Half Marathon and Other Fun Things

Last weekend I ran a half marathon! I went down to St George with my sister Jessica, and my friend Lindsay and her sister and sister's friend. It was a fun crowd. Taylor stayed home with the kids so I had my very first weekend to myself! I have never slept away from my kids! I did leave Aiden with my mom when I had Eva, but that doesn't count because I slept with Eva :->. Anyways, it was a way fun weekend. We left Friday afternoon. We stayed in a house of a relative of one of the girls. We went out for a yummy dinner when we got there. We woke up and headed straight to the race. We took a before picture with our cute numbers, haha.


This would be the after picture! I know it's lovely, but we had to show off our cool medals! I gave mine to Aiden when we got home and he thought it was so cool! The race went pretty well considering that Jess and I didn't finish our training before the race the way we would have hoped to. I had to stop and pee around mile 6. Darn post child birth bladder! I felt pretty good through most of the run, but mile 12 and 13 were killer! My feet were burning with crazy pain! I ended up having a crazy blister when I took my shoes off after the race and 2 toenails that were starting to fall off! I felt pretty crazy when we finished the race. I felt like I couldn't walk but I couldn't sit either. They had some yummy food for us. I started eating that because I was starving. A minute would go by and then I would feel like I was gonna throw up so I would stop and then I would be starving again and so on. It was kinda funny. I was so glad that we did it though! Jess and I ran the whole way together. Lindsay was amazing and finished way before we did! We are hoping to run another one in SLC in April!

We went home and showered and said wow we are amazing. Yay we ran a half marathon. Let's take a picture. So we did.

We headed over to the Pizza Factory to pig out on some yummy food! I don't think I have ever been this hungry in my life. It reminded me of pigging out after child birth, haha. It was kinda weird how quickly the soreness from the run set in. I have never been that sore in my life. After lunch, we headed over to the outlets and did some shopping. It was a fun day! The next morning we drove home. When I got back Aiden and Eva were so excited to see me. They had lots of fun with Daddy! Aiden told me that they had a party without me! He also asked if I was going to live with them now, haha. I was gone two nights! I guess that is a lot for a 3 year old! :-> I had such a fun and relaxing weekend! It was nice to recharge my mom batteries in preparation for finals!


This last week we went to a gingerbread house festival with Carrie and Kellie and their kids. They had some pretty amazing ones! The kids loved it! They got to check out the houses and decorate sugar cookies.








On our way home we stopped at the law school play group. It was at the story time at Barnes and Noble. They made these cute hats at the end. They loved them and they just look so cute when they wear them!


Last night I had a date night with my sister because Taylor is forever studying at the school. It was so fun! I love hanging out with her! We went to the mall, then Carraba's for salad and bread and then Coldstone for icecream. We decided to surprise Taylor and bring him ice cream at the law school.

Taylor took a few golf swings from one side of the law school to the other. Now I know why he spends so much time there... haha. We went back to my place and we watched The Proposal in our jammies. I really liked that movie! We laughed so hard!

Halloween Fun

Halloween was a lot of fun for us this year. Aiden and Eva are both at really fun ages for it.

We decorated pumpkin shaped sugar cookies. I made Eva gluten free sugar cookies to decorate and they turned out pretty good. This counter top is their favorite place. We do everything right here, haha.

We painted pumpkins at the law school with friends. I let Eva try it out for a second but the paintbrush went straight to her mouth and then my pants so we just watched Aiden, haha.

We carved a jack-o-lantern. Aiden was really excited about this. Eva thought watching Dad pull out all the guts was pretty cool.


Aiden had a Halloween party at preschool and he got to wear his costume. He was sooo excited for this. He said there were two other spiderman's at his school and he thought that was pretty cool.
After Aiden's preschool party, we headed straight to the law school for a party there. We got to go trick or treating to all of the law students carrels. Eva figured out how it was done pretty quickly. It was so funny. There was a girl making balloon swords and Aiden thought that was pretty cool.



