Mother Racer

Tuesday: I got up this morning and went to the high school for cross country practice. I ran with the kids again.

Most of the kids ran about 7 miles. I ended up running 8 miles in 56:40.32. I felt good. I ran most the run with one of our female runners. She is a talented runner but doesn’t see it in her. It is something we are working on. 🙂 At home, I ran my 2 older girls to piano/violin lessons. When it was over the girls and I hung out at there place for a while. My girls and Amber’s kids get along great.

This afternoon, the kids played with more friends and neighbors and then this evening I went to YW’s (young women’s). The girls tonight worked on their skits for girls camp… Fun times!

My girls went to a good friend of mine (also my neighbor’s) house while I was at YW’s and Corom was at a meeting.

The girls had a lot of fun over there.

Wednesday: When I woke up this morning to go for my run, I had to stop to take a picture of some sleeping arrangements.

My youngest fell asleep in one of her drawers. Talk about uncomfortable! Their dresser broke a few days ago so I took their drawers out and laid them on the floor. Anyway… I met up with Josie, Aubrey and Mac this morning. We ran up Payson canyon… It was a pretty uphill. I ran up 35 minutes and then had to turn around.

The other 3 continued on their way up and I finished running down the canyon on my own. I ran for 53:31.37. It felt good! I made it to cross country practice and we sent them on a 4-7 mile run up a hill that climbed 3 1/2 miles up.

The girls and I went to a neighbor’s house to help make baklava a Greek dessert with some of the young women that go to our church. I love Baklava!

Sara and I (my neighbor) went and grabbed lunch together at a burger place in Stone Drugs pharmacy. It was so good! It was a little section in the pharmacy.

We had a “play day” at my house today… Lots of moms and lots of kids.

My mother-in-law came by later and took the girls for a few hours. She fed them dinner as well and then brought them home just in time for bed (7:30 tonight… They are so tired). Corom works late tonight so it was weird having dinner by myself. I could hear myself chew… I was able to get things done. It is now 8:45 p.m. And I am so tired… I’m going to read for a little bit and then call it a night!

I took a whole week off of running and any form of exercise and it was great. So today as I met up with the high school kids for cross country practice, I was excited to run.

I do like running with the kids because they push me… I try to keep the front pack (varsity boys) in sight. Today was actually their recovery day, so I was able to keep up. We ran 7.1 miles in 48:10.78. My legs are still a little dead from the marathon a week ago but that will pass. At home, the girls worked on their “school work”…

And then we rode our bikes to Christensen’s loop, they ran/walked a lap around once and rode their bikes around once before we rode our bikes home.

I watched a few kids today and everyone just played in the backyard for the most part. All the kids got along great today! We had our Family Home Evening, ate ice cream cones…

And then Corom tried teaching our youngest to ride a bike tonight… Yeah it is going to take a while… Then the girls brought out 6 baby bunnies (if any of you want one let me know :/). The poor little bunnies!!!

The girls treat them like their stuffed animals.

Yesterday (Sunday) was a nice day. My 3rd child wasn’t feeling to well, though. Corom and the 2 older girls went to church and I stayed home with the 2 younger ones just in case she was coming down with something. She took a 3 1/2 hour nap and when she woke up was feeling so much better! We watched the World Cup soccer game today… It was Greece against Costa Rica. My mom is from Greece so of course I was rooting for Greece and Corom served an LDS mission in Costa Rica, so of course he wanted Costa Rica to win. Well…

… Costa Rica won. Of course he had to rub it in. The girls had fun… We just hung out and relaxed all afternoon.

We did have a few visitors throughout the day and Corom went to visit a couple of families but still a pretty low key day.

I set my alarm this morning so I could get up and run a 5k race. As I proceeded to get up, I started thinking “why am I getting up to run a race…” 🙂 I did tell myself that I would take this entire week off and start my running up next week. So I laid myself back down and went to sleep. Corom got up shortly after and him and Mike went hiking up Provo Canyon peek…

They left early this morning and got home around 3. At the house the girls and I went to Christensen’s loop. They ran a lap around (3/4 of a mile) and then we came home and went for a bike ride…

I pulled my youngest on her big wheel from my bike with our dog leash. We had some yard work fun (especially with the dogs)…

Of course the girls wanted to have a lemonade stand… Thankfully we didn’t have any lemonade or cups. So then the girls found my stash of sour patch kids… They decided to sell that instead. Yeah! Thank goodness for the 4 cars that stopped… That always makes the child(ren) happy and even more so me as the parent! That is why whenever I see kids selling something… I will always stop and purchase their little merchandise. Corom was keeping a watchful eye on them.

