Deep in the Heart of Texas

That's right, this family travelled deep in the heart of Texas last week.  We headed out on Saturday to Austin for Mark's 16th marathon with the hopes that he could cross one more state off his goal of finishing a marathon in all 50 states.  We'll skip right to the good news before we get into the details of our trip and just tell you that he came, he ran, he finished!  While it wasn't his best time, we're still in awe that he was able to do it despite very little training and some seriously messed up feet.  One conclusion we may have also come to is that Mark may be better off doing a number of these marathon trips on his own.  Thankfully we extended the Texas stay to be five days, but a quick weekend trip likely wouldn't have been worth it with Sawyer and Isla.  In fact, we didn't even go to see him run at all because both slept past the race start and it was not a great course to be trying and chase him around.  So instead we hit up the lobby for some breakfast and watched the half marathoners come back, and went for a swim in the pool.  Sawyer has been so excited to test out her new swimmies, and was overjoyed when I surprised her with a pair of goggles. 

Swimming with both girls by myself was a little challenging.  Sawyer was at first a little hesitant that she'd be able to float by herself, and wanted me VERY close by, as in an arm's length away likely with one of her hands attached to mine.  This made holding Isla a bit difficult.  More difficult was the fact that Isla didn't want to be held, and believed she knew how to swim.  She screamed most of the time I had her in the pool.  She screamed harder when I tried to take her out, so I know she likes the water, but would get very frustrated that she couldn't just walk around.  Several times she walked herself right off the steps and dunked herself, and wasn't too happy about the fact that I had to hold her in the middle of the pool because she certainly couldn't stand there.  Lesson learned:  Buy Isla a float that she can chill in for Florida.

Mark made it back and after some lunch and naps we decided to let the exploring begin. We made our way to Sixth St to see all the bars and nightlife area, roamed downtown a bit further, and then made our way over to the Capitol building. 

It was really nice because the front part is all gated off so we could just let the girls run a bit.  Plus, the sun was shining and we were just happy to be playing outside with no coats.  Sawyer loves to point out statues and sculptures so she was in heaven, as there's no shortage.  This picture of her running from the cannon is one of my favorites.  I imagine the caption as being, "oops, I think I just set that thing off"

Isla also enjoyed the freedom.  She was rocking her new Puma tracksuit from Grandma and fit right in with the runners. 

They also had the coolest trees.  Mark and Sawyer hopped up on one for this cute pic.  We then noticed that you weren't supposed to climb on the trees - oops.

One of the great things we noticed about Austin was the food.  We hit up some serious Tex-Mex and BBQ while there, especially over in the South Congress area.  Luckily we had gotten some good recommendations from friends ahead of time, but even stumbled across some good local places on our own as well.  One such place was also the local cowboy boot store, which we were planning to hit up ahead of dinner.  Sawyer was utterly exhausted and fell asleep on the car ride to dinner, but despite that we managed to secure her some cowboy boots as promised to surprise her with when she woke up.  She got her second wind after sleeping through most of dinner, and so we let her go for a walk in them after to test them out. 

She definitely developed a little swagger when she put them on.

One of the other main attractions while in Austin was of course UT.  We hit up the campus on an especially beautiful and warm afternoon, and wouldn't you know there were lots of people milling around.  Isla was LOVING walking among the people.  She kind of planted herself along the sidewalk and would walk in between them all.  Most didn't care if she slowed them down and actually seemed to like seeing her smile at them.

It was a big campus though, so she did tire out eventually...

Sawyer posing on campus

A building and tree that I liked.  Loving all the old trees on this campus.  They grew in such different formations, I just loved it.

The bell tower.  Initially we were only able to drive through campus, but Mark wanted to come back and check out the bell tower, so we eventually made our way into the heart of the campus.  It was fun to walk through and talk to Sawyer about college.  She told me she was going to go to college and when I asked her if she was saving her money, it made some passersby giggle.

One of the days we actually headed on down to San Antonio.  When we saw that it was only about 80 miles from Austin it seemed like a no-brainer for a quick day-trip.  We lucked out again with the weather and got to walk around for several hours.  We started out at the Alamo - Sawyer even took Isla for a stroll through the gardens there.

A few from the outside - mark this one off the travel to-do list.

Most of our time was actually spent on the Riverwalk.  For those of you not in the know, there's a multi-mile path along what I believe is a man-made river.  There's restaurants and stores, and the girls just wanted to wander.  The main problem here is there's no railings for 90% of the pathway and for our girl Isla who insists on walking, Mark and I needed to be on our toes.

A huge draw for us was the ducks that swam.  Turns out that Isla is a huge animal lover.  Sawyer sort of tolerates animals, but has some fear.  Isla on the other hand walks up to dogs, birds, and ducks.  So she spent a lot of time pointing and talking to them, including just standing along the side watching. 

Another stop at the amphitheater along the walk.  Tough to get Isla to sit still these days, so you'll notice many of our pictures are Mark and Sawyer.

