'a' is for 'gator

how many alligators do you see??

on saturday, new year's eve, we met some friends down at brazos bend, otherwise known as "the alligator park." dun dun dun.

our first stop was the nature center:

after petting baby alligators and a snake, and looking at all of the skeletons and exhibits, we headed out of doors to seek the full grown beasts. we checked out a new look out: 

and gazed out:

then headed in our usual direction:

we quickly had our first sighting:

lucy kept her eyes peeled as we continued on:

the 'gators were out in full force:

one (to the far right)

two

most were younger, smaller alligators:

one

seven (four in the water, three on land)

but we did run into some bigger ones (well, not literally. they were across the water):

once we'd seen enough we packed up the tired kids:

and headed to a park for lunch. that finished, we went home, got cleaned up:

rented a movie, picked up some subway, had a picnic in the living room and rang in the new year with our snores. hope everyone has had a happy beginning to 2012 and that your new year's resolutions are a awesome as mine.

{yesterday}

i did this:

before:

about to start:

and 34 minutes, 3 seconds later:

don't mind the sick look on my face. i thought for a minute i was going to lose the little breakfast i had eaten but luckily for that volunteer cutting off my timing chip, i didn't. and the rain was much appreciated. no, really, it felt good.

p.s. i'm grover.

the [not-so] little engine that could

i did it. my very first 5k. and it was fun. wow. running = fun?! who'd've thought i'd ever say that and mean it? not me, that's for sure. even in my soccer days, distance running was a chore. well, i've conquered the beast. i can run 3.1 miles non-stop. this is nothing to some of you who read this blog, but it's huge for me. and i'm just going to keep going. anyway, back to today. i had signed up, with amanda, to run rice's flying owls 5k back in january. i used this training program to teach my body to run. i followed it pretty closely in the beginning but skipped ahead when it didn't feel like enough of a challenge. i got to the final week and that's when the most amazing thing happened. grant and i were running together one saturday and since i wasn't on a treadmill i was using my phone to keep track of how long i'd been running. about 5 songs in on my ipod, i was getting tired and wanted to see how much longer i had to run so i grabbed my phone, saw that i'd missed a call, tried to clear the alert and ended up clearing off my timer (still mad about that, amy. just so you know). i was so frustrated. i had no idea how long i had run and i wanted to stop but i wasn't sure if i'd done my time or if i was just giving in to my weak, burning calves. so i kept going.......and going......and then i saw that i was almost finished with the loop (we were running the memorial park loop) so i went for it. i almost cried when i finished. it felt awesome. three days later, i did another, slightly faster, 3 miles. i was feeling pretty cool. then three days after that, i barely managed a mile and a half. it was so depressing. five days passed with no attempt to run. finally, last sunday, amanda and i went for a 'practice' run. instead of running the actual course, we ran the outer gravel loop that surrounds the campus. it was a good run. we walked a couple times but ran most of it. encouraged, i looked forward to running again. but due to grant's unbelievable work load this week, i didn't get to run until thursday. oh boy, that was a great run. the first two miles were easy, i mean i was red-faced and sweaty but i was so energized. the last mile i really pushed myself and ran all out for as long as i could. it was a good stress relieving run, just what i needed. that brings us to yesterday, (sorry this is going on and on but this blog is how i keep track of things and this is my 'adult interaction' for the afternoon so bear with me. thanks.) yesterday amanda and i picked up our packets. i had a bit of a shock when i got my number:

i got a good laugh out of it. nerves weren't too much of a problem up until then. i had felt sick when i signed up in january and the feeling returned. i tried to pep talk it away and that kind of worked. this morning i woke up bright and early, ate a small bowl of raisin bran, guzzled some water and tried to ignore the butterflies. we left a tad later than i'd wanted, which made me crazy. i got upset with grant for trying to cheer me up and sat quietly sulking in the passenger seat wishing he'd drive faster. finally, we pulled into the parking lot where the race was to begin. i had ten minutes to spare. i quickly found amanda and checked in. pictures were taken:

and then we rushed to the end of the line mere moments before the fog horn sounded and the race began:

as soon as we started, the nerves disappeared and i had fun:

amanda and i did great for first timers. we walked a couple times, mostly because our poor legs weren't used to running on pavement, but ran at least 96.782351% of it. grant took pictures of the girls while he waited with matt and amanda's sister and husband. he got some good ones, as usual:

and then, finally, there we were:

al.....most.......there......

ta-daaa! we did it. amanda and i tied: our offical time 38:55. i am so proud of myself:

i thought i could. i'll be signing up for a couple more 5k's in the next month and i can't wait.

