Sunday, January 24, 2010

Reece's First Haircut

It had to be done. It was getting out of hand. His hair had a personality of its own. Every day we had people asking us if we had styled it on purpose. To the countless masses: the mohawk was natural. It was also at least three inches long. We used the longest piece on the clippers and it is now only one inch long. Still a mohawk (that couldn't be helped) but at least a slightly more controlled mohawk.

Here's Reece pre-haircut:

And post-cut:

He even did the classic "I'm not happy with life" pre-cut face and the "Everything is perfect now" post-cut face. Kid should be in infomercials.

In real-time news, he just barely finished crying himself to sleep. He's had a hard time making it through the night since his month-long ear infection in December/January and now he's got three teeth coming in at once. Poor guy.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Can we do it? Yes we can!

I've been putting off this blog for a couple of weeks now, but I think it's time to make the announcement. No, this isn't about Reece (what, a blog post that's not about Reece?), and no, I'm not pregnant (thank goodness). This is about attempting to accomplish one of my life goals. And I decided that I have to tell as many people as I can so that I cannot back out of it. I am going to run a MARATHON!

I never really thought I could run a marathon. I honestly still don't think I can do it. But in the last month that I've been training, I've already done things that I hadn't done before and I'm starting to think that a marathon might be possible. Last Saturday I ran 7 miles. That was farther than I've ever gone in my life, and I didn't die. Two weeks before that I ran 5 miles for the first time since Reece was born, and both times I did a little inner-celebratory dance and thought to myself, "Maybe I can do this."

Isn't that inspiring? This image was from an article about a runner who died just after crossing the finish line (not the guy in the picture). Sure makes you want to run, doesn't it?

I love this picture because the girl is puking mid-stride. I only hope I can gain that skill.

As I said, I am not a runner. I like to work out. But it's not because I like to push myself or try to improve or anything. I just like to feel like I've done something good for my body that day. Pushing myself to go further and faster has not really been my style. I more like to have a calories goal, and then any day that I get to the gym is a good day, regardless of what else does or does not happen. It's silly, I know, but I guess it's my hobby/obsession.

I've struggled with even calling this my hobby because I feel like I should be better at it if it's getting that distinct classification, but since I work out almost every day, the only way I can justify it is by deeming it a "hobby."

So why the marathon, then? If I'm not a real runner and I'm not competitive, why torture myself now? Well, staying at home with Reece has been wonderful, but I've really been searching for something beyond being mom. I've wanted something that would improve me and stretch my limits and see what I could do. Plus (and this is more honest than I should be) I still had to lose 6 pounds of baby weight.

That's all I've got for now on the subject. I want to run a marathon and I think I might be able to try to do it. I did find, after hours of frustrated searching, an acceptable marathon. It's on June 5 (a Saturday) in Aptos, CA. That's close to Santa Cruz and only an hour away from us. Believe me, it's not easy finding a marathon on a Saturday in California.

So I'm not going to try to break any records or win any medals (because you get a medal just for finishing...he he he...suckers). I just want to do it. For me. Because I can. Right?

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Two Years Worth of Blogging

Happy 2010! We had a great Christmas with Nancy, post-Christmas with David and Hillary & Co., and a fantastic post-New Year's with the Carr family in Utah. Just a couple pictures from the last couple of weeks:

This is our best Christmas present ever.

Reece loves his Grandma Nancy.

We all got footsie pajamas for Christmas Eve (okay, so Paul just reused his pajamas from his birthday. And Nancy's pajamas were made for a 10-year old girl). Maybe next year we'll just go with normal pajamas.

Yay, Christmas morning!

"I can't wait to eat that monkey."


Playing at the park on Christmas day.

Reece loved playing at Grandma Carr's house. He loved it so much that he couldn't sit still and kept trying to destroy her balls of yarn (such a sweet little kitty) and destroy her Christmas ornaments.

Grandpa Allred loves to give horsey rides. Reece loved it until Grandpa got to end of the "Little lady goes nimmy nimmy," etc. Reece freaked out. Super funny.

Kyle has claimed the status of "Favorite Uncle," which may be the case, if only for the identical hair styles.

Bryce and Reece hangin' out at the mall. Those two crazy guys. We had more pictures with Grandma Terri and Grandpa Mel, but my favorite picture of Grandma Terri could not be posted (due to certain threats by those involved). Reece got so excited to be in a picture with Grandma Terri that he actually punched her in the nose, resulting in much blood and hilarious, yet un-postable pictures. Thanks for a wonderful Christmas, everyone!


We got to see Raini and Dave Stout (and Dave's cool mom) at the Winchester Mystery House. I figured out the mystery: the Winchester lady was crazy.

Paul, Reece and I went for our first family jog across the Golden Gate Bridge. It was only about 3 miles total, but a little harder due to high winds and a malfunctioning jogging stroller. Hopefully this doesn't discourage further jogging adventures.

Paul's face says, "Look at me, I'm a happy, smiling tourist." Paul's brain says, "I want to throw this stroller off the bridge." Not with the baby in it, of course. It's just leans heavily to the left and tries to crash itself into other bridge walkers. So if you're interested in ramming into unsuspecting civilians, feel free to borrow our jogging stroller.