80's Retro Run Fun

This morning Dawn, Stacey, Caron and I woke up way too early to go run (in rainy weather) through a bumpy horse pasture for the 80's Retro Run in Watkinsville.  I know that sounds super appealing to everyone but believe it or not we found a way to have a fun time!  We didn't realize this was going to be an off road course but we made it and did just fine.  It wasn't the easiest or most fun 5k we've ever did but we felt good for doing it.  We met up with Kasey, Carrie, and Melanie at the race.  Kasey and Carrie were doing their very first race and it was Carrie's birthday!  What better way to celebrate?! We saw some very entertaining 80s costumes there as well.  When us girls get together you can always count on some good laughs and fun times no matter what.  After the race we decided to make a shopping stop at the Peach State Pride store since we were so close and had an early lunch.  It was a fun time and the weather actually held off the whole morning for us and wasn't the rainy disaster we thought it was going to be.  March Race accomplished and I'm still hanging in...prego and all!  I hit the 12 week mark this week!

all finished

Later that afternoon Cohen had a birthday party in Athens at Chuckie Cheese for her friend Myla.  Kate had to tag along too since Kelly was hunting which suited her just fine!  I think half of Athens was there but some how kids never seem to notice that like adults do  :)  They had a blast playing all the games and riding little rides.  Kate sat right with all the big girls for pizza and cake and both of them loved watching Myla open her gifts and get inside the ticket machine!  After a few more games it was time to go...it was a fun time for both of them though!

A Weekly Recap

I haven't posted in a while and not because we haven't been busy but just going about with the day to day routines.  I do have a few pictures from last week of different things we did.  This week has been a little less busy and has really left us wishing for springtime and sunshine to come back!

Last Monday was St. Patrick's Day and Cohen had so much fun at school making leprechaun traps and said they even caught one!?  Her paper said she saw one in the "ercindishiner" (aka air conditioner).  I am really going to hate it when she can spell everything right because I love looking at her papers each day especially now that she is writing more sentences and stories.  It is so cute!  Mrs. Kellum was so sweet to share this picture of the class working hard on their leprechaun traps.  I love these little glimpses into her day!

Tuesday was an exciting day.  Cohen had been looking forward to it because the movie Frozen was released on Blue-Ray/DVD.  She reminded me first thing Tuesday morning.  I had already planned to go buy it. Stacey and I took Kate and Carolina to playtime at Chic-Fil-A then made a stop at Wal-Mart to get the movie and some other things we needed.  The funny part came on the ride home when we decided to let the girls watch the movie in the car on the drive home.  I was driving and we were trying to get it started for the girls.  You had to select the language then get to the menu to hit play which we did.  A while later while the girls are so zoned in on the movie and Stacey and I are chatting away I stopped because I thought I could hear something odd.  Stacey asked if it wasn't playing right and I said, "I"m almost positive they are watching this movie in spanish."  Sure enough they were and had not even said a word about not understanding what they were saying or the songs being different.  They were just totally focused and wrapped up in the movie.  It was so funny.  We got a kick out of it especially when Carolina decided to sing the songs...in spanish!  I love them!

Playing with their animals during the story

By Friday we were so excited for the weekend!  I had a pictures Friday evening and while I was taking those Cohen got to spend some time with her friend Brooke at her school's spring fling.  It was held at Central Franklin Elementary which Cohen is familiar with because this is also Brock's school and she has been there several times.  The spring fling was such a good idea by their PTO and it looked like a lot of fun.  When I picked Cohen up later that evening she definitely didn't want to leave.  Both girls had crazy hair that they had done at a fall festival the year before.  They had spent a lot of time in the jump houses and playing games too.  Here was their cute crazy hair picture.

After I picked Cohen up, we all headed to Blake and Kasey's house for Gavin's 2nd birthday party.  We had a fun time celebrating with them!
Saturday was such a beautiful day!  We spent a lot of time outside doing some yard work and just enjoying the sunshine.  Cohen was helping take off weeds for money.  She was a great helper!  Kate was into eating her popsicle more than anything and once it was all gone I couldn't decide if she ate more than what got on her...she was all smiles though!

We went to the Bold Springs chicken dinner that night and Cohen was ready with all her earned money for the cake walk.  This time she didn't win but Suzy did and she was nice enough to share her cake with Cohen.  The girls both had fun walking for cakes though and I love doing it with them.  I always loved it when I was a little girl too and still do!  I look forward to it every year for them and for me!  I tried to take a cute picture of Kate getting ready to walk and she would smile but purposely close her eyes.  Little stinker...she is so funny!

