It's that time of year again: St. Patrick's Day, which means for the Eastland family that it is time to run in the Springs' 5k on St. Patrick's Day race. It was a slightly different course than last year, but it was still really easy and very fun.
Before
After
It's Friday now, and my shins still hurt! It was worth it, though.
This is the script that we are sending to JJ Abrams in hopes that he will use it for his next movie.
And so the battle lines are formed, The Riddler and his army of superheros and "Rescue Guys" are impatiently waiting for the princesses to corset up and fall into position. You can smell the tension in the air! Batman knows he's next to fight the infamous princesses if his comrade, The Riddler should fall. His face betrays no fear.
Paige: Dude! I wasn't ready yet.
Jack: Teatime is over, Ladies, it's time for war!
Paige: I seriously did NOT see that coming. Not cool! Jack: Muwahahahahahaha!! No one shall defeat The Riddler.
Paige: That's what you think, Mister. You shall now face the wrath of Belle! Jack: Your reputation for ruthlessness does not scare me, Beauty. Paige looks on with triumph as Jack collects The Riddler who has fallen from the Cliffs of Coffetabledom. Paige: Who is next to succumb to my power? Jack: Hold on, the Rescue Guys are arguing amongst themselves Belle wastes no time while the restless army of superheros and "rescue guys" squabble. Batman is attacked, but will he rise again? Paige: Dang! I have a phone call. Hold on. Paige: Seriously, this is not a good time! I'm in the middle of battle here. Paige: Fine, I'll take 2 boxes of Thin Mints, 1 box of Samoas, and 1 box of Tagalongs. I need to go. Jack: Meet your doom Ariel! Paige: No way, Fire Guy. I didn't swim all the way from the ocean to go down like this. At this point in the story, Paige started collecting her princesses into her purse and started posing for the camera. At least her clothes are still on. Ok, so we need an ending for this story. Apparently kids are not very reliable about seeing their projects to an end. I'm taking suggestions.
As the kiddos are getting older, and Jack has finally agreed to let Paige stay, they have really started enjoying each others' company. They also copy one another, which is a little surprising to me because I never expected a big brother to copy his little sister. I guess Paige is so extremely special and will probably be a trend setter (I'll just keep telling myself that). This is not to say that they don't fight, because they sure do--and it can get really vicious really fast! Overall, though, they are turning into pretty good friends (I even heard from the daycare at the gym we go to, that Jack is even protective of his little sister!)
Now that it's finally getting warmer outside, the kids and I have been able to spend more afternoons with neighbors outdoors. After one particularly active time of play, I started making supper, and turned around to find this sleeping on the couch. Ahhh, I love this time of year: we all sleep so much better and so much longer.
February was sort of a big month for us. Rich and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary on the 16th by going to one of our favorite restaurants, The Melting Pot. It's hard to believe that it has been 7 years!
Paige picked out some cute Little Mermaid panties, and both kids thought this would be the best use of them.
Rich had Birthday. He looks pretty good for 42, huh?
Happy Birthday, Dear Daddy!
That's some good frosting
Pants are overrated!
I don't want to sit on this potty, NO THANK YOU!!
You can't make me sit here!
Whew! So much better now that I can wear my high heels and panties!
My apologies to my fan club for not posting anything new for 6 weeks. I don't really have a good reason for my absence except that I haven't taken many pictures lately. I think the wildness of Christmas made me check out for a while, but I will try to do better in the future about posting more regularly.
Jack has been doing great in school--I'm so proud of how well he is progressing. We just had his parent teacher conferences, and I was amazed to see the changes he has made since September. He can now draw his whole family (he couldn't even draw a face at the beginning), write his name, and even identify most of the alphabet. We had some concerns that he was falling slightly behind in his development at the beginning of the school year because of his social skills, but after having him tested through our school district, we have learned that he is exactly where he is supposed to be! We were even told that he may be on the "more" mature side of the curve (but as I'm typing this he is being super silly with Paige, so I don't necessarily believe that). We were warned that he may have a tendency to be a perfectionist (hmm, wonder where he gets that?), so we need to provide examples of making mistakes and learning from them or fixing them without getting to emotional over it.
Paige has started potty training, or rather I've started training. She doesn't want much to do with it sometimes, but she really wants to wear her panties and be a big kid like Jack--she just wants to do it on her terms. I know that some day she will really appreciate the pictures I posted of her on the potty. Man, I feel like I did all of this with Jack not that long ago!
Rich has a new a job. He's selling construction products like pipe and even bridges (pre-manufactured). I'm so proud of him! I know this hasn't been an easy transition for him: going from design to sales is a pretty big leap, but he's really good at both. I know that he will succeed in whatever he puts his mind to.
So I've been getting serious about getting into shape again. This means spending lots of time at the gym. The kids have been very gracious to allow me to go most mornings. I've been doing spin classes a couple of times a week, a couple of days of running, and three days of weights. Hopefully next week I'll be able to add a third day of running, but I've had to ease myself into it even slower than I expected to because of stupid shin splints. It's ok, though, I've enjoyed the cross training.
It's Friday now, and my shins still hurt! It was worth it, though.
