COLOR RUN!!!!

A while ago I got the itch to run (pre-injuries) and asked some friends if they wanted to do the color run with me, they said yes, were ecstatic even? AND Despite the fact that we all hover somewhere above or below 30 we thought it was the best idea to do the Color Run in Tutu's!  You know the color run, the run where they throw color powder on you? The "Happiest Run on the Plant".

 

So here we are in our tutu glory!

Best part? Got to run it with my future sister-in-law!

Well somehow these girls kept my big butt running and despite having not run in WEEKS, they got me to finish that run in 32minutes! SAY WHA! That was a PB!

Aren't we cute? Above is us before the actual race even started! Below is after the race... amazing!

I'll tell you this was a HAPPY and FUN run. Little congestion, awesome music, and everyone was so fun and friendly! It was an excuse to just have fun and be silly and I totally dug it and totally needed it! AHHHH!

 

Then commenced the longest shower of my life, and i still have color on my hands!

Sorry I'm late

I have to tell you that I'm very sorry I'm pretty much always late now. I use to be a very punctual person. It was even a pet peeve of mine when people weren't on time. The women's fraternity i was a member of in college even had it as one of the "rules". But, now... Now I have kids, dogs, and a husband.


So next time we're to meet up and I'm late, here's a few reasons why:

1.My son started crying at 4:30 this morning and threw all of our lives into a tizzy... sorry I know it's now 6pm tonight.
2. I told my daughter she couldn't have candy for breakfast so she had a meltdown, which led to a pee accident which led to a wet wipe bath...
3. It's too dark out
4. My son thought his juice would look better on his head
4. My daughter's foot is dying
6. THE flower dress is dirty, enter meltdown
7. The dog got out of the house (via knocking over the kids and bolting out the door)
8. I can't find my keys (left them in the door LAST night)
9. We need to find sunglasses
10. Despite telling everyone 31 times that we are late we REALLY needed to stop and read a book.
11. We needed boo boo ice for the dying foot.
12. Despite "I'll be better tomorrow Momma" they weren't
13. We needed a princess bandaid for our bug bites
14. We had the wrong color headband on... clearly matching is wrong
15. We needed a snack, and juice, and now we aren't hungry for the lunch we were going to have with you.
16. The dog decided to throw up a sock at that moment
17. My Son "found" the throw up sock
18. My son decided to "hide"... on top of the throw up
19. My daughter needed to change my son's diaper
20. My son bit my daughter because she was trying to change his diaper
21. The sky is blue
22. My son put his only clean coat in the toilet, so now he's wearing his sister's pink one
23. Because Sally's Mommy lets Sally.... clearly I'm a terrible Mom
24. Because "I'm just going to be sad now"
25. because i locked myself in the bathroom to scream

A time in life

There come times in your life where you just want to give up. Whether its give up trying to lose weight, or be the perfect Mom, or run a half marathon. Or you just want to curl into a little ball and sleep for days because you can't figure out what the point of it all is. 

Don't get me wrong, I know what the point of it is!

She's the point. This feisty little, soon to be four year old is the point. Her questions and amazement are the point.

This wildly sweet 20 month old is the point. With his mumbled words and fearless nature, he's the point.

 But half the time I get so caught up in life I often miss THOSE points. Luckily I have this woman (Chris's Mom) near by that gives me enough of a breather that I get moments of clarity like these so I can remember the point.

My most recent source of frustration is our house. We were getting married, had been in Maryland for 8 months. Working new jobs. Tired of throwing money away on an apartment and so we bought. We bought a simple LITTLE townhouse as our starter home in 2006. What we bought that tiny little, fixer upper townhouse for then, could buy us a pretty cute single family now. If we weren't upside down on that little starter home, we could afford a pretty nice house with property now, especially since the market is now in our favor! But we're stuck.

This is what I want to do to the housing market! (Dang isn't she cute!)

 

 (This is my sweet little girls first Karate test, Holy crap when did my kid get big enough to take karate and speak Korean? Obviously she's effected by the housing market!)

But you know what? She is. She can't invite all of her friends to her birthday party because we don't have the room. She's inviting quite a large number, considering the size of our humble abode, but I didn't have the heart to tell her no to everyone. We'll make it work, albeit close!

 So by now you're thinking "At least you have a home Erin" and I agree. We are lucky. We have a home. Each child has their own bedroom (although Parker's is a glorified closet). We have no problem making our bills. We are very lucky. We are blessed. But it isn't our dream. We keep working harder and harder to reach our dreams but we keep hitting road blocks along the way and I keep wondering, when is SOMETHING going to give??

You like what I did there don't you? Kinsley made it give!  She broke through. HA I sleigh me!

I know God has a plan for our family. I know he has a direction for us to go in and just because we're stuck in a house that's too small and too old and still needs too much fixing that we don't have the time or money to put into it... there's a reason we're still here. Maybe to make us appreciate what we do have. Maybe to test us (because Lord knows that house is starting to test me with two crazy kids, two annoying dogs, and my love for entertaining). Maybe it's because something better is coming at just the right moment and if it happened now it would be too soon.

We bought this townhouse too soon... one more year and we would have paid at least $30,000-40,000 less than we did and we would have been able to move by now. So now I need to be patient and know there's a time and it's not always going to be MY time. But if you know me, patience is not one of my attributes. So pray for us. Not that we get a house, or win the lottery (although that would be okay with me) pray that we find contentment and happiness. Pray that we stop looking at what we don't have or could have and start looking at what we do have. Pray that it stops feeling like a beating (not just about this house but life in general) and starts feeling like what it is... a blessing.

 

We're the one in the middle... this is circa 2009, improvements have been done since then~

Primal update

So today is the start of my second week doing the Primal Blueprint. And I cheated this weekend. I didn't cheat A LOT but I did cheat. Friday I had a small glass of red wine. Saturday I had wine and dessert. Sunday I had union straws(the kind that's fried) in my salad (didn't realize it until it was too late) and then i had a few mini brownies.
But honestly... that's ALL the cheating I did! All my other meals were clean! Even eating out (McDonald's and Cracker Barrel) I ate clean! OH AND Dunkin Donuts... now I'm sure there it wasn't 100% clean but i had them give me the turkey sausage and egg on the side and I gave Kinsley the bagel! WIN!

I Felt GOOD about my choices too!
Here's the thing that's really blowing me away, I'm NOT hungry! SURE i could eat a huge burger and fries because I mentally want it, but I'm rarely hungry! Saturday I had coffee, turkey sausage, an egg, some raw veggies, a salad with grilled chicken, and then broccoli for dinner and i was STUFFED! I was going to have steak and broccoli for dinner but the steak was gross and then I realized i wasn't that hungry so broccoli it was. Honestly, could have gone without the salad too.
I'm not trying to starve myself, I'm trying to listen to my hunger cues and without the crash and burn of carbs, there isn't much of a cue!
So I made my Fritata again and I'm ready to go for another week of eating clean!