New Pics

I know most of you (all three of you who read this!) have already seen these pics, but I just wanted to post them on here for fun! And these are kind of old, need to upload some new ones of my curly-headed babyface! Yes, it's true - her head is full of curls! Max has curly hair, as does my mom, brother AND dad. I know lots of kiddos get curly hair and it goes straight, but I do believe Lola will have better hair than her mother. Good for her!

We cut her bangs!

This is her Camo hat!

Her and Paw-Paw.

This is her mean-face.

Her sweet face.

That's it for now. I'll have to get those new, updated pics up here soon. She just keeps getting cuter and cuter!!

6's

So, it's been a crazy couple of weeks. After the move and dealing with all of the crap that moving entails, it's finally starting to get back to normal around the house. Almost. We still have a set of boxes to unpack and still some organizing and cleaning to do, but for the most part, the house is starting to come together.

Got the running back on track last week, which felt nice. Throw in some nice Houston weather and it was amazing. Did my fastest 6-miler on Saturday morning, not as cool of a morning that I was hoping for, but still nice. Completed 6.35 miles in 69 minutes. I hope I can re-create that time this weekend at the Monster Mash 10K. Ultimately my goal is to beat my mom's 10K time of 72 minutes that she did this weekend. She will be there to cheer on me & Monique, but she's not running this one. But, I do totally want to beat her time so I can brag! I'm excited about that.

I also realized that my times are much better when I run at night. I guess the sun really puts a damper on my morning runs. I think I feel more energized in the evening than so in the AM. I only wish they held races at night. That would be sweet.

Sicko

So, after about 2 weeks of feeling like crapola, I am finally starting to feel better. Got some antibiotics to take care of the nasty bacterial infection in my chest/throat, and besides a little bit of GI issues from the antibiotics, I am almost back to normal! It sucks being sick when having to stress about moving, packing, bathroom remodel that didn't finish on time, no hot water in the house, etc, etc. The silver lining is that we are all moved in to the "new" house. Unpacked? That's another story. Max won't let me hang anything on the walls because he says they're old and any screws/nails/thumb tacks that I may put in could fall on the floor and Lola could eat them. Yes, his exact words. So...I am at his mercy when it comes to getting everything done. And he's pretty busy at work, making a certain someone's wedding cake! So, hopefully after he is done being a baker man, he will get on the next project of getting the house up to par.

All I know is that I am going to save as much money as possible in order to save up for a house so when we move again, it will be for GOOD. I am so over this renting stuff. I mean, it has it's perks. Not tied to any one area, the whole new-ness thing, oh, and not having to come up with thousands of dollars for a down payment! But, I know that it is best for us, in the end, and I will be much happier and content when I can say that I am a full-fledged home-owner. And just in case you didn't know, that is the ONLY reason we decided to move to this, my grandmother's rental house. It still needs tons of work...the bathroom was just the beginning. Is it sad that I am already looking forward to moving out!? Haha. In due time...

And now that I am feeling better and that we are done with the move, AND we have hot water, I will be making a trip out to Memorial again to start to prepare for my 10K coming up in 17 days. Went on Saturday with the nice, brisk weather. It was a GREAT run. I absolutely love running in cold weather. So, Saturday was a breeze (pardon the pun). 4.5 miles, 47 minutes...good stuff.

Oooohh, and another thing - I'm getting my hair colored on Thursday! Yay. It's seriously been way too long. I need to keep this whole keeping up with my hair-color on my to-do list. So it gets done more than once every 6 months. That's just redonk.

Toddler-dom

So, after this weekend, I can say that I truly feel like the mother of a toddler. Friday & Saturday, while Max was at the new house, painting and finishing the floors, me and Lola spent some valued mommy & baby time together. Friday, I got home at around 5:00, and since it was somewhat nice outside, I decided to get on my running clothes and head out to Memorial. I haven't taken Lola for a run in quite some time. Mainly because she can't seem to sit still for the 30 minutes it takes me to round the track and she starts screaming halfway through the run. I just feel bad for her, being locked in the stroller and feeling miserable. I am going to try, try, try to get her to like it again. So, instead of going around the track we visited the little playground there. It is a really cool playground, and she absolutely loved it. Of course, it was full of older kids, so she was kind of banished to the little slide and climbing through one of the tunnels. She had a blast, though. She loved the slide! And then we went to the swings and she swang until her eyes started getting droopy - it was almost bedtime. So, back to the house for dinner and a bath. She was a perfect angel for me all evening. I love those nights - no fussiness, just a bunch of cuddles and smiles.

Saturday, we had a huge day planned. I woke up at 5:00 AM and headed out for a run. Then, it was back to Lola. We had breakfast with Daddy and then he was off to Home Depot and the other house. She fought taking a nap, while running around the house with her blankie. She watched cartoons, watched me (and kind of helped) with some packing. And then it was time to go to Gymboree for a gym class! We ventured over to Gymboree a time before for a toddler music class. She enjoyed it, for about 15 minutes and then all she wanted to do was run around and play. So, I figured, okay, may be a bit active to sit down in a circle for 45 minutes and listen to direction. They offer gym classes, with early gymnastic-type activities. Focuses on balance, coordination, etc. They have balance beams, bars, mats, slides, tunnels. SO...off to the bank, stopped by to see Daddy and then headed over to Gymboree. Well, by the time we got there, she was fast asleep. She woke up at 6 AM, and did not take a nap, which was highly needed by 11:30 am. I was hoping that she would get a few z's in prior to the class, just so she wouldn't be a jerk, but nope. I just couldn't bear to wake her from her slumber upon arrival. It was a trial class, so I figured that I would just re-schedule for a few weeks later. Then we headed over to my mom's house to drop off a few boxes of baby items that we may need again one day. I took the long route, through Alief (ack!), to allow her some more sleepy time. I think she appreciated it. She was a happy baby when she awoke and we were at Granma's house. She ate lunch, played with the dog and ran around for a while. Then we headed back home and stopped by the grocery store. We stole a few balloons from a Mexican Food display, and darted out of there. Back to the house and she finally went down for a good nap in her bed. After her nap, it was back to running around, and me chasing her. Finshed about 4 loads of laundry, cleaned the kitchen, got dinner ready, packed a few more boxes and got to sit down for about 10 minutes.

All in all, it was a great weekend. By the end of Saturday night, I was completely drained. I finally got to relax after she went to bed, and I said to myself, "So this is what having a toddler is all about."

Sunday, we woke up and did it all over again.