold them. Thankfully our contractor was here when they were delivered and he thinks he might be able to figure something out. On top of this our electrical box couldn't handle adding another line so earlier that day an electrician came by and replace the new line for the dryer w/ the old one... so my old dryer is no longer hooked up. So they put the new dryer upstairs and plugged it in. They took my old dryer. The new washer is sitting upstairs, but is not hooked up. So now I wash my clothes in the basement and dry them upstairs... not quite what I had in mind, but we're getting there.

Jason is so willful I'm about to throw myself in front of a bus. He MUST do everything himself... in his way and on his time. EEK! I'm dying over here. He is also into E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G!!!

Lily is talking up a storm and is still talking about cows pooping from our trip to the farm. I am so amazed at their memory these days. Jason is still talking about feeding the lamb at the farm.. I'm GLAD he's not talking about the dog bite at the farm... good memories good memories.

Okay.. must go. Have lots to get done in short amounts of nap time. B/c GOD FORBID I try to clean the kitchen or fold laundry on JASON'S time! ha

Mountain Girl Silver

Not a great photo, but it's the best I can do right now. I took it myself. :)

I just received my Mother's Day present in the mail. Yes, I ordered my own gift, yes, I opened it before Mother's Day and YES I am wearing it right now!

Karen got her Charlie disk for her necklace when I was in Portland and I just loved it ... I had to have my own. Oh my gosh this is my favorite gift I've ever purchased for myself! I love it. It's simple, it's beautiful and it represents my children!

If you are looking for something special for yourself for Mother's Day I highly recommend this sweet little necklace!

Mountain Girl Silver is run by a bunch of moms based in Oregon. I got my jewelry quickly and it is of great quality.

Back on the bandwagon

For those of you that don't know (and some probably don't care) I fell off the cloth diapering bandwagon and have been using disposables since January. I bought another TWO boxes (112 diaper each for a total of $60) the other day and felt sick. I decided to add it all up. Realistically I'm at least a year out till I have two potty trained kiddos.

I figured about 12 diapers a day total on a normal day. So my 112 diapers would last about 9 days.. NINE days!!! NINE!!! WHAT THE! 360 diapers a month. THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY! 4320 in the next year. FOUR THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED AND TWENTY! That's a lot of diapers hitting the landfill... A LOT! And we aren't changing diapers as much as we used to. That would be approximately $1157 over the course of a year. I felt sick when I figured all of this out.

My SIL Karen has been raving about the Bum Genius 3.0 one size fits all All-in-One diapers. I tried one on Lily when I was visiting and they much trimmer and easier to use than the ones I was using.

I bought one diaper from the local baby shop.. all they had was pink so Lily got a new diaper. I put it on her overnight to give it the BIG test. It went GREAT! It didn't leak at all. When I took Lily's diaper off in the morning she cried for her pinkie diapie. I washed it so I could try it on Jason and use it during the day and when I tried it on Jason Lily SCREAMED for her Pinkie Diapie... so I guess she's on board. She was also very upset when I put pants over it.

Long story short. I just spent $290 to buy the diapers... which I figure is a lot cheaper than the $1100 we would have spent on the disposable diapers and I can sell the clothe when we are done. Right now I'm excited to get back on the bandwagon, but we'll see how I feel after the first poopy diaper. Maybe I should start feeding them bananas, rice and bread so that their poops are a little more, um, firm.

Hinchley's Dairy Farm

Oh the irony of me going to a dairy farm, but the play group was going and we weren't about to miss a chance to see animals and play outside!!!

It was a BLAST... well aside from a dog bite to Jason's face it was a blast. The kids were following a rather docile rat terrier around and they cornered it and it lashed out and landed on Mr. Man's face. It wasn't a bad bite.. just a warning from the dog. I think it scared Jason more than anything. I held him for a while and he was fine. He didn't appear to be afraid of the dog afterward. The dog came over as if to say "I'm sorry" and Jason just looked at it. He didn't squeal in terror so I'm taking this as a good sign. The ironic thing is that it was a rat terrier. The same kind of dog that Phoebe bit and that the owner told us had bitten a child before. Anywho!

