HaPpY HaLloWeEn!
As requested by both Grandmas...here are lots of pictures of our Halloween festivities this year!

The Ward Trunk or Treat...
grey & madduxHalloween Dinner Party...
aubry, brynn, megan, becky, me (becca left before we took the pic)

Halloween and Trick or Treating...And Friends...
paisley as pebbles...
soren as a storm trooper...lucy as a piggie...sofie as a butterfly...

10 months!

Maddux is 10 months today! He is growing so fast and does so many fun tricks! (Peek-a-boo, "if you're happy and you know it....", gives kisses, high fives) I will add more pics and stuff later. We are having another rough day (see yesterdays post), but we have at least figured out the cause- a double ear infection. NOT FUN!! But, since we were at the doctor, I do know he is now
19 pounds 14 ounces. This is for sure one of my favorite ages. I love that he can play and interact with us. We have so much fun! He's a great little buddy!

Drew and I were up until after midnight carving these puppies last night. I know they aren't that fancy, but our carving skills need some work!

Also, my cute and creative sister made this Halloween star for me. I love it!
Thanks Amb!

this pretty well explains how our day went today.

Maddux might have a future as a musician...what do you think??

First Art Project...

This is Maddux's spider he made with his hands. The little antennae on the top is because he forced his thumb into the paint and then onto the paper!
Thanks Becca for letting us tag along today!

BUSY DAY!!!!

Today was a busy day! I actually had to make THREE separate posts just to cover it all!

I loved today!!!

Pumpkin Patch...

We took Maddux to a pumpkin patch tonight. Anyone ever been to Mother Nature's Farm in Gilbert? It was interesting. We got lots of pictures of Maddux with the pumpkins while we were looking for one...but then decided to get a pumpkin from Walmart instead! But we did pay to go inside "The Farm"first though. We had a lot of fun, but mostly because of Maddux, not the actual farm. We were a little camera happy, so bare with me!

He loved petting this baby cow!

On the hay ride...Maddux is trying to mimic the face of the jack-o-lantern behind him. :)

Maddux would have cost $10

And here is where we ended up buying our pumpkins! Who wants to pay $10 when you can get it for $2.98 at Walmart! :)

Time with Kasey and Joel...

Kasey and Joel volunteered to take Maddux today while I ran my race and Drew killed birds aka-hunted quail. :) Here are a few clips Kasey took of what they did to pass the time!

Thank you so much for watching them!
You guys are awesome and Maddux always has a blast with you!


As always, it appears Maddux loved the door stoppers!

All I can say about this one...is GROSS!

10K

Brynn, Becca, Jamie and I ran a 10K this morning at Tumbleweed Park in Chandler. Although the course was a little lame, the sun was blaring down on us, and the shirts were less than exciting, I think we can all agree that we had fun! I ran 55:34 (according to my watch, not their dumb timing-since it took a while to get to the starting line). My training goal right now is to get my mile times down to 8:30-9 minutes miles, which is FAR from what I was doing training for the marathon. I know that doesn't sound so fast, but you have to understand that I am NOT a fast person!!! Here is the only picture I have of the four of us...but Brynn has more coming, so I'll add to the post later! :)

I am proud of all of us, I think we all did great! Good job girls!!!

I've been in a bit of a "FESTIVE" mood the past two days. I think I'm just getting excited for all of the holidays. Last year I was very distracted by pregnancy and the excitement of being prego, so I missed a lot of holiday fun! This year I'm taking full advantage of being a stay-at-home mom and having some fun with
halloween, thanksgiving, and christmas!
I started yesterday by making these....these are supposed to be witches :)

these ones are Frankensteins :)

I was outside putting some spider webs up on the outside of the house.
Maddux was looking for me....Can you see him?

i love this picture...

Maddux...

Maddux has taken a serious liking to this red straw Drew gave him.

We took our first trip to the play area at San Tan Mall. He loved it, but you could tell he was SO jealous of the big kids walking around and climbing on things.

Here are two little videos of his progress with his "walking" skills. He doesn't quite understand yet to bend his knees, but he's getting there!

This hardly shows how cold and rainy it really was...but oh well...you get the idea!

We did it!

(due to the nonstop rain, and the fact that I couldn't find Brandis at the finish with the 6500 other runners and their families, this is the only picture I got. But hopefully I'll be able to snag some online soon enough!)

I can't believe it's over, but I actually finished myfirst marathon and LIVED! It was quite an adventure. My time was FAR from great, but all things considered, I LOVED it!