This week has been pretty low key but Little League did get started which meant Brock started his baseball games.  Of course it would be cold when they started.  We stopped by his first game Monday night after baton.  Since it was a later starting game we couldn't stay long since both girls would need to get ready for bed.  Kate and Cohen both love being at the ballfields.  Cohen sees so many of her friends.  She was out of the car before I could get parked with her BFF Josie.  Kate came with Kelly and was more excited to roll down the hills like Keyes and Elliott.  She kept asking for us to roll her down the hill.  She would not stand to be out done by the boys!  Hopefully it will be warming up very soon and we can enjoy the games more!

Cohen's First Baton Competition!

Last weekend was Cohen's very first baton competition!  She has been working so hard since September with Mrs. Amy.  I have been so ready to go to the first competition and see what it was like.  I grew up doing dance competitions but I was clueless how baton ones went.  Saturday was the big day and she was so excited!  I was so glad she was too because I had no clue if she would be nervous, scared, excited or what.  With Cohen you never can tell!  She was very excited and she was definitely ready to get to wear her costume.  We had to wait for all the teams to finish up when we got there so we spent that time doing hair and makeup.  When it was time to start the first thing she would do was her modeling, then next was marching, and finally her solo.  Amy has girls of all ages competing so they have someone to play with all day and Cohen loved that!  She and Mya are the same age and compete with each other so these girls were happy to stick together most of the day.  Cohen was competing in several things and it can be complicated to explain so I'll save that!  To sum it up though, our little girl did SO GOOD!  We were so proud of her!  She didn't seem nervous at all and she said she had so much fun.  Our biggest surprise came after she did her open marching.  They post the results of the open events not long after they compete in them and Amy told me to get Cohen that she had to see this.  We couldn't believe it, but she had come in FIRST place!  She was so excited to get her plaque with a first place plate to go on it.   Mya had been 3rd so both of Mrs. Amy's girls were top 3!

FIRST PLACE

Kelly had taken these pictures from the bleachers.

Her next open event was her solo and once again she did great!  She had dropped a few times so I knew that could be bad for her final score but we were so excited to find out she had got second place!!  Mya had got first place so once again both girls represented ATRM so good!  We were so proud of her no matter what she placed especially for her very first time.  We saw later that she was second in her modeling and Mya had been first there as well.   So proud of these girls and I know they have some success coming in their future!  All the girls were so precious to watch and they all do so good.  I have to give it to them for being so brave to go out and twirl, march, and model for those judges!  And how fun to make so many friends while you do it!

This little girl was so good for such a long day!  Here she is smiling for me at the end of the day!  I love her and she is such a good cheerleader for her sissy! 

Playing the iPad in between events

1 & 2 in their open solo!

3's a Charm! (or so we hope)

As the saying goes...Three's a Charm.  Well we are about to find that out here in our house.  To make it "official", Kelly and I are expecting baby #3 this October.  I am 10 wks along right now so this journey is just getting started.  Right now I am trying to tell myself to enjoy this pregnancy because I'm pretty sure this will be my last.  I'm not the best pregnant person, even though I am very thankful to be able to have my girls and this baby too.  It just takes 9 months of "coaching" myself through :)   We told our family last weekend so they are all so excited too.  Being able to finally share the news helps with our own excitement as well.  The hardest thing was spending time in Orlando with all my girlfriends and having to keep it a secret!  I was busting at the seams.  Kate doesn't quite get what is going on just yet.  She will look at the ultrasound picture and say baby or start looking under my shirt saying "I want to see baby." Cohen was upset when we first told her and said she didn't want another baby.  She broke my heart, in fact I did cry with her reaction.  By the time we could drive to my mom's house though she was running in to tell the news and has since been telling everyone including the entire children's church during prayer requests.  Love her!  I hope she gets more excited as time goes by.  She is quick to tell you she wants a boy though, so we'll see if she is happy or disappointed. I am still going through all the scary, nervous emotions of having another baby.  "Can I love another one as much as I love my 2 girls?", and "Are we crazy to officially outnumber ourselves??"  We have went from man to man to zone coverage!  And most of all...have we lost our minds having a baby right in the middle of GA football season!!  haha!  I will be hitting those first games big and pregnant for sure!  We are very excited and thankful though and just are praying for a safe and healthy pregnancy and baby!
One more thing...Baby 3 is going to be a SURPRISE!  We will get to anticipate if its a he or she until October!

