It's My Birthday!! & a Cake Pop Giveaway!

Today is my birthday, and even though some days I feel like I'm getting old, I'm really thankful that I'm having all these birthdays.  So much better than the alternative...

I'm participating in Relay for Life this year.  I'm on a team with some great ladies, some of whom I know, and some I don't.  But we all have the same goal:  to make a chance for more birthdays.

In honor of that, we're going to be giving away cake pops at our tent (the Purple Warriors) next weekend!  Here are some that I just dipped today:

These are strawberry/cream cheese.  And the coating is purple. (I just don't know how to use the camera very well.)

These are vanilla/cream cheese, just waiting to be dipped in that delish {artificial} vanilla coating!

And {drumroll please}...

These could be yours!!

I will give 1 dozen cake pops in your choice (or combo) of strawberry or vanilla to the first 3 people who donate $25 (or more) to my relay page!!  It goes for a great cause, and you get first sample of my yummy cake pops!

Here's the link:  Donate Here!!

Much love to you all!

P's 2nd Birthday Party!

This weekend I threw my daughter an Elmo 2nd birthday party.  She loooooovessss Elmo, so it was the perfect thing.  I actually decided on Elmo because of this dress that my mother-in-law bought her:

I made the cake...Elmo, of course!

We had a lot of people coming, so I decided to do the Elmo face on a base layer with plain white frosting.  It was the perfect place to put her name and the candles (which she refused to blow out).


I also did Elmo cake pops.  (A post on that will come later.)

Many thanks to my friend Janelle at Peace Love & Cake Pops for the instructions on how to decorate them!  I also looked up pictures (because I need visuals) on Bakerella's site, but I did make a few modifications to accommodate my time frame and laziness!!


For food we had hotdogs (for the kids), BBQ (for the adults), slaw, chips, watermelon/tomato salad, a cheese tray, and THIS...

Yep...that's Elmo out of veggies.  I just love Pinterest!!  This is the blog I got the picture from...I didn't have time to utilize any of her other ideas, but there are some great ones there!


I spent the week browsing the internet and crafting for the decorations:

The tissue balls I got from this blog.  The yarn balloons can be found here.  I have tons of yarn, so I didn't even need to buy any for this project!  And the "2" I made up all by my own self!  It's just cut out of poster board (although cardboard probably would have been better, but I didn't have a big enough box laying around), with scraps of tissue paper hot-glued on.  I recycled the tissue paper from trimming the tissue balls...how economical and earth-friendly is that?!?!?


More decorations:

I bought these foam puzzle pieces when P was a baby and learning to sit up, so I could have something to put on the hardwoods in my kitchen.  Now she just likes to disassemble them and spread them all over my kitchen!  I put them up (9 tiles in all, with different Sesame Street characters) with masking tape on the wall in the breakfast nook where the kids ate.  I took the yellow/red color scheme for the party from the Elmo tile.

AND....for one of my favorite parts of all.....

The GOODY BAGS!!

 I was proud of these...they took me almost an entire evening to make.  They are craft bags from Michael's, and I used my scrapbooking tools to cut out the face pieces. Then stuck them on with a glue stick.  I found a picture in an Etsy store, and I made them better, I think!  Inside the treat bags I had a box of crayons, a snack bag of goldfish, a small Elmo coloring sheet, and some candy.  (Because, "Elmo loves his goldfish; his crayons too....")

The goldfish/crayon idea I unabashedly stole from my dear friend Michelle, who is going to throw her daughter an Elmo party in December!


It was a super fun party...we had over 20 kids there, plus adults, so my house was LOUD for the 2 hours of the party...but it was such fun.  I'll probably do it again next year...

Recent Run Data

Whoops - I got busy last week with all the party stuff and didn't post my run data.  Here are the stats on my last 3 runs:


Monday, 8/29, 7:34 am
Total Time:  27:59
Total Distance:  2.01 m
Avg Pace:  13:54
Avg HR:  147
Mile 1:  13:07
Mile 2:  14:42  (ended up walking 1/2 of this one because my foot hurt)
Editorial:  I was definitely not feeling it that day...I made myself get up and get out, so that part of it felt good, but I was still tired and achy from the busy week/weekend, so I didn't really push myself at all.


Thursday, 8/25, 7:20 am
Total Time:  32:52
Total Distance:  3.01 m
Avg Pace:  10:56
Avg HR:  176
Mile 1:  9:58 (hr 171)  (*my best mile in a LONG time!)
Mile 2:  12:30 (hr 172)
Mile 3:  10:21 (hr 187)
Editorial:  I felt good going out and really pushed myself on the first mile.  Then, for the 2nd one i decided to take it easy and do a slow jog. (It actually wasn't that slow, compared to what I've been running lately...)  The 3rd mile I tried some interval stuff...I pushed it for about a tenth, then jogged for about a tenth.  I ended up pushing it for the last quarter mile, because I wanted to get my average under 11:00.  This is probably one of the best runs I've had in a while, although my HR was way high.  I have decided to ignore that.


Tuesday, 8/23, 7:30am
Total Time:  10:30
Total Distance:  1.03
Avg Pace:  10:12
Editorial:  I only had 15 minutes, so I pushed for a fast mile, then walked for 5 minutes.  I didn't wear the HR monitor.


