Road Runner

I don't think I need to say again how much I dislike running.  But I will.

 I would give anything to be one of those people that find it therapeutic and comes easy.  Like I have said before, it is just not in the stars.  I have always been one of the fastest sprinters growing up compared to most (well, not the track team lol), my big buns muscles and thighs help with that, but that is only for short sprints.  Anything longer than that, the excess muscle just becomes weight that pulls me down.  Plus my torso is abnormally long...those singlet swimsuits rarely fit me...which is just excess weight that doesn't help in the running process.


Andy, on the other hand, is a fabulous runner.  He will be the first to admit that he isn't in the best shape of his life right now, but he has been running 4-5 miles each day the past week.  If someone told me to run 5 miles when I wasn't in top shape, I'd just assume it was a joke.  Heck, even now I would laugh at you and I have been chubbier.  When he was a bit skinnier though, he ran a half marathon last minute with no training, in classic k-swiss (not running shoes) in a respectable 1:47.  I don't even think I could walk that far hahaha!  


Thank God, I think Sawyer got Andy's structure.  He takes off running up our street any chance he gets.  He will go several times too.  I don't even run up our hill, I start our jogs at the top.  A couple days ago he took off running around our neighborhood.  He ran .43 miles straight (I checked runningmap.com) with his tiny little legs.  His entire leg length is less than a foot.  I'm a bit impressed actually.

Lately I have joined Andy on a few jogs.  I was watching the International Hooters Swimsuit competition on tv the other day (don't judge me, a friend from high school was in it) and I want a butt like that lol.  It was good motivation.  He got new running shoes the other day, and I decided I needed some too since mine were heavy and old and dirty, and I want to get some that aren't white so they'll last longer.  I went today and got some.  Well, we ended up with the SAME SHOES! His are just orange where mine are pink.

They aren't the cutest ones there, but they are so soft and feel like clouds.  I am so thrilled.  Even though Andy fell asleep and could barely keep his eyes open, and I had some pretty gnarly cramps going on that was keeping me on the couch (sorry tmi) we went to try them out tonight.  I am proud to say we ran 2.5 miles!  The farthest I've gone yet around here!  We have a little route around our neighborhood, and if you make loops, you can go pretty far with the jogging stroller since there are sidewalks out to meridian. Unfortunately there aren't sidewalks to the library, so Andy goes that way only when he is on his own.

I am accepting that I will never be a "good" runner.  I'm not making some crazy goal to run 15 miles or anything, but I am going to keep working on it and maybe it will come a little easier to me some day, and I can have a Hooter girl butt!  Andy, on the other hand, has signed up for a half marathon this September and has a solid goal.  You can bet I'll be there too...at the finish line cheering him on!

Soccer Mom

Today I became a soccer mom.  Sawyer had his first day of soccer camp today!  Andy was so excited that it started at age 2, so he signed him up.  I was nervous all day since the age group was 2-3 1/2, which is a huge maturity difference, but was ok because it would be Andy taking him each time since I work too late.

Since he turned 2 last week, he was definitely the youngest.  Andy said they were all probably 3.  He said he did ok though.  All the dads were running with the kids.  They had to run to the different flags and practice doing it with the balls.  Andy said he had never been prouder when Sawyer started dribbling the ball perfectly!  He started to get worn out though so by the time he got his video camera out, he didn't do that well with the ball lol.  My dad even showed up to watch and help.

He said at the end they had to practice kicking the ball into the goal.  Sawyer was first.  The other kids started chanting his name and Sawyer ran over, picked up the ball, and THREW it in the goal LOL.  Oh well, I'm sure even David Beckham wasn't perfect at age 2.


Here he is running to the flags.


Here he is kicking the ball with my dad a few times after he was super worn out.

