And the Hallelujah Chorus Sings!

Today I have something to be truly thankful for! Last night Rylee went to bed at 9:30 and slept till 6. 6!!!! I nearly cried with joy. I know, she is 14 months old. She should be sleeping through the night. I know she shouldn't need to nurse 2-3 times a night. Unfortunately, Rylee never got that memo and refused to believe me.

Dan and I have been plotting various ways to get her sleeping better, but I realized I was not at the point of desperation to make her cry it out. So I have been living with it and hoping it would get better. Last week I began to pay more attention to how often she ate during the day and how often she nursed. And I began to cut down the nursing, because seriously, at 14 months, she does NOT need to nurse 5 times a day!

She made the transition to more solids just fine and I harbored the hope that more solids during the day would translate to less hunger at night. Tuesday night she slept 9:30 to 4 am and I was thrilled. But to have her do even better the next night!!!! I am overjoyed and hoping like mad that this is a trend, not an anomaly.

To be honest, last night would have been perfect if not for her big sister. I was in the middle of a fantastic dream. It was a great dream! President Monson was giving out blessings and I had worked my way up to him and there was no one else around and before I could discover what wonderful blessing he was going to give me, Delaney barged in crying, "My silly band is BROKEN!!" High drama at 3:15 in the morning. So I got to go tuck her back into bed and my dream was gone. Sigh.

But to make us all feel better, here are a few pictures of Rylee!

Rylee went to her first birthday party. She thought she was a big girl at the table and ate cake and chips and tried to drink a juicebox, but gagged instead and puked. oops.

I made pumpkin pie (mmmmmm....!!!) and had a good helper! She saw that beater and immediately knew she wanted it. Smart little thing.

She thought that beater was good stuff!

Was that fast?

Saturday was an exciting day! It was the Annual Fox Trot, a one mile race that is great because it is open to everyone. It's short, it's sweet, and dogs and strollers are allowed. Josh, Dan and Callie ran. I would have, but I had to be somewhere as soon as it was over and I wouldn't have time to shower and change after. So, I was the cheerer.

Here's my crew! Marian did not run, but she was cute. Callie wasn't too enthusiastic, but was thrilled to have Dan run with her. Joshua was very excited about the race, although you can't tell from this shot.

Delaney was very grumpy. She was cross that I wouldn't let her go play on the playground.

And they're off!! It was a slow start with a ton of people of all ages all trying to get moving together.

After they all took off, we hoofed it to the finish line just in time to see the first finisher finish. It was only a mile, so the high school runners were done fast.

Joshua ran about a 8:30 mile and he was 4th in his division! He did great and was pleased with his run.

Callie and Dan finished at a run and Callie was 2nd in her division! Unfortunately, we left before the announcements were made (assuming we hadn't been that fast!) and we didn't know Callie won a medal till the next day. Oops! She's grumpy with me because I still haven't tracked it down. But I will! She deserves her first medal.

Brain Fails with Happy Endings

Today Dan brought home a delightful amount of tasty cheese. Don't ask, just be envious. I was in the process of making Tacos when he got home. That is when I realized I had no tortillas. No taco shells, no tortilla chips, nothing. Okay, no problem, I'm adaptable! I figured we could have cheese and crackers. Then I discovered I had no crackers! Aaack! I always have tortillas, and I always have crackers! And yet..... So, epic fail on my part for dinner.

The solution is that Dan hopped over to 7-11 and got their last bag of tortilla chips, and I added a pound of mozzarella, cheddar and cheddar-jack cheese to my taco meat and we had nachos! Joshua was thrilled.

Also of interest, we use to have 3 phones. I unplugged the one in the bedroom for a nap a few weeks ago and the cord fell behind the dresser and it was too much work to get it back up, so we have been phone-less upstairs since then. No problem, we had 2 phones on the main floor. And then one of them disappeared. The "call" button on the phone jack failed to locate it. It was gone and neither Dan nor I could figure out what happened to it. We concluded that Rylee must have done something with it. One phone is annoying. If I am upstairs, I can't hear it. Still, doing something about it required more motivation than I have.

Fast forward to earlier this week. As we're walking in from church, Dan says, "Why is the phone on the car?" Oh. Yeah, I vaguely recalled being outside with the kids on a lovely day and bringing the phone with me. Apparently I put it on the hood of the van to rake leaves and it was tucked neatly in the crevice below the windshield. The amazing thing is, that we got some cold and rainy weather and it sat there for at least 2 weeks. I plugged it in and darned if it doesn't work fine!

