Merry Christmas!

For those of you who didn't get a card....you missed the extreme cuteness. Be careful - the kids are so cute your face might explode!

Live it out.

I wrote this post almost three weeks ago. It seems like a good time to make a random post since I'm so behind on photos. My camera is chock-full of 'em, but since I'm in Utah and lacking a proper camera cord, it will be a few days (probably early next week) before you get any good pictures. So enjoy the reads.

*********

This morning, I had a lot of time to think during my morning run. I got to reflecting on the past year and took a turn away from my usual cynicism and started to think about the good things that happened in 2010. It's a little late for Thanksgiving, and a little early for the new year, but what the heck - if I don't write it up now, it probably won't happen. 2010 sucked in many ways, so this is my way of trying to dredge up my 'inner optimist.' Also, we don't tend to do Christmas cards, so this is a mini-rundown of my year for those who care. If you don't care, no worries. I don't blame ya. :)

- We survived six weeks of a child in a 3/4 body cast. If our family can survive that, we might be able to survive just about anything.
- Juston kept his job. It may not be ideal, but it's work and we've been able to pay all of our bills. Thanks, Juston, for making sure that we can eat and that I can blast the A/C when it's 100 degrees outside.
- I got the opportunity to work on a big exhibit for TCM, as well as some smaller projects for TNT Latin America. I love that I get to freelance. I'm also maxed out part-time at my teaching job. Full-time would be ideal, but right now I'll take what I can get.
- The Kindezi school opened in August. The ribbon cutting ceremony was this morning, and the 6 students to 1 teacher ratio is WORKING. I've had the opportunity to volunteer there once a week and it's been fantastic to see the school in action. I'm very optimistic for our children's future there.
- Harper turned one. She charmed her way into many hearts and she has the most endearing growl.
- Frankie got a haircut. He looks like such a big boy now and on his fourth birthday, he asked me to ask him "What happened to my little boy?" He's also mastered "Little Big Planet" this year, which he plays with Juston several nights a week (but only after Harper goes to bed, of course.)
- Juston flipped a house, which is a huge accomplishment. He worked really hard on it and it's going to make someone a really lovely home. We're just waiting for that perfect buyer now...
- I ran my first half marathon in November.
- I have the most amazing snuggle pug.

Yep. Things are good - I tend to exaggerate the difficulties in my mind. When I step back a bit and take a look at things, I get some perspective slapped into me and it helps me to appreciate what I've got in my life.

Happy Black Friday

May all your retail dreams come true! And may there be pie for days to come.


Yes! Festivus! (AKA I have a Christmas growing from my head.)

I can't believe it.

On my 31st birthday, I made the mental commitment to run the Atlanta Half Marathon on Thanksgiving Day. At that point, I was only running 5-6 miles at a time, but I felt pretty confident that if I started that day, I could be ready in less than two months. And, surprisingly, I was able to pull it off.

Before:


After:



Sorry, I didn't feel like getting into full makeup before running, as did one girl that was in my start corral. I mean, why?

Unfortunately, I forgot to attach my timing chip to my shoe, so I don't have an 'official' race time, but I did set my stopwatch and got an unofficial time of 2:13:25, so just under my target finish time of 2:15. I ran with the 2:15 pace group, which is a 10:18 mile. The fact that I managed to keep that pace the whole time was the miracle as I've never run this far before. I've also lost close to 15 pounds since the summer, so I'm going to keep it up. I suppose it's time to look for the next race. My brother-in-law is hounding me to run the Salt Lake Marathon in April, but he's crazy, and I also swore around mile 10 that I'd never run a full marathon. :)

P.S. Anyone have any chafing tips because whooo boy. Big girls really aren't supposed to run!

Piggies

Harper's 'piggy ponies.' :)

Jumping the Gun

Harper couldn't wait for Christmas - the time to dance is NOW.



They are both essentially the same thing - you only need to watch about 12 seconds of this video; I'm too lazy to edit and I don't have any low-end editing software on this computer anyway. Go PC!


Obviously, Grandma, your Chipmunk toy is a huge hit. And Juston made a very astute observation about our family last night - we seem to dance an awful lot.

So my mom told me to update my blog. Actually, there's been a ton of stuff going on - I've just been very busy and blogging is now pretty low on the food chain. Like many others, I seem to have fallen off the bandwagon, even though I do enjoy the writing part of the blog.
So...Harper turned one and I didn't cry. Frankie got a haircut and Juston didn't cry. We didn't sell the house and I did cry, but it's back on the market and we have a very interested potential buyer, so maybe second time is the charm. I'm crossing everything that I can cross and sending some vibes to the big man upstairs so that we can put the house in our past by the end of 2010. We went to two concerts within eight days of each other (Metric & La Roux, both very different, but both awesome.) I bought running tights, which is a scary thing. Does this mean I'm getting serious about it? Anyway, here's the delayed photos that, if you're my friend on Facebook, you probably saw a few weeks ago.

