Committing to a Full Marathon!

In my spare time, I read marathon websites.  Crazy, right?  Who reads websites for runs they aren't doing?  In cities they've never heard of?  That would be me.  I've always wanted to run a marathon.  Running my first half last year was a big step and I've repeated it 5 times already (will be 7 by they time my "runiversary" comes around).  But a full?  26.2 miles?  That's really far. 

My original plan was to run the Eugene Marathon in April.  There were a million reasons why this was perfect.  Timing worked great with my school schedule, I could show the kids my college town; everything was just falling into place.  But they changed the date to July!  Oh the heat.  I don't think it's wise for me to try my first full in what could be the hottest part of the summer.  So... back to the drawing board. 

I'm now registered and committed to running the Newport Marathon in Newport, OR in May 2014.  Honestly, I'm also signed up for the Portland Marathon in October of 2014.  I'm aware of how insane it is to sign up for your second marathon before you've run your first, but this is how I hooked myself on halves.  If I hadn't been signed up for my second, I would have stopped at my first, always feeling embarrassed that I came in second to last.  

As the date is creeping closer, I'm feeling nervous and somewhat shell-shocked.  This week, the kids have been sick, sleep has been minimal, work has been busy, Etsy shop has been busy and running has been put on the back burner.  I know this can't happen when training kicks into full gear.  Can I do this?  They say that 90% of the marathon is mental toughness.  I can see that I need to work on this...

Have you run a marathon?

How do you build your mental toughness?

This Makes Me Happy

What is about a pennant banner that is just so happy?  I created this onesie for a friend and I love it.  Happy little banner and happy little cloud with a beautiful name.

Another Awesome Giveaway

Okay, so clearly I'm trying to improve my photography skills!  I ran across another great giveaway for a book that I would love to own.  Click here for details.   

An Awesome Giveaway

Want to take better pictures?  Click here for an awesome giveaway to be entered for a chance to win a class  from one of my very favorite photographers.  I need to enroll in this class so I know how to use my fancy camera. 

Ladybug Party

My baby turned one recently.  I had been planning a ladybug party for awhile and had so many cool things that I wanted to do, but didn’t get to.  Her birthday is not the best time for a teacher – the very end of June is CRAZY for me!  But we had fun anyway and I’m the only one who knows what could have been…
Here’s what we DID do:
Ladybug cake:
So easy!  I baked a round cake and a smaller round cake.  Frosted the big one in red, the small one in brown, used grasshopper cookies for the dots and Oreo Stix for the antennae and pieces of it for the legs.  (My older girls were studying insects and insisted it must have 6 legs.)

I am a big fan of having the older kids help make the decorations for the party.  Makes them feel a little more involved and a little less jealous.  The twins made ladybug footprints that we spread around the room to help decorate. 

We also used the milestone onesie pictures and made a banner of Ellie’s first year.  Sniff, sniff… it went so fast…’

I also made a little  mini sized birthday hat for the birthday girl using felt.  She won’t keep things on her head long if it has a band like a headband, but I simply cut little tags and Elmer’s glued it to her head – I know, I know – Elmer’s glue on her head?  That’s what I thought too at first, until I tried it and realized it washes right out and she actually leaves the bows and things on!  Anyway, the hat was super cute and lasted for awhile until my 2 year old decided to start prying it off her head.  Brothers..

Check out my Pinterest page to see more ideas that I didn't get to.

Snap Painting

This idea came from here and it was oh so fun.  In the directions, they used small boxes, but I had none around, so instead I cut the bottoms off of cereal boxes to make small boxes. 

Then, I gathered the rest of the materials:

• Washable paint
• boxes
• rubber bands
• paint brushes
• baby wipes (trust me, you’ll need ‘em!)
• paper cut into strips small enough to fit in your boxes

I put multiple pieces of paper in the boxes so that they could do multiple pages without having to stop to reload.  I highly recommend this, since it was a great time saver.  We set the rubber bands on and the girls snapped away.
 
The end result:

See why I said you were going to need the baby wipes?

Now what to do with our beautifully painted strips?  Collage?  Cards?  Not sure yet.  Have any suggestions?

Mater Cake

My son, who is somewhat obsessed with the movie Cars turned 2 a few weeks ago.  We just had a family gathering and didn't go all out with the decorations.  We did however, come up with a pretty cool cake:  Mater.

This was a joint effort between my husband and I.  I must say that I love how much attention to detail my husband has.  He noticed that Mater is missing a headlight, has a broken orange light on top of him, etc.  I probably would have missed most of that. To make it we baked a cake in a 9 X 13 pan, divided that into 3 small rectangles and stacked two of them to make the truck bed.  Then we cut the remaining rectangle in half and placed that on top to make the cab.

Seeing my son's reaction to the cake was priceless. He was so pleased that he got to eat Mater. 

If you are planning a Cars themed party, you might want to check out some of these other great parties I found while searching for ideas.

So Wonderful, So Marvelous -- Love, love, love her signs.  She generously includes a printable version, too.
The Birthday Blog -- Some really cute details and I love the "Leaning Tower of Tires" made out of doughnuts.
How Does She -- Such a cute game to play at a Cars party.  Some day, when my son has friends (he's only 2), I hope to come up with games as cool as this one.