We saw milking cows (and got to milk one), baby cows, chickens (got to feed them), a lamb (got to feed her), ducks and chickens and roosters (got to chase them around the yard), goats, geese, 4 week old bunny rabbits (got to hold and pet them), and Jason's favorite... well it's a toss up between the cow's drinking fountains and the tractors.

They really enjoyed just walking around and exploring. Tina (the farm lady) was great with the kids and very patient w/ their antics.

For you locals we went to Hinchley's Dairy Farm... they do stuff through out the year and will have a Upick. They are on 73 just before Cambridge. It took us a very easy 20 mins. to get there. I hope to go back later this year.

Here are some photos.

Looking for the kitty:


Before the dog bit him:


chasing chickens w/ their buddy Riley:


Feeding the chickens:




Feeding the lamb: (this lamb followed us all around the farm after this.. so cute)

Smoothie Master

Okay... made another great smoothie today that I thought I would share. This was post 3 hour work out and I was REALLY hungry so I'll have to try it again when I'm not famished. I think I would have eaten a cardboard box if that was my only option.

Sweet Mango
Generous handful spinach (you love my measuring technique)
about 1.5 c water
2 T Hemp powder
1 T ground flax seeds
approx 1 tsp coconut oil
2 bananas
about a cup of frozen mango
a dash of salt
3 (or was it 2) figs
1 date

Blend.

Drink.

ENJOY!

Had a great work out this a.m. 2.5 hour ride (on a spinner) then a 30 min recovery swim. I had Brenden Brazier's energy 'pudding' pre-ride and used his Lemon Lime sports drink. I could have used the entire recipe instead of chinsing out and just using half... about 30 mins left in the ride I needed some more fuel. I love making my own stuff, knowing what's going in my body and the results have been AMAZING! My body is definitely learning to use fat as fuel (the endurance athlete's goal) and I am noticing that my heart rate is staying lower while I work harder... this is a great journey that I am on. I feel like I am getting to the place - both physically and in fitness - that I have always wanted to be, but never quite knew how to get there or just couldn't / didn't... even w/ the marathon training. I feel like I'm finally paying attention to some of the details and am working towards bigger gains than just being able to run further.

Race day will be the true test...

I'm still here!

Hi, to think that I never thought I wouldn't be able to post as much when the kids were older... I thought life would be more organized, they would nap (which they do, but gosh I have to eat, do laundry, unload the dishwasher and clean while they are doing that.. for a whopping 1.5 hours), and play while I was able to catch up on my blogging... uh, what did I know! ha :)

Anyway...

I'm so happy to have found a glass pitcher to keep my almond milk in. I know this seems like a simple and silly thing, but it makes me OH SO HAPPY! I've been using a plastic container and every time I would pour my home made milk in it I would cringe thinking of the irony of making my own to avoid the additives and the god knows what else in the lining of the cartons only to poor it in this rather old plastic container. Tonight I made a huge batch of almond milk (I'm making hazelnut next time and the kids have been getting some hemp milk too!). It's best fresh and foamy... especially in my coffee, but I wanted to have a jump start on tomorrow.

Here is a pic of my beauty... reminds me of old milk jugs... too bad I couldn't find one of those... oh well.



The weather has been a bit crappy lately... though it's NOTHING compared to what it WAS so I'm not complaining. Today it snowed in the morning during my long run... but it was a nice flurry, good for running. No sticking. It made for a nice picturesque run, but this afternoon when we were headed back from our walk to purchase the beautiful milk jug Lily and Jason wanted to stay outside and play and it was just a bit too cold and soggy. :( They just love to be outside.

A quick story from yesterday then I must go to bed.

