CORPS DAY 2012

Unlike last year, this year BOTH kids played in the bouncy houses, braved a horse ride (or two or three...), and enjoyed the bounty of the competition bake sale.

Mmmm... cupcakes!

Cora really WANTED to ride the horse, until she got up there (with me, since she refused to go solo). Jay grabbed this photo after one lap around the field and before she started crying to get down.

James was brave though! He loved it!

He rode with me too. And Manu. And even Will (he and Manu had sneaked off when nobody was paying attention and Christina found them, since she was over there helping Will ride).

Me and my girl :-)

James was in and out, over and under, and running between the two inflatables.

Cora in more cute birdie clothes from her Grambot. This one says "Smart and Tweet"

I didn't get any photos with Will or Azure, but here are James and Cora with Manu and Coltin (Emma was there too, of course, but my photo of her was blurry - I'm in need of a new camera soon...)

Little Lauren got some love from Aunt Sandy:

Cora wasn't much interested in lunch, until she stole my apple. Which she later shared with Violet.

These boys make me smile SO BIG. When they aren't aggravating each other (as good friends sometimes do), they are being completely ridiculous or totally sweet.

Not to be outdone, Cora and Will held hands on the way back to the cars too. Cute little pair, eh?

CORPS DAY TRAIL RUN!

This morning we ran the first annual (hopefully!) ERDC Corps Day Essayons Challenge 5K Trail Run. Wow, that's a long name. Being a government event and all, you'd think they'd have come up with an accronym...

Anyway, as usual, I was pumped for the race. Especially since I wasn't planning to RACE, per se, but rather run a little harder than my usual while simultaneously trying not to keel over during the 6 body weight exercise stations. Interspersed throughout the race course were 6 challenge stations, where the exercises got progressively harder as you became more tired: 20 push-ups, 25 jumping jacks, 20 sit-ups, walking lunges up a hill, 15 burpees, and 25 air squats. Needless to say, we were all pretty exhausted by the end of the 3 mile run (according to Jay's Garmin, the race course came in at 2.97 miles instead of the usual 3.1 of a 5k). 

This is the awesome turnout of just the EL folks (remember, we have 4 different labs here on station). Why am I the sweatiest one in this photo?! Maybe I need to start racing in white or black shirts...

It was SO much fun though - totally worth the sweat! I lost Sophie somewhere after the first mile on our first big downhill (that girl FLIES down hills!), but kept her (and Jay, who was just ahead of us most of the race) in sight throughout the race. Eventually I caught Jay and we crossed the finish line together. We haven't hooked up his Garmin to go over his stats yet, but our finish time was 38:00, so with 6 exercise stations that probably took 30-120 seconds each to complete, I'm guessing we ran ~10:00 miles in between the challenge stations. That makes me pretty happy considering I've only been back to running for 2 weeks! Of course, I am icing my legs tonight and hoping my sore feet feel better by the time we start our 5 mile Over the River Run in two days...

THE SHARKS LIVE ON

The only thing more fun that seeing your friends' kids wearing your baby's hand-me-downs is having an excuse to reminisce back to the time when your baby was still small enough to wear those clothes.

James at 16 months and Chris at 14 months. Love these cute boys!

BATMAN IS SUPER

Super HEALTHY, that is!

James got the all-clear from the doc at his followup appointment today (that's following up the ear infections and congestion that lasted for months, and for which he was on antibiotics for months). Apparently the Singular is helping. And perhaps our increased vigilance around the house against dust and cat hair. Whatever the reason, we're keeping him on Singular through December, just in case (he thinks those tiny crunchy "vitamins" taste like candy anyway - actually, both our kids are really into medicine for some reason...). And we are SO HAPPY he is finally off antibiotics (we were seriously sucking at remembering to give them to him near the end of that 30 days anyway).

He must be feeling better, because he gained TWO WHOLE POUNDS in the past month (and prior to that, he'd been holding at 35 lbs for about 5 months).

Bubble Baby also had a weight check. She's a healthy 2 lbs 2 oz.

Little Mama Cora got sick of carrying her around pretty much as soon as we got to the waiting room, so I carted Bubble around the pediatrician's office, and out through the hospital (each and every visit REQUIRES a trip up the elevator, around the 2nd floor, and back down the other elevator - it's nonnegotiable). And I kid you not, I had no less than 14 ladies stop me to tell me "Oh my gosh, I thought that was a real baby!" I must have really freaked them out when I was carrying Bubble in a nonchalant headlock...

