Loving Life

Without futher ado, here are Halloween costumes for this year.  Ana and Abby - two Native American princesses. The full outfit.  Notice the ax/tomahawk tucked into their belts.  True to Fleming form, we may not have a Halloween without some sort of weapon needed for the costume.  Don't mess with these princesses.  They will chop your head off if you do. Here is David, the giant blue lego. All three together.  We had issues with walking down the sidewalks tonight.  No one could be near David as he took up the entire width. Pre-trick-or-treating with friends Grace (Cinderella) and Sophia (Ladybug).  We had plans to go together, but my kids wanted to get to as many houses as possible and didn't want to go toddler pace.  So we went ahead. We also stopped by the skating rink afterwards for the annual party.  We hadn't been to it before.  The kids had fun.  They had free hot dogs, drink, popcorn, games, costume contest, and...

Today has been good.  Aaron and I had a coffee house mini-date in the middle of the morning while kids were at Friday classes.  I've been working on the kids' Halloween costumes and I am now done.  They turned out pretty cute.  I'll post pictures of them once they get them all on tomorrow.  Here is my pile of peppers I picked yesterday before the frost.  My plants are now mostly dead, so I just need to get out there sometime and clean off the garden and prepare it for winter.  Yea!  I was feeling the need to organize my hat/mitten/scarf mess yesterday too.  Normally, it's in two baskets on the floor in the closet.  Ideally mittens go in one, hats and scarves in the other.  It very quickly turns into an unorganized mess as everyone rummages through looking for their own apparel.  I saw this idea in a magazine awhile back and thought it would be a perfect solution to my problem.  Before picture: And AFTER!  How...

I got news this morning that I won a $45 giveaway to an online store.  Yea!  It was through the blog of a good friend of mine - Kim .  I knew her husband while we were living in Indiana (he was still in high school at that time and hadn't met his lovely wife yet).  Anyway, Kim and I have become good friends over the last half year.  You should check out her blog in the link above.  If you like me, you'll like her.  As Aaron likes to say, "Melissa and Kim are redundant."  But there are some slight differences to us such as she's a psycho running chick who will soon be completing her fourth marathon since June of this year.  I think there may have been a half marathon in that time period as well.  She mainly likes me because I have access to fresh raspberries all summer long.  Anyway, Kim is cool.  And because of her blog giveaway, I am now $45 richer in merchandise.  Not sure what I will get yet.  I struggle with open ...

I haven't posted any fun school pictures lately because...well...we haven't done anything fun lately during school hours.  I have gotten into a bad rut the past three or four weeks of not taking time to adequately prepare.  Bad me.  I have a higher goal than just scraping by with the bare necessities.  We are finishing up our ITBS testing today, so next week I will be ready to do more fun and creative stuff with school again.  I am publicly saying that now so I have a bit of accountability in that area.  Yesterday, was our history day, but I didn't get to it during school hours.  So we decided (or I decided) that we would do it after supper last night.  We were reading about the Middle and New Kingdoms of Egypt.  So we made reed boats (out of very colorful straws - all I could find).  The kids didn't mind the outlandish colors one bit.  We have many more fun projects to do regarding Egypt history, but we ran out of time last night....

I picked this squash out at my in-laws today.  It was a random volunteer plant and the only squash on the vine.  Does anyone know what it is?  The girls are convinced it's a pumpkin, but it doesn't seem like it to me.  It seems more like a buttercup squash of sorts.  And any ideas on how I should cook it? 

Well, my girls are related to me.  At the end of this past week's chore chart, I offered them the option of either money for their reward or a trip to Casey's next door to try out their new soft serve ice cream.  David chose money.  The girls wanted ice cream.  It was a good motivator to get them to finish up their last few tasks of the week.  They both enjoyed their cones greatly.  They are wanting that to be their reward for this week's chore chart too.  I'll go with whatever works.  : ) On the docket for this week:  finishing up ITBS testing for school.  I'm not required to do these, but I do every once in awhile - like twice in the past six years.  The kids really like doing them and ask every year if we can do them again.  I guess there's something about filling in the pretty circles and making patterns that appeases their sense of order.  I remember enjoying them in my younger years as well.  I will also be ma...

Okay, I'm finally getting around to putting our pictures on from our field trip yesterday.  We spent the day at Bloomsbury Farms.  A fellow homeschooling mom/friend of mine took her family here and inspired me to take my kiddos here too for a day of fun.  It was a great change of pace from doing school and we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  Below are pictures of the some of the highlights of the day.  Probably the biggest attraction to the kids was the jumping pillow.  A mammoth trampoline like thing to jump around on.  We spent probably a good hour and a half or more playing on this.  I took pictures for a little while, but it looked like too much fun to not join in.  So I worked the rest of the kinks out of my sore muscles and joined in the festivities. We also visited the corn maze.  We took a map along of the maze and followed it as the last time we did one, the girls were very concerned that we were lost and were getting scar...

So apparently, my powers end with flannel bed sheets.  My house looked exactly the same when I got home today.  No one came and cleaned it for me.  That's too bad.  But getting flannel bed sheets by just speaking my desire is still a pretty good track record in my book.  Thanks, Mom!  On other happy news, I needed something down at the grocery store, so I decided to trot down there.  It's only a bit over 2 blocks away, but it's downhill.  Going downhill or down stairs has been very painful for me.  But I trotted down there!  It only hurt a little bit!  There is progress going on in my legs.  Julie and I took a brisk walk this morning too.  She has recovered much faster than me (but she also did all the training like we had intended to do together).  Moral of the story:  do all the training work and don't get hurt - you'll recover faster.  My mom-in-law had a good idea to motivate Abby in cleaning her roo...