All in all, not a bad trip.  I wouldn't go straight to great, or the best trip I've been on because travelling with these two girls is not without it's challenges.  They are somewhat difficult to manage on airplanes, they aren't the best restaurant companions these days and having all of us in one hotel room was difficult with Isla's sleep schedule.  Despite having a crib in our hotel room, Isla slept with me/on me any time she slept which meant it took longer to get her to sleep, and she never quite slept as soundly as she does in her own room.  Such is life - we're looking forward to our vacation this summer that will be in a house with multiple rooms!

My Funny Valentines

I have three valentines, and while we had a very low key holiday they enjoyed celebrating Valentine's Day and getting cards, cookies, and candy.  To celebrate, we danced...

Including getting way down low...

We played...

We checked out and ate the spoils from our friends...

And we spread the love... 

Exactly What a Weekend Should Be

We had one of those weekends where a lot of things got done but it didn't feel like a lot of work.  We did the always necessary housecleaning and laundry, made Valentine's for Sawyer and Isla's classes, and even got the taxes about 95% completed....and it's a refund year!  Will certainly make decorating the basement a bit less painful.  What can I say, we're just doing our part to keep this economy going.  Though I'm not sure why, I'm worried our Valentine's efforts are a bit insufficient.  We did the out of the box Valentine's I remember from when I was a kid.  I got the ones with tattoos, and taped them to heart suckers for Sawyer's class which would have been a killing in my day.  Isla's class just gets the Valentine and tattoo..  I should seemingly not care about Valentine's for daycare, especially for a 1 year old who doesn't know what's going on, but you'd be surprised at how these parents go all out.  I envision both coming home with a bag full of goodies come Tuesday.  Oh well, I'm trying to stay strong and not succumb to the parenting pressure.  But I digress...

Back to our weekend.  We did a lot of relaxing and hanging with these girls:

I'm pretty sure I'm happy with the weekend because it was a nice balance.  I got two good workouts in, in line with my desire to finally get back down to my "normal" weight.  I took the girls into the city to see cousin Caroline and hang out at her apartment.  Sawyer and I hit up the library to return last week's books, and I thought to get more - but she decided to read there and then play the computer and opted out of bringing any home.  We made some good meals, and frosted our Valentine's cookies...

 I consider it a stroke of genius on my part, and a good recommendation from my mom,  to use some of the dough from my Christmas cut-outs to make some Valentine's cut-outs in December and freeze them.  So all I had to do was buy some frosting and we were in business.  We had ourselves a little decorating party, and even Isla got into the action.

She decorated all of 4 cookes to Sawyer's 12 I think.  But she didn't care and I didn't care.  Kept these two busy for a good 30 minutes.  We had the Princess and the Frog on while we were doing it, and I'm pretty sure they were both watching a song at this point.

And then it was time to eat a few...

And now we're chilling as the weekend comes to an end. We've got the Grammy's on and Sawyer is dancing to every single song.  She does not like the commercial breaks, and is an amazing interpretive dancer, even putting her hands up when the song told her to, and clapping for the artists at the end of their songs.  

Positive Thinking

I am having a good day.  Not that this is a strange thing, but it's the kind of good day that you feel in your heart - I feel "light" today.  I think I'm inherently a positive person, albeit a realist, so this shouldn't be anything totally out of the ordinary but for some reason I'm highly aware of it today.  Work, kids, and life all seem manageable today so I don't have this impending sense of doom or guilt that I'm forgetting something, have too many things on my to-do list, or giving too much attention to one thing and not enough to the others.  For today, I think I've got it all under control, and it's a pretty darn good feeling. 

Isla and Sawyer are both doing well.  They love to be my helper on all things, and while they often get jealous of the other, I captured a nice moment the other night while I was cooking dinner and they were sharing a strawberry snack on the counter watching me.  Isla was so happy to be let up on the counter, and while I always stayed real close she was digging some newfound freedoms.  If you look closely at this picture you can see her teeth have finally started to come in for real.

As I'm sitting here finishing up a few things for work, and waiting for my 2pm call to roll around, I'm watching it snow outside my window.  At lunch they said the Chicago area/NW Indiana could get up to 18 inches of snow.  Not sure we'd get even half that but will be fun to see.  We have a bunch of things we want to get done this weekend but it's primarily family stuff so not a ton of pressure.  Frost some Valentine's cookies, make Valentine's for the kids classmates, do taxes, etc.  I'm pretty sure there'll be atleast one viewing of the Princess and the Frog and some dancing.  Would you have guessed that's what Sawyer's doing in this picture?

