Wineglass Half Marathon

Last May, my sister and I decided to run a half marathon before our 30th birthday.  We chose to run the Wineglass Half based on reviews and location and I'm really glad we did.  The race was this past weekend, and happened during the peak of fall leaf viewing in the Fingerlakes region.  It was very scenic, well organized and a great course (ie. downhill!).  Our cousins decided to join us, so we made a girls weekend out of it.  We grew up spending a lot of time with these cousins, and are very close to them.  Every time we get together we have a blast, and this weekend was no different.

I had big plans to train for this run and to be well prepared.  I did really well through the summer, but early this fall fell off my training plan for a variety of reasons (Kevin's schedule, increasing my hours at work, rain, travel).  I was a little worried about the race, but ended up beating my goal by a few minutes and beating my last half marathon time by almost 10 minutes.  My official time was 2:10:31.  All in all it was a very successful day.  Everyone else beat their goals too, and my sister completed her very first half!

Taking the bus to the starting line:

At the start!  It was very cold in the morning, but once we got moving it ended up being perfect weather.

Waiting for Becca to cross

Finishing up strong - we were screaming very loudly for her, but she claims she could not hear us.

With our medals

Corning was really a beautiful town.  I am hoping to make a family day trip down there sometime soon, including a trip to the glass museum.

Happy First Birthday Baby Girl!

Ahhh!!  Kate is one!

It is very difficult to believe that a whole year has gone by since Miss Kate was born.  We have had such an amazing year with our smart, funny, silly and happy baby girl. 

A lot of new things happened this month:
- Kate learned to walk!  She started by taking a few steps, and then has slowly progressed to walking a lot more often.  She still prefers to crawl, but we're getting there.
- She learned how to say "cat" (can can make a cat sound) and "hot"
- She now signs "more" and "water" and tries to make the sign for "airplane", but can't quite get her fingers right.
- She has officially dropped all of her bottles/nursing during the day and is eating like a big girl!  She still nurses before bed and in the morning, but we will slowly work on those.
- She has one more tooth!  Only one of her top teeth has come in, she is going to look a little silly until the rest come in!

She's still such a laid back and happy little girl.  We say, bring on another year!

 Airplane!! (and a tooth peeking)

 She still has trouble walking on grass, but loves to push this thing around

Reflections

A lot is going on in our life these days and it feels like time is moving way too fast.  Kate's first birthday is on Tuesday, as in 4 days from now.  I think the reality of that has caused an onslaught of emotions and feelings in me.  So today, while walking the dogs with Kate, I just took the time to reflect on our life right now and I realized I should write about it because I want to remember how things are right now.

Things are great.  I think this is the time of our life that we are going to look back on and feel as if it was the best time.  Kevin is in his 4th year of residency, which is his second to last year.  Suddenly, a period of time that seemed like FOREVER feels almost over.  He has applied for fellowship, he is looking for jobs - like a.real.job - and we are starting to talk about where we want to live when we move back home.  We are discussing what we want our life to look like, what type of work schedule we want Kevin to have, what type of career I want, what type of SCHOOLS we want to send our kid(s) to, how many kids we want to have, when we want to have the next one, and on and on.  Yes it is overwhelming, but it is also so so exciting.  All in all, we see the light at the end of the tunnel and it feels so REAL.

Although I am very excited to move into the next phase of our life, it also feels a little bittersweet.  Life right now is awesome.  I like my job, a lot - working part time has really been the sweet spot for me.  Being a mother is better than I ever imagined it to be, and Kate is the most amazing little person.  She surprises me every day and it is so thrilling to watch her learn, change and grow.  I love our house, our town and our friends here.  Part of me wishes we could just stay here awhile longer, but things are already changing, people are already moving away and doing amazing things.  So I am just going to enjoy this last year and a half and will try to remember that these are the best of times each and every day.

 She is usually smiling, so I had to include her pensive look

 Here she was calling out to a baby that was crying in its stroller

 Airplane!

Watches every one, the whole way across the sky (we live close enough to an airport that this happens often)

Mom! Airplanes are the best!

11 (+ some) months

I'm a little late on Kate's 11 month pictures.  I had left my camera back home in PA, so I missed out on her actual 11 month day, but better late than never right?  Kate is an absolute delight, I know I keep saying it, but it's true!  She is truly a very happy-go-lucky little girl, I hope she maintains that spirit an personality her entire life.  She looks different every day and learning new things all the time.  We have had a busy month with visits from both sets of grandparents, a visit home and going to the State Fair.  Kate continues to be a great eater and we are finally starting to wean from nursing, which I am more emotional about than I thought I would be.  She typically nurses first thing in the morning, before her afternoon nap and before bed time.  She is eating breakfast, lunch, dinner and gets an afternoon snack when she wakes up from her nap.  She recently learned how to appropriately use her signs (which is making weaning that much more difficult), but she can sign "milk", "eat" and "all-done".  She is waving hi and bye, and is mimicking us a lot more.  She is trying out a lot of new sounds, and even made a fart noise with her mouth after Kevin farted out loud today.  She mimics us when we cough too.  She has words for dog, dude, duck, and can say dad and hi clearly.  She also makes a consistent sound for "emily" but since it is nowhere close to sounding like Emily, I'm not sure that it counts.  She still insists on calling me dad too, even though she is starting to make "m" noises.  She said "Hi" clearly and appropriately for the first time to Sloan while watching a video of him, it was very cute.  She is not walking independently, but has been cruising on furniture and behind her cart for awhile now.  She even got her first pair of new shoes from Bushia and Pop-Pop.  She has taken a couple of steps on her own, but doesn't try to often.  She likes to fall into your arms if you try to get her to walk to you.  She still just has the two bottom teeth!  Her top four are starting to peek through and she has two more on the bottom sitting in place, they're just taking their time I guess.  I just hope we don't have a 6 teeth coming in all at once type of thing.

Her other new favorites now are:
- taking all the books off the shelves and removing their jackets
- holding two things in one hand - she's very determined about this and I think it's the funniest thing
- climbing the stairs
- dogs still - LOVES dogs
- ducks - now has separate sounds for what does the duck say? and what does the dog say?
- stuffed animals
- giving kisses

 

I want her hair .. it's ok to be a little jealous of your own baby right?

Yelling at the dogs:

                     

She loved playing with these stacking cups at my parent's house.  This blue one had a duck on the bottom of it, so it was her favorite.

Ready for nap time. That thumb.  Gets me every time.

Dog Days

Kate and the dogs have always gotten along, but over the past few months we have really enjoyed watching their relationship develop.  Kate loves all animals, but especially dogs.  Anytime we see one while out and about, she gets really excited, flaps her arms and barks at them.  She and Emily have a special relationship, and Kate gets more excited to see Emily than Baxter.  Emily will also go up and check on her in her room when she's napping - most of the time she ends up waking her up!  Baxter is the one that will let her do whatever she wants to him though.  We have joked for a while that Kate is going to grow up thinking that she is a dog, but sometimes I think this is actually true!