Last Sunday, on Sonja’s 1 month birthday, I jogged my first full mile in nine or ten months.  Now that my body is ready for jogging again, I’ve been easing back into it slowly, but consistently.  I jogged five days last week, one mile each day.  They are slow, steady jogs.  No walking or stopping, but very slow paced.

Today my goal was to increase it to two miles.  I set everything up perfectly.  Elena and Sonja napping.  Halle watching Cars with colored paper and markers.  As I’m lacing up my shoes, Halle asks, “Can I use scissors and glue too?”  I tell her she can use the markers while I’m running and when I’m done, she can have the scissors and glue.  She’s a great kid and can be trusted with just about anything, but unsupervised scissors and glue is a line I’m not ready to cross just yet.

So I start jogging and I’m rocking it.  It becomes clear early on that I can totally make my two mile goal today.  Just before I finish my seventh lap (1.75 miles), Halle comes in whining, “When are you going to be done?!!”  I tell her soon, and I finish that lap, but I just can’t bring myself to ignore her for another lap.  I know jogging two miles is in me, and I’ll hit it the next time, but I chose Halle over myself and stopped a quarter mile short of my goal.

When I joined her at the table to see what she had been working on, she showed me this:

I was so impressed by all those straight lines that I took a picture of it.  Then I gave her the glue and scissors and she got to work.  She cut some beautiful rectangles.  Then she asked me to cut three little circles.  Then I went to the computer for a second to check something and saw my brother was online.  I chatted with him for a few minutes.  I was very close to Halle and could see her the whole time, but not the project she was working on because of the angle I was at.  As soon as I signed off with Joe to go sit back next to Halle, she held up her artwork and said, “Look, I made a yellow submarine.”

Is it just me, or is that pretty impressive for a kid who just turned 4?!  That’s a great submarine to create from memory using shapes she cut out of paper by herself and a glue stick!

I’ve heard plenty of stories where kids say something blunt about a stranger and embarrass the heck out of their parents. Before yesterday, I don’t think Halle had ever said anything like that. But yesterday, I got two. Well, almost.

Walking up to softball practice Halle said, “Mommy, she’s fat,” about an exceptionally large woman just out of ear shot. Halle, of course, didn’t think to whisper or be delicate about it. She wasn’t judging the woman or thinking of it as something negative. Just stating an observation. Using a word she probably learned recently to make sure she understood it. I would’ve felt horrible though if the woman had heard her.

Then, after practice when we stopped by Publix I heard Halle tell the older gentleman bagging our groceries that he had hair in his nose.  Again, just stating an observation.  Luckily, he was hard of hearing (or just doesn’t understand Halle) so when he asked me what she said I said, “She likes your hat.”  THANK GOODNESS Halle didn’t choose to correct me.

Two narrow escapes from embarrassment and from hurting the feelings of two people who didn’t deserve that.  Something tells me with three kids, I’ve got some of these moments left to go though.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that I stuck my own foot in my mouth in between these two events.  During softball practice, I referred to a little boy as “she” while talking to his parents.  They didn’t correct me, but I heard them throwing that masculine pronoun around a lot after that.  The little boy showed up to both practices wearing gender neutral clothes, a pony tail, and his exceptionally long and beautiful eye lashes.  And his name is Tatum.  If I didn’t hear it directly from his parents mouths, I still would think he’s a girl.  I imagine the parents must be tired of people making that mistake.  I know its super old that everyone thinks Elena is a boy.  So the only person who successfully embarrassed me yesterday was me.

Had a full, feel like documenting it so I don’t forget, kind of day.  Nothing major happened, just a nice day.

It started with Jason waking up with the girls and taking Halle to school.  I woke up right before he left to take over Sonja duty, and he took Elena with him to Halle’s school.  I remembered right as he got home that Halle had her 4 year doctor appointment at 10, so at 9:30 I picked Halle up from school (she got to paint stripes on a Tigger tail in the morning, so I’m glad she got that hour of school in today) and took her to the doctor.  On the way over, we talked about how she was going to get shots and instead of crying, she could hold my hand and we would say OUCH together.  Doctor appointment went super well.  She passed her eye exam and hearing exam, and all the other things they check for.  She asked the nurse if they had Cars band aids for after her shots, and they didn’t, but the nurse brought her a selection of band aids and let her choose two.  She was happy with that.  When the shots were finally administered, she sat on my lap, I held her hand, and we said OUCH together.  She did fantastic!  Then she got her stickers and lollipop and we went home.

Got home, fed Sonja, bathed Sonja and had lunch.  Then Halle requested we play her new Cars Wii game together.  We had fun with that, although it is a bit hard for her, but she still enjoyed playing it and watching me play it.  At 2:00, Elena was ready for her nap, so I set Halle up with her new movie (Care Bears Share a Scare) and Elena and I went upstairs for a nap.  I napped with her and it was wonderful.  At 4, Elena and I went back downstairs.  Halle wanted to play her new Fancy Nancy game with us so we did that for awhile.  Then we went for a walk.  At 5:30, I called Smokey Bones and placed an order for the two free salads they said they’d give us (awesome customer service at Smokey Bones), and I took Halle and Elena with me to go get them.  I switched out the Cars movie with Letter Factory in the car so Elena would start getting exposed to the letter sounds.  Although she’s still too young to pick that up yet, she laughs throughout the entire video.  So glad she enjoys it.  Anyway, we picked up our salads and brought them home to eat.  Halle announced, “I’m 4 years old, so I can eat salad now,” and she did.  She didn’t want the dressing, the chicken, the corn or the black beans, but she did eat the lettuce.  Elena had some salad too, but her favorite part was the black beans.