The day started by Brandis and I walking to the bus stop at 3:45am (St. George time, which is actually 2:45 our time). We rode the bus up to the starting line where we got out of the bus and froze almost instantly. We found a good place to attempt to hide from the wind and about 20 minutes later it started pouring (well, it was a constant drizzle, then pouring, then drizzle). Luckily they were handing out black garbage bags, so we tried to warm ourselves up with those as best we could. We had a two and a half hour wait until the race started so we made some friends while we all sat and froze together.

When the race started, most everyone was still wearing their garbage bags, it was quite a sight to see, and not at all how I pictured the start of a big marathon. It was pitch black, super windy and there were 6,500 people all squished together wearing black trash bags.

So here's how it went:

mile 1- amazing! a mile has never gone by so fast
mile 2-wow...another mile...
mile 3- can't feel my face through the cold and the rain- body feels good
mile 4- drop my trash bag, the rain starts penetrating my pants and sweatshirt
mile 5- drop my sweatshirt- rain starts penetrating my long sleeve t-shirt. pants are so heavy from the rain that I can't get them to stay up.
mile 6- left earbud on my headphones stops working due to the downpour! my ipod keeps chiming as if in warning that it's going to die! please don't die!!!!!
mile 7- freaking out because I can't find Brandis in the crowd around me. I know the big hill is coming
mile 8- OH MY GOSH...I HAVE TO RUN UP THAT?!!?!?!?!?!? then... "I'm never running another marathon again." I probably could have WALKED faster than I was running up this hill!
mile 9- dropped long sleeve t-shirt and my darn pants that kept falling off
mile 10- FREEZING. should have kept my clothes on. Can't feel any part of my body!
mile 11- the end of the killer hill, life seems bliss at this point!
mile 12- did I mention i was COLD??????
mile 13- this is the halfway point, i felt great! I couldn't believe it! took my first 45 second walking break
mile 14- great! my legs are frozen numb, I decided to take advantage of it and run as hard as I could for a couple miles. why not...I couldn't feel a thing.
mile 15- started trying to figure out when the next marathon is that I could sign up for.
mile 16-17- OW!!!!!! the downhill actually hurts worse than the uphill!
mile 18- took my second 45 second walking break. ate a banana (i HATE bananas...but it has NEVER tasted so good!)
mile 19- left earbud comes back to life, yay! but it's still raining (yes...it rained for 24.5 out of 26.2 miles)
mile 20- 22- people started appearing on the sides of the roads to cheer. i'm easily overcome by emotions and this got me all choked up!
mile 23- took my third and final 45 second walking break. called my mom to tell her I'd be done in 30 mins or so. my phone died before we could talk. awesome! no idea how or where to find her at the end.
mile 24-25- more people, more emotions, can't believe I'm almost done and I'm still alive!
mile 26- the street is PACKED with people on both sides of the road. They are cheering, holding signs, playing music, screaming, clapping, kids giving high 5's the whole way down, people handing out washcloths to wipe your face. COOLEST FEELING EVER!
26.2 - complete overwhelming emotion as I crossed the finish line. This was the first time the tears actually made it out of my eyes (not from pain, believe it or not, but overwhelming accomplishment). Got my big ol' medal then ate a giant ice cream sandwich in the freezing cold. wearing nothing but soaking wet short spandex and a paper thin tank top. wow...did i mention cold? very cold!?!?

My time was 4:37:56 and 70% of everyone who ran finished ahead of me, but since it was my first one, I'm trying not to let that get to me. I'm just dang proud to have met my goal of finishing alive!

PS- I can't walk today :)

PF Changs Rock N Roll Marathon is January 18th, 2009...
anyone? anyone?!!?!?!?

i completely forgot to write about this story from wednesday:

while in the waiting room at the pediatrician, i let maddux stand up and play with the big train table in the middle of the room. there were three other boys playing, all at least three years old. each of them was quietly playing with the trains and maddux was so excited to be standing there with the "big kids". he reached for one of the trains that a blonde haired boy was playing with. the kid snapped his hand back, put his hands on his hips and says to maddux,
"don't do that. i could beat you up!!! i'm bigger than you!!".
wow! should i have been mad? i was cracking up! maddux is looking at him super excited that the big kid is talking to him and gets a big grin on his face and continues his babbling, "ba ba da daba da".

so maybe it was only funny to me, but what is the world coming to?! three year olds threatening 9 month olds.

ps- blonde haired kid's mom was nowhere in sight!