Labor Day Weekend 2008

We enjoyed the holiday weekend. Ken and I had an opportunity to visit with some friends from way back, about 17+ years. Lydia had her friend Emily over for a camp-out. We made smores.
Lydia and her dad play "Natural Disaster Barbie" and "Smash Barbie". Smash Barbie is when they get hit by cars or they fall off of stuff or get launched across a room. Natural Disaster Barbie is when they get caught in an earthquake or get sucked up in a twister or they get burned in a fire. (Leave it to my husband to dream this up.) Today I had the opportunity to play "Natural Disaster Barbie". An earth quake caused the car to land on Barbie. She broke an arm.
The theme for the card swap this month is "cupcakes". I came up with this so far. The top of the cupcake flips up to open the card.

Tomorrow Lydia starts 2nd grade. I remember starting 2nd grade myself and now my daughter is. (sniff sniff) We had to run to get some gym shoes today. Other than that we've been ready for this big day for awhile. Lydia loves school and is looking forward to getting back to it. As for me, I am a little sad because the summer is over and it feels like yesterday that I was waiting for it to start. I do love Autumn in Wisconsin however. It's my favorite season. I've noticed the different colored leaves on my runs already, and the cooler mornings. Love that stuff.

Look Mom No Training Wheels!

Lydia and I went to a stamping class tonight and we each made 4 cards. She was so interested in what we were doing and had so much fun. I really enjoyed doing this with her because she enjoyed it so much. She is very proud of her cards too. She already has one written out for dad when he comes home from work tonight.

Lydia rode her bike on Sunday for the first time without training wheels. It was so cute and she was so proud. Two of our neighbors were over and after we were all watching her for quite awhile she got off of her bike, brought it close to us and asked who wanted to see her bike. We had all been "seeing" it for quite awhile and now we were all within 3 feet of her bike and could see it quite well but she wanted each of us to touch her bike. Shortly thereafter she asked (quite seriously) if any of us would like her autograph. So sweet!

Baking and Painting this Weekend

Yesterday Lydia and I baked a couple dozen chocolate chip cookies and delivered them with a card to our new neighbors to welcome them to the neighborhood. The new neighbors are from Illinois and are new to the area. They don't have any kids but one is on the way and they have an old dog too so we have that in common. We also baked several cakes and cookies in Lydia's Easy Bake oven. We tried a Barbie's Pink Cake Mix recipe but I think maybe we made a mistake in our measuring because something wasn't quite right. We had lots of fun though and will keep trying other recipes. If you know of other Easy Bake recipes online please let me know.

The weather where we live (WI) has been very rainy or humid for quite awhile but today was not the case so I got out the paint and put a coat of paint on my primed windows. If you've been following along with me, you may remember I started this project quite awhile ago. I am determined to finish it before school starts on 9/4. I have some of the cork cut out. For those of you not following me, I am going to put cork in these windows and use them to display my daughter's art work. I thought the cork would be nice because we can easily swap new art work which we have a lot of around here! After this coat is dry, I think I'm going to spray them with a semi-gloss. The paint is a flat finish and I think the semi-gloss will make clean up easier which will come in handy because these will be getting handled a lot.

I'm leaving shortly for a 13 mile run. I am not motivated at all to run today but I need to stick to my training schedule. Ken and I are waiting for our Power90 kit to arrive. It should be hear early this week. We're going to do the program together. I've heard you are not supposed to start weight training the last few months of training for a marathon but I am going to be extra careful not to injure myself. I'm looking forward to learning more about the nutrition plan. We both need to start eating more healthy.

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth!

My crafting pal lost her second front tooth while having breakfast this morning. It's under her pillow right now, waiting for the tooth fairy.

We celebrated her 6th birthday on Monday with friends and family. My very crafty friend, Dawn, made this apron for her (the day of the party)! She also gave her the Silly Snacks cookbook Lydia is holding. Just the cutest things.


