Off to a Good Start

So far, 2013 has been treating us well.
We spent New Year's at a party that Rachel and Hobo threw at their house.  We did not however, make it to midnight, is anyone really surprised?  We dropped the boys off at my parents house and came back home.   Ethan had come into town for the Christmas vacation and was leaving on New Years day, so he was there too!
On New Years day, Blaine and I spent the morning together after I got home from an early morning run before we headed to my parents house.
We had two very important people to meet on the first day of the new year.  Our first stop was to meet a very special little girl, Annie Rose Grill.

She shows interest, and he pretends he doesnt care.

 He gives in and goes for the kiss

 Love!

Our dear friends Molly and Jordan welcomed their first baby and we were so happy to finally meet her. What a doll!
Our next stop was to meet our newest cousin, Ollie.

We was very, very cute, and almost made me think we should get a puppy seeing how good the boys were with him.  Then, I was snapped back to reality and remembered how terrible an idea that would be for us right now.

We had a couple of rainy, cold days and spent them inside watching movies.  Cars 2 was the movie of choice.

We even did a Cars inventory to play along with the movie.

I think the best part of the year so far is school starting back up again!!!!!!! As much as I enjoyed not having to make school lunches, the unstructured mornings, and making plans with friends on any given day of the week, it was very exciting to see them off come Wednesday morning!

About a month ago, I got suckered into signing up for the 3M Half Marathon.  I have been running a lot, mostly by myself early, early in the morning before my house wakes up, my favorite time to run!  I have all different routes in the neighborhood depending on my mood, but never went over 7 1/2 miles.  Its not fun doing long runs alone.  I figured I ought to make sure I could at least do 10 before the run, so one early, cold morning at 5:30 I met some friends at the trail and set out.  They were only running 5 so after they finished, I was on my own for the last 5.  It was the perfect way to start my day. Look how my run ended, beautiful right?!?!
This one run was the extent of my "training."

Cash had been on a pretty consistent schedule at night so I was able to guestimate what time I could get out of the house and how much time I had before he needed to be fed again.  The week before 3M he was right on schedule.  It was not the most ideal schedule, but I knew it, it worked, and was not going to mess with it until afterwards.  I should have known better.  Saturday night (the night before the run) I went to bed with the perfect plan, only to have it shattered.  The kid was up from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. for no. reason. at. all.  After countless attempts by me and Blaine, I finally was able to get him down at 1 a.m., until he woke up to eat at 3:30 followed by my alarm clock going on at 4:50 (had to have a cup or coffee, pump, figure out what to wear...).  That equals about 3 1/2 hours of sleep.  Seriously? I was considering skipping it all together, after all, I didn't train for it at all and conquering 13 miles on 3 hours of sleep is not ideal.
I somehow found the energy to get up and out the door, and finished what was hopefully the first of many races this year.  While it was not my fastest time, it gave me back the confidence I needed to know that even after three kids, I can still get back to what I love.
The boys were super excited about the medal and wore it around all day!

I am really excited about what this year is going to bring to our family!  Happy (late) New Year!