TISSUE FLOWERS AND VALENTINE'S DAY PARTIES

We started our school Valentine's Day parties last night with a trip back to SouthPark after dance class to help fluff 600 tissue flowers (fundraiser!) and sort them by student and class for delivery the next morning. James and Cora each bought flowers for their teachers and teacher's aids, and for four of their friends (red was for love, pink for like, yellow for friendship, and blue = mystery). Cora was quite the good little helper (while James played his Kindle and guarded my purse). The 5th and 6th grade piles were the largest...

As for the kids' valentines, we opted to skip the boxed ones this year and make our own Lego Dimensions versions (James and Cora had the exact same valentines, but Cora's name was written in pink). We just borrowed a free image from Google, added some text in PowerPoint, and sent them up to Walgreens for printing. We taped a heart sucker above the kids names and called them good.

 Adding some hearts and a little pink to her uniform for the occasion, and capturing some very excited, smiley, and snuggly kids on the way out the door this morning:

 We hadn't been asked to send valentines boxes this year, and we figured out why when the kids came home with self-decorated brown bags filled with valentines and candy from all their friends. They each received a few flowers (from Kara and Angel and their teacher's aids), which have since been placed in a vase in the spot of honor on the kitchen table.

And now our entrepreneurial little girl wants to make and sell her very own tissue flowers... for real, and there's no talking her out of it. Daddy will be taking her to Hobby Lobby for supplies tomorrow, so watch out locals, she may be asking you for your quarters soon...

FAT TUESDAY FIRKIN

The Giant Bag of Beads made an appearance this weekend, and once again, the kids entertained themselves by sorting, piling, and then covering themselves in beads.

For the actual Fat Tuesday Mardi Gras celebration, we went back to Martin's (I know, it's a favorite, and being such a small mom-and-pop establishment with so many "regulars" and owners that are truly friends as well, it just feels like eating at home - only with a price tag). They hosted a firkin, tapping of a special cask of Abita Horchata Turbodog (it was grand!), and their firkin ended up tapping out faster than any other in the state of Mississippi (45 minutes from the ceremonial tap to being drained).

While we sipped our firkin, we enjoyed Cajun/Creole dinners of crawfish pie, boudin, craw tators, and shrimp/ham/sausage jambalaya. After dinner, the kids entertained themselves with a game of Jenga until we were ready to head home to bed. We love an excuse to party on a school night ;-)

TIME TO BE PROUD!

SUPERBOWL SUNDAY 2016

Apparently there was a big game on this afternoon/evening, but we had the Kennedy's over to party, focusing on beer and snacks and BBQ and cookies, rather than football. It was a very good decision!

Thank you dad for the incredible beers lately!

What are sugar cookies without frosting? I don't have a football shaped cookie cutter and nobody likes brown frosting, so we made colorful circle (with millions of sprinkles) instead!

VICKSBURG MARDI GRAS PARADE 2016

Throw us some beads, mister!

 This year's parade was similar to past years: weird/random floats, tractors, beauty queens, seeing half the people you know in town, and not enough beads for those at the end of the route. The kids loved it though, as usual, and Jay brought out his extra loud voice, so I'll call it a success. We hung with the Kennedys and the Halls for the parade, then joined the Kennedys for dinner at Martin's afterward. Nice end to a pretty fun day! 

(Here Jay is screaming at our neighbors, who were on the ERDC Castle Club float)

(The kids figured out pretty quickly this year how to get the bead tossers' attention)

(I thought the YMCA float was funny, but they better not have screwed up our spin bikes!)

(The kids are sporting pretty much every bead that they or their parents caught)

(James was especially happy with my Moon Pie capture)

(They wanted to show Gramma their loot - including stuffed animals, which was new to me...)

BOB COLEMAN WINTER RUN

Since Chill in the Hills went so much better than I'd expected last month, I decided I should try out my legs on a flat course and aim for another 10K PR (plus, I was serious about that goal to run more shorter races this year). I've heard from friends and fellow runners for years that the Bob Coleman Winter Run is COLD and FLAT - exactly what I look for in a short race! (Side note: this event honors a co-founder and former president of the Mississippi Track Club and proceeds benefit CARA Community Animal Rescue and Adoption, Inc., so we brought a large bag of dog food to donate). Unfortunately, they changed the course this year (still run on the Natchez Trace through Clinton, but now going south for the out-and-back rather than north, and with an added hill running up the on-ramp to get onto the Trace), and it was basically all downhill on the way out and uphill on the way back. It wasn't terrible (just 1-3% grade), but it was still up for about 3 miles straight without a break and therefore definitely a challenge (for me):

 The whole way out, I knew I was going downhill (obviously, I could see the lay of the road, but also based on my faster-than-expected holding pace and general good feeling in my legs and lungs), and thus I knew it was going to be tough on the return. I tried to use the downhill to my advantage (and managed more consistent splits for those first 3 miles than I ever get, especially in races), then turned on my mental game for the way back. I stopped at both water stations on the return and walked about 10 steps at each while I drank a few sips of water (not because I was thirsty, but because I just needed a few seconds to catch my breath). I had been playing leapfrog with a couple of older gentlemen (aged 61 and 64 - I checked the official results after the race to find out) since the start, and when they both passed me in mile 4 (the mile that almost dragged me down) looking strong and maintaining their pace uphill, I knew I had to drop my water cup and get moving (I only caught up to one of them before the finish line, and they sure motivated me to keep pushing hard). I don't love my splits for the second half of the race (I know it was uphill, but jeez, when will I learn how to negative split a race?!), but I know I gave it my all, so I can't be mad. I just need to do more hill work...

