Graduation!

Wahoo! Ellie graduated kindergarten! We are so proud of her. She totally rocked the reading program and worked really hard to achieve several goals. Her teacher started her on the AR program in January and the school has several rewards as kids earn a certain number of points. So in order to reach her goals she started bringing home two and three books a day, reading them that night and testing on them the next day. The books at her level were usually worth 1/2 a point each and she earned over 50 points. Some of her rewards included a principal's walk, principal's breakfast, principal's lunch, and a medal. She was one of two kids who were awarded medals at graduation. I wish I could have gotten better pictures but there were a zillion people crammed into the school gym.

My cute graduate

Mrs. Garcia, best kindergarten teacher ever

Mrs. Williams, awesomest teacher's aide ever

Tumbling

Ellie has been tumbling for two years now. She has really learned a lot this year thanks to her amazing teacher, Jen. She is so patient and positive and kind.

bar routine

after the beam routine

thumbs up for the beam routine!

cute salute

Look how little Ellie is compared to the rest of her class! Her teacher bumped her up halfway through the year and I think it really helped her push herself to get better. She did so awesome!

Ellie's First 5k!

I am so proud of my girl! Ellie completed her first 5k last Saturday and she did so great! It was really cold and ridiculously windy but she was tough and she walked/ran the whole thing with my awesome mother-in-law. After the race there was a drawing and she was so excited when they called her bib number and she won a big pack of Gatorade mix. She felt like she had won the whole race. It was so freaking cute.
I did my first 10k at the same time and although I wasn't super fast and the first 2 1/2 miles were into a 20 mph headwind, I finished! I treated it as my long training run for the week and I'm well on my way to being ready for my (super slow) 1/2 marathon in June.
The best part was having Rob and Piper there cheering for us at the finish line. They were such good sports to stick around in the crappy weather to cheer for us. 

Me and my girls in the car after the race. Piper was so excited because she won a huge bag of Swedish Fish!

We Have A Winner!

Yippee! I entered a blog giveaway for a free race entry to the See Jane Run Half Marathon in Boise on June 16th and I totally won! I'm really excited for two reasons: 1) this race is out of my price range (I couldn't fork over $75-$105 to run 13.1 miles) so I never would have signed up for it on my own and 2) because my other June race fell through and this will give me the push to train harder for the next two months. 

Wahoo!

My First Half

There's nothing like signing up for some races to scare the pants off of you and get your butt up in the morning to run. I've been running since May of last year but I've decided I need a training goal for the summer so I can up my mileage and my fitness level. I need some motivation to push myself harder. For accountability's sake I'm posting my races here. So here are the ones I'm signed up for so far: 

May 5th: The Dam 5k/10k - a fun race to benefit a local school. This will be the third year in a row that me, my mother-in-law, and others in our family have done this race. I'll be running the 10k this year and I'm excited to see if I can actually run the whole 6.2 miles.

June 9th: Sawtooth Relay - a 62 mile relay race from Stanley to Ketchum, Idaho. I'm running with a team of 5 other people from our ward. I'm a little nervous about this one because I'm a really slow runner and I don't want to let anyone down but I've been assured that we're running this just for fun so times don't matter.
edited 11Apr12: I'm so bummed. The guy in charge of our team just called and he totally missed the sign up deadline. So now I'm on the lookout for a summer race to sign up for. Anyone have any suggestions?

September 1st: Pocatello Half  - my first half marathon ever (13.1 miles) and I'm really excited to do it but a little nervous about all the silly unknowns like fueling, potty stops, dying on the race course. You know, stuff like that. My hope is that this will help my brain realize that my body is capable of accomplishing big things. Next year I will be ready to tackle a full marathon.

Since being diagnosed with PMDD I've started taking running more seriously these last few months and I am amazed at how much I've found that I need to run. My body loves it and hates it and my spirit thanks me for it over and over.
For now I'm holding tight to this little nugget of wisdom:
Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure. ~George E. Woodbury~


Need some good reading? Here are my favorite running blogs lately:
Hungry Runner Girl
Skinny Runner
Shut Up and Run
Another Mother Runner

The Principal's Walk

Ellie is such an awesome kid! Her kindergarten teacher asked us at parent teacher conferences if we wanted Ellie to start the AR program and we said yes because we knew Ellie would love it. Basically it's a reading program where each book she reads has a point value and after she brings it home and reads it to us, she takes a test on it at school and earns points towards fun rewards.  She has been working so hard to get enough points to get the first reward on the list which is the principal's walk for 10 points. To give you some perspective on how hard she has worked you need to know that each book she has brought home has been worth 0.5 point. Yes, 1/2 of a point. If you've ever read books with a beginning reader you would know how much effort it takes to even read a 10 page book. This girl is determined. When we figured out how long it would take her to get 10 points she decided to ask her teacher if she could bring home two books at a time. So now she brings home two books a day, reads them that night, reads then the next morning and tests on both of them that day. She amazes me with her reading ability and her level of comprehension. She is so smart and we are so proud of her! By March 2nd she had 17 points and she got to do the principal's walk! At the beginning of school each kid on the walk gets to wear a crown with their name on it then everyone in the whole school (kids, teachers, and invited parents) line the hallways while the reading kids walk through the hall with the principal and everyone cheers for them and gives them high-fives. Ellie was so excited and just soaked up all the attention. It was awesome. And we found out that morning that she is the first kindergartener all year to do the principal's walk. Way to go Elliett!!

The Brave Girl and the Test

Piper is such a tough little kid. She definitely didn't get her toughness from me. I'm a total pansy.

Of our two girls she is the toughest but also the one who gets sick most often. I don't know what it is about her but she's had more ear infections, viruses, chest x-rays and blood draws and any of the rest of us combined. This time she was subjected to a 20 minute allergy test due to a persistent cough for 5 months. The nurse poked two different sets of potential allergens into the skin on her back. Piper was really brave and didn't even cry even though it looked painful. Turns out she is slightly asthmatic and mildly allergic to some types of trees and weeds. The doc prescribed two different inhalers to try for the next three weeks. We're hoping to see some improvement by then. The poor girl hasn't had a full night's sleep since November  (incidentally neither have Rob or I) due to her cough.

A few pictures from her new adventure

waiting for allergic reactions - ouch!

using the kid-sized AeroChamber

We're hoping to have a cough-free spring and summer!