Disney Day 7: The Final Day & Enchanted 10K

I'm finally finishing my Disney blogs!  Wow it has taken a while but here it is...the last day of such a fun Disney vacation.  It was finally the big day...the Enchanted 10K!  This was my first official 10k so I was ready to get that under my belt.  It was a VERY EARLY start for us on Saturday...around 2:30 am!  We had been told over and over to get there early because of traffic problems so we had to be up and ready early.  We ended up arriving with plenty of time but you never know.  We were all running as princesses and thanks to Caron, our fabulous costume designer, everyone was super cute!  Here was our princess line up:
Me-Cinderella
Jennifer-Pocahontas
Erin-Mulan
Dawn-Jasmine
Stacey-Ariel
Natalie-Merida
Caron-Aurora, Sleeping Beauty
and we met up with Elizabeth at the race who was Belle!

The race officially started at 5:30 and we were in the 2nd corral so we started at about 5:39.  It went very well even though I was so glad to see that finish line in sight!  When I finished I looked down to finish 6.35 miles in 1:04.  I would have loved to have been right at 1 hour but when you go over 6.2 (the official distance for a 10K) and start with a thousand people around you to weave through I had to be happy with it :).  I was happy to run it all and finish! haha!  Here are my personal results for my own memory:
Age Division 30-34: 140 out of 1275
Gender:  808 out of 7929
Overall:  1036 out of 8969

Group Before shot

Finished!!

Group After Shot

It felt even better when the whole race was over and we could relax and enjoy the rest of the day.  What do you do after running 6+ miles???  You go eat a good breakfast at Chic-Fil-A!  Nothing like chicken minis.  After breakfast we headed to Magic Kingdom to get some ride time in before it got too crowded.  And I mean how many times can you say you were dressed as a princess in the park when you were over the age of 30??! (with the exception of Elizabeth, of course!)   We got 2 rides in a row on Space Mountain and had some fun with the camera on that ride...  Can I say again that we had the best time together and had so many good laughs, it was definitely good for the soul!  I love these ladies!  We headed for more riding fun around the park until we started to get delirious over lack of sleep :)  We grabbed a Dole Whip before heading back to the room for a nap!  We had to get some sleep time before we came back that night!

Roller Coaster Group shot!

Nothing beats a Dole Whip!

After naps and showers we felt much better!  We also had missed a rain shower so that was great timing.  We had dinner and headed back to finish out a fun day at Magic Kingdom.  We rode so many more rides and really had a blast.  I think we were there until midnight or so and once again were about to crash.  We thought Stacey might shop till we all dropped but we got her out :)  It was back to the room for a good night's sleep.  We had a long drive back the next day but time sure goes by quicker with friends to talk and laugh with.  It was such a fun trip!  A great family trip ended with an awesome girl's weekend.  I feel blessed beyond words!

Fabulous group of ladies!!

Disney Day 6: One Trip Ends & Another Begins

Friday was the end of our family trip in Disney World.  We had so much fun and I really hated to see it end!  It wasn't the end of Disney for me just yet though:)  Kelly was driving back home with the girls and I would be staying on meeting up with all my girlfriends!!  We had all signed up to run the Enchanted 10k on Saturday.  We had really been working so hard on this since we signed up last summer!  We had all ran several 5ks together but this would be our first 10, and even though we had did 6 miles several times at home we were all anxious to get the official one under our belt!  Kelly took me to meet up with everyone Friday morning around 11.  I was praying the girls would be good for him on the drive back and later that day when we talked he said they were doing really good so that made me feel a lot better.
There were 7 of us girls staying together and we had a BLAST!  Friday when we were all together we headed for a brunch then over to the ESPN Wide World of Sports complex to pick up our packets for the race.  This was all apart of the Princess 1/2 Marathon weekend so there was a lot going on.  Here we are at the expo, and we also found our names along the wall listing out all the participants.

Other than picking up our packets we had no big plans for Friday other than rest!  We had dinner that night and then we stayed in.  We had to be up and ready to go by 3:15 am!!   We filled our day with a ton of laughs though and just had a ball!

Disney Day 5: Epcot

Thursday we had planned to spend our day at Epcot.  Our breakfast that morning was a princess breakfast at Askershu in the country of Norway.  This was probably my favorite.  I loved the food and it is just so fun watching Cohen around these princesses.  Even though we had met most of these already, she was still just as excited as the first day.  When we entered this breakfast we had a family picture made with Belle.  Throughout breakfast we got to see Cinderella, Ariel, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White.  Cohen was decked out in her Queen Elsa dress again and continued to get complimented on it.  During breakfast there would be times when all the children were told to go to the princess that was the closest to them and then they were led throughout the entire restaurant on a parade of princesses.  Cohen got to do this twice during our time there and the first time she went with Snow White and the second with Ariel.  We actually had the same Ariel at this breakfast as we had at Cinderella's castle.  This time when Cohen talked to her she told Ariel that she was her favorite princess.  It was real sweet because can be very shy & quiet around them but she quietly told her, "you're my favorite".  Ariel of course loved this and had another big hug for Cohen on that one.  Kate seemed to enjoy this breakfast as well.  She was wrapped up in her strawberries and yogurt most of all but she would stop and smile for the camera whenever a princess would come.  They would stand behind her or maybe kneel beside her and she was ok with this.  It was very fun and one that I would also do again.