Isla and I had some mommy and me time yesterday.  Mark went in to wake her up at around 7am and found her caked in puke.  That's right, she threw up big time and never woke up.  It was a little comical because about 50% of the time she wakes up once a night and needs a pacifier or a quick cuddle.  On that night, I heard not a peep and woke up myself thinking how refreshed I felt.  Long story long, I kept Isla at home with me and after three baths to wash the smell of her, two outfits for both of us, and a thorough changing of all linens in her room the smell started to subside.  She wasn't sick again and took two seriously good naps - deep deep sleep - that I think helped quite a lot.  Add in a trip to Target where I bought her a new bathing suit and I think she was enjoying her time with me all by herself.

Isla digs her Zebra ride, and I'm looking forward to spring temps so I can let her ride it out on the sidewalk.  However, the stroller is Isla's favorite toy lately.  She pushes her Cabbage Patch Kid - Olive in it, or will put her two most prized possessions - her giraffe and cow blankets in it for a ride.  She sometimes gets jealous of her toys and sits in it herself and whines or cries until one of us pushes her as well.

It's interesting because they always say you take less pictures of Kid #2.  I would agree that in total I take less pictures now that we have two kids because I'm less likely to have a free hand, but right now I seem to take more pictures of Isla because she's "doing" funny/new things.  I take less of Sawyer because she's "saying" funny/new things.  Sawyer makes us laugh a lot and sometimes I think I should leave the video camera on her for 24 hours just to capture it, but it doesn't always translate into a good picture.  This weekend I want to work on Sawyer's writing so maybe we'll have some good pictures from that - I'm starting to sense she's a little perfectionist who won't try something if she can't do it right and so she's been reluctant to try and write her name like some of her classmates try to do.  

And I'll leave you with the pretty picture I took of flowers Mark sent me today.  I know they're for Valentine's Day but I wasn't really thinking about it, and so when the delivery guy came, it added to my good day-ness...

A little bit of chicken...

This weekend Mark made his way to Death Valley, California for marathon #15.  Despite having very little time to train we are very proud of him that he finished it, and is now 30% through his goal of doing a marathon in every state.  On a side note, we're now up to 15 running medals and I'm trying to determine how best to display, or if to display, all of Mark's medals.  We have space in our basement, especially as we're about to embark on that remodel job, so any and all recommendations will be accepted.  Which brings me to another side note.  I'm looking forward to redecorating our basement in the coming months.  We got it painted a really nice blue/gray color over the holidays and it has totally changed the space.  It turns out that just repainting it has made our existing couches also look better down there, so we're going to keep those and just built out the rest of the space.  Looking forward to it as a little spring time project. 

Back on track, while Mark was away for all of 48 hours, us ladies had a bit of fun.  I let Sawyer convince me on Friday evening to grab take-out for dinner.  She selected the chicken place we drive by every day, but have never tried.  Fried chicken here we come.  Turns out Sawyer is a fan of fried chicken, not that I was surprised.

Isla, on the other hand, is a pain in the butt when it comes to food.  This girl has a mind of her own and no problem screaming if you do something she doesn't like.  Sometimes she will do so well and eat everything in front of her, but I could give her the same thing a week later and she won't touch it.  Her current favorite thing is American Cheese squares and would eat as many as I give her, but otherwise she's quite fussy.  Blueberries are about the only other thing that she will usually eat without a stink.   If she weren't already quite petite I probably wouldn't care, but the girl is not large.  She still rocks most of her 12 months clothes, fits into 12-18 months ok, and usually is swimming in 18 month clothes.  I tell myself this is why I have let her take a bottle longer than Sawyer did.  Right now she gets it at most twice a day (when she wakes up and goes to bed) just so I know she's getting enough nutrients.  This morning I tried to give her a cup and she cried and shook her head.  I guarantee you if it was in a bottle she would have taken down the entire thing.  Eventually Mark found a cup that is a cross between a bottle and sippy that I gave her, and she did drink her milk...but seriously, I thought she'd be less dramatic than Sawyer, not more!! 

As for the rest of the weekend, us girls just bummed around on Saturday.  We went to the library for books, made some cookies, cleaned and did laundry, and went out for a late lunch.  Of course we also watched the Princess and the Frog.  Not a day goes by without it.  All in all a pretty good day.  Mark got home late on Saturday night so it was truly a quick trip.  Sawyer took this picture of him a few weeks back but I found it on my phone and really like it.  She's such a little photographer that one.

On Sunday we had some friends over for the Superbowl.  Nothing too crazy though I think I should have kept the food simpler.  I decided to go for a maiden voyage making sliders, but I should have tested one out on the grill first because they were too small.  Ahh - next time.  I do love a good appetizer heavy party though.  Kate's recommendation of Buffalo Chicken Meatballs were the big hit.  I'm thinking I should have made my soft pretzels too because they are mucho to die for.  The kids all seemed to have a good time together.  While Isla went to bed at her normal 7pm time, Sawyer was shocked that people left around 8pm.  She was not digging that the party was over.  We had to let her chill out on the couch with us for awhile before putting her to bed because she was pretty wound up.  What can I say - Sawyer loves a good party.