Pumpkin Patch - 2010

Saturday we made our annual trip to Kroul's pumpkin patch in Mount Vernon. Josh and I went back and forth about what to do this year... we were really crunched for time and making it all the way out to Mount Vernon between soccer games and nap time was going to be difficult. But when it came down to it, we're both sentimental saps and we couldn't break a family tradition six years in the making :)

Daddy and Maya leading the way through the corn maze


Maya and her Daddy


My three little explorers


Oh how I love these three!


This was suppose to be my picturesque photo of my three lovely angels sitting amongst the pumpkins... this is the best picture I have out of a dozen and yes the one in the middle is crying ;)


The annual "How Tall This Fall" picture! Our first picture with all three able to stand! Such big girls! Look at how they're holding hands :)


Maya "How Tall This Fall"


Maryn "How Tall This Fall"


Makenna "How Tall This Fall"


Daddy and his girls on top of the hay bales


Maryn on the hay bales


Makenna on the hay bales


Maya wondering why she can't run around on top of the hay bales like her big sisters.


Love it! Love it! Love it! I think they cut the holes at just the right heights for my kids!

Halloween Treats

I'm not sure where I got it, but I have a cook book devoted solely to Halloween food. The girls love flipping through it and looking at all the pictures and repeatedly yelling "I want that one! I want that one!" When Makenna was four she got to make one of the big pumpkin cakes and decorate it. Now that Maryn is four, I decided it was her turn to pick one of these monstrous projects out of the cookbook and we would have fun doing it together. She decided on her choice of treats - Halloween cut-out brownies decorated with frosting and M&M's! She had it all planned out for weeks and we slowly but surely gathered all of the necessary supplies. Finally we had the perfect afternoon to bake. We worked hard at making the brownies... she loves to help in the kitchen :) I know it might not look like much, but a lot of time and effort went into this! This was suppose to be Maryn's special project, but once Makenna was home from school she nicely asked Makenna (without prompting from Mom) if she would like to cut out the brownies and help decorate. They turned out really cute if I do say so myself! They made pumpkins, bats, ghosts and witches' hats. The girls did a terrific job!

Relaxing At Our House

More pictures of Maryn falling asleep in funny places :) This is becoming more of a rarity since she doesn't actually fall asleep during quiet time anymore. I thought she was up in her room playing quietly by herself... low and behold she fell asleep in the middle of playing.



Awwwwww... she's so precious :)


Oh and Maya. She just makes herself at home... this is her watching Elmo one morning (her absolute favorite!). She usually stands 3 feet from the TV and sings and dances the entire time. This particular day she must have been a little tired :)

Hail Storm - Sept 2010

Marion got pelted with a hail storm a few weeks ago. I have never heard or seen anything like it. It was so loud inside the house. I thought for sure the windows were going to break so I got Maya up from her nap and hurried the kids into the basement. The hail went from pebble size all the way up to golf ball size. The damage within a 1 mile radius of our house is quite impressive. The insurance adjustor determined that we need a new roof, partial new siding (mostly west side of the house), re-finish deck and swingset, a new grill and new gutters and downspouts. We were one of the lucky ones that didn't have our vehicles outside... all the teachers at Makenna's school have extensive damage to their cars and I've heard that it's running them $5000 plus to get it fixed. When we came up after the hail stopped, Maryn looked out the back door and exclaimed "Mom, it snowed!" Ugh... bad sign.

Here are some pictures shortly after the storm... it was warm on this particular day so it probably melted some by the time I got around to taking pictures.

Marynisms

One day after Josh's Ironman race, Maryn and I were putting together a puzzle. Out of the blue she says "Now that Daddy's an Ironman, I think he should do a hot dog eating contest." Of course that seems like the next logical step in her mind :)

Today we were all playing softball outside and enjoying the beautiful fall weather. I noticed that Maryn had disappeared inside so I went to check on her. She was standing in the kitchen trying to get a cup. I asked her what she was doing and she told me she was hot and needed a drink. I helped her get something to drink and she stands back, with her hand across her forehead, and proclaims in an exasperated voice "I have a hot wife." I about died. It only took me a split second to figure out where she came up with that one. Josh frequently refers to me (ha ha) as his "hot wife"... as in "Hi hot wife, how are you?" No, I'm not kidding. He really does this on such a frequent basis that my 4 year old has now picked up on it :)

Maryn has a new friend at preschool and her name is Odelia. I've known Odelia's mom through church for quite some time (she was Maryn's 2 year old Sunday school teacher), so it was a pleasure to see them at the preschool open house! To understand this story, you will need to know that Odelia's family is originally from a country in Africa (the exact one is escaping me at the moment). One of the first days of preschool Maryn was telling Josh all about her day at preschool while we ate dinner. I asked her who she played with and she started listing off her friends. She failed to mention Odelia so I asked her if she played with Odelia. She replied excitedly with "Yes! Odelia! She's the one with the chocolate all over her face." We nicely tried to explain to Maryn that everyone has a different color of skin and Odelia's is just darker than hers... it's not covered in chocolate. I'm not sure why this came up now since we have numerous friends of different ethnicities... maybe she's just old enough to notice the differences now. She continued on the chocolate kick for a few weeks every time she saw Odelia (luckily I don't think she ever said it to her face), but it opened up a good discussion about how God makes everyone different!

Maryn's 4th Birthday

Finally... Maryn's 4! She's only been talking about it for 9 months now!!! Maryn celebrated her birthday with a Cinderella themed family birthday party. Then on her actual birthday (the following day) she opened presents in the morning, we went to church (where all the kids sang to her!), went on a bike ride with her new bike and then went out to eat at Red Robin (her choice). She claims her favorite part of her birthday was Red Robin. She grinned from ear-to-ear while they sang to her and she loved every second of the extra attention! And let's not forget the ice cream sundae they gave her that was as big as her head!