Loving her strawberry

Talking to Ariel

On the princess parade with Ariel

One thing Cohen really wanted to do at Epcot was meet the Frozen girls, Elsa and Anna.  We had heard horror stories about the line and sure enough a big one had started when we were getting to our breakfast.  When we came out the estimated wait time was over 4 hours!  I was not waiting that long so I told her we would come back later in the day.  We went ahead and started to ride rides.  There was a viking ride, Maelstrom, in Norway so we waited for it to open and rode it first.  While we waited for the rides to open Kate and I had some fun in one of the shops.   Here is my little viking girl herself!  I also took a couple of the girls outside of Askershu.

We spent the rest of our day walking around in the different countries of world showcase and riding rides.  We met Alice in Wonderland, rode the ride in Mexico, went to the O Canada movie, and got lots of walking in!   The girls both loved the aquarium and doing Turtle Talk with Crush.  This year Cohen got to ride Soarin' and we had met Donna, Nathan, Cindy, and Abby at that ride.  Donna gladly sat off with Kate again so we could all ride with Cohen.  After a late late lunch I decided to bite the bullet and go stand in the Frozen characters line.  I told Kelly to take the girls on a few rides while I waited so they wouldn't be so bored.  I would text when I was close.  I was told I would have a 2.5 hr. wait which was shorter than this morning but still long.   I didn't think it looked that long since it was much much shorter.  I'm glad I did because I waited only an hour and a half.  It was still a long line but it wasn't bad waiting and it moved pretty quick.  Cohen was so excited.  Kate was pretty tired at this point and even though she loves the movie and the Frozen songs she didn't want to stand with either girl for a picture.  Kelly had left to go ride Test Track so it was just me so I didn't try standing up there with her.  The one thing she did want her picture with afterward though was the huge troll statue in the giftshop.  Go figure!  This is typical Kate!  After our meeting with them I rode Test Track while Kelly occupied the girls a little more.  It was getting about time for us to call it a night by this time.

Pictures from throughout the day:

Alice in Wonderland

A Picture with the Enormous troll.  Who wants a princess picture when you can have this thing!?

And to top the whole trip off a good story...icing on the cake really.  Throughout our whole trip I had seen several kids having a little tantrum with their parents.  They would have them off to the side and I would really feel pity for the parent because that is not a fun spot to be in.  Kid throwing a fit and parent wanting to spank them but not wanting the entire park to witness it!  Well our girls had really been great.  They had hung in so well on late nights, behaved and minded us, and been really sweet.  On our way out of Epcot though we had our tantrum moment!  Both girls had gotten a Duffy bear "fan" to color that day.  Kelly had been warning Cohen to quit hitting Kate with hers.  He sees her start jabbing Kate with it on the way out and on impulse he grabs it up and throws it away.  Now all day she had been saying how she wanted to color her bear and we had told her that would have to happen at home.  Well when he threw it away, it all hit the fan!  She went nuts!  I mean screaming and sobbing uncontrollably, trying to run back to find the trashcan.  It was awful!  She would not listen to us and was so tired it was at the point of being delirious I believe.  On top of that, I was tired myself and my patience was beyond gone.  After trying to reason with her I realized I was going to have to walk away from her or I might lose it.  Kate had even grabbed Cohen's face and said "talm down sissy."  I told Kelly I would take Kate and meet him at the buses.  It was that bad.  Funny though...on our way out I would stop thinking Kelly & Cohen might be coming and on one of our stops Kate was all about having her picture made with the big "ball" behind her.  One of the photographers even asked if he could take one of both of us for me.  So here we are taking one last picture while Kelly battles Cohen somewhere else!  I think I look the definition of tired and worn out!

Even though that one spell was not good we still had an overall great family trip.  I couldn't complain one little bit.  We made great memories, ones that we will all cherish for years and years.  I love my girls and my sweet hubby.  We all headed back to the hotel, (after Cohen calmed down, which really happened when she fell asleep), had some pizza for dinner and then crashed!