I am proud of myself for schlepping the kids to Menards to run some errands. We are trying to pick out paint and I needed some picture hangers and I would usually reserve an activity like that (looking at paint chips requires a certain level of concentration that I usually can't muster w/ both kids). I would usually reserve this activity for the weekend either w/ all of us or w/ me kid free, but it needed to be done and I'm done living my life on the weekend so I put Lily in the back carrier and Jason in the cart and we got our paint samples, the picture hangers and looked for one other thing. We were going strong so we then headed over to Target to pick up a few other things we needed. The kids did great! :)

With our chores completed and our snacks eaten we got in the car and headed home. When I pulled in the driveway the kids both started to freak out and say "no Lily's house, no Jason's house" Then Jason said, "more driving"... never did I think I would hear this out of either of their mouths. I think they enjoy the driving around and pointing things out.. 'things' being mostly various types of trucks. So I asked Lily if she wanted to drive some more. She said yes so off we went. I didn't want to just drive around and waste the gas (ha) so we went to the coffee drive-thru and got Tom a coffee and took it to him at work. The kids both thought this was an EXCELLENT idea.

And little did they know that daddy's office was like a playground. They got to check out all the sample kiddie bikes, joggers and trailers and lots of people came to say hi to them...:) A good day had by all.

Of course Lily fell asleep for a whopping 5 mins in the car which caused her to take over an hour to fall asleep, but that's okay she eventually went to sleep and all was good.

Here are a few photos. One of Lily wearing J's jammie top as a shirt and J's new shoes ... while sporting some very cute piggies. She has been showing an affinity for both Jason's shoes and pants. I wish I had gotten a photo of her outfit today... which she picked out.

My little Tom boy:


And not to be outdone Jason had to have a piggie too.. notice the sprout coming out of the top of his head:


That's it for now.... tomorrow I will be spinning indoors for 2.5 hours so send me some mental entertainment if you have a moment. :)

green smoothie tweak

I tweaked my green smoothie based on a recipe in Brendan Brazier's book THRIVE (GREAT BOOK!!!)

Green Power Smoothie
1.5 cups water
1.5 handfuls spinach
2 bananas
4 dates
1/2 T coconut oil
2 T Hemp powder
1 large T flax seeds (if you don't have a high speed blender use ground)
1 T cocao nibs
1 T cocao powder
juice of one small lemon

YUM!

I used this as a 'recovery' drink today, but would be good for prework out as well.. for the 2 hours plus work outs. It provides both carbs and fat for the fat burning zone work out. :)

Slow blogging time of year.

It must be a slow blogging time of year b/c I'm not the only one that is slacking a bit... like how I shared the blame there!? :)

Training is really picking up so I'm busy busy busy.. I now have 2 hour bike rides during the week and will be ramping up to 3 hour bike rides on the weekend by the end of this month. I can't believe that the race is only 3 months away! CRAP! I've also changed to swimming three times a week instead of two and I"ve gotta tell ya I am feeling the fact that I took a month off.

The weather is nice enough to ride outside now (though as is typical in the midwest some days are WAY better than others). I'm going on a 30 mile ride on Thursday after 'work hours' with some friends that are training for the Tahoe century ride. We're doing an old familiar loop that I rode quite a bit last summer so it will be a great way to start off the outdoor season! Hopefully it will be warm enough for arm warmers to do the trick.

Jason and Lily continue to amaze me w/ their skills! We have been going outside a lot and their favorite thing is to play on the left over icebergs and many puddles. Oh well you are only young once right!?

I am adding some more photos to the photo album.. to include two of the new bathroom. I'll add some more of both the bathroom and office once we paint and get the office settled. Don't hold your breath.. it'll be a while.

Photos from March

Must go clean, but wanted to let you know that I finally got photos loaded from March... check out My Photos on the right...

FYI... we're back in Madison

Just a quick post to let you know that we are back in Madison now. We made it home safe... it was a long drive, but the kids really did great. I'm tired, my house is a total wreck (things stashed all over and dust dust dust), but I'm so so happy to be home.

I will post pics of the bathroom soon.. it is amazing!

It's cold here ... 40s, but nothing compared to what it was. We went to the park today so I'm happy. Tomorrow I go back to being a gym rat, the kids are sleeping fairly well and life is good.

Must go clean a bit and go to bed... will work on photos soon too!