Baby Lu

Little miss cutie pants is one.  (actually, it's little miss dirty pants, see previous post!!!).  Ryan Logan set up this really cool light thing and I took some pictures.  She was.... pensive, but still adorable.  

She loves her brothers and sisters, and she still loves her mommy and daddy.  She still refuses to stand unless you grab her thighs and make her.  She throws peas on the floor, and has decided chocolate milk is awesome.  She is starting to sign "milk" and will repeat duplicated syllables.  She will give you the hugest smile when you come back into the room after leaving.  We love her sooo much!!!  One year dr appt monday, stats and birthday party pics to follow!

Cross Country Finals

Today was Pearly's cross country finals.  She did so well!  I was so worried about her, I've been "pacing" her for most of the other meets, ever since she got lost the first time.  No pacing for the finals, though.  So, I made her wear her "sparkle" skirt and her coach gave her some super awesome sparkly bows.  This meant that both Jared and I (who were stationed at different places on the course) could see her coming from far away.  

She finished last, with a smile on her face.  I was standing in the crowd at one point, and she ran past, alone, obviously working very hard, in all of her sparklyness.  I heard someone say "look at her go, she's totally awesome."  That pretty much sums it up.  Nice job, Pearl, you never gave up even though it was hard.  So proud of you!

It's official.  Ruby is a Hulbert.  Which, for my particular branch of the family, involves vast amounts of uncoordination.  Her cousin, Quincy, (born 5 days after Ruby) can climb up and stand on top of the toilet tank (not that I'm asking for that, believe me!!!).  When Grandma is asked how the babies are doing, this is how it goes down... "Quincy can stand and walk and dance and run 5 miles...  Ruby has 8 teeth."  Or something like that.

But we are here to tell you that she's ON THE MOVE!!!  Just not in the typical way... she's been scooting for a week or two, but today she got really fast, and it's quite funny.  Kind of like one of those clams or something moving along the beach.

And she does have 8 teeth.  That takes some effort, right?:)

Dump run

Max and Daddy went to the dump yesterday. Max helped load the truck. The highlights if the day were a multi colored icee and trash, rounded out with a trip to Home Depot. Very male bonding-ish.

Cross Country Meet

Today was Pearl's first Cross Country Meet.  I knew it was going to be a CRAZY day, so I got a babysitter for the little ones so that I could volunteer to help make sure the 4th grade girls got to where they needed to be.  This is all the fourth graders.  In our tiny tiny school, we had the first place and the last place girls.  Go figure.  We're the outliers:)

The school where the meet was held is WAAAAY up on top of this crazy hill, and the girls had to run up about half of it on a dirt path as part of the course.  There were lots of loops and repeatings etc, so they had EVERYONE walk the whole course before running.  

Unfortunately for us, it didn't help us much.  I walked the course with the girls, then stood at the start until they had left and made their first loop... by the time the first loop was over, Pearl was at the very end with the teenage volunteers who lead the pack and bring up the rear so nobody would get lost.  When I saw her come around a second time (the wrong way...) I chased after her to tell her she was going the wrong way.  The little teenage girl was confused and embarassed, and I was really wishing I had my running shoes on at that point.  We made it back to our tent (which was thankfully right along the course) and I explained to the coach that Pearl and her friend Molly had gone the wrong way... and the coach offered to run it with them.  Bless her!!!  I didn't want Pearl to give in, but I didn't see a way around it, I couldn't send her by herself, sure she'd get lost again with no pack to follow!!!

This is her when she finally made it to the big finish, she was working so hard to go SOO slow... funny little girl!  She came in 58 out of 58 girls, but I don't think she was too upset about it.  I think she was upset that she ended up having to run further than anyone else did.  

 There were some tears at the end, I think she was just overwhelmed, and tired from the BIG hill (seriously, I would avoid running that hill!) but once we walked it out and made it back to the car she was happy and cheerful again, sure that she would do better next time.  I tell you, that girl knows how to perservere.  What a good example, really.  

You know that scripture about how church isn't for the righteous, it's for the sinners?  Well, Cross Country is apparently for Runners in Progress as well:)  As I told Pearl, the only way to go from here is up:)

Ragnar with the Crazies

Ragnar is here.  I leave on Thursday night.  I am SOOO EXCITED!!!!  I'm even more excited today than yesterday because today we had a dropout and MARA took their place!!!  Wahooo for me!!!!  She is such a champ, she will have absolutely no time to train (my last run is tomorrow, and that's iffy, I should probably be resting, but I'm a glutton for punishment... plus I ate a lot today...) and she's dropping everything and spending her time finding a sitter for her girls friday because she is the BEST SISTER EVER:)  And she really wants one of these cool pink skirts I designed for our team:

So, what this means for me is.... I'm switching one of my shorter runs for her long run... so now I get to run a total of 20.5 miles.  That's right.  2.7, 9.3, then 8.3.  That's fine, because I'm a rockstar.  And believe it or not, she'll still have to run something like 14 miles total.  Actually, I like 8 mile runs... I get into the rhythm of it and I like the feeling of being all alone for an hour and a half.  Weird.  If I had read this 6 months ago, I would have been sure I was reading the wrong blog.   

Ask me after this weekend if I really want to run a full marathon.  I'm saying if I can do 20 miles in 36 hours, I could totally do a full.  Just once.  To say I did it.  In case anyone will think that's cool:)

It's sure making that next half marathon I've signed up for look nice... only 13.1:)  

Preschool

Max officially started his school year today. This morning he wanted to make sure I would LEAVE HIM THERE and NOT STAY. Yeah. Not a lot of separation anxiety there:)