At some point last week I did 20 minutes on the elliptical...Sunday maybe ??  I'm not back on my training schedule this week...I need to be next week, since that marks the 8 weeks leading up to the marathon relay.... 

Time Flies...

This is my girl today:

This was yesterday:

Okay...maybe not yesterday, but sometimes it feels like it!

Peyton turned 2 yesterday, and I honestly can't believe how fast the time has gone by.  I know that everyone says that, but it really is so true!  I look back at the pictures of my tiny preemie baby (4 lb, 9 oz @ 6 1/2 weeks early) and am amazed at the way she has changed.  I sometimes miss the tiny baby, but I love the little girl she has grown into.

She's not afraid to get dirty!

She is excited about pre-school and her book bag!

Elmo is her favorite!

She loves to eat...just about anything, especially snacks!

I love this girl!!

Bubbles!

We had some fun playing with bubbles the other night.  Usually after dinner, P has "daddy time", and I use the time to clean up the kitchen from dinner, and do random stuff.  But the other night I headed out with them for a little while.

Love this girl!!

I had made a big bubble blower as a craft at the end of the MOPS year last year, and completely forgot about it.  We decided to give it a try.  We got a few HUGE bubbles out of it!  (Sadly, most of them popped before coming off the wand.)

She likes to "wun" after the bubbles.  (Please forgive the redneck outfit...her shorts got soiled, and we were too lazy to go upstairs for another pair so close to bedtime.)

I love this picture!  My husband can do cool stuff when behind the camera...I just use the "auto" setting.


Bubbles are so much fun!

Today's Run - a "Long Run"

I use quotes because I'm so slow I'm not sure it's considered running.  And it wasn't super long, but it was the longest run I did this week.  I'm not super happy with my time, but I've been a slacker about consistency the last couple of weeks.  


On Monday I'm going to get back on my training schedule.  I've used the novice schedule from Hal Higdon in the past, so in lieu of anything better, I'm going back to that.  The next race I have planned is a marathon relay on October 30th.  I'm not sure yet what leg I'm running, but I've got to get up to somewhere between 5 and 8 miles by then.  Actually, I could probably run that now, but not well, and I want to do it well!


Here's today's data:  (One day I will figure out how to upload the data from my fancy watch....)


Total time:  52:30
Total distance:  4 miles
Average pace:  13:07
Average HR:  161
Mile 1:  12:41  (hr 150)
Mile 2:  13:31  (hr 160)
Mile 3:  13:25  (hr 166)
Mile 4:  12:42  (hr 169)

Today's Run

This morning I got up and ran, and it wasn't nearly as horrible as I thought it was going to be!  For the past 3 mornings, I was a lazy bum and decided to sleep instead of run, but I dragged myself out of bed in time to get in a 30 minute run today.  It was a little faster than I've run for the past few runs...not sure if it was the time off, or the cooler temps, but it actually felt almost great.  I have a love/hate relationship with running.

I used to hate exercising in the morning, but I've kinda gotten into the habit of it lately.  I just have to be back by 8 so the hubs can go to work.  I run out my front door and head toward downtown Acworth.  I have a few different paths I do, depending on how long I want to run.

I run for these reasons:

1.  So that I can eat like crap and not get (super) fat.

2.  So people think that I'm cool for running.  Go ahead, admit it, you know you do.

Here's my run data from this morning.

Total time:  30:18

Total mileage:  2.57

Average pace:  11:48

Average HR:  163

Mile 1:  11:45

Mile 2:  11:57

Mile .57:  6:36

Cleaning Day

So,  I'm not sure what brought it on today...it might be that I'm about halfway through reading "The Help." It might be the fall-like weather we had today...  but, I did some super-duper cleaning today.
  
That's something that doesn't happen all that often - I just don't like to clean!  Now, I do the things I have to do...the kitchen, cause that's gross if it's not cleaned...the dishes, so we can eat...the floors, cause I have a 2-year-old...


But the dusting, the blinds, the baseboards, etc...that stuff I can put off for-EVER.  I'm sure my husband is greatly appreciative of my efforts today (he actually noticed the clean, which makes me feel great) and I feel pretty good about it too.  


Here are some pics of my day:

I started with cleaning the blinds.  Of course, this was after breakfast, and a little play-time outside...the weather was too gorgeous for us to resist...it was a nice breezy 80 degrees, which is heavenly after the blazing 90's we've had for weeks!

This is my special helper...at least until she dunked her duster in water....she's learning early how to get out of chores!  It took us until lunch time to get all of the blinds and windowsills downstairs done.  20 windows by my count.  I thought about cleaning the glass too, but that's going a little overboard.

Then, during naptime I cleaned the fireplace.  Yes, it is August in Georgia.  No, we haven't had a fire in it since probably March.  Yes, I hate to clean... this was a little ridiculous though, so I finally got down to cleaning it out.

Looks pretty good!


I also dusted the baseboards downstairs.  Ug.

Then baby girl woke up from her nap, and I still had to clean the floors. I sweep, then use the steam mop...usually I do this once a week and just sweep and spot clean in between.  Here's my mop:

And a little water I spilled...

This is how baby girl helps me clean the floors!  She loves to watch "Tee-Bee."


I finished up the day by making the week's menu and grocery list and cleaning the stainless appliances...no picture, but take my word for it...they are shiny!


Here's my to-do list for the rest of the week...Glad to say I got to mark a few things off today!