Bob Coleman       8:09, 8:11, 8:11, 8:51, 8:43, 8:39, 7:17
Chill in the Hills   8:13, 8:26, 8:38, 8:41, 9:09, 8:46, 7:44
Turns out my starting pace was not an adrenaline-pumped sprint like it seemed to be at Chill in the Hills, but rather a pace I'm capable of holding (as long as the road is downhill or flat...) It's obvious by the comparisons of those splits that Chill in the Hills was a harder (and more varied) course, but a drop of 10 seconds per mile is pretty good for a distance of 6.2 miles and a 1-minute PR is something I'm really proud of, regardless of the course differences. Remember that time I "ran" uphill for 13.3 miles? Well, today was far shorter and a much easier grade, but still, uphill is uphill. It's hard on your legs and your lungs to just go up, up, up. My results today make me want to run a (flat!) 5K in the near-ish future and see if I can push for a sub-8:00/mile average... maybe after a few rounds of mile repeat speedwork (my favorite kind of speedwork!) I know I'll never be fast like I was in high school, but it just feels so good to set and work towards attaining these stepping stone goals. I figure I've still got a few years of improvement in me before I plateau, so I might as well go for it.

It turned out to be a great little race and a fun adventure with my friends. Ashley took first place in our age group (a whopping 6+ minutes ahead of me!) and I grabbed third. We warmed up with hot chocolate and coffee after the race (and completely forgot to go do a cool down run...), dropped Ashley off to start her family trip, and went out to brunch/baby Rosie clothes shopping (we didn't get to buy gender-specific baby gifts for Sandy's shower, so we were anxious to get Rosie some PINK). The goal setting and fitness gained with running are good for me, but the girl time is just as important to my overall health, so thank you to Jay for entertaining the kids with a ChickFilA playplace breakfast and the Home Depot Kid Craft while I was out all morning (you know you're a good sport, but you need to know how very much I appreciate it!), and thank you to Christina and Ashley for getting me out there and making it an extra fun morning! Until next time...

HD KID CRAFT: MAILBOXES

While I raced this morning, Jay took the kids to make valentines mailboxes

SPONTANEOUS DATE NIGHT

What do you do when the babysitter calls you and asks if you want to go out?

You say YES! Even if it's been a busy week and you have a race the next morning...

Sure wish all those noisy patrons had let us enjoy Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in peace in our large and fancy local theater...

TEAMWORK

The spring soccer coaches had a meeting tonight that overlapped our rescheduled Den meeting (due to bad storms earlier this week), so I took both kids, armed with balloons and instructions from Jay to play "Team Building Games". First up was a game where we all stood in a circle, holding hands, and used only our legs to keep a balloon (or two or three) afloat. So much easier on paper... and probably would have been easier with any group other than 7 rowdy First Grade boys and 1 little sister... Pretty sure it took us 20 minutes to keep a single balloon up for at least 20 seconds. It was fun though, and I earned some credit with the kids for squealing and lunging along with them. The second game was called "Monster" and had the simple instructions to have the boys create a monster using one less arm and one more leg than the number of boys making up the monster. The Den leader and I started at each other blankly. A dad came over and scratched his chin. I literally started picking up boys and moving them around and piling them, trying to come up with something... Then, thankfully, Jean Luc's older sister walked over and told us to just try having 3 boys link arms and carry 2 boys wheelbarrow style. Genius. It still took quite a few attempts to get them to walk 20 steps as a "monster" and roar, not to mention switching out kids so EVERYONE had a turn at being a wheelbarrow, but we got it done. Thank goodness for big sisters with good ideas!

(Ms. Kerry, in the stripes, is largely pregnant and overdue - she was a trooper tonight!)

We ended the meeting with safety lessons about emergency situations and how/when to call 911. I learned some details about other parents that they probably wish their boys hadn't shared, but I also learned that our kids do NOT know our address or cell phone numbers (I really thought they knew, but apparently they just know how to give directions around town via north/south and street names, and not their actual home address...) So, when we got home I pulled out the writing paper and had them each write our address and my cell phone number 10 times, and then we practiced swiping mama's locked phone to find the Emergency call button. All in all, a productive evening.

ROSIE

Aunt Sandy had her baby!

And it's a beautiful little girl!!

Camille Rose Newell was born this evening. Sandy and Barrett will call her Rosie.

CORA MAE, STUDENT OF THE MONTH

Cora received the Student of the Month honor for December (they celebrate during the following month at SouthPark, but were especially late this round). She was given a certificate and free caramel apple from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, so she was quite pleased. The teachers get to choose one student each month. Ms. Williams told us that she chose Cora because "she had been so helpful as a peer tutor to children that have trouble catching on, she welcomed a new student that came in December, and socially, she plays well with all children on the playground". We think those are pretty great reasons to receive recognition! She is also in the top reading group in her class (the kids in that group do reading worksheets from 1st Grade books while the other kids are doing their centers) and is expected to reach the upper level during her next STAR Exam testing. Her teacher is quite literally ecstatic with her progress and loves her to pieces, and we are just SO PROUD of her. This little girl will conquer whatever she desires in her life, we have no doubt. Congratulations Baby Doll, you've earned this!

We decided to reward her too - with dinner and dessert of her choice, and a brand new ballerina Barbie doll (her current obsession).