Race For The Cure

Today Ron and I did the 5k Race for the Cure Walk/Run. About a month ago we did our first 5k walk and I had said that I wanted to do a walk once a month and when I heard about this one I thought that it was a very good cause and decided I wanted to sign up for it. My sister Wanda has a friend who is a breast cancer survivor of ten years and they had a group that were going to walk and said they had an extra spot so asked if I wanted to go with them. I took that spot but realized that they also had a competitive walk/run that you could sign up for if you planned on doing the run in under 35 minutes. When we did the Will Power Walk/Run in March I finished in just a little over 36 minutes so I thought if I signed up for the competitive it would give me something to strive for so I got that spot and was going to see if anyone wanted to take the other spot I had. Ron usually works on Saturdays but ended up having this Saturday off so he decided he would take the other spot that I had. It was about 52 degrees and wasn't near as cold as the last walk but it was raining (ugh) and the wind was a little brisk downtown.

The past few weeks since the weather has been a little bit nicer my brother-in-law Dave, sister-in-law Cathy, and her husband Jeff have been going over to Creston Middle school after work and walking/running on the track so I met them over there one day to start walking/running. Then a week ago Friday I went over to Dawns house because they have a track area by their house. Last year when we use to walk the track I was very envious that Adam could run the whole track (it is 1/2 a mile) and a week ago Friday I actually ran the whole track! Last week I decided that I would try to run the route in my neighbor hood that we use to walk last year and it is almost exactly one mile. On Wednesday I actually ran 1 and 1/2 miles and then got up early on Thursday morning and ran 1 mile and then got up early again on Friday morning and ran 1 mile. I couldn't believe that I could actually do it. This morning I started off running and actually ran for a little more than 2 miles before I started walking and then I only walked for about .10 and then ran the rest of the way, so all in all I ran probably 3 miles and walked .10. I really surprised myself but every time I thought I wanted to quit running I would look up and see a "survivor" bib or a "in memory of" bib on someone who was running in front of me and thought of all the pain they must have endured and thought that a little running was nothing and I should just push through it and not be such a baby. I was very happy with my time of 30 minutes and 25 seconds. Ron actually did very well also, he finished in about 45 minutes which was about 13 minutes better than the last walk. He actually ran part of this one. Wanda walked with some of her friends and they had little kids and strollers so she ended up finishing in about 1 hour and 10 minutes. Actually they never crossed the actual finish line because just before they got to it they made the turn to go back to the car. We met them over at Acapulco Joe's for lunch. We had a really good time, despite the weather and the fact that my feet were soaking wet, which is the one thing that I have always said would keep me from functioning but even that didn't keep me from running for a good cause!

Play Ball!

Yesterday we were at Meijer shopping and Alli and I were going down the sporting goods aisle and Alli said that she was going to play baseball and then she proceeded to tell me about the time that Katie and her were playing baseball and Katie threw the ball and it hit her in the nose and her nose started bleeding. Now mind you that event happened one and a half years ago but she hasn't forgotten. I'm afraid that it may scar her for life because she said that she would just put her baseball glove on her nose and that way she won't get hit. Way to go Katie!!

I'm so excited because Alli is going to be playing baseball this spring. I loved spring and summer time when the girls were little because I loved softball season. Dawn just signed Alli up for a 4 year old instructional league yesterday and they called today and said they were going to have their first practice tonight. After I got off work I went over to see practice and she was just so cute. It was so cold out there but it didn't seem to deter these eight little 4 year old kids. They were bundled in their coats and out there ready to play. They were all standing around home plate and the coach was explaining the different bases and then would ask questions about which base was which and of course Alli had to be the one answering the questions. I don't think any of the other little kids said a word but Alli just chatted the whole time. I knew she would be one of two ways - either "acting" very shy or being her silly self - well she was her silly self.