Corom and the girls dropped me off at the Clarion Gardens to work. I helped Rebecca cater a wedding dinner. I love working for the food… So good (the money is nice too)!

Back at the house Corom stitched up Mike Fullmer. I guess while they were hiking, Corom “accidentally” kicked a rock down and it hit Mike in the shin. So now Mike (he is our pediatrician) walked Corom through stitching him up…

I was really, really impressed with Corom… He has never done anything like this (and who knows how this ever came about). But it was a little sexy. 😉

…and then Corom walked Mike’s daughter for the last stitch. She was amazing! I could not do that!

It wasn’t as gross as I thought it would be… I was able to video tape through the ordeal and take pictures. They did a good job. Very impressive that Mike aloud them to do it. I cry just for a shot. The finished product.

I really wish I was able to post videos on my blog (for some reason it is not letting me). Mike and Corom ran to the store and grabbed some ice cream. It turned into a late night but well worth it. 🙂

Thursday: This morning there was a little chaos… I heard a loud crash up in the girl’s bedroom… 3 of my girls were downstairs with me and 1 was missing (my youngest). I ran upstairs and saw that their dresser has fallen over (with the hermit crab tank)…

I panicked and kept yelling my daughter’s name. I seriously felt like She-Ra (sorry that probably dated me just now)-some body building muscle woman- and I lifted that dresser up like it was nothing. (K with all the drawers out of it, it wasn’t that heavy.) Anyway… She wasn’t under there. I was SO relieved but then I looked around and felt discouraged.

This is the mess I was going to have to clean up! Glass, sand, crab food and a little poop mixed in with all of that. I don’t know why the dresser fell over but I’m glad no one was up there. Oh, on a side note… This happened Thursday morning, it is now Friday and the mess is still there. I told Corom he was in charge of that. A little after breakfast my daughters come in crying because our dogs (well the older one)…

…Ate 2 of the girl’s chickens. They said they were missing and their feathers were in the yard. This is what was left of them (sorry for the disgusting picture… But I had to pick it up and throw it away).

We did go to our neighbor’s house… While us moms visited, Corom and all the kids played. (He worked a half day and met us there.)

After about 13 young women (12-18) from my church came over. We made scones and of course ate them. A few track kids also showed up (randomly) to visit. It was quit the crowd. One of the girls saw Corom mowing the lawn and asked if she could take over (it was her 1st time). Of course he didn’t want to hurt her feelings and say no, so he let her. 🙂 Shoot, I think I will see if they want to come over once a week. The Fullmer’s came over for dinner (Navaho tacos) and then I took the girls to this pathway (Christensen’s loop- 3/4 of a mile) and we went frog hunting. They ran a loop first (on my request) and the 2nd time around was the frog hunting. The sad faces are for not catching any.

Friday: This morning the girls went to their 1st tumbling/gymnastics practice. The Fullmer’s daughter is amazing at gymnastics and has offered to privately teach my girls (and another friends kids) once a week for $50 a month! It normally is $45 a month per child. The kids had a great time!!!

The girls had friends over and played outside all day. I was able to get a lot of cleaning done! There were a few reasons I had to stop cleaning… My 3rd child stepped on a small sharp rock. We had to pull it out of her foot…

The kid in the back of this picture hit his head on the swing and had a big bump on his forehead.

Other than that… It was a pretty smooth day. Once Corom got home, we headed up to the Fullmer’s house and we barbecued up there. We watched the Lego Movie, and then ate s’mores…

Tuesday: I slept in as long as the girls allowed this morning. It felt great because I got out of bed around 7:45… 🙂 After their breakfast, they worked on their school work,

Did a little (very little) amount of chores, got ready, and then had friends over for the day.

They played, made crafts, went for ice cream, had fun with the horses, etc. I was able to get things done around the house! We had YW (all the young women from church) over here for the activity. We had a fire and ate s’mores…

Wednesday: Slept in again today until 7:15 (but didn’t go to bed until 2:15…I stayed up watching the Bachelorette :/). I was a little grumpy this morning. The girls had piano lessons and then they spent 2 1/2 hours in their rooms cleaning them. Oh they drive me crazy sometimes… They cried and fought and played for about 2 of those hours. When friends wanted to come over… Wow, 20-30 minutes later it was all done! I had 12 extra kids over (plus my 4)… A few other moms came over after a while to keep me sane and to keep me company.

Their were crafts, toys, kids everywhere but it was fun! Later in the evening, we went to our neighbor’s house for pie night. There were tons of pies to choose so of course I chose 6 different kinds to eat. The kids had fun with all the other kids running around.

This week has been nice not having to get up and run… I have been eating so much junk food though that it would be good for me to run. 🙂 Next week!