2 year check-up

I already posted a much more exciting blog today, but Sawyer just had his 2-year check-up and I didn't want to forget to post about it :)

Today he got to stand on the big person scale, and stand up to measure instead of the lay-down ones. What a big boy!  He is 35 inches and 29 lbs. 70% for both... though both of those with his little shoes on holding some toy cars ;)

The last time he was at the doctor for the flu a couple weeks ago, he screamed and cried so much when they checked his ears and lungs- it was so sad.  That was the walk-in clinic downstairs. Our doctor is awesome and before she checked his ears, she showed him the flashlight and  how it could check the toy cars.  He actually smiled when she checked his ears!

He also got shots today.  I was afraid.  He needed 2 shots because he didn't get his 18 month ones yet. We held his arms down but he didn't seem to mind.  He got pricked and gave us all a very concerned look.  The second one he made a little "ehhh" noise, but when we told him he did so well and put on the "stickers" (band-aids) he was really happy.  What a relief!  No more shots until kindergarten!  I was so proud of him! I tried to surprise him and get him some fries, but he fell asleep before we got home.  Oh well.

Go M's

Yesterday we headed straight after work up to Seattle for a Mariner's game.  We actually forgot we had even bought the tickets because Joe (Kyndyl from Andy's work's husband) was selling them from his baseball team.

The weather wasn't too bad.  It was warm enough.  We found a pretty good parking spot too (we never pay for parking for sporting events lol).  We were sitting right between Kyndyl and Joe and Leslie and Krissy so we had a lot of help for Sawyer too.  He was actually pretty well behaved.  We let him climb around a little though because there were a lot of empty seats.  He even got sucked in the folding seat once, it was so funny!  Sawyer loved clapping along and doing the wave.  I enjoyed that it started sprinkling a little towards the end so they closed the roof of Safeco Field, I don't remember ever seeing that before during a game :)

Sawyer got hidden

I've had that hat since like '95 hahaha

Ball game with dad

He sat by Leslie half the time

Closing the roof!

Doing the wave!!!  

Whats a sal-ad?

We made a really good meal today and I am pretty sure it is healthy (ish)!  (Yes, I actually helped cook something hehe) It was delicious.

I don't think the picture did it justice, but this taco salad was huge.  This is a full sized plate, and it was pretty high up.  It had...

-All sorts of leafy greens fresh from the farm (and some purplish ones).  No clue what they were, but I know some of them were spinach. It was a huge pile

-A drizzle of ranch I made (this was not healthy because it had a bunch of mayo in it but I didn't use much) It was good though, It is a cup of mayo, a tbsp of hidden valley ranch powder mix, 1/2 cup milk, 1/4 tsp pepper, 1/8 tsp paprika, and 1/8 tsp garlic powder. Mix with a whisk and let it sit for a long time in the fridge (at least an hour)

-beef

-Pinto beans

-Pico de gallo that Andy made (I surprised him and picked up the ingredients at Tacoma boys, plus used our farm cilantro)  which just included tomatoes, onion, yellow pepper, and cilantro

-Cheese

-A couple tortilla chips crumbled


Also on the health topic today:

-Andy ran 4 miles this morning.

-He got cool new running shoes today, then we ran about a mile together

-I got a diaphragm cramp and made us stop early.  I looked it up, I think the fact that I am not a runner, just ate, and just drank a ton of coke caused it....oops hehe


On a not health topic:

-Andy got some new shirts (on sale), I got a couple new shirts (on clearance), and Sawyer got some flip flops (adorbs)

-I tried a new (to me) candy bar today, toblerone.  It is kind of fun.  I only ate 2 pieces so far though.

-Pride was today but the weather was supposed to be sketchy and we didn't want to deal with parking so we didn't go :(  I am kind of sad, but Andy just wanted a relax day for once, and we have to go to Seattle tomorrow anyway.

A very good day with Portland adventures

We woke up bright and early (yuck) today to get to a 7's tournament in Portland.  We were out the door at 7:30.  To be more precise, it was about 20 minutes past Portland.  Andy had to put the jerseys in the dryer so we left a little later than we had wanted.  Oh well. "Rugby time"

We drove through rain the whole way down and I was a bit nervous.  We pulled up and it was only sprinkling a bit, but Sawyer got to put his rain jacket and boots (sirens colors) on and take advantage of the puddles at the pitch.  It was good timing because he started to get cranky about 5 minutes before and was saying "ALL DONE!" trying to get out of his seat. The rain stopped soon after and held out the whole time- yay!

