Where I’ve Been – The Super Condensed Version

So…I realize that it’s been approximately 257593 days since I last posted. Not that anyone even really missed me or cared that I wasn’t sharing updates on my ever so exciting life. In fact, some of you may have been thankful that you didn’t have to see another recipe show up in your feed. In an attempt to catch you up on life over at our nest I’ll share some of the highlights over the past few months.

Strawberry Picking: There are tons of great farms around our county so a few of us moms loaded up our kiddos and took the kiddos picking. We’ve gone a couple of times. We’ve got strawberries falling out of our freezer and I couldn’t be happier! We’ve been making tons of muffins, breads, and marmalade.

Crawdaddy Dash 5K: Yep, you read that right. I ran a 5K….and haven’t run since, 23 days later. Opps. Anyway, most of you know that I ran on scholarship at the University of Toledo. Since college I have run a handful of times. Literally. I had two really bad injuries my senior year that took me out for most of all 3 seasons and mixed with some other stuff I lost my passion for running. However, the two months leading up to this race I had run 17 times, the longest being a one time run of 3.98 miles. Woo, big whoop! Not! Mind you, all of these runs are done with me pushing my kids in our Burley…which weighs 28lbs and my children combined weight 51lbs naked. So that’s 79lbs I’m pushing each time…not including the weight of their clothes, shoes, water, snacks, 50 million toys, etc! (OK, I admit, this is just my way of making excuses for myself as to why I’m slow now-a-days). Anyway, I had NO intention of pushing the kids in the race but as my luck would have it I did.

When the race first started, coming off of the starting line these two stupid fat girls (whoa, I’m really mean, I know this!!) say out loud “she shouldn’t be aloud to run with that. She’s going to take someone out” I, the biggest smack talking whimp of all time replies “No I won’t. And don’t worry anyway, because I’ll be ahead of you.” HAHAHA (sorry if you don’t think that is funny, I’m peeing my pants laughing so hard remembering it!) And with that they ate my dust.

At mile marker 2 I had a split of 14:34 – that’s a 7:17 mile pace. Pretty good for 1. someone who has not prepared for a race at all 2. was pushing a fricken elephant 3. ehh, anyone normal I suppose. But then…that dang last mile was literally all up hill. I kid you not that Burley was practically pushing me over backwards…the entire last mile. My finishing time was 25:05 (yeah that last mile sucked!) but I’m positive I was the first stroller across the line and the announcer even said “great job Stephanie” as I crossed the finish line (obviously he had the entry list and looked up my bib number). But we’ll just pretend he knew my name because I ran such an impressive race. I really was proud of myself. And although I was ticked at first that I had to run with the kids I actually became teary eyed during the race because I was so proud that they were finishing my first race “back” with me. I’ll remember that race for the rest of my life.

Before the race (and no these were not the smack talking girls). Ummm, yes I ran with my camera in the Burley and yes I have no shame in asking random people to take my picture.

After the race:

North Carolina: We took a few trips up to Charlotte, where we are moving and got together with our great friends from Georgia, who were transferred up to NC when we came to SC. We had such an amazing time and it was soooo much fun being with old friends. I have really missed them and cannot wait to live by each other again!

Bobbi and I drank homemade wine spritzers on their front porch overlooking Lake Norman while the kids played inside…HEAVEN!

Little Finch and their youngest…and precious Boxer, Reuben. Love love love him!! (Little Finch had Louie, her preschool “pet” that goes home with you and you have to take pictures and write up a “report” of everything you did together).

Putting jammies on for the ride home to SC.

Awesome babysitter!! Even more motivation to live near our friends!

We looked at a few houses and lots of land while we were up there – haven’t found “it” yet. Also, each of the kiddos got sick in the car, puking their guts up on both days were were up there. When we got home Lover Boy and I both took turns being sick (but way worse than the kids). I lost 8lbs in 1 day from being sooo incredibly sick. It was awful.

Since we were in a rental all of the times the kids got sick I wasn’t prepared for anything so when we got home the first thing on my agenda was to create car bins that can be transported from my car to a rental and can be refilled easily. We already spend quite a bit of time in the car but with us moving to NC we’ll be traveling up there a lot in the coming weeks.months.

They include jammies, diapers, wipes, nail clippers, napkins, fork, spoon, knife, drinks and lots and lots of snacks.