Taylor and I had a little Halloween party at our house this year. Thanks to Jessica for watching the kids! They had so much fun with her. Towards the end Jess asked Aiden to hand her her phone in case I called and Aiden said, "If mom calls, we can just ignore her." Haha! I was a gypsy and Taylor was Superman dressed up as Chuck Norris for Halloween. Nice Taylor, haha. You gotta love the wig! The wig we bought looked nothing like the wig on the packaging. We figured this out like 5 mins before the party and Taylor said I had to cut it. Haha, this hair would not cut! We kinda just hacked at it until it looked about the right length. Pretty awful job, haha. We ate lots of food and Jeremiah and Carrie brought over Rockband. It was the first time Taylor and I have dressed up together for Halloween. It was way fun! Lame, I know.







On Halloween night we went over to Jeremiah and Carrie's and ate a yummy dinner. Jeremiah cooked up some fish that he had caught that day. I was a little nervous about the whole thing, but they were really good. The kids had fun trick or treating and after we came back and made smores. Yum, my favorite!

Check out those muscles! Speaking of muscle, for our date this weekend Taylor and I ran 5 miles together! It was so fun. I think I like running with Taylor because it is the one sport related thing that I am better at than him! He can run faster than me but I can run farther! Haha!

Super Scooter

Eva is just getting over a cold. I took her into the dr a few days ago just to make sure all was well. When they weighed her she had gained 5 ounces since her last weight check appt a week prior! We jumped from the 7th% to the 15th% in a week. Yay! I think I am a little obsessive with her weight gain, haha. Her growth chart is crazy when they print it off. It is the normal curve until she hits about 7 months (she started really eating solids well at this point). From 7 months to 16 months it is a straight line. Now (as soon as we started the gluten free diet) the line is going straight up! It makes me smile just to picture that straight up line. Crazy how much a child can consume your thoughts. The doctor has said that he is almost positive that she has Celiac Disease (allergy to gluten). While I am sad that she will have to eat a certain way for the rest of her life, I am sooo grateful to know (almost for sure) what she has and now I can give her what she needs to grow and be healthy. Eating gluten free is getting easier and easier and I am happy about that too!

A couple weekends ago Taylor and I went on a double date with Jess. We got to go on the Heber train. It was a Halloween themed train ride and it was way fun. I got scared a couple times. Have I mentioned how much I love having a regular date night, haha. Thanks again Mckell for trading! :-> This last weekend we went and saw Where the Wild Things are. I was really looking forward to seeing this and I was pretty disappointed. It was fun to get out though.

the train ride

Aiden, as usual, is hilarious. His latest thing is his "super scooter." I have never actually seen this super scooter that he speaks of, but according to him it is way cool. He talks about it constantly. When I ask him where it is he tells me that it is on a special roof. Randomly throughout the day he will tell me things that his super scooter can do. Some of them are pretty crazy. Last night he told me that it can transform into a garden. Oh and in case you were wondering, he has a super scooter because he is a super hero.

The other day we were sitting in his room right after he woke up. Him and Eva both had slept in until 8:30 that day. What a treat! This was our convo
Aiden - Where's Dad?
Me - He left for school already.
Aiden - Why did he go to school so early?
Me - Because he is really busy.
Aiden - I can be really busy too. Watch this.
Aiden then stood up and started spinning in circles and said look mom I'm busy! Eva thought it looked fun so she started spinning too.

Ok, one more. The other day we were early for an appt so we were sitting in the parking lot with both kids in the front with me. Aiden turned the music on way loud. The passenger window visor was down and Eva started to play with it. Aiden got soo mad. Like unreasonably mad. This happened a few times. I thought it was a little strange, but I just moved Eva to my side of the car. I then watched Aiden and saw that he was watching himself dance in the mirror and that's why he got so mad, haha. It was so cute! He was really getting his dance on.

Golfing, My Bday, and Eva Gained a Pound!!

Taylor had the week off of school last week for placement break. Aiden has been begging to go golfing again so we took the kids to another miniature golf course. They loved it!


We decided to make a trip down to AZ too. It was fun to see family and hang out. My birthday was last Friday and it was wonderful! I got to sleep in and then I went shopping with my mom and sister while Taylor stayed home with the kids. I got lots of cute stuff! After shopping, I went home and hung out at the house with the fam for a while. I asked Aiden if he made me a birthday cake while I was gone and he said in a sad voice, "No, and no presents and no balloons either, but I will sing to you in 5 minutes 12345 Happy Bday to you." Haha, it was so cute. That night I got to go out with Kim to Cheesecake Factory. It was so fun to go out and catch up. It has been way too long since we hung out! I miss her! It was a great Bday! These are some of my purchases!

