Running
I've been "training" for a 5K the past two months. I basically haven't run since middle school track (and I was pathetic even back then), and it has been a learning experience. I can now run the full 3.1 miles on the treadmill in the basement, and I've done it a few times outside with hills, wind, hard pavement, onlookers. I am also super, SUPER slow. I want to go faster, but these legs of mine just become dead-weights. About three weeks ago, I twisted my knee and despite painkillers and taking an entire week off it stills hurts. We'll be running Memorial Day in my parents' ward, and I just hope to not get the "pity-cheer" at the end. I fear I'll have to walk most of it because of this silly knee. Sigh.
St Louis
I headed to St Louis the last week of April to see my youngest brother. He was home for one week between finishing his 2nd year at BYU and heading to Uganda for a summer internship. It was so fun to see him, and he even kept Collin twice while I went to my mom's new gym. He is now in Uganda (hopefully safe and sound).
I'm also headed to St Louis all next week. Ryan has to go to Madison Wednesday and Thursday of next week, and then he has an overnight scout training Friday night and all day Saturday. I figured there wasn't much reason to return to be home alone for the week, so I guess I'll just stay when he comes back Memorial Day afternoon.
Story Times
I'm kinda obsessed with finding story-times around town to take Collin too. My favorites, by far, are anything taught by Mrs. Melissa at the Dunlap library. Unfortunately, except for the once per month Saturday morning Book Babies class, she has canceled her drop-in Wednesday morning classes until September. Instead, I have found that the Lakeview library hosts a story time every other Monday morning through the summer, except for August. I've also attended Barnes & Noble's and Borders' story times, but I recommend neither. We've also attended story times at Peoria Heights library (now on hold for the summer) and the Butcher Block (only once and it was awful!). I like to think one day Collin will like books as much as I do.
Some perks of Story Times:
1- Free!
2- Scheduled activity to get out of the house each morning
3- New (non-LDS!) friends
New Calling
I've been called to teach the 7-year olds in Primary. That means I've been released from teaching Seminary. I've cried more than a few times, but I won't miss the early hour. Unfortunately, I'll terribly miss teaching every day and having an activity that reminds me of life before children. I'll also miss my teenagers. What good kids.
Ryan
Running
Ryan's been running for more than a year now. Last Spring he ran his first 5K in my parents' ward on Memorial Day. Two weekends ago he ran his first real organized race for Caterpillar. He got a new personal best time of 23 minutes. He sees himself doing a marathon one day, which I would never dream of. You go, babe! He's promised to run with me (aka SLOW) on Monday though. What a champ.
Seminary
Ryan also got released from Seminary-teaching. He isn't nearly as sad, seeing as he's only gotten to know the kids the last 5 months. We threw an end-of-the-year bbq last weekend for the Seminary kids. We bought a bunch of backyard games and roasted marshmallows. It was great.
He's been called to be the assistant varsity scout master. I already am starting to see how much time he'll be away from home: one Friday night and Saturday morning every month plus every Wednesday night.
Mother's Day Gift
Ryan made me the best Mother's Day gift of all-time. If you remember THIS (for my birthday last year) you'll know he likes to put a lot of time and effort into gifts. Believe it or not, he topped the movie! He made me an alphabet book in rhymes about about all the activities Collin and I do together. We are now in the process of getting it published. It is adorable, and Collin loves it too.
Tree Line
When we were house-hunting, we made a Wish List for our "perfect house." Two things we placed on the list were that it be a newer-build and have mature trees on the lot. Our realtor literally laughed at us. By some miracle, we found this house (only 5 years old) with this tree line out back.
We love that we don't look into anyone else's kitchen (or bedroom!) window. So the Tree Line has become quite the project. Our end-goal is to thin the trees out and plant grass among them, effectively visually connecting our little lot with the giant cultivated lawn behind us.
We have found that our wonderful mature trees are in fact hedgerow trees with 1/2 inch brutal thorns throughout. They also grow right next to each other in clusters. I'm sure it is VERY effective at keeping the cattle in the correct spot, but not such a plus when wanting to put a swingset among them.