They were practicing catching the ball and throwing the ball back to the coach (thank goodness they were just using the wiffle balls). Alli didn't catch any of the balls but she did throw them back better than the boys. One time when she missed one of the balls one of the little boys went and picked it up and Alli thought they were going to give it to her so she said "Thank you" but instead the little boy threw it back to the coach. I was afraid she would tell off the little boy but she was very good and didn't say anything (at least she had good manners). At one point during practice Alli came over to the fence and said "Mommy you can't talk to me right now because I am practicing and I have to pay attention because if I don't I might get hurt". It was so funny and one of the other parents laughed and said "isn't it funny being put in our place by a 4 year old?" Well little did he know that is Alli every day! Opening day is only a week and a half away and I can't wait. I'm not sure if Alli will have more fun with this or if we will have more fun. This will be a fun new adventure so stay tuned for more interesting baseball stories!

My weekend room mate

Well it was another great weekend! Once again Alli was my girl. Friday night we were over at Dawn and Adams house and watched "August Rush" - a very good movie. Towards the end of the movie Alli climbed on my lap and whispered "Mama, do you have to work tomorrow?" which translates to "Can I spend the night?" When I said no she said "Yeah! I can spend the night then!" She was so excited so how could I say no. The problem was that Ron and I rode over to Dawn & Adam's with Ron in the truck and he doesn't have a booster seat in the truck. Well problem solved, I ended up taking Dawn's car home - where there's a will there's a way! It was late when we left so all she did was come home and we went straight to bed and woke up Saturday morning in time to get ready for her to go bowling. We went over and picked up Dawn and Drew and went bowling and then after bowling went back to Dawn's and picked up Cheryl (Adam's mom) and went to Flower Factory. They have some really great baskets so we had to go check them out. On the way home it was time for Drew to eat and he was letting us know about it so Dawn had me start feeding him his bottle because I was in the back seat beside him and we were going to be stopping in a little bit for gas so I could get him out then to burp him. Alli wanted to hold the bottle so when she was doing that he spit a little bit out and she said "oh no he's leaking!" and grabbed a burp cloth to wipe his mouth. It was so cute.

We played poker Saturday night and after we got finished Alli came and jumped on my lap and asked "the" question. "Mama, do you have to work tomorrow?" Well of course she wanted to spend the night again. As we were getting ready to leave she said "I want my mommy" and I told her she could stay at her house with mommy that I would understand but she said "no I want her to come to your house" so I told her that she had to stay home to take care of daddy and she said "well I want him to come to your house too". I guess she just wanted to have a great big slumber party. She ended up spending the night with me and mommy and daddy stayed at their house. I'm afraid that the newness is wearing off of her spending the night and next weekend she's going to want to stay with mommy and daddy but as long as she wants to spend the night I'll let her.

Busy Weekend

Saturday morning Ron, Cathy, Jeff, David, Nick, Mom Char, Alli and myself went out to breakfast. Alli had spent the night with Cathy & Jeff Friday night so Cathy and Alli made birthday cakes for Jeff (3/28), me (4/4) David (4/5). Alli was so excited for us to get there to give us our cakes. (Thanks Cathy that was very sweet). After eating breakfast Alli and I went up to the hospital to see Adam for a little while and then we left and called Uncle D to see if he and Nick wanted to go to Lowell School to play on the playground.

The kids had so much fun playing on the slides (all 3 of them)

Swinging,

Playing on the monkey bars,

sliding down the pole,

doing the balancing act,

playing pretend baseball,

and pretend basketball.

We had so much fun and the weather was absolutely beautiful. I think this was very good therapy for Alli because she needed some fun time.

Saturday night I did the unthinkable - I kept both Alli and Drew over night. I wasn't sure how that would work but both kids were so good and I couldn't have asked for a better night. I think they knew that Mama needed all the help she could get. We had a great weekend but I was very tired Sunday evening. I know why you should have your kids when you are younger!

Adam is doing pretty good, he actually ate some real food today and he is off the morphine and is doing everything they want/need him to do to get ready to go home. We are hoping that he gets to go home tomorrow or Thursday at the latest. I think they are ready for a little bit of normalcy because Dawn is suppose to start back to work on Thursday and would like to get Adam back home before she starts back. The good thing is that the first 5 days she is back she is only going to be working half days in order to ease back into the day to day grime. Lets hope things get back to normal soon!

No Fooling!