Aiden was so sad when it was time to leave AZ. He was telling me how he didn't want to leave and I told him that we had to because his toys and his bed were saying that they miss Aiden. That was good enough for him and he walked away. 10 minutes later he walked up to me and he looked mad. He said in an angry voice, "Hey! I got to tell you something! Beds don't talk and toys don't talk!" Haha! So true. :-> He had tons of fun making cupcakes with Marlie and grandma!

Eva had lots of fun on this trip too. She LOVES watching the dog. She became quite attached to my mom this trip too. I know my mom loved that and it was quite nice for me. :->. When she wasn't playing with the dog outside, she "walked" this dog.

We made it home and I took Eva to her weight check appointment. She has been doing the gluten free diet for 2 weeks now. In the last two weeks she has gained a pound!! I was so excited! I almost cried in the drs office! She has been stuck at just over 19 pounds forever (like since Jan) and now she is 20 pounds 10 ounces! Woohoo! That puts her in the 8th% for weight, but she is in the 90th% for height and 95th% for head. I am thrilled that for now, we have found something that is helping her gain some weight!

For preschool last week the kids got to go on a field trip. They went to pumpkin land and Aiden loved it! I thought it would be fun to just have some Aiden and mom time, so I left Eva at home with Taylor. Aiden cried the whole way there because he wanted Eva to come, haha, so cute.

I am a Genius (Aiden says so)

We are trying out a new thing with Eva. Her doctors want us to do a gluten free diet to see if that helps her gain some weight. We had another test done on her stool to test for fat and it was still there. I was bummed because I was really hoping it was a random one time thing. He said it also had white blood cells in it and both of those point to celiac, so we are trying that out even though the biopsy for it was negative. I am really hoping that this helps.

We have been trying out a lot of the gluten free goodies. The new Betty Crocker cake mixes are way good. They don't taste gf at all. Aiden and Eva love to sit on the counter and "help." While we were making the frosting Aiden and I had a funny convo.
Aiden - I want brown frosting mom.
Me - Oh. Do you want pink frosting?
Aiden - No, I want brown frosting.
Me- Well, how about we make chocolate frosting?
Aiden - YOU ARE A GENIUS!!
Me - I am? Why?
Aiden - Because chocolate frosting is brown!

On the subject of funny convo's Aiden and I have had, the other day he was golfing with his play golf set. He really wanted me to make him a gold (goal). We took him miniature golfing the other day and he loved it and has been obsessed with it ever since. Eva loved it too. We forgot our camera, but Eva was just walking around holding her mini golf club and her ball and then every once in a while she would put the ball down and try to hit it. She would always remember that her ball was the red one too, haha, so cute. That same day we took the kids fishing and that was fun for about 5 mins and then Aiden said it was boring, haha. We never caught anything, but we will have to try again. Anyways, so Aiden was playing in the house with his clubs begging me for a gold. I tried several things out for him to hit his golf balls into (cups, huge tupperware dishes, blankets in a U shape) and he didn't like any of them.
Aiden - Hey mom I got an idea.
Me - What?
Aiden - How about we make a hole in the ground?
Me- We have carpet Aiden. We can't make a hole in the ground.
Aiden - Yes we can. We can use a knife.

I laughed out loud. I guess he is the genius now.

I hope everyone enjoyed conference weekend. I know I listened to every minute of it without a single distraction. . .

Ya right. This is me "watching" conference with Eva repeatedly pointing out my nose and my eye and my ear and my mouth while Aiden is flying his transformer into my hair and gets it stuck then yanks it out. I do love when they snuggle me like this though. Seriously though, who can watch 8 hours of conference in two days with young kids around? Aiden kept saying, "I don't like church cartoons."

Randoms

We finally got back the test results for Eva. The doctor was unable to give us a diagnosis of anything. She is still just "failure to thrive" without a reason that we know about. I am feeling quite overwhelmed and not sure what to do next. The doctor said that there aren't any other tests he feels like he should do at this point. There are other things that cause fat in the stool, but if she had them she would have a lot of other symptoms. She is generally a happy baby and is hitting all of her milestones, just not gaining weight. She eats so well, but really what does it matter if the fat she is eating is not being absorbed and is just coming out in her poop. I am doing my best. We are going to switch from doing 3 meals and 2-3 snacks a day to 5 meals a day. That's the plan. We are having her weighed again in two weeks and hopefully she will have gained 10 pounds! :->

Lately I have been wondering why we have so many toys. Each day there seems to be a toy that is the coolest toy and my kids fight over it all day. Never mind the overflowing toy boxes in the bedroom, I want what my brother/sister has, haha.

