Mini Marathon

Training was done

Company arrived

Pasta was served

Bags were packed

Race numbers were picked up

Hotel keys were handed out

All were asleep

Eyes were opened before alarm clock sounded

Shoes were laced up

Protein bar and bananas were eaten

Two friends were reunited

Over 40,000 people were waiting at the starting line

Wind was blowing

The race was started

Twenty minutes later the starting line was crossed

Bands were playing - people were singing

Water was handed out

The Indy Speedway was run upon

Gel packs were consumed

Two hours and ten minutes later the finish line was crossed and 13.1 miles had been run!

Eric, Amy, Lisa, and Joe

This was THE BEST race I have ever been in. I have never been running with so many people. If you ever get the chance to run the mini marathon in Indianapolis you should. It was a blast. My brother Eric came with his family to visit the day before the race and then he ran the race. Lisa also came and we ran it together and talked the entire 2 hours and 10 minutes that it took us to finish. Joe also ran it and managed to finish with a great time and bad knee!

Sara (Joe's wife) came to cheer us on along with Andy and the kids and Katie and her kids. We had quite the cheering squad even though we never saw each other!

Amy and Eric

Amy and Lisa

After the race we went to the Children's museum with Lisa's family and then they came to stay at our house for the night. It was tons of fun and we hated to see them all leave.Andy is always so good to support me in my running adventures. He got the kids ready and fed and out in the cold to cheer me on. It was a lot of work and effort. I took this picture of him sleeping at the Children's museum after the race. I think the mini marathon wore him out!!

Feeling Excited!!!

Andy has one more week of school and then we are done with our first year (yes, I meant to write WE are done with our first year). Next week at this time there will be no papers hanging over him. No tests to study for. No projects to work on. No group meetings. Ahhhhh! It's a good feeling to know we survived the first and apparently the hardest year of MBA school! I will soon have a husband home for dinner every night! That is happy news. The kids will have a dad to play with. More happy news. It has been a GREAT year! The days have been slow but the months have been fast! Hard to believe we are done. Good luck to Andy with his finals!!

Little Ballerina

Lucy has been taking ballet up on campus all year and today she had her recital. She was so excited for her recital and did a great job. She was so cute and as I watched her on stage she had this smile that told me she was so proud of herself. It was really cute. I loved when she finally figured out where we were sitting and she gave us the cutest grin and kept looking over our way!!

Her friend came to watch

She took ballet with her two friends - Kennedi and Eliza. Here she is with Eliza after the recital.

Pinchy Boy

So, in our family when we make reference of "pinchy" we all know we are talking about Lucas. When he was really little he would ask if he could have gum. I would tell him no because he didn't know how to chew it at the time and would just swallow it. One day I tore of a tiny piece and said "Here Lucas - you can have just a little pinch" He chewed it and loved it. Several days later he came and asked for more gum. "No honey. You are too little" He looked at me with his big brown eyes and said in his high pitch voice "Mom, just a pinchy. I just want a pinchy of gum" And so it went every week and how could I possibly say no. Well, he is now our pinchy boy and for some reason when he does weird things or dresses crazy we say "Oh he's such a pinch" and we all seem to know what that means. And just to clue you in the following pictures are "pinch"pictures. Way too often he wears crazy outfits. He's not doing it to be funny. He just likes them and well this is pinch in his true light and these pictures help define what we mean when we say "pinch" in our family:

(I mean really! What is this outfit? One day I was busy doing chores and look up and find Lucas looking like this. I asked him to go do his chores and get dressed and he informed me he already did get dressed!)
This is how he showed up to family night once. Can those shorts go any higher? And I love the diaper sagging out of them!
This past saturday he was walking around the house giving his bear shoulder rides
One day it was time to get in the car and he looked like this. His pants are unzipped. His jeans are pushed up above his boots. Oh and a sidenote - he doesn't need boots because there was no snow on the ground when he was dressed like this!

And under all that craziness there is a pretty normal looking child! We love our pinchy boy!

We've seen a lot of the tooth fairy this week!!

Well the past week or so has been a week of TEETH! About a week while waiting to see the doctor for Jane's check up I discovered her first tooth had come in. I guess it should not have surprised me so much given she has had a grouchy streak lately which is not like her. She has also REFUSED to let anyone feed her anymore. One day she just decided she was too cool for baby food and will only eat real food and she is the only one who can feed her!! Wow! I've never had a baby flat out refuse the baby food!