I won tickets to a live, intimate performance with Emily Haines and the guitarist from Metric.

I made Harper the most intensive birthday cake I've ever made. I don't do pretty.

Birthday party for the tot.

Superman at the church par-tay.

Supergirl at the carnival.

Pugfest!

Trick-or-treating with buddy Dries.

Haircut!

And that about does it for now. When I get around to extracting photos from Juston's laptop, I'll have some more Halloween pictures. And now I've got to grade papers.

Sunday night roller derby!

This is why I love having 2k square feet of hardwood floors....





Harper cried every time I took her off of that danged zebra. Even though she can't propel herself forward yet, she still has this overwhelming desire to keep up with Frankie. Soon, child.

Struttin'

This week at Frankie's preschool, they had a costume strut. Not sure why they didn't wait until next week, but whatever, it was fun. I volunteered to help set the place up, so I arrived about an hour before it started and helped one of the other moms decorate a room in the school's basement. We had a lovely selection of Dollar Tree niceties, and we actually did a pretty good job with our limited resources (when relying on donations, you can never really expect much!) The kids didn't care and had an awesome time. Frankie came up to me and said, "Mom this is so cool!" and he ran around and danced and danced to my carefully selected playlist of Halloween music (apparently I'm the only person I know that has a Halloween playlist - figures, right?)

Harper got to come along and help decorate. Thanks to Aunt Laura for sharing the 'dem bones' pajamas, which double-up as a costume for events like this. Don't worry, this isn't her *actual* Halloween costume - it's not ready yet.

Frankie as....Superman! Go figure that one of the smallest four-year-olds you'll ever meet would want to be the 'man of steel' for Halloween.

Zero points for originality, but ten points for cuteness! (He's flexing here, if you can't tell.) Check out his washboard abs.

The Pre-K class getting ready to march. The little girl in the mermaid costume (next to the pirate next to Frankie) has a mad crush on Frankie; it's hilarious.

So strong!

Just for fun, right?

I was tagged by Sun recently, and since I feel like ignoring my kids right now, I'm going to blog just for fun. The rules are to answer 8 questions, pick 8 friends, and ask them 8 new questions. I'll start with part 1 and see how much time I have left!

So here are your questions ladies.
1. What is your favorite day of the week and why?
2. Who is your guilty pleasure musician?
3. What is your favorite thing to cook? (I need ideas!)
4. What do you tell people your favorite movie is? And what is your actual favorite movie?
5. What made today great?
6. Would you, under any circumstance, eat another person? (Go with it. It's Halloween time.)
7. What is your favorite outdoors activity?
8. What is your favorite fairy tale?

***time passes***

So I ended up having to leave right after I posted the questions. It's now 11:08 PM and I need to get to bed since I'm subbing at Frankie's preschool tomorrow and I need to be somewhat functional so that I don't unintentionally miseducate any toddlers. But here's a stab at some answers:

1. I like Mondays because they are pretty much the only day of the week that I don't have any set plans. Plus with the way my job is set up, I work my tail off on Sunday night, so I usually unwind a bit on Monday.

2. Guilty pleasure musician? Depends on who you ask...all of them? I do totally dig Peter, Paul, and Mary, but that's laced with nostalgia for family road trips as a child.

3. My favorite thing to cook is probably mashed potatoes because I *love* mashed potatoes. Boring, yes. Delicious, most definitely. :) Just make sure that you make them with cream cheese...drooling begins.... I also enjoy cooking stuff in my slow cooker - made some excellent vegetarian chili tonight. Now if you are asking what is the most *fun* to cook, you'll have to move from cooking to baking because sampling along the way is so much better when baking.

4. I tell people my favorite movie is "The Night of the Hunter", and it actually is my favorite movie. It blows me away every time. My favorite 'guilty pleasure' movie is "Josie and the Pussycats."

5. Today was great because....drumroll...someone FINALLY signed a lease for our rental house! Wahoo! Next month won't be so economically tight, thank goodness.

6. If I were in the movie "Soylent Green" and it was without my knowledge, I probably would.

7. Um, define 'outdoors' - I'm going to stretch it here and say that I most enjoy lounging on the beach with a book. That happens outdoors, right? I do enjoy taking my kids on walks with the wagon, but that's not very 'aggressive outdoors' either!

8. I don't know as that I have a favorite fairy tale anymore, so I'm going to give my favorite childhood fantasy indulgence a go here and let the world know that I was a rabid reader of L. Frank Baum's "The Wizard of Oz" books as a kid. Read all of 'em at least 3 or 4 times.

Big girl, you are beautiful.

This almost makes me tear up. Bye bye baby, hello toddler.