We didn't do so great, but better than last tourney.  I don't know why our 7's sides are so bad when we dominate in 15's.  I don't think I have any major bruises this time, but I jammed my finger.  I did 2 things I've always wanted to though 1. Get tackled, post the ball, then pick my own ball up and run before any ruck forms 2. Held up a big girl in the try zone so they didn't score (she was going down to post the ball and I rolled her back on top of me). So cool!  Sawyer was a hit as usual and everyone wanted to play with him the whole time.

Me and Leslie

We were out by 1:30 and headed to Portland.  I wanted to try the "Waffle Window" a friend of ours has talked about.  Have you been to Portland?  It is weird. The people are weird.  It is kind of awesome.  Everything is "green" and they even have bike lanes.  If you are still curious, watch the TV show "Portlandia" with Fred Armesan.  Accurate.  We found a parking spot in the middle of a popular street and headed to get some waffles.  We ordered two of "the whole farms" (Pepper bacon, mushroom, spinach, roasted pepper, tomato and marinated chevre according to the website) ... a "razzle dazzle" (fresh raspberries with whip and lemon glaze), and a blueberry cheesecake.  To drink Andy had a green tea lemonade, and I had a basil blackberry lemonade which sounds weird but was AHHMAZING.  

Sawyer stole a bite while Andy went to the bathroom hehe

 It started to rain pretty hard while we were there, but we were nice and dry under the tent.

Andy was a gentleman as usual and brought the car around so we wouldn't have to walk in it and we took a picture.

I wanted to maybe hit up the farmers market which is pretty great downtown, but the rain, my sore foot, and full stomach changed my mind.  Shopping around food never sounds as awesome when you are full.  We instead headed over the river to Vancouver.  Andy's grandma had recently broken a few bones when she tripped and was staying in a nursing facility to heal.  They are from Utah but recently bought another house in Vancouver, and were up visiting when she got hurt.  Sawyer wasn't thrilled to be stuck in the little room and ran off escaping quite a few times.  We had a good visit with grandma and grandpa Monson though, and they get a hoot out of Sawyer.  He had fun pushing the walker around.

The drive home was a little scary at times because of the rain that was coming down hard.  We managed to see a double rainbow though...actually, the bottom rainbow was a double rainbow, and the one above it was single, so we saw 3!  Hard to tell in the phone camera though.

Sawyer slept half the way back, and the other half he did silly things like rip apart the paper in the dvd case, and eat his shoes.

We got back at like 6:30 and went to drop Janelle (our babysitter's) money off at their new house.  IT IS SO CLOSE!  I am SOOOO excited, I am saving like 30 minutes every morning because she moved like 3 stoplights away (which is on my way to work) instead of downtown and they are getting a nice house so he can play in the fenced yard and the neighborhood playground instead of just their apartment! YAY!

We got back and Sawyer ran up and down the street as usual.  Then we made some of the most delicious steak from Tacoma Boys (bistro steak).  MMMMMMMmmmmmm.  Such a good day!!!

Veggin'

We joined a CSA share with my parents.  CSA is community supported agriculture, and basically you pay a bunch of money to a farm, and you get a box of produce each week for 18 weeks.  It helps the farms out, and you get stuff straight from the farm that is grown organic.  It is pretty pricey to go on your own and is supposed to feed a family of 4 for a week, so we went half-sies with my parents and just split what they put in the box.  Last week we got our first share.

I wanted to join because I don't really like vegetables, and wanted a reason to eat them.  I also wanted to try new things and new recipes.

Our first one had lettuce (which we used at Sawyer's party), other leafy things like kale, bok choy, artichokes, carrots, bean pods, some weird half onion half garlic thing, and more things I can't remember.  Yesterday we finally got around to eating some stuff.