Last year we removed the barbed wire fence and all the low-lying branches. This year we have gathered all the branches, cut down a few of the trees (thanks for a friend and his chainsaw), pulled 5 lawn bags of weeds, placed a temporary fire-ring in the midst, and laid some logs out for seats. It has a long way to come, but we are thrilled with our progress so far.
Gardening
Ryan is also working on building a new Bunny Guard for our garden. It is looking awesome, and hopefully it'll get done soon. We got our garden in the week before Mother's Day for Family Home Evening: green beans, soybeans, red peppers, onions, roma tomatoes, and some herbs. We're keeping it simple this year!
The pots have our tomato and herbs in them, and the garden is behind Collin. Yes, it is raining when this picture was snapped. He didn't want to come inside when it started raining, so I let him stay out and get all muddy. Then, of course, I plopped him in the bathtub.
Great Finds
Garage Sales
Ryan is becoming a great garage sale-r (in the absence of garbage). We've started attending garage sales on Saturday mornings. Ry drops Collin and I and the stroller off and we walk half the neighborhood while he drives and scouts out the rest. Then we call each other on the cell phones, discuss our finds, and return together to make purchases. We've gotten a new play gym with splash down pool and infant bike seat. Nice!
Garbage
We were out biking (using our new bike seat) last Monday night (Tuesday's trash day!), and we happened upon a plastic turtle sandbox (needs some cleaning and certainly has been well loved, but it'll work) and a new stainless grill (snazzy huh?). Not bad for free!
I snapped this picture to show what a great helper Collin is. He is obsessed with doing everything Daddy does, and he needs the tools too. I think it is so cute, though Ryan is starting to understand now why I can't ever get anything done.
Classifieds
I may have expressed my dismay with Peoria's Craig's List in the past, but we've found a new jackpot. Caterpillar has a site for listing items for sale that's only accessible to Cat employees. We've found that the quality is better, and the prices are pretty good too. In fact, this week we scored a bike trailer. We've been hunting for one since the summer before Collin was born, so we are thrilled with our "new" purchase. I take Collin out in it every morning. He seems to enjoy it.
We also scored this little plastic car. More than anything else, Collin likes to get in and get back out. He also likes to turn the steering wheel. I love watching him in it. He looks so grown up!
Collin
Running
Collin has indeed figured out that walking can be as fast as crawling. Though he gave up crawling entirely a few months ago, he was still teetering and quite a slow walker... until recently! Now he's running all over the place, and keeping his mother on her toes!
Cleaning
Collin LOVES to pick up. He picks up dirty clothes and puts them in the laundry baskets; he picks up his books and puts them in the bin; he puts his blocks in their bucket, and his balls in their bag; he even tries to hang up the dish rag when he pulls it down. I love it! I kid that he is better at picking up after himself than his father; unfortunately it isn't an exaggeration! The best part of it all is that I never ask him to do these things: he just sees something out of place, says "uh-oh" and puts it away. Tell me this will last forever!!!
He especially likes to walk around with the broom. I'm hoping he figures out how to use it real soon.
Shyness
Collin has been very shy since birth. Whenever we went to new places, he'd get real quiet and cling to my arm. Especially in really loud places, like the RiverPlex Preschool Splash, he'd take 30-45 minutes just to warm up to the people and the noises. It was horribly annoying, especially when I had to pay an entrance fee, that he'd just begin to realize that where ever we were could be fun, when the activity would be over and it was time to cleanup.
Fast forward to this month: Collin is sometimes the first person to get to the box of toys after the story time is over. The other day he rushed into the gymnasium at Motor Mites before I'd even paid for us and signed the disclosure. Ryan volunteered in the nursery for Mother's Day (we still have one month until Collin can go), and Collin pretty much ignored him the whole time. I've spent many hours worrying I wouldn't be able to leave him in there with the chaos, and then he grew up right before my eyes! Bring it on.
Talking
Collin jabbers a lot; in fact, he is pretty much always babbling about something. He says tons and tons of words too though, and he understands just about everything we say to him. I don't know when he picked up on all this stuff, but he certainly has. He loves animals and their sounds, and he likes being able to now tell us what he wants. What a smarty pants!