She got the hang of it really fast; this is one of the earlier videos I have, but the others are much longer and contain superfluous information, like me singing something that sounds like 'The Ride of the Valkyries.' Thanks to 'swimming pool Grandma' for the little shopping cart for Miss Baby's birthday. And I can't call her that anymore - she doesn't look like a baby at all. It makes me sad, knowing that I won't have a baby in my house anymore (or ever again), but I am excited to see who she's going to become. It's really bittersweet. Her upcoming birthday = big, sobbing, watching baby smash a cake, nostalgic mommy mess.

Farm!

We went to a farm. Although, I'm not really sure you can call them 'farms' these days - they are more like tourist traps with a couple of patches of vegetables growing here and there to make it feel authentic, plus the fact that you have to drive to the middle of nowhere to get to one of them. Anyway, we went to a 'farm' yesterday to visit the 'pumpkin patch.' The pumpkin patch was basically an area of pumpkin plants with pumpkins (probably bought in bulk at the farmer's market up the freeway) placed throughout it; I didn't see one on the vine. I figured I'll just pick one up at Kroger. But Frankie did have an excellent time, which generally makes such excursions worthwhile.

Harper on a mini tractor!

Frankie on the cow train!

Harper meets chooks!

Harper meets goats!

Frankie goes down the giant slide! Over and over for at least 20 minutes!

Harper and I took a hayride!

Great Pumpkin!

Pig Races! (This photo doesn't show how much Frankie got into this activity. Gotta love using future bacon as sporting equipment for children's entertainment!)

Ignore last week's optimism. The cynic is IN!

No apparent theme for this post - just rambling and a bunch of pictures, once again, of the kidlets. And let me tell you, this house thing keeps getting more and more frustrating; now we're having to replace a part of the roof because the buyer isn't happy with the patch where the tree hit shingles. Closing is pushed back to October 22nd. Let's pray that everything falls into place! This has been quite the test of my patience and ability to deal with high levels of stress when it involves a lot of money. We still don't have any tenants in the rental, either, but that should change this week. I've got another woman who wants to rent the house, and if she doesn't sign a lease this week, the other family still wants it. Whoever gets me the money first, right? I'm also having serious doubts about this running thing. I'm not running outside because it's dark in the mornings and dark in the evenings and the gym has babysitting, so I'm logging 99% of my miles on a treadmill (to be fair, I do set inclines and do speed drills.) I really hope that I can get in a few long runs outside, but I'm nervous that this is really going to bite me in the butt when it comes time to do the race in six weeks. I still haven't signed up yet, so there's always time to back out. :) Then again, I bought some skinny jeans yesterday (yes, I know - fat girl in skinny pants!) and the ladies working in the store convinced me that I needed to go *down* a size, so maybe there are other benefits to all of this running. I swore I would never wear skinny jeans; I guess that change can and does happen sometimes. Please don't make fun of me if you see me wearing them in public.

And....on to the pictures!

One stinkin' cute kiddo, if I do say so myself. His personality is far bigger than he is.


Yes, this is an attractive photo of me on my 31st birthday. I opened my present first thing in the AM, and Juston got me what I asked for via e-mail. Good job, Juston! It's a Brooklyn Industries bag - they are my favorite bags, and this one is essentially a 'way more awesome than a diaper bag' diaper bag, without actually being a diaper bag. And check that bulging calf muscle *snigger.*


Crazy boy.


I was trying to get Harper to model this sweater so I could list it on ebay. She wasn't very happy about it, and since it fit her so well, we're probably going to keep it anyway. Next time I have her model for ebay, I'll remember to put pants on her as well.


Rindlesbach girls - we like to eat!

Mercier Orchards

Last weekend we went with our friends Dan and Annie to an apple orchard in north Georgia. It was a gorgeous day and we all had an excellent time, although I was feeling that barbecue that we had in Ellijay for a couple of days afterwards.

Frankie on a tractor! I swear he sat on it for at least fifteen minutes and was a tractor hog.


And again, another self-portrait with the beast.


On the tractor ride around the orchard. We didn't actually pick any apples, but we did want to go and have a look at the schmucks who paid extra to pick their own apples. We bought the pre-picked apples, they were cheaper! (I'm just being obnoxious. It would've been fun to pick our own apples. Maybe next year.)


Frankie in front of an orchard. He was in another 'I don't want my picture taken, woman!' mood that day.)



My apple pie turned out pretty good, even if it didn't win any points for aesthetic appeal. It was my first pie with a lattice crust and let me tell you, don't think I'll be doing that again any time soon!

Yay!

Here's the press release for the big project I've been working on for the past couple of months. I did some of the research and wrote 99% of the copy for the exhibit. I'm pretty excited!

Also, I'm very intrigued by Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir. Has anyone who reads this (and I only have one or two people in mind that might be able to answer) participated in it? http://www.youtube.com/user/EricWhitacresVrtlChr

Uncanny.

Her hair did that of its own accord; I only wish she would've cooperated better so that you could see both sides of her head and how well it perfectly mirrors Mr. Kewpie's hair.