Color Guard and The Beach

This is the end of the school year and the end of Middle School for Heather!!!! Unbelievable, but she will be in 9th grade at Cy-Falls High School (the same HS I went to). She has been excited about Color Guard and the try-outs were this week. On Monday, she went to a 2 hour practice session where she was taught a simple routine and got to get a feel for what it is like to twirl flags. She was mortified that I took pictures of her with my phone, but later decided it wasn't so bad because she posted the pictures on her FaceBook page and even made the close up picture her profile picture. On Wednesday, she went back for the official try-out and is now a member of the Color Guard. She is really excited, we will see if that excitement continues when she has to practice in the heat in August!

Today, Caleb, Zachary, Kamie, Emma, James and I went to Stewart Beach in Galveston. We had a very nice day and the kids loved playing in the sand and the water. At first, Zachary was terrified of the water and kept trying to run back towards the car. I sat in the very shallow water with him in my lap for a long time so that the water wasn't even touching him and eventually he decided it was fun to splash. After about an hour, he decided the water was fun and kept trying to run off into the waves. I was really hoping for a happy medium but I am glad he was having fun. On the way home, Zachary and James fell asleep almost instantly. Zachary ate a peanut butter sandwich before passing out and in the picture, you can see some peanut butter on his forehead! We had a great day.

Paul's Birthday, 8th Grade Dance & Mother's Day!!!!!

Last Wednesday was Paul's birthday. He opened his gifts in the morning and Zachary was sure he needed help unwrapping them. Graciously, Zachary offered to help his Daddy. For breakfast we had strawberry pancaked and scrambled eggs. For dinner, Paul requested Pierogies, Dill Cucumbers, Polish Sausage. For dessert, we had Paul's favorite chocolate cake and Becky & Doug came over and enjoyed some with us. It was a pretty nice day overall.

On Friday, Heather had her 8th grade dance and has a new boyfriend named Ian. She was very excited to have a date for the dance and there are even some very cute pictures of the two of them together. Heather looked beautiful, though she seems to have gone barefoot. :) Actually, she said her shoes were too tight and she couldn't wear them. On Mother's Day, I got some very sweet cards, including one from Heather that she got all on her own! It says "Dad might've been the one to pick you... but you're a gift to me too. Happy Mother's Day!" Isn't that sweet? I got some cute crafts the boys made at Pre-school too. The first one is from Zachary and I think it was a fingerpainting craft. The second one is from Caleb and it is his handprint.

Becky also had the boys make me some really cute flower pots with paper flowers that are beautiful! They each made me one and are really cute.

Paul got me a jewelry box that I can use to hang my necklaces, they were getting so tangled up. I have 3 that I still have not been able to get apart but I am hoping to untangle them soon.

Becky, Doug, April & James all came over Sunday for a late lunch of chicken fajitas. April made homemade Charro beans, mild & spicy fresh salsa and fudge! We had a wonderful lunch and all had a very nice time. Becky got a mother's necklace with a birthstone for all her kids, in-law kids and grandkids. Heather, Caleb and Zachary also made her a birdhouse which was really cute.

After everyone left, we tried to get a picture of me with the boys. It was kind of funny because they were both not cooperating. Caleb was being very silly and Zachary just wanted to get away.

One last thing, on Monday, Paul took Caleb to get his first big boy haircut! Paul said he was wonderful and sat very still. Caleb was so excited to get a haircut with Daddy. I usually take him to Cool Cuts 4 Kids, but it is kind of pricey. They have video games and movies to help the kids sit still during their haircuts. I think Zachary is going to have to keep going there for a while. He cries when he gets his haircut and requires constant distraction with the TV.

Heather's Slumber Party

Friday, April 29th, Heather had a slumber party for her birthday. My friend, Amy, kindly agreed to come over and henna the girls! We all had a great time. Amy is so funny, she kept us all laughing and she is an amazing henna artist. Her designs are so gorgeous and the girls loved their henna tattoos.

Heather picked out a fairly complicated one and Amy did an awesome job!

Erin also picked a detailed one and Amy did great on that one too!

Kiela picked out a simpler one but it is still really pretty.

I tried to do a simple design on Kiela and covered it in way too much purple glitter! Poor Kiela was not excited to have a purple foot!

I let the Kiela and Heather try some henna on my feet and Kiela drew a cute little heart and Heather did this sun. I think they both did a great job.

The girls all decided they wanted their Zodiac sign too and Amy did that for them.

Kiela

Erin
Heather
Here are the girls with the cupcakes. These had SO MUCH icing on them, they were a mess.

The girls started smearing one another with icing, it was hilarious.

This last picture is Heather's room all clean! Unless people are coming over, I let her keep it however she wants except that her clothes have to be put away. She got the new curtain rods for her birthday with the purple finnials. They were a PAIN to put up, the screws kept stripping. But, they look really cute.