So proud!

Before I get to the main reason for this post, I had to share Marian's homework. It was so doggone cute and creative. And she did it all with no help. Well, after I read the assignment to her, she did it all by herself. And I was amused and had to take a picture of it!

And this week the school running club had a little mini meet. We went to a neighboring school for a little cross country run. The K-3 kids ran one loop, for half a mile, and 4-6 graders ran 2 loops to make a full a mile. Joshua and Callie participated.

Callie was not thrilled to realize she wasn't going to get a medal. She thought that since Dan got medals at each of his events, she would get one for hers. Poor girl. She felt like she ran for nothing!

Here's Joshua on his first lap. He was going strong, in the front of the middle of the pack!

Marian and Rylee had a good time on the playground while I cheered for Joshua.

Here he is on lap #2. Look at that stride!

On the home-stretch! He's almost at the finish!

He's sprinting to the end!

He finished his mile in 8:25. He was the 4th 4th grader to finish, and he was 25 out of 60 kids running. I was really proud of him!

Joshua relaxed on the playground with Rylee after his run. He kept an eye on her while I snapped pictures of Callie's run.

There goes Callie in the pink shirt!

Callie ran her lap and here she is sprinting to the finish. She ran her half mile in 5:34 and was 60th of 88 runners. Not too bad for a kindergartner!

Callie had more fun after the race on the playground. Funny how its the same one as at her school, but it is soooo much more fun at another school!

Delaney had a blast.

Of course, Delaney always seems to have a good time!

Marian had a good time playing and hanging out in the stroller. She was just happy I didn't make her run! It was a successful first event for the kids.

The Richmond Marathon!

Dan had been looking for a challenge. He wanted something that would motivate him with his working out. After the Ragnar Relay, he felt equal to the task of a full Marathon. Yesterday was that day!

We got up at 4:30 in the morning and threw the kids in the car and drove on down. We met up with our friends E & J, which was really nice for me. Dan was excited and prepared and barely made the 8am start due to the ridiculously long lines to the potties.

With the men gone, J and I headed for her hotel room. They had stayed there to better be on-site for the race, and it was a good idea! On the way, we passed the State Capitol building, and it only seemed right to get a picture.

The kids were delighted to hang out in J's hotel room for an hour. It was warmer than outside, and it had cartoons!

And they enjoyed playing with J's kids. I was happy to have a crowd-free, enclosed area to let the kids run around for a bit.

J was familiar enough with this course to be able to help us get to the 16/17 mile area to cheer on our men. I'm so glad she was there, because I couldn't have found it myself! We staked out a good spot, and waited. Rylee fell asleep, and Marian crawled in next to her. Such a funny girl!

Delaney found something fun to play with!

The kids had a great time in this little lot while we kept watch for the guys.

Yay! I spotted Dan and we cheered like crazy! Joshua was jumping up and down and waving his arms, so most of the pictures I got have a lot of Joshua's arms and not much Dan! We stayed another 15 minutes to cheer on E, and then we headed to the finish line.

We parked our strollers at a decent spot in sight of the finish, but away from the big crowds. We cheered in the runners who came by and had fun. Callie and Delaney climbed on everything! I have decided that when you do an event like this, you need to wear a shirt denoting something about yourself. Spectators who don't know you need a reason to cheer for you! The people wearing shirts with info on them got more cheers. And there was one point where there was a guy wearing an Army shirt who was 10 paces ahead of a guy in a USMC shirt. So there was a lot of hollerin' for those two!

Thank goodness, Rylee still slept! I can't imagine how hard it would have been to try to keep her in one place had she been awake and wanting to run around!

The bigger kids found a way up onto this wall behind us and I was actually happy to have them where I could see them! They thought they were hot stuff up there.

And then we saw Dan!

He was looking good and still running strong! We cheered loudly so he would see us in the crowd.

Yep, he heard us!

Then he sprinted to the end. Knowing it would be impossible to find him in the crush of humanity there, I waited with J till her husband passed, and then we headed to the finish line. Dan called from his cell and told me where he was, so we met up with him.

Here he is, mere minutes after finishing the race. The kids were obsessed with his medal and fought bitterly over it.

All in all, it was a good day, a good race, and the kids were AMAZING. Oh, Dan was also quite amazing!