Andy grilled up the carrots with a way he found online.  You boil them to make them soft, grill them, and paint butter on them.  They were pretty good!

I don't cook at all but was still hungry so I decided to attempt vegetables.  I threw cut up bok choy and bean pods in a pan with e.v.o.o., curry powder, ginger powder, and soy sauce.  I had no idea what I was doing and since we had so many vegetables I thought I could stand to waste them if they weren't good.  Lucky me, they were cooked perfectly, and the taste was ok.  The veggies themselves were pretty good apart from the leaves of the bok choy staining my rubber band yellow on my braces :(

Here is what we got today:

This is a bunch of lettuce (the good kind), more leafy green things like kale, beets, carrots, bean pods, scallions, a twisty stem looking thing that is garlic flavor (weird), spinach, basil, cilantro, and mint.

I think I am going to have a grand taco salad soon.  I am trying to make GOOD salad dressing from a restaurant copycat recipe since I hate salad unless it is at a steak house haha.  I am excited to eat a bunch of new recipes this summer!  I picked up a few more things at Tacoma Boys (which Sawyer insisted on carrying the delicate tomatoes and pepper and BOUNCED them off the floor around the store) and Safeway, which by the way I am willing to pay more for stuff because Sawyer behaves so well when he is driving the little car-carts around Safeway.  Everyone around was laughing as he tried to steer in there.

Hopefully we can eat something tasty after my tournament in the rain tomorrow haha!

Birthday Soccer

Yesterday was Sawyer's birthday.  He cried for 5 minutes when I didn't let him have a cupcake that morning (we had to leave that minute and I wasn't about to let a 2 year old eat a cupcake in the car) so Andy was nice and stopped by Jubilee Cupcakes after work after I told him about having to hear Sawyer cry "cuuuuuuupcaaaaaaake waaaaaaa" in the car.

There was a Sounders game, but we didn't want to leave Sawyer on his birthday.  We knew what we were getting into.  The thing about Sounders games is that everyone stands the whole time, so we knew we would be holding him or he wouldn't be able to see anything.  He actually did very well.  Normally he is saying "ALL DONE!" after we hold him for only a few minutes, but I think he realized that everyone was standing still so he couldn't run around.  He even started to get tired and rested his head on us.  It was pretty fun, and he looked so cute.

Happy Birthday Sawyer!

Two

Sawyer's second birthday is in just a couple hours.  I cannot believe it!  He has changed so much this last year, and I love the little man he is turning into.

Here is what he is like now, and some of his favorites:

Food: He is kind of picky now, unless you get him at the right time.  We usually can't feed him until he comes and tells us he is "hungy" or he won't eat much.  He rarely turns down tomatoes, eggs, or broccoli though...or candy ;)

TV shows: He loves Super Why and Little Einsteins, and loves to do the moves they do, say the things they say every episode with them, and answer their questions. He also likes Curious George, Sesame Street and Cat in the Hat.

Movie: Cars. and Cars 2. and Mater's tall tales.  Mostly Cars 2.  He always tells me the parts coming up.  Yesterday he wasn't even watching at the beginning when the car fell off the oil tower, but he said "Whoaaaaaaaaaaaaaa CRASH!" in perfect timing.

Activities: Puzzles, catch (he is actually finally starting to catch the ball now haha), running (he will run up and down the street forever, or around the kitchen island), reading, driving his cars, bubbles, stickers

Phrases: He always says "awwww man!" or "ohhh noooo" if he drops something (so cute), and he likes "cheers" except when he says it, it is like "kiss" because he thinks the cups (or food) is kissing