Exercise

Some people may read the topic of today's blog and groan, it's not really a subject many people get excited about. However, I have something totally awesome to report (drum roll) I jogged 10K this morning! YES, I, Misty F Wilson, jogged 10K! If you want to get technical, I jogged 6.3 miles and 10K is 6.2137 miles! Honestly, I'm still in shock, I can hardly believe it. I started this journey into "fitness" close to a year ago. I joined the YMCA last Spring and found out that I really enjoy Yoga. I also did some cardio on the Elliptical machine. In September, we had to let our YMCA membership go because Christmas was coming up and expenses are always tight. We started walking as a family at Coles Crossing. Sometimes, Paul and Heather would jog while I walked with the boys in the double stroller.

Coles Crossing is a neat place to exercise because it has many different trail options. You can make it as short as a little over a mile or as long as 4 3/4 miles, with many options in between. The path we were taking last September was about 2 1/2 miles. Paul and Heather would generally start off jogging but go the opposite direction and eventually catch up with me. Sometimes, they would take the kids back to the playground so I could go off by myself and walk in peace. One of those days, I decided to try and jog. I only made it about 1/4 of a mile -- but still -- I did it! I was amazed because in the past when I tried to jog my lungs felt like they would burst. Paul and Heather did pick on my a bit, as jogging is not something they had seen me do before. In fact, there were many, many days I had said "I hate running, I don't know how you can do that."

I jogged off and on through the end of November and not surprisingly, let exercise go in favor of buying & wrapping gifts, decorating, making Christmas goodies, visiting relatives, etc in December. In January, I started up again and it was hard! My first jog was barely a mile in January.

Saturday, April 16th was the first time I did 5K (3.1069 miles, I jog 3.15 miles and call that 5K). My next few jogs were horrible, I was really discouraged and afraid I would never get it again. I struggled just to get to 2 miles and it was rough! I decided to just keep at it and figured that some exercise was better than no exercise. Then, Thursday, April 28th I did it again!!!! It hasn't even been a full week since then and I went out to jog today and was hoping to get to 5K but wasn't sure it would happen given that last time I did 5K, my abilities were limited for a while. A few things were different this morning, one is that the weather was amazing!! It was 55 degrees this morning! Second, I bought some ear buds for my ipod and downloaded a lot of music I enjoy listening to. I turned the music up pretty loud and discovered that it drowned out me listening to myself breathe, listening to myself think, etc. A good portion of the time, I wasn't even aware that I was jogging. I was totally lost in the music. When I got to 5K and realized I wasn't even tired, I decided to go for 10K! I actually did really well until the 5th mile (6.3 miles is 10K). Pretty much everything past that 5th mile was a struggle but I was so close, I really wanted to be able to say that I jogged 10K. I just made myself focus on the music and try to ignore my body. When I got back to the car, I had to sit there for a while because my legs felt like jello and my head was swimming a little. I had a bottle in the water in the car so I drank the bottle of water and recovered a bit before driving home.

On the drive home, I was thinking that I get frustrated with how my body looks. Gravity, age and too many calories have really taken a toll, but all that aside, my body is strong! I did something today that I didn't ever think would be possible for me. I haven't lost any weight, but I do feel better. I decided several months ago that I was going to stop obsessing over the number on the scale and just focus on being the healthiest me I can be. As long as the people I care about love me and accept me, what difference does the number on the scale make? I want to be healthy so that I can enjoy life to the fullest of my abilities.

Easter

We had a very nice, but very busy Easter. The boys went with Grandma to her school on Wednesday and had an egg hunt. Zachary apparently got so many of the eggs that he had to give many of them back so the other kids could have some. He is very fast!!! On Thursday, they had an egg hunt and Easter party at their Pre-School and both Caleb and Zachary found most of the eggs. Zachary again had to give up his eggs so his classmates could have some and Caleb did this time too. Caleb even volunteered to give his golden egg to one of his friends, such a sweet boy! They made several Easter crafts as well, Caleb was even dressed as a bunny when I went to pick him up -- so cute!!!

On Good Friday, we dyed Easter eggs. Heather and I got everything set up while the boys were napping and she started her Tye Dye eggs. Caleb had 3-D Toy Story eggs (they had a wrapper you put around the egg and placed it in hot water so it would shrink on to the egg and the picture on the wrapper was 3-D). Here is Heather trying on the 3-D glasses.

The Tye Dye eggs were really pretty cool, you had concentrated colors and used the dropper to get multiple colors on the eggs. Heather really seemed to like it.

A few of her works of art:

The boys woke up ready to dye eggs and could hardly wait!

Oops! Zachary tried to do one by himself and decided throwing it on the floor was a good way to dye it.

Caleb trying on the 3-D glasses

Heather helping Caleb try a Tye Dye egg

So proud of his egg!

Saturday night, Grandpa and Grandmom stayed with us and none of us heard the Easter Bunny come visit! He is quite a sneaky little bunny. In the morning, we found these Easter baskets!

The kids enjoyed looking for their eggs.

Luckily, all the cold ones were found while they were still cold

After all the eggs were found, we ate breakfast said bye to Grandmom and Grandpa, got ready for church (and even made it to the 9:30 service!!)

We had Easter dinner with Grammy and Poppy and the kids had another egg hunt over there! Dinner was delicious! Grammy made lamb, ham, potato salad and rolls and we brought deviled eggs and cupcakes the kids made.