Sweet Sixteen!

Wow, this is crazy. As of today, I have a 16 year old!  What?!  Seriously.  Crazy.  I know it's cliche but it honestly doesn't seem possible.

This picture of my girls seems like it was maybe last week...

But, here they are today (my younger daughter didn't really want her picture taken. Ha!):

We went to Olive Garden for lunch today, her choice, then as we did on her sister's birthday, we hit the mall. :-)  Good day!

Graduation

My youngest cousin graduated from high school yesterday!  On Friday, I picked up my oldest daughter and son from school a little early and we headed out on a road trip to VA (my younger daughter had softball stuff for her summer league).  We had a nice weekend full of graduation fun, complete with lots of food, family, cornhole, balderdash, swimming, and hot tub time!  

My cousin and my daughter.  Yes, he really is about a foot and a half taller than she is!

Cake!

Brothers

Gorgeous view from their house.  Well, minus the guy rocking a dress shirt, dress socks, gym shorts, and vans. ;)

Race for the Cure

My girls and I participated in our second annual Race for the Cure yesterday.  I had, unfortunately, not been training as much as I should have for the race.  I had done a little jogging here and there, but not nearly as much as I had before last year's race. Both girls stayed with me for the first 1.5 miles, then my older daughter took a short break to walk (I think her training consisted of one jogging trip around the neighborhood a couple of weeks ago...)  My younger daughter, who could have finished WAY faster, decided to jog with me at my pace.  We ended up finishing up with a time of 34:10.  Looking back at last year's time for this race, I still beat it by 41 seconds, but was quite a bit slower than the 5k from last June. I do not claim to be a runner by any means, but it feels good to have been able to make it through three 5k's now without any walking. :)

Lots of Softball!

Let me start by saying I'm a little behind getting this posted as the season wrapped up a week and a half ago, but better late than never! :)

My daughter finally got to pitch on her school softball team.  She played her first season of rec softball 2 summers ago and just took up pitching last summer.  Earlier this year, she began taking private pitching lessons.  She has improved so much in such a short time (especially considering most of the other players on her team have been playing since they were very young)!  Her coach finally decided to watch her pitch again in practice and was really impressed with her improvement even from the beginning of the season.  He let her pitch, first, in a scrimmage against the 8th graders - which they won by a lot, btw.  Here is a picture of her in action during that:


Then, the next game, he let her pitch a couple of innings and she did really well!  She made a couple of really good plays after the pitch by snagging the ball and getting it to 1st for what would have been an out (both times!) had the girl at 1st caught the ball.  The coach had switched some players around and the girl usually on 1st was not on - she would have definitely caught them both. They were literally right to her. Here is a video of one of those plays:

Watch it in HD here.

And a few pics from throughout the season:
 
 
 
 


She is still taking private lessons every week and is continuing to improve!  She will be playing on a league this summer that is somewhere between the skill levels of rec and travel and hopefully will play travel soon!

Bike Ride

Went on a nice outing with my little man this evening.  We hopped on our bikes and rode 2.5 miles into town to go to Whit's.  I tried to sneak a picture of him without him knowing, but he caught me. :) Here he is enjoying his yummy cone.

We had a good time, that is, until we got about a mile from home and he decided his bike "is not fast enough" and he started walking his bike.  Um, yeeeeeah, not sure of the logic behind that one...

Meet Speedy

The latest addition to my son's room.  First a fish tank and now this...

My silly babies

Sisters:

Duck faces:

My son's favorite spot:

Awe, how nice!

I had my first appointment with a new dentist today.  I hated my old one and there is a new dental office literally walking distance from my house so I figured I'd give it a try. They are awesome!  The office is brand new and the waiting room feels and looks more like a living room.  Everyone there was super nice, too.  I got at least 3-4 compliments on my jacket (which, oddly enough, people compliment me on frequently), 2 compliments on my shoes, one compliment on my purse, and about 10 compliments on my teeth.  The hygienist kept telling me how "boring" it was to clean my teeth and that she was trying to find something to do because if she was done too soon the dentist would think she wasn't doing a good job.  Then she told the dentist that my mouth was "disgustingly healthy".

I am not so gullible that I believe that was not at least partially due to their trying to "win over" new patients and get good word of mouth going on, but I'll take whatever I can get. Oh, and they did good work too! ;)  Whatever they were pulling on me worked because I will definitely recommend them to people!  :)

Yay!

Proud of my baby girl and her bff!  They both made their school's 7th grade softball team!  Here they are celebrating (and being silly) at DQ after their last day of tryouts this afternoon! :)

Busy day today.

My kids were off school for President's day, though my oldest had a 4 hour practice instead.  After dropping her off, my other 2 kiddos and I went to the gym, grabbed lunch, and ran a couple errands.  I walked Bella then took Molly to the vet because she somehow got a scratch on her belly that she kept licking and it got infected.  Then it was back to pick up my oldest and go to the grocery store.  I got home and made dinner, ate, cleaned up the kitchen, did some laundry, got a shower, and just finished up reading with my son who couldn't stop coughing the entire time. :(

Now I am sitting here thinking about how the sore throat I woke up with seems to have gotten worse throughout the day.  Uggh, I really hope this junk doesn't get worse and passes by quickly because I have to work the next 3 days!

That time again!