On a more exciting note, Taylor has accepted his job offer at the law firm in Las Vegas! We are so excited to be graduating in April and starting "real life". He starts work on May 3rd and then he will have the month of June off to study and take the bar. It's kind of funny to us that he will be 28 and just now has a "real job" haha. We have loved and are still loving being in school, except for the whole living off of student loans thing, haha. I am excited to get back to all of my beloved cupcake shops in Las Vegas. I just learned of one that is fairly close to me here in Provo. I'm excited to try it out. I am so proud of Taylor! An article that Taylor wrote about the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeal's decision in Brown v Day which deals with when courts should abstain from hearing federal complaints when there is already a current state proceeding is getting published in the BYU Law Review Journal. Make sure and get your copy! :->

I have been doing some babysitting trading with Mckell and I am loving it. Her little boy Brigden is so stinkin cute! I love how chubby he is! He weighs just about the same as Eva (but is about a year younger, poor Eva). Aiden and Eva just love him to death and I can tell he likes them. He is perfectly content to just lay on the floor and watch them play, haha. I think he got a total of about 20 kisses the last time he was here, haha. Taylor and I are loving our weekly date nights. It's funny I never really felt the need to have a regular date night when I just had one child, but now with two, it feels like a necessity. This last weekend we went and saw 500 Days of Summer and I loved it. Taylor surprisingly really liked it too. We went to Spark after wards. I think it is becoming our new favorite place. The drinks are so yummy! I have had 3 nights to myself this week. It's been quite lovely. I had my dinner group one night, did a haircut on another night and then I went to the Relief Society broadcast last night. I have been doing hair again lately. I kinda got lazy with it after I had Eva, but I miss it!

Skinny Little Eva

Eva has been having trouble gaining and keeping weight on her for quite a while now. It's crazy because she eats a ton! She eats almost just as much if not the same amount of food as Aiden does. Her doctor has ordered a few tests to try and figure out why and we have found out that she is not absorbing when she eats. Her stool has fat in it and some of her enzyme levels are off. It has been a crazy week for us so far. We have been up at Primary Childrens Hospital getting more tests done. They checked her for cystic fibrosis and thankfully that was negative. They are doing some more bloodwork. She has already done bloodwork tests twice. We saw a gastroenterologist and he said we needed to have an endoscopy to check for some other things, including celiac, and do a biopsy of her intestine. We did that yesterday. Everything went smoothly, but it was hard to see her go through all of that. She had to get an iv so they could do conscious sedation. Needless to say, I have been a mess. I just want to find out what's causing this "failure to thrive" and fix it! The doctors are getting everything done quickly though and they are just wonderful. I am very thankful for that.

On the way to the hospital

Playing in her gown, waiting to go back

Taylor has spent a lot of time watching Aiden through all of this. One of the days that I went up there, he stayed home with Aiden. They woke up and Taylor gave Aiden a doughnut and then fell asleep on the couch. I got back later in the day. Aiden grabbed a Sprite out of the fridge and started chugging it. I was too exhausted to try and stop him. He started eating his beans and rice for dinner but then started complaining that it was hot. I told him to just swallow his bite. He did a really exaggerated swallow and then threw up everywhere. He muttered, "Maybe not" and I just started laughing. I put him in the bath and started talking to him.
Me - Aiden do you feel sick or did the soda you drank make you throw up?
Aiden - The soda made me sick. And I had two doughnuts.
Me - You had two doughnuts?
Aiden - Ya. I be very sneaky while Daddy was sleeping (giggle).
I talked to Taylor and he told me that Aiden actually ate like 4 doughnuts while he was sleeping on the couch, so I guess that explains the throw up.

I had some much needed me time tonight. We had our first dinner group for Law Partners and it was so much fun! There were about 15 girls that came. No husbands, no kids. I can't wait for next month's!