I had this amazing thing happen to me.  A few posts ago, I commented on how I really enjoyed sleeping on flannel sheets for the first time and that I might need to invest in a set for myself.  Only a day later, my dearest mother of all times saw some flannel sheets on sale and bought a set for me!  Amazing!  If I speak it, it will come.  I was so impressed by my abilities to make that happen that I thought I'd try it again with something else.  So here we go:  I really wish someone would come and clean my house for me while I am gone this morning. 

Another post on running!  :) Here's some of the "official" marathon pictures taken by the marathon photographers.  There are many more unglamorous pictures of me that I didn't post.  Sorry they are small.  I tried making them bigger, but it made them grainy and blurry.  If I wanted, I could empty out my life savings account and buy one or two of them from the site.  But I think I'll just copy them from their website and post them here for you to enjoy.  The other lovely thing about these photos is that they really didn't start snapping pictures of the runners until around mile 20 or so - and then there was a photographer about every mile.  Just when you feel and look your worst.  Lovely.  I worked hard at looking peppy and cheerful everytime I passed a photographer.  Enjoy!

It's true!  I will not talk about running in this post.  I promise.  Instead I will share some pictures that are also not running related.  The girls went with me to the bank the other day and each got some chocolate candy eyeballs.  Aren't they lovely? Our chore chart is coming along very nicely.  They all completed week one.  Abby refused to clean her room, so she got 75 cents less than everyone else.  Ana got 25 cents more because she was so excited about cleaning the bathroom that she did it twice that week.  No complaints from me on that one.  Ana also is excited because she has learned to wash the dishes.  Here she is on Friday washing first the lunch dishes with Abby (excuse the wet fingerprints on Abby's behind). And here she is washing supper dishes with David on Friday night.  I didn't do any dishes at all that day.  What a treat!  I need to have David be the washer one of these days so he can learn that ...

Are you sick of hearing about running yet?  I'm not!  So that's what I want to talk about more.  There's so much more to say about the fun I had while running my marathon.  Here are my random thoughts from the race in no particular order. I was getting pretty nervous the night before the race.  We got to spend the night out at my sister's house (thanks, Stacey, for hosting us).  She graciously made us a very yummy meal - pasta, tomato sauce, meatballs, veggies.  It was good.  I, unfortunately decided to eat more than I should have.  After eating my second helping, I started to feel not so good and just felt pretty gross.  I eventually realized it was the way I always feel after I eat when I'm pregnant - heartburn!  (No, I'm not pregnant.  I just overate and had a bit of nerves to deal with!).  Anyway, that was kind of a bummer to give myself heartburn the night before.  I also had a splitting headache that ibup...

Okay, here's the total recap of the marathon in all of its wonder and glory.  The morning started off quite chilly - in the low 40s, so I dressed in pants and long sleeve shirt.  I had a short sleeve shirt on underneath, but didn't quite know about the pants.  It turned out okay.  But I think I would have been fine in shorts too.  I just really hate being cold all the time, so I opted for the warmer option hoping I wouldn't get too hot on the run.  Waiting at the starting line wasn't so cold either since people were packed in tightly in the starting area.  I was a little concerned as to how we would all start running once the race started since I have never done this before, but it all worked out smoothly.  You had to watch where you were going for the first mile or so to make sure you wouldn't trip over anyone.  My race strategy was to "run 3-4 miles around a 10 min/mile pace and then walk one mile" cycle since that's how I've trained in ord...

Yea!  I'm home from my marathon!  I'll give a more detailed post later (hopefully with pictures), but I made it.  My time was 4:42:07.  I was shooting for 5:15, so I'm quite happy with easily breaking that.  I ran much more than I anticipated (my competitive nature took over), so I'm now quite sore.  My foot feels okay right now, but it usually starts hurting the day after my long runs.  We'll see how school goes tomorrow.  There may be a teacher's day.  : )  All for now.  Hunger is coming on big time right now!  Need to go and eat.

At this time tomorrow morning, I will be running.  : )  I'm excited, but a little nervous as the race approaches.  Right now, I should be packing my stuff and the kids stuff - they are spending the night with Grandma Cindy (thanks Mom!) while we are gone.  Among my race preparations are a brand new pair of socks.  It dates back to my high school race days where I would buy a new pack of socks every season and wear a new pair to all my important races.  There's nothing like putting on a fresh pair of cushy, never-been-worn socks that make you smile.  We're spending the night at my dear sister's house and she has promised me a meal tonight that will help me win the race.  So if I don't win, it's obviously going to be her fault.  I seriously need to go pack now before I run out of time.  Aaron is also begging for a haircut so he doesn't look like a shaggy dog for his race.  So I hope you all enjoy your Sunday.  Think of me tom...

School wasn't happening much at all yesterday, so I decided we needed to do something more enjoyable.  There was a bookfair at Barnes & Nobles for our homeschool group, so we decided to go and do that.  They had fun little games for the kids to play and win prizes.  David won a mind puzzler thing and the girls each got a smelly pencil (smelly in the good sense).  I also decided to let them each pick out one item that I would buy them - if they wanted more than that, they would have to cough up the dough for the extra items.  A portion of the proceeds everything we bought would be given in support of our homeschool group too, so I'm always happy to support that.  Abby very quickly picked some princess crap.  With my first two children, I remained strong and never even thought of buying into the commercialism hype of the newest, latest craze among children and their parents.  But somewhere along the way, Abby has fallen ...