I just realized today that I'm only about 3 months away from the Race for the Cure.  I guess that means I need to start adding running back into my workouts.  I kind of got away from it and haven't done much running since probably last fall sometime.  So, I hit the treadmill today at the gym.  I walked about .25 mi then decided to attempt to jog .50 mi at 5 mph.  Well, I got to .50 and decided I'd keep going and try for .75 mi.  In the end, I ended up making it an entire mile before I gave up.  I probably could have pushed myself to go longer, but ehh, maybe next time. ;)  At the end of my workout, I also managed to run a couple of laps around the mini track.  Hoping to do well come race time.

On a side note, 6:1 protein bars = yuck!  I had the cookies and cream one for lunch today after my workout.  Not good.  :(

Another Teenager!

Yep, my baby girl is 13 today!  That means two teenagers (girl teenagers, eek!) in one house. The daily fighting over their shared bathroom has already begun.  Sigh. :-/

Today, she and I are going to go spend some time at the mall shopping, then later it will be dinner at the restaurant of her choice (which, I think, will be The Cheesecake Factory), then Sky Zone for her birthday party!  Should be a busy, but fun, day with my girly! :)

Awww

They love each other! :)

I made it!

I finished up my orientation period at my new job.  Starting next week I'm on my own.  Of course there will always be other nurses around at this job so that I can ask questions.  The last office I was at was not really my favorite of the ones I've been to, but it wasn't awful.  I am still waiting for my schedule though, so, I don't even know where I'll be next week.  The awesome thing about being contingent is that I can make my own schedule.  For example, I know the kids will be off school for MLK day next month, so I can choose not to pick up that day.  I'm also looking forward to only working 2-3 days a week. :)

I did not end up finishing up my Christmas shopping as early as I would have liked, but I got all finished up yesterday (mainly taking the kids out to shop for presents from them).  Today, I will finish up my wrapping.  I haven't had a whole lot of time to devote to it yet.  I spent some time last week while I was sick getting started, then wrapped a few last night.   I will be done before Christmas Eve, though, that's for sure. ;)

Work...

I enjoyed a nice 4 day holiday weekend, but it's back to work tomorrow. I'll tell ya what, though, I do not like this working full-time business.  I didn't like it 10 years ago, and I don't like it now.  :(  Four more weeks of Monday through Friday.  I did, however, really like the people I was working with for the past 2 weeks.  They were all very nice and made me laugh every day.  Tomorrow, I move on to another clinic and I really hope the people there are as nice to work with!

Hmm...

While I was out walking Bella tonight, I noticed no less than a dozen houses in my neighborhood that were already decorated for Christmas.  I understand that this past weekend was a good opportunity for people to get a head start on this since the weather was nice, but at least half of these were actually on. Maybe it's just me, but I like to get through Thanksgiving before I start decorating for Christmas. In fact, I still have scarecrows in my yard.  Now, the day after Thanksgiving is a whole other story.  ;)

On another note, I am liking my new job so far.  I don't love the fact that it takes a good half hour to get to my car after waiting for and riding the shuttle  or the 45-60 minute drive home (depending on traffic), but I much prefer this job over the nursing home!  I am, however, looking forward to having a day off tomorrow!  Yay!

This was me today:

Due to lack of parking, downtown hospitals are forced to spread out their employee parking among (seemingly random) parking lots throughout the city and shuttle employees in from different lots.  My assigned parking is in a very small, gravel lot.  There is literally not enough space to back out in one smooth motion unless you happen to luck out and leave after everyone else so that there are empty spots beside and/or behind you.  Not to mention that people park horribly, taking up 1.5 spaces in the already crowded lot, but that's another rant.  This was totally how I felt today trying to get out of my parking spot.  It seriously took me a good 2-3 minutes of maneuvering...

Christmas shopping?

Yep, this weekend, I officially began my Christmas shopping.  I only purchased a couple of things, but hey, it's a start!  I am usually not one to start until the day after Thanksgiving, but I would LOVE to get done early this year.  It is always my goal to not still be wrapping on Christmas Eve, but it usually ends up that I have at least a few things left.  There has been only one year that I have been completely done shopping and wrapping by December 1st.  And, I don't see that happening this year with my upcoming work schedule, but if I can be done by mid-December, I'll be happy!

I just rechecked my schedule tonight, and looks like I have a couple of short days this week.  I think Wednesday I'll be out a couple of hours early, Thursday will be a half day since I don't need to renew my CPR for another year, and Friday, I just have a meeting at 1:30.  Not sure how long that will take, but at least I won't have to get up crazy early.  :)  Then, unless my schedule changes, I will have next Thursday off completely.  Woot!  (I will be off for Thanksgiving and the day after, as well. Yay!)

I am certainly glad to have had an extra hour of sleep last night, but it still feels an hour later than it is tonight. I am sleeeepy.  Think I'll lay down and watch some t.v. until I fall asleep and get ready for another early day tomorrow!

Er Mer Gerd...Rercer's Curps!

I braved the cold, wind, and rain for over an hour with my son for trick or treat tonight. Now, I'm sitting here pigging out on candy! I am powerless to resist the deliciousness of all this chocolate! Sigh.

Day One Done

Well, my first day of orientation for my new job went pretty well.  I got my training schedule and it looks like I will be working either 7:30 am- 4:30 pm or 8 am - 5 pm (depending which location I am at that week) Monday - Friday through the week before Christmas.  Of course all of the locations I'll be at are at least 45 minutes away. :-/  I just need to make it through the next couple of months of a full time schedule then I'll be contingent and can make my own schedule!