Paige and her books

Paige is really in to her books right now. She will flip through (and tear up) books on her own, but she really loves to sit in your lap and read them. By far, her favorite is the history of the Universe book. It's a pop up that Grandpa and Grandma Vernon bought for Connor a few years ago. It's seen better days, but most of the pop ups still work and Paige loves them.

Paige and her chair

Paige is very smart about her high chair and where we keep it. Since our house is on the market and we have showings from time to time, we'll often put her chair in the coat closet. It's a booster seat that we put on top of one of our regular chairs, and Paige knows exactly where it is. If it's not strapped to the chair, she'll hoot at us and will point to the closet until we open it. Then she'll haul out the chair and will drag it over to the chair so we can set her up and get her fed.

Connor's favorite things

Over the weekend I asked Connor a number of things just for fun to see what he'd say. Although I think he missed the mark on a few answers I decided I'd just write down everything exactly as he answered.

1) What's your favorite color? Purple and Pink like Mommy.
2) Favorite Drink? Apple juice, chocolate milk, ice water, Capri Sun
3) Favorite food? Tiger food (Frosted Flaked). When I asked if there was anything else he said "Just only Tiger food".
4) Favorite Animal? Puppy dog
5) Connor said: Who's my favorite Baby? I said "Who?" Connor said it was Paige. Even though she yells at him and hits sometimes.
6) Favorite Toy? Gun. A Pretend Gun.
7) Sport? Blue sport. Means when he tackles. Because he plays football and he tries to tackle the bad guy. And that's what football players do.
8) Song? ABC's (he seemed irritated that I wouldn't know this)
9) Best friend? Connor Reid and you Daddy.
10) Clothes? Jammies.
11) Favorite thing to do? Play with you
12) This is going to take a long time (he was getting irritated, so we took a break)
13) Favorite place to go? At Hooooome.
14) Favorite game? Spiderman on Nintendo DS
15) Favorite thing to say? I like to say "Daddy I love you"
16) Favorite story at story time? Football stories
17) Favorite book? Dinosaur book.

Fresh Beats dancing

Connor's new favorite show seems to be "The Fresh Beats Band". It's a group of silly twentysomethings that string along a tenuous story line interspersed with upbeat songs. Connor has been watching it for a while and recently he'll get up and dance during the songs. He's typically too shy to dance at weddings or in public, so it's really cute to see him get in to the songs. He loved when I recorded him today and liked watching himself afterward.





After Paige woke up from her nap, she joined in too. So much energy!


Awesome dance moves!

Lucas Ramon

Today we went over to Scott and Lindsay's place to meet their new little man, Lucas. He is one of the cutest little babies we've seen. We were especially partial to him since we really reminded us of Connor when Connor was a baby.

We all posed with the little guy, but Andrea was the only one to hold him. I've gotten a little nervous about holding other people's babies again. Just too scared I'll drop them or break them. It's been a while since Paige was so little.

The girls checking out the new baby.

Connor enjoyed playing with Mr. Scott. They did dramatic ball throwing and catching with a lot of falling down, slow motion replays and sound effects. When we left, I asked Connor if he thought Scott was nice and Connor said: "Yes, he was very nice. Number one nice guy!"

Scott's going to be a great dad!

BBQ at the Vernon house

Yesterday, we had the Gobles, Rudolphs and Grandma Genie over for a little BBQ at our house. We made brats and hotdogs and of course all the yummy sides.

Mommy looked cute with her little man.

Baby sister was in a good mood.
Daddy getting the grilling done in the rain.




After we ate, everyone played some baseball out front.


We had lots of fun! It was a great visit with everyone.

Mandy's post on running with Andrea

Andrea's running partner Mandy posted this on her blog. We thought it was very sweet and wanted to post it here as well.

My Running Partner

She's the best. Andrea and I have been running together since 2008. Not only is she my running partner but lately she's also been my workout buddy too. We met a couple of years prior when I was pregnant with Jax. We met because she hired me as her personal trainer. Not long after that she became pregnant. She had Connor one month after I had Jax. We've been running together ever since. Now we both have two kids and don't let it stop us from exercising regularly. I look forward to our hour long runs together twice a week. I view it as "girl time" because we jabber the hour away while we run our 4-6 miles. It works out well.

This morning we got up to participate in the North Face 10K. We set a new PR but I know I wouldn't have finished with that time if Andrea wasn't there. Even in our weekly runs we do this; we pull energy from each other. When I don't have any energy to keep running she does and pushes me along and vice versa. This same thing happened this morning at the race. She had tons of energy during the race and I reserved a lot at the end. She kept me going throughout and I pushed her to finish strong in the end. We finished 33rd out of 500 and our official time was 53:02. That's an average of 8.33 minute mile. Our goal was to finish under 55 minutes.

I can't believe we've been running together for 3 years and this is our first race together. I'd do races and she would do races but it never seemed to match up that we would do one together. And sadly after 3 years of running together I'm preparing to say goodbye to it all. Her family is moving to a warmer state. We aren't sure of the date (it will depend on when their house sells) but when it happens I know I won't be able to replace her. We've always been the same pace, been able to do the same distance and have been able to easily fit it into our lives around children, work and husbands (they have all stayed happy as we've weaved it into our schedules). The other thing we have in common is we don't like to run early in the mornings unless we have to. Getting up at 5 or 6am isn't anything we ever do. I love that part because many runners like to get up early...we just don't!