Maryn requested a Cinderella castle cake. Not my favorite of all the birthday cakes we've had, but Maryn loved it so that's all that matters.


Maryn proudly posing with her cake


Trying to blow out the candles


All the cousins that were at the party (we were missing Eden and Hannah)


I've never seen a kid react to presents quite the way Maryn did this year! She continuously gave off some high-pitched squeal of delight the entire time she was opening gifts! It was pretty adorable! She was so excited that it was finally her turn to be the birthday girl!






Makenna, Josie and Addie watching the present opening fun!


Josie and Makenna


Maryn opening gifts on the morning of her birthday. She got a Polly Pocket doll with clothes, the Polly Pocket glamper (her request) and a Leap Frog learning toy.




And of course the big gift.... drum roll please.... A BIG GIRL BIKE!!!!

Maya's 18 Month Pics

There is a first time for everything... I had to walk out of a photo session with a very cranky child and no pictures this week :( Maya just wouldn't cooperate. She would bury her head on the floor or go limp when I'd try to stand her up. I figure I'd just save everyone some time and I re-scheduled for the next day. Things went much better the second time around :)











She decided she liked climbing on the blocks more than posing by them :)

Ironman Louisville - Bike

Continued from Ironman Louisville - Swim post

I took off SPRINTING for the bike start. I had no idea how fast he would get out on his bike and I wanted to make sure I saw him out the bike chute. Apparently I didn't need to sprint, he took more time than I thought he would in transition ;) Finally saw him riding down the chute. I yelled something about nutrition (since he tends to forget to eat) and he yelled "How's that for a long transition?!"

I then walked about a block away and stood in line to take a shuttle bus to LaGrange, Kentucky. LaGrange is a small town just north of Louisville that has the pleasure of having all of these triathletes ride through their town at miles 40 and 70 of the race. I stood in line for a long time and was starting to get nervous that I was going to miss Josh's first loop in LaGrange. Luckily I made it on a bus just in time. LaGrange was set up in a town festival kind of atmosphere. Food, vendors, loud music, you name it. And then there is the main drag in LaGrange... lined with people on both sides of the street for probably a mile long screaming at all the bikers as they come through! It was awesome! I tried to strategically place myself (for the best pictures and so Josh would see me) along the street. He came barreling through, looking calm and laidback, right on pace! I had enough time to grab a bite to eat and then headed back to the same spot (figuring he would look for me there again) and got to cheer for him yet again for mile 70!!! Every time I saw him on the race course it was like a burst of adrenaline! So good to see him and know he was doing alright.

Josh's first loop through LaGrange




Second loop through LaGrange







I took the shuttle bus back to Louisville and actually had about 45 minutes to hang out in my hotel room until he was due to finish the bike. I then situated myself just outside the entrance to the bike chute and saw a not-so-happy Josh finishing on the bike. His pace was awesome... right around 19 mph for the entire ride. He paced around 20 mph for the first 3/4 of the race and then fell off after that.

Josh headed toward the bike finish





According to Josh, the first part of the bike went well. Lots of hills. He heard over and over "this course is consistently inconsistent." Meaning he was continuously changing gears. I could tell via the athlete tracker that things were going well for him on this stage of the race since he was riding at exactly the pace he wanted to be at.

The main story from the bike starts at the mile 80 aid station. Typically what happens as you get to an aid station on the bike is the biker pitches an old water just as they get to the aid station (to make room for the new water bottle) and then a volunteer hands them a new cold water bottle on the other side as they're leaving. Josh pitched a 3/4 full water bottle that was warm in hopes of getting cold water. He soon learned that was a bad decision as the volunteers start yelling that they are out of water. BAD NEWS. You can not be out of water for an endurance event with 3000 athletes on a day that is 95 degrees with 90% humidity. That just spells disaster. From here on out Josh saw amazing things... local Kentuckians that lived along the race route bringing their hoses out to the road and letting bikers fill up their bottles and some actually bringing their own water bottles out of their houses and giving them to the racers. But obviously that wasn't enough. Josh didn't have enough water to sustain him from 80-112 miles on the bike and thus started getting stomach cramps. This would then set the tone for the rest of his race that day (and hundreds of other athletes as well we found out later).

All in all, Josh is happy with his bike performance. He still finished with a great time despite not having adequate fluid on the last 30 miles. He said he saw one guy with a flat tire just 3 miles into the course... how would you like that start to the day? He said he couldn't count the number of bikers he saw just sitting on the road, with mechanical difficulties or just plain exhausted. And there were more bike crashes than you'd like to know about. We heard an amazing story of one guy that had FOUR flat tires over the course of the race and after he exhausted his own supplies, other generous racers gave him their spare CO2 cartridge and tires so he could continue. But probably my favorite story from the bike course... a guy ended up somehow breaking his pedal at one point during the race. Tech services arrived and tried to help him, but it was unfixable. He sat in despair on the side of the road knowing his year of training and his dream of being an Ironman was going up in smoke due to a stinking mechanical deficiency in his bike. Low and behold, another triathlete that was a complete stranger, rode past him and saw him on the side of the road with a broken bike. The racer was struggling already in the race and knew he wouldn't finish. He turned around and went and GAVE his bike to the racer sitting on the ground so that guy would have a chance to finish when he knew he wouldn't!!! It just gives me chills!

If you want to know why Josh and I are so crazy about triathlons, this is one of the number one reasons. The people that do these races are amazing. It is a tight knit community where everyone is welcome and everyone wants to help. It doesn't matter how slow or fast you are, if this is your 100th race or your 1st race, everyone wants to talk to you and hear your story! I love it!