After dinner, the girls and I went upstairs for a shower.  Halle ran into her bedroom to pick out pjs, tripped and her face landed on the pull on the bottom drawer of her dresser.  :(  Her gums in between her front teeth was busted up pretty bad, lots of blood.  We held her for awhile, brought her ice, and eventually she was fine.  She picked out her pjs, and the girls took a shower.  Lots of beautiful artwork all over the shower walls with the bath tub crayons.

After the shower, back downstairs so Halle could paint her Hello Kitty bank.  Then goodnights to Daddy, and back upstairs to read three books, then the big girls went to bed.  Halle and Elena were asleep by 8.

I came downstairs, heard Sonja rooting, fed her and changed her and handed her off to Jason so I could get some treadmill time in tonight.  Walked and jogged a mile and a half before my hip was hurting too much to continue.  Bummed that I’m not ready to fully start jogging again, but I still thoroughly enjoyed that mile and a half and look forward to slowly getting back into it.  I’m hoping that with stretching and easing into it, I’ll get passed this hip pain soon and will be back to my 60 minute workouts before I know it.

Anyway.. great, full day.  :)

Halle’s 4th Birthday party was a HUGE success!  The decorations, the food, the entertainment and the weather all turned out PERFECT.  I couldn’t be any happier.  Having the party on Sunday made it so much less stressful on us too because we had all day Saturday to get the house ready and finalize the details.  And today was a holiday for Jason, so we even got a day to recoup afterward.  Just perfect.

The two main sources of entertainment at the party were the bounce house and riding around the cul-de-sac with Halle.  The kids seemed to thoroughly enjoy both.  Here are a couple pictures of the bounce house (I didn’t take nearly enough).

Here are a couple of my favorite pictures of the kids having fun in the car.

The details turned out super cute too.  Love the way the food labels looked, and how well the Cars characters lent themselves to kid-appropriate food for the party.

Click here to see some more food labels.

The driver’s licenses were one of my personal favorite touches.  The kids seemed to like them, but probably not as much as I did.  :)   They’re just so cute!

I was hoping the tattoos would go over well, and they did.  Lots of kids came over to get inked.  :)

Another personal favorite was the “Thank You For Coming to Halle’s Party” lollipops.  They turned out just as cute as I had hoped.

Keri, Angelle, Christina.. as soon as you’re ready to start that party planning business, just let me know!  :)  Erica, we’d love to have you too!  :)

For months Halle’s been asking for both a Cars party and a Super Why party.  I told her we’d have a Cars birthday party at our house and we would bring Super Why cupcakes to her class.  Since her school Valentine’s party was on Friday, we did cupcakes at school today.

I made my own Super Why cupcakes by printing the characters and taping them to toothpicks (I love my 1″ circle hole puncher).  Funfetti cupcake mix and pre-colored decorating icing made them very easy to make.  Which is a good thing because I started them at 11pm last night after Halle’s Cars birthday party (pictures and post about that party coming soon).

I also brought some of Halle’s Super Why toys and books to her class, read them a story, and let the kids play with the toys during gym and free play time today.  The kids loved it!  I wasn’t sure how many kids really knew Super Why, but turns out a lot of them did.  :)

Madison had spent the night for Halle’s birthday, so she came to school with us in the morning too.  After I read a book to the class, she read it again to Elena.

Austin really liked the Super Why costume.

Alyssa and Alex loved the Super Duper Computer.

Connor and Austin liked playing with the Why Writers.

I thought Halle would want to dress up and have the toys herself, but she wanted to share them with her friends instead.  Super Why “Party” was a success!  :)

Here’s Halle and Elena at 18 months.  So different!

Wow, my kids really do look COMPLETELY different!

I was so excited when I got home from the hospital today, I asked Jason to take another belly pic so I could compare and see how I’ve dropped.  Somehow that simple request turned into some awesome last week belly pics!  (Correction: Last DAY belly pics!).  My neighbor saw Jason taking pictures of me, and insisted he get in the pictures.  Good idea!  (Note:  Elena has a sticker on her forehead).

Are you tired of seeing my belly now?  Haha.  Don’t worry.. these are the last ones.  :)

No, I’m definitely not ready for this yet.  But look how freaking cute she is about it.  :)

She didn’t go, but she liked being on the potty.   :)

First of all.. thanks for all the sweet comments on that last post!  :)  And to answer Angelle’s question, no I don’t feel any different this pregnancy.  Except for not having gestational diabetes this time around, I feel like I rewound my life 26 months and am having Elena all over again.  Carrying her low the same exact way I carried Elena.  Only real side effect of the pregnancy has been acid reflux, same as with Elena.  Blessed a third time with no stretch marks (unbelievable).  The early Braxton Hicks, followed by the hospital visit, followed by her staying put and not scaring me for weeks afterward.  I almost expect this baby to be born exactly 10 days before her due date and come out with the same adorable little face that Elena had.  :)  But… I’m really hoping for a baby with a full head of dark hair.  :)

Went to the doctor today.  Since I haven’t had any contractions this week, he didn’t bother to check my cervix, which was nice.  Just listened to the baby’s perfect heartbeat and measured me (37 weeks).  No surprise that I’m measuring big at this point.  Same thing with both my previous pregnancies at this stage.  He asked me how bed rest was going and I told him that I eased up a little on the resting this week.  I told him that I did more around the house but I paid attention to my body and rested a lot.  Since I wasn’t having contractions, I felt comfortable getting up and doing more as long as I took it relatively easy.  He was totally fine with that, so I’ll continue this eased-up version of bed rest for the next week.

I’m SO HAPPY to be off strict bed rest!