Then a few days ago we were at dinner and Ethan started to complain about his "loose tooth" and how it hurt to eat. Andy and I kind of rolled our eyes as we knew he was just seeking attention because the night before Lucy who had a very loose tooth was complaining because it hurt when she bit into something and then she got lots of attention because her tooth started to bleed a lot. Andy and I didn't even know Ethan had a loose tooth so we knew this was his attempt to get some attention. We told him he'd be fine and keep eating. Well, much to our surprise about a minute later Ethan said "Oh it came out" and there he sat holding his tooth in his hand!!! It was his FIRST tooth he lost and I felt bad when I realized it really was loose and really was bothering him!!
Then the next day Lucy lost her tooth which means she is missing her two front teeth!!

Hoosier Daddy?!??!

Every year at IU there is a bike race called the Little 500 (or the Little five). Apparently it's a BIG deal. So, the MBA school held a Little Little 500 in honor of this race. Teams of 5 MBA's raced against other teams of 5 on little kids bikes. Andy was on a team with Logan, John, Joe, and Bryan. We (the wives) thought it'd be fun to make a t-shirt for each of them. We thought we were pretty clever and with the help of Tye's photo shop skills we surprised them with some great t-shirts.

Their Team Name: Hoosier Daddies

On the sleeve of the shirt we wrote the following formula: =IF(Dad,Win,Lose)

On the back of the t-shirt were their nick names and this picture
(John, Bryan, Logan, Joe, Andy)

Here they are trying to do the same pose that is on their t-shirt

Andy warming up and practicing for the race.....ha! ha! ha! This cracks me up!

I guess the practicing paid off...here is andy getting ready to pass another team!! Yeah, Who's YOUR Daddy?!??!

And the winners are......Hoosier Daddies!!! Yes, the daddy team beat all the other teams!! (I think they won because of the awesome t-shirts!!he! he! he!) We had a GREAT time watching them and I think this trophy will have to be the new traveling Settler's of Catan Trophy.Here are the kids watching their dads race (the older kids were in school)

Here are all of the dads with their kids!

Not only was it a FUN day racing but it was also Andy's Birthday! We had fun celebrating at 7am with a pancake breakfast and then enjoyed having some friends over for pie and cupcakes in the evening. Happy Birthday to Andy!! You really can't ask for a better father or husband!!

Girls trip to Chicago

One day at the bus stop Jenner mentioned how it'd be fun to go to Chicago. Seemed that each girl agreed and by the end of the bus stop we had planned out a trip and about a week later we were on our way. Just the girls - no kids (well maybe a couple of nursing babies but no kids for me!!) It was such a WONDERFUL relaxing trip. We laughed a lot, Jenner and I enjoyed a morning run along the lake, we all ate yummy food, enjoyed seeing the city, and spent lots of time shopping. In fact 4 of us crammed into one dressing room at H&M and stayed in the dressing room for well over an hour. Some would run grab different sizes while others stayed in the dressing room. It was tons of fun giving our opinion on so and so's shirt or pants....you know how it is. It made us nearly miss our pizza reservation and we had the rest of the girls in a panic waiting for us but we made it to the restaurant just in time and good thing too because it was excellent and a great way to finish off a nearly perfect trip.

When I'm not in my house this is where you will find me!

Given our circumstances of being students with kids we definitely live in an ideal situation. Everyday we feel so grateful we ended up in the place/neighborhood we are at. It is filled with lots of MBA students (thanks to Jenner) and their families which means lots of friends for our kids (and for me!)
If it is a nice day this is usually where you will find me and all these great gals (and a few others who are not in this picture) Here we are enjoying some yummy salsa and chips Amber brought over for us to enjoy while watching our kids.
Here are some of the activities that go on in our cul-de-sac:

Thanks to Logan and Brian we all enjoy some scooter rides around the neighborhood. The kids line up and beg for rides. Here is Ethan riding with our friend Brian.
Even I get to take a ride from time to time.....I think I could own one of these some day!! It's really fun!

The kids are always making up new games and creating things to do. In the fall they use to race down the hill in wagons. Here are Lucy, Eliza, and Kamryn When Taylor brought out the Barbie car it was a huge hit with all....even the boys!!

The Cul-de-sac is always filled with lots of kids, bikes, scooters, bubbles, tricycles ....Everything seems to come out of everyone's garage and it becomes a free for all! It's lots of fun!

Lucas

A little disturbing!!

So the other day a bunch of kids and moms were outside playing and Sara started talking about how scary this baby doll looked. As it turns out the little girl who owns this doll left it outside so the doll ended up in our garage for the night and I couldn't resist playing a trick on Sara. I asked her husband to put it on her pillow. I think he did something slightly different but I still thought I was pretty funny. However, the joke was on me. The next day I came home and found the doll staring at me. She had taped it to my door! It was funny!
Look at this scary looking face!!