Lydia and I beaded some bracelets this evening. She made 4 while I made 1! She is really interested in crafting and I am thrilled about that.
My friend who inspired me to run a marathon this year is here in WI visiting from Portland, OR, and after visiting with her this past week I've regained the enthusiasm I had earlier for a 26.2 mile run. It wained a bit after finishing a 1/2 marathon and wondering if I could do two of those back to back. I'll be registering very soon!

Last Day of Kindergarten

Lydia's last day of kindergarten is tomorrow. The graduation ceremony was last week. Mom had more tears on graduation day than on the first day of school. Below is a thank you gift I made for her teacher. I got the idea from Somerset Life magazine and the owner of a local craft studio. I wrote a thank you note on the inside of the strip of decorative paper that is wound around the spool.

After the marathon last Saturday, I took most of the week off to recuperate and got back to running on Friday. I enjoyed an hour massage on Friday afternoon and got back to business on Saturday with a 12-miler. I absolutely love my new amphipod hydration belt to help keep me hydrated on the longer runs. The bottles snap on and off without much effort which is handy when you want to keep moving.

Crafts on the Brain

I potted the pet grass and the flower Lydia brought home from school in the pots she painted and I have them displayed by my kitchen sink. I love them. We picked up saucers at the craft store last night and she painted them to match (picture was taken before they were finished). The life of the flower is questionable. I thought I was doing a good thing this afternoon when I put 2 food sticks in the soil but to my surprise, when Lydia saw the flower after school her crying alerted me to the fact that it looks near death. :-(

Blogging has made me realize that I always seem to have way more than a few craft projects going at one time. I say this because I realized I forgot to mention the altered book I have on my agenda and the dividers I want to make for the binder I keep my notes in for work. My mind is always thinking about what I can craft next. I see no harm in that. Lots of things don't ever get done but even so, it's still fun to think of things I could do.

I work from home and today I was thinking about how much I appreciate being able to do my job and mount rubber stamps at the same time. I don't think I'd survive in the office if I had to go back. I am thankful that God has blessed me with this work arrangement.

I have a minor setback in my wall of art project. I painted a window frame and now have decided I don't like the color so I need to repaint it. I have the paint and hopefully can get to work on that tonight yet, otherwise tomorrow.

So, I ran intervals at the track yesterday--run one lap, walk 1/2 a lap, repeat. I got in 2.25 miles before school got out and we had to head to ballet so I walked another mile while Lydia did ballet. This evening I did 5.3 miles and it took me 54 minutes. After the first 15 minutes something happened that seems to occur once in awhile and I haven't figured out why. I got really light headed and felt like I was going to faint so I ran/walked a few laps thinking I may have to give it up for the day but I pushed myself and kept going and then my energy came back and I was able to run like usual for the rest of the time. I ate breakfast and lunch and drank water today so I don't know why I was light headed.

Flower Pots

My 5 year old daughter and craft partner, Lydia, painted these flower pots this evening. She LOVES to craft just like her mom--I have a craft partner for life and I am so thrilled about that. I bought her some pet grass the other day at the grocery store and I plan on using two of these pots as the new home for the grass. She also brought home a plant she started at school which I'll be using the third pot for.

I have several craft projects going on right now, all in different stages. I need to hang these letters that I finished in my daughter's room. I also purchased this awesome cross-stitch pattern from MonsterBubbles.com and now I need to get all the materials for it. I am also currently working on a "Wall of Art" for my kitchen. I am painting old picture frames and windows of various sizes and putting cork board inside them and these will be used to display my daughter's art work. The cork will be nice because I can continuously rotate the artwork easily and that's handy because I get a lot of masterpieces. I'm also doing a card swap which is due 5/25. This is my first swap and I'm very excited to be doing it. And I just won (way too many) wooden spools (with no thread) on eBay yesterday. I will have plenty for the next project I have my eye on thanks to my new friend Naomi who introduced me to SomersetLife, so if you need a vintage wooden spool...

I'll be posting some pictures of some of the other projects I've finished recently on my flickr site.

Ran 4.5 miles today.