She is eerily realistic though, right?

 Especially now that we have her dressed in preemie clothes, which cover her cloth body-meets-plastic hands and feet interface (purchased in an effort to convince Cora that wearing clothes is cool). Seriously though, what preemie-sized newborn would have that much hair? Then again, why am I surprised? These are the same Vicksburg folk who stopped me to ask whether Cora was a boy, for her entire first year of life and beyond (until about 18-months, when her hair started to grow in), even though I kept her almost entirely in pink from head-to-toe, with headbands and bows and flowers on her head.

FALL FESTIVAL IN THE 'BURG

Diving head-first into our busy October weekends, we followed last night's zoo trip with a few hours downtown at the annual Fall Festival this morning (after my Saturday run, of course!), and the kids had a great time! I dressed them up for our adventure...

(Cora LOVES her birdies Grambot! And she actually asked for "TWO bows!" today.)

(Pointing out his spiders. He picked this shirt out himself - VERY into spiders lately.)

The only thing that makes adventures like this more fun is getting to see your buddies (for the kids, AND for me)! We hung out with Manu and Leo, Grady, Alex and Kara, and Will (and Lauren).

(Fly James, fly!)

The kids were exhausted by the time we got home, an hour and half past their naptime. Cora fell asleep in the car again, and we ALL (well, except Jay, since he was working hard on his papers) slept for 2 hours. I think my goal this long weekend should be to get a nap each day - AWESOME!

FEAST WITH THE BEASTS 2012

 The Jackson Zoo's annual Member's Only event "Feast with the Beasts" was a great way to start our long weekend! Poor Jay is bogged down with an extremely busy final semester and couldn't come along, but the kids and I met up with the Sanchez crew for animal viewing, free food, bouncy house fun, and a carousel and train ride to end the night.

(Watching the tiger and yelling "RAWR!")

Quick nostalgia break: look how much smaller they were at this event last year!

(Watching the magician)

(Watching a zookeeper feed bananas to the chimps)

(It made me smile to look back at last year's Feast with the Beasts blog post and see that Cora chose the same animal - the giraffe - that James did)

(Getting temporary tattoos - first time!)

(My camera is partially busted due to kid fingers always messing with the lens cover... In the dark of the train ride, I didn't realize it wasn't fully open. Still a cute Sanchez family photo though!)

(This one stayed awake until we were 10 minutes from the house, then passed out. I couldn't resist a picture before I finished pulling her out of the car)

(And this one stayed awake until about 9:30pm. NO IDEA how he did that, crazy kid!)

REGRESSION FRUSTRATION

Cora has had such a bad week... Normally, she has 0-1 accidents overnight per week, 0-1 at school, and 0-2 with us at home in the evenings/weekends (because she gets busy playing, usually outside, and we forget that she's only 2-years-old and we sometimes have to remind her to use the potty, since Miss Independent generally just takes herself). So far this week (since Sunday), she hasn't had a dry night (some nights she's had TWO accidents - good thing we still have her sheets stacked!), she's had multiple accidents (on the same day, even) at school, and she's been defiant about accidents at home. So what gives? Is she regressing? We thought that might happen when school started back in August and the little kids (AKA the ones still in diapers) moved up to the K2 class, but she was fine then. She's been getting good reports and notes such as "Cora is my potty superstar!" from her teacher (so we're not the only ones worried about what's up with her this week). It's been frustrating, for sure, and we'd love to hear ideas if anyone would like to share their thoughts!

She really is our little morning buddy. Almost always awake before James, eating her breakfast and dancing around the kitchen. In these particular photos, she's 1) dressed at 6:30am because she'd wet her bed (and jammies) for the second time overnight, and 2) in her undies for the same reason. While she seems unconcerned by this week's issue, we'd prefer to have our pajama-clad morning buddy back ASAP...

SCHOOL PORTRAITS: FALL 2012

I'm sorry, but I find it hilarious that we have to crop Cora's undies out of a school portrait...

 Sorry, these are just proofs, so the quality isn't very good. Had to share though - I think for the most part the kids did well smiling for the camera and looking adorable!

MY FAVORITE MONTH!

It's here! October is here!

Time for fall colors, cooler weather, campfires and cookouts, costumes and candy, multiple parties and trips to the zoo, festivals, Corps Day, pumpkin patches and corn mazes, and my birthday! I LOVE OCTOBER!