Mannerisms:
-He knows where we are in the car and yells "Gama! Gampa!" if we turn into their neighborhood, and "Home!" when we are by ours.
-He always counts the stairs up to 10, then goes to what sounds like "eighteen, eighteen, eighteen"
-He randomly runs in place really hard if he is happy
-He has to show off all his food or drinks to whoever is around before eating it, ex: MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY (what?) JUICE! sip sip
-He stands on things that shouldn't be stood on
-When he wakes up, he often just plays forever by himself and we don't know he's awake until we check
-He hits when he is angry, mainly his own leg
-When I pull out my camera or phone he stops whatever he's doing and says "cheeeeese"
-He jumps allllll the time.
-He likes to sit right next to you, as close as possible
-He doesn't like changing his shirt
-He is in the "see?" and "what's that?" stage
-He gets an attitude when it is time for bed, but goes down well once we set him in his crib

Growing:  He is getting better at coordination- he can throw pretty well, jump, and run, and can balance and line up things.  He knows a lot of words or phrases and asks when he doesn't "what's that?" then repeats it.  He is not saying sentences yet, but is starting to put 2 words together a lot more.  Still not potty trained lol but he likes to wear character underwear. He has started to help clean up. He doesn't know the "alphabet" but if he sees the letters QWRTYUOPASFHKLXVBM he knows them and loves to point them out where he sees them.  Only the capital versions though.

It is so weird that he acts like a person now, but we just love him! He is so goofy.  The only thing I'd want to change is that he didn't like playing with my phone so much hehe.

Turning 2 Cars Party

Yesterday was Sawyer's 2nd birthday party!  

We don't really have a lot of extra time, but I didn't want to miss his birthday.  We started getting stuff Wednesday, I had practice Thursday, so we only  had time to set things up Friday and Saturday before the party.  We were up super late on Friday trying to decorate things and clean up the house.

Saturday morning was nuts. First thing, Andy runs to the store but forgets balloons.  I took off after my shower and it was hot and muggy.  I parked between Party City and Target because our box of strawberry cake mix we thought we had in the pantry had vanished and we had only bought one more on Wednesday.  I carried a wiggly Sawyer to Target and just let him run the store in socks because I was sweating already.  Then we had to hit up Party City on.....graduation day.  I didn't know it was and we were stuck in a huge line.  We get to the front and they said they couldn't blow any more balloons up for at least another 3 hours because of how many orders they already took.  I just bought them flat and decided to fill them up at my work.  Thank God my work is in the same parking lot and we have a helium tank!  We were not so lucky that I was super sweaty and I didn't bring Sawyer any shoes.  A quick trip took well over an hour :(

We got home, baked, and made all our snacks, as well as finished decorating right on time as people showed up.  Andy cleared out the garage so that our funny old couch was like a second living room in there where the grill was.  I guess the good thing about graduation weekend is that not everyone could show up.  Though we wanted to see everyone we invited, we could never have fit that many people in our house!  Sawyer had so much fun with his friends and family, and everything turned out so good.  I'm glad we could pull everything together in just a few hours!  We planned it perfectly so that Sawyer would just wake up from his nap.  He and Renner jumped around so much that I swore he was going to need a second nap, but nope, the 3 cupcakes and various other sweets must have done the job because he didn't fall asleep until like 10 as usual.

Since all Sawyer lives and breathes is Disney's Cars, naturally we had to have his birthday themed as such.  We had the movies playing and made themed food.

The sodas were Rust-eze like Lightning McQueen's sponsor

"Fillmore's oranic fuel"

I didn't want to attempt a cake, so we made cupcakes

yum. I need to make these again

Stoplight scotcheroos

I stacked the donuts like tires for Luigi's Casa Della Tires

There's a "Flo's V8 Cafe" sign below the balloons.  Also the juice boxes had cars characters on them

Ramone's house of body art....stickers that Sawyer loved to put on his cheeks

There were random cars on the walls throughout the house

Renner and my dad became good buddies yesterday

Andy manning the grill

They looked like brothers, it was so cute

Renner, Carter, and Sawyer

Singing "happy birthday"

He figured out how to blow it out. I forgot to teach him before hand

He finally got to ride his power wheel and he LOVED it!

I think he had like 2 1/2 of these scotcheroos , OY!