**update: grant just returned home from a school related conference with flowers and a card for me. he's been so encouraging of my transition from couch potato to psuedo-runner. he is so great. love you, muffin!

voilà, fini!

i finally finished my quilt! some of you may remember my post back in january where i listed my new year's resolutions. one of those was making a quilt. well, it only took 3 months to do a quilt that "you can complete......in just a day or two". i suppose, if you squished together all the hours i worked on it, it did take me a day or two. i decided way back while cutting out the squares, that i would make all of you live through the birthing of this quilt. I've learned a lot, mostly what not to do and i need to write it out so the next quilt i make goes more smoothly. here it goes: lesson #1: cut the blocks of fabric into squares. it is difficult to sandwich pieces together that aren't the same shape. i had many issues with wonky shapes that didn't/couldn't go together. lesson #2: don't over think the placement of the blocks. i spent literally hours trying to find the 'right' order for the smaller blocks. i'm happy with the way i did it. it was the first that i tried and i should have stopped there.lesson #3: sew straight seams. (disclaimer: this only works when you have straight edges in the first place.)lesson #4: discourage little helpers from pressing the pedal while fabric or fingers are in the way. (in case you're wondering, no i didn't have any of my fingers sewed by lucy, but not for lack of trying on her part.)lesson #5: once you lay it out, don't get cocky and think you'll finish in an hour or two. because you will have a breakthrough idea that will cause this:can you see it? that's right, i sewed a whole row on the wrong way. this set me back quite a while. at first, i just didn't want to pick all of the stitches out, so i hid the quilt for about a week before i faced up to my mistake. my first mistake is visible in that picture too. did anyone spot it? here's a closer picture of it:i missed one layer of the sandwich and didn't want to fix it properly. if i had known i was going to be picking out a longer seam, i probably would have done it right. oh well.
lesson #6: much like #5, don't get cocky once you've sewed all together. it took me two separate days, spaced a week apart, to cut the seam allowances (don't i sound like i know what i'm talking about). my fancy spring loaded clippers couldn't cut through the 6 layers of flannel so i had to use my regular fabric scissors. my hands bear the marks. i took pictures of the blisters/scars, but my hands looked kind of freaky and i didn't want to scare anyone.

here it is. all washed and raggedy. just in case anyone wants the instructions on how to make a beautiful quilt like this, click here.

i'm resolute in my resolutions....maybe.

so last night i had the hardest time falling asleep. not because i wasn't tired, but because i couldn't stop thinking. i hate when i get all ambitious in my thoughts. i lose sleep and get frustrated when i can't do all of the wonderful things i imagined. yes, i imagine marvelous things at night, only to find in the harsh reality of day that those marvelous things are not going to happen. well last night, something got me thinking about new year's resolutions (rachel's post, perhaps?) and i thought 'hey, if i was going to make some resolutions, what would they be?' not what you want to be thinking about at 10 pm when you're lying in bed exhausted. anyway, i came up with a few and got myself all worked up thinking of how great and productive i'm going to be this year, then it all came crashing down. 'i have two kids and no real motivation to do anything beyond getting them and myself dressed, which didn't even happen yesterday [yes, we stayed in our pj's all day long]! this doesn't bode well for my resolutions...' at this point falling asleep was looking more and more distant, so i gave myself a pep talk, 'this is the year, you're going to do everything you want.....' after a couple minutes of mental cheerleading, i found my solution: 'blog it! if i immortalize it in the blog, i will feel more need to accomplish it. brilliant!!' so here's the list (in no particular order), some are blindingly obvious and even a little embarrassing to admit, but that is part of the reason i'm blogging about it, right?

• i want to be more spiritual, so i'm going to try to pray and read the scriptures everyday. grant and i are trying to do this a night before bed, but i also need to do these things on my own.
• i will exercise more consistently, eat better and just be healthier in general (i.e. lose weight).
• i'm going to be more supportive to grant while he's in school. i won't just dump the kids on him once he's home. i'll try to have dinner ready most nights and the apartment picked up.
• you'll like this one, mom. i'm going to learn to sew. i'm actually going to use the sewing machine you got me 2 or 3 years ago and i'm going to make things. my first project is going to be a rag quilt, i even looked them up online and found some instructions that i kind of understand.
• i'm going to be more organized. everything will have it's place.
• my main goal, which will kind of decide the fate of all the others, is to be less lazy. i am going to use my time more productively.

well, there you have it. my new year's resolutions. i hope i didn't bite off more than i can chew...

our happy new year

hazel started her celebration with coloring. she is very good. she colors each individual picture, rather than just scribbling all over. she doesn't stay in the lines but is otherwise very neat.
after that we all packed up and headed over to nanny and granddad's house for a night of games. i suppose i should say game as most of the family was content to play speed scrabble the whole night. some of us however moved on to clue (the dvd version, very fun), and imaginiff (also very fun). lucy decided to spend her time reaching a new milestone:she can sit all by herself! (if you balance her just right) very exciting! the girls were worn out by the time we left. i've never noticed that they both sleep with their mouths open:

today is lucy's 6-month old birthday! my how time flies.

happy new year!

have fun and be safe.