Planted A Container Garden: The kiddos and I planted a bunch of veggies and herbs in containers and have them hanging off of our deck rails. I decided to do container plants for a couple of reasons: 1. we’re moving and hopefully by the time they are ready to use we will have sold the house (that is if we ever get it listed) 2. I don’t want Harley peeing on my plants – one day we plan to have a nice garden with a little fence thingy around it

We have a Topsy Turvy hanging tomato planter but it’s already packed away…so we took an old flower pot and made it into a hanging tomato basket. Much prettier if I do say so myself…and the cutest little helper in the world made it! Safety first! 🙂

Little Finch’s Last Day of Preschool: Then Little Finch wrapped up her first year of preschool. She was excited and I said “wahhh, how did you get so old?!?!”

They put on a program that evening with the theme from around the world. Each kid was supposed to dress up in a different culture.

Remember I mentioned earlier that we had been making goodies with those strawberries we picked? Here are a few of them. I used THIS recipe for the Strawberry Oatmeal Bread Loafs = THE BEST BREAD EVER!!

I made these jars, some of which say Gathered In The Kitchen and then the other one was for our room mom and my good friend, Anna, who recently started a blog of her own.

Anna and I put together these flower bins for the teachers. I made the bins (their class was the Lively Ladybugs) and then other parents brought in gift cards that Anna put on flower sticks and then filled with real flowers.

First Date & Kiss Anniversary: You can actually read about that here. We went out to eat at a local Mexican restaurant that day and we all induldged ourselves in daiquiris, even the kiddos!

Laughing Coyote enjoying his virgin strawberry daiquiri!

http://youtu.be/HP2MKYGggd8

This Eric Church song I think is a perfect description of Lover Boy and I all of those years ago. I was 16 he was 17. We both had Jeeps and the songs Eric mentions were fun songs of the past. I have listened to this song so many times on YouTube that whenever we hear it in the car or at Wal-Mart in the electronic section (which we have several times) she always gets excited and says “mommy! It’s our song!!” 🙂

Sod Delivery: Then we had sod delivered for that backyard project we had started roughly 6 months after moving in…yeah, that’s how we roll around here…super slow apparently!

We had 3 pallets – we used all but 4 measly pieces.The grass was too wet from an earlier rain that he had to just leave the sod on our driveway rather than taking it to the back yard…lets just say this, hauling that stuff bought me 15 days of no running! 🙂

These guys had a blast watching all of the action!

I’ll do a post later on before and after pictures.

Bella: Then things just kept getting worse and worse with Bella. This was her just a few days ago. The dermatologist has stopped 2 of her meds, added 2 different ones and kept her on 1 that she’s been on. With the most joyous smile, we have finally seen a sign of improvement! I am ecstatic! Sure, she has to go back to GA for another hematoma surgery, and we’ve spent more than enough money to go on a VERY nice vacation (even overseas) she’s worth it! Unconditional love goes a long way in this household. (we may be a bit psycho) I’ll post pictures of her currently later.

House: Then we prepared and busted our hineys to get this house ready for sale. We’re allllmost there. However, with Lover Boy being out of state most of the week it’s impossible for him to get stuff done. Plus when he is home he’s got class for his MBA. Between work and school the guy is proving to have super powers…then you add the projects we did to the house, he’s unbelievable.

One of the Greatest Kitchen Inventions: We got a Keurig! Lover Boy has been wanting one for a loooong time. Mind you, we already have a really nice coffee maker, reusable copper filter and coffee bean grinder, however, it is kind of a “pain” (sad that making a cup of coffee is a lot of work nowadays) to brew just one or two cups. So…life has just gotten a whole ton easier and I have drank more coffee in two weeks than I have in my entire lifetime. We are planning on buying the refillable filter thingy because we are not fans of creating extra waste. But I will just say this about the machine – I LOVE IT!!

Fun Times: All the while we’ve been hanging out with great neighbors. We will truly miss them when we’re gone 🙁

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There ya go, You’re pretty much caught up now on our lives. I’ll get around to it someday to get all of the before and after house pictures and Bella update posts here sometime soon (don’t hold your breath).

Off to get some shut eye! I apologize if there are grammar errors or anything else wrong with this post. I ain’t proof reading it for the life of me! I’ve been running on 5 hours of sleep a night for over a week now. Off to get some shut eye!

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