A few days ago I posted about Adam having to go to the hospital on April Fools day. Well he wasn't fooling at all. He went to the ER on Tuesday and they ended up admitting him to the hospital and they ended up doing surgery on Friday. While we were waiting for his surgery on Friday we thought that we were going to have to put Alli in the hospital as well because she jumped up to turn the light on to the bathroom and there was a paper towel dispenser right below the light switch and she hit her eye on the towel dispenser. We put ice on it right away but we were still afraid that she would have a black eye.

Adam is doing fine - very sore right now but in the long run he should be doing much better. I don't know all of the technical terms or anything but in layman's terms he had a blockage in one area and a tear in another area of his small intestines. They ended up taking out about 18 inches of his small intestines but said that he had very healthy tissue on either side of the section they took out so they could re-attach it very nicely.

It has been very hectic since Adam went in and Dawn has been trying to stay with Adam at night the last couple nights to keep an eye on him so Friday night Alli spent the night with Aunt Cathy and Andrew spent the night with me. I have to say I was very nervous about keeping a 5 week old over night. I wasn't sure I was up to the task but Drew was so good. Dawn fed Drew about 8:30 Friday night and then we left the hospital and went home. I brought Drew home and put him to bed and went to bed myself because I wasn't sure when he would wake up. The little stinker slept until 1:30 in the morning and I got up and fed him and changed his diaper and he went right back to sleep. Then he woke up again about 5:30 and ate and had a diaper change and went right back to sleep again. Dawn called about 8:00 in the morning to check on us and she actually woke me up. I actually got more rest then Dawn did because she said they came in every two hours so they didn't get much sleep. I was just so happy that Drew was such a good boy and I'm glad that I could help out. It did seem a little odd to only have Drew there and not have Alli but it was great to have some Drew time!

It's a Boy!

Crystal went for her ultrasound on Thursday and she is having a boy! For any one who doesn't know we have had many generations of girls. My mom's mom was one of four girls, my mom was one of 5 girls, my mom had 3 girls, out of us 3 girls we had 6 girls and up until when Dawn had Andrew out of those 6 girls they had 3 girls. Now the tides have turned and we are now in the boy generation. I wasn't so sure about boys because as we use to say "we don't have boys we marry them", but after Drew was born I think my thoughts have changed. Boys are just as cute and I think they will bring just as many joys as the girls have. Drew will now have a little playmate his age and the cousins will have so much fun together. Crystal is due July 23 so we have about 3 1/2 months before we have a new little man in the family. Now the big decision will be trying to figure out a name because Crys and Todd can't seem to agree on a boys name. Stay tuned for more baby info!

Mama's Girl & Papa's Buddy?

Yesterday morning Adam went to work and they ended up taking him to the emergency room because he was having real bad stomach pains (which he had been having for a couple of weeks) where he couldn't even bend over. They ended up admitting him and they are doing x-rays and running some test to see what the problem is - they think it has to do with his Crohn's but hopefully they will get him feeling better soon. Adam's mishap became my good fortune. I got to keep Andrew and Alli by myself for the first time since he's been born. My mom had gone up to the hospital to get Alli and Dawn had kept Drew with her while Adam was in the ER so when I got off work I went and picked up Alli and then went to the hospital to get Drew. Alli fell asleep on the way home from the hospital so I had to get two sleeping kids into the house. Ron was bowling and Dawn was at the hospital with Adam so I had the two of them by myself. I forgot just how much work two of them can be.

Anyway, since Alli was asleep I got to have some time with Drew which was very nice but the minute Alli woke up she wanted me to hold her too. She doesn't seem to be too jealous when her mommy and daddy hold Drew but I think she is very jealous when I hold Drew. She's always very nice about it but I don't think she wants to share me (makes me feel special). She always says "mama, you can put baby brother down - he likes to lay down" or "mama, I like it when you hold me". The minute Ron came in the door she said "mama, why don't you let papa hold Andrew and then I can sit on your lap". Before we did that I had Ron take a quick picture of the three of us.

I guess Alli is going to be my girl and Drew is going to be papa's little buddy. I did tell Drew last night after Alli fell asleep that we can make a secret alliance (I guess I watch too much Big Brother and Survivor) and he can still be my little buddy too!