Hugs!

Sydney is officially 15-months so she had her check up the other day. Her stats: head - 18.5 in. (80th%), weight - 22.13 lbs. (39th%), height - 33.46 in. (99th%). Yep! She's super tall! Every time I go to the ped, the doctor always wants to measure her again because she doesn't think the nurse got it right. But, Sydney's just tall!

Wes is still a little bit taller than her - as you can tell from the pictures - but he probably won't be for too much longer. She's already wearing 18-month clothes and Wes is still wearing 2Ts. But he's growing, too! :)

Sydney can say a bunch of words and has started to combine words too. A common thing we hear when she's upset is, "Daddy back!" She says, "Up pease, dah," when she wants to be picked up by mom or dad. For some reason she rarely says "Mommy" anymore. She just calls me "dah or daddy" too. She loves bananas ("nanna") and downs them so quickly we hardly have time to sit down before she wants more. She also loves apples ("app-pull") and water ("wah-doo"). She loves animals, especially dogs.

I love watching Sydney and Wes together. Wes is a great big brother and he absolutely loves his little sister. Yesterday Sydney was crying after her nap and Wes would say, "I just need to go get Sydney, Mom." This is a common thing. He always misses her when she's napping, wants to go get her when she wakes up, and help her when she's upset.

I'm starting to feel sort of like I have twins simply because we now have to have two of everything: two sippy cups, two suckers, two books. Whatever it is, it now comes in twos since the older they get, the more similar their stages become. Wes is definitely a lot more conversational, but Sydney sure does want to do everything her big brother does! They also do great playing together. Sometimes it's in the basement (I always want to have a play area for the kids away from me!) or sometimes they're chasing each other, but it always gives me a great break!

Can you tell I love my kids and even having them so close in age? I'm one lucky mommy!

Cowtown Countdown - 7 Weeks to Go

Instead of week after week of cold, snowy pictures, I thought I'd put a picture of some hot chilies which are common in Texas. Mostly, I just thought it was a fun and bright picture - very unlike the white-wash we have going on here in Michigan.

Monday's run went well. I was still in Utah (which already feels like forever ago) and I just went out by myself for a quick run. We flew home Tuesday, so I went out with Jonelle on Wednesday to do our tempo run. It's always a little bit of a challenge to run over the uneven terrain of some plowed and some not-plowed sidewalks. We survived it though!

On Thursday, I was supposed to do two miles, but ended up doing six. I wanted to make up for some that I had missed from the previous week. I felt like it'd be hard to go from two miles to Saturday's 20-miler. Plus, a 2-miler would take less than 20 minutes and that didn't feel like much. I probably should have decided before I headed out the door though, because Brian thought I was going two and when I didn't come back for a while, he started to get worried. Oops! I was happy to know he cared though! :)

Saturday's 20-miler was interesting. It was really cold (so what else is new?) when we started out and we made a mistake of running over some really bad not-plowed super bumpy snow. So I had the "brilliant" idea of just using our complex's treadmills and running four miles on the treadmill and then doing a mile outside so we wouldn't get bored. Jonelle was a super supporter so she agreed to give it a shot. Wasn't gonna happen. I can't believe I used to do all my running on a treadmill (in college). No wonder I always hated running!

We got a mile and a half in on the treadmill and then between running to and from Jonelle's house to get workout room keys and drop them off, and our original false-start, we'd already logged over two miles before we finally started our 20-miler. (Don't worry, we counted the treadmill and false-start in our final mileage.) We learned our lesson for next time though! It's so much better to run outside in 15-degree weather than to run on a treadmill. Crazy? Maybe.

So the run ended up being fairly nice. It was sunny, which makes it feel warmer (to my subconscious) even though it's technically colder than when it's cloudy. I carried a water bottle as I ran and within the first 8 miles there were already ice chunks in it. I'm starting to get really excited for Cowtown though, because I keep thinking how easy it will feel after running so many miles in the snow! Our legs are probably getting super buff as we try to navigate all the ice, snow and uneven terrain. I guess it's probably similar to trail running. Luckily, we don't have too many hills, but it's pretty sweet when we hit a stretch of paved sidewalk that's downhill. I always feel like I could go forever like that!

But, we conquered it. It was a slower pace than we were "supposed" to run, but with all the snow we had to run over, we're pretty forgiving of ourselves! I think we're both pretty much going to hate the snow after this winter. It's a good thing next winter we'll both be living in relatively snow-less areas of the country (her: California, me: North Carolina)!

Weekly Goals

Monday: 3 miles at 8:41 /mi

Wednesday: 4 miles at 7:37 /mi (w/ 1 mile warm and cool)

Thursday: 2 miles at 8:41 /mi

Saturday: 20 miles at 8:41 /mi

Outcome

Monday: 3 miles at 8:07 /mi

Wednesday: 4 miles at 7:36 /mi

Thursday: 6 miles at 7:58 /mi

Friday: 20 miles at 9:06 /mi