Monday, May 23, 2011

"Feeling very protestatious"

I got some pretty good face time in this news bit. I almost missed my giant head early on, but it's there!

Women Hold Nurse-In To Fight Breastfeeding Restrictions

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

The Graduate

- minus Dustin Hoffman & Anne Bancroft. And a whole lot less Simon & Garfunkle.

Today was Frankie's Pre-K graduation. I'm not exactly sure what the standards are for Pre-K graduation, but I'm assuming he knows enough letters and numbers for it to have been considered a successful year. Contrary to popular belief, I did not cry, although I did get a little teary while the kids were singing. We've been really happy with Epworth Day School and I feel as though Frankie's had a really wonderful experience there; the only problem is that it isn't in our neighborhood, so almost all of his classmates (save one other, who will be home schooled) will attend a different elementary school. I am, however, thrilled that he's signed up for Kindezi, and I know he'll thrive there. (Did I mention that *every* child at Kindezi is performing above grade level in reading and math? It seems as though 6:1 is working. But I digress...)

Tip 'o the hat to ya!


F and his teachers. One of the bonuses of being the first 'graduating' class is that the kids picked out their own cap & gown colors. Blue isn't one of his favorites, so I'm kind of surprised he chose blue, but hey, when you are four, you are allowed to change your mind time and again!


Once again, this is the best we could get. Oh well.


Videos...for family that could not attend (aka everyone but us.)



Thursday, May 05, 2011

Lots more words.

I figured I'd better update at least one more time before I have to dive head-first into a cesspool of undergrad essays, many of which are borderline indecipherable and others that are written on Tyler Perry films, which is almost as bad. But I digress...


First of all, you are probably not curious about the running, but I will tell you about it anyway. It was *so* hard; I crossed the finish line, walked over to where Jason - who had finished the marathon almost an hour earlier - was waiting for me, and said "I am never doing that again", apparently with a huge scowl on my face. Jason is my brother-in-law, who told me he'd pay me $100 for completing a marathon (he's a high roller.) After a particularly good eight-mile run in December, I signed up for the marathon and the regrets started the next day. I made it through the 18 weeks of training, only got badly sunburned once, only missed two runs (both of them five miles), and developed some seriously awesome calves. I wasn't nervous until about mile 14 of the actual race, when it started to get really hot really fast in Nashville. By mile 16, I was getting weary. By mile 18, I was cursing myself, swearing I'd never, ever run again. I somehow made it to mile 23, where I got a second wind and I managed to finish pretty strong in spite of my multi-mile struggle. I started out with a 4:30 pace group, but the pace leader started out way too fast (sorry, but 9:30 min miles are unsustainable for 4.5 hours when you should be running 10:18's) and by the end, I was passing other folks who started out with the pace group who couldn't keep up, either. I finished in 4 hours 53 minutes - I'm not proud of my time at all (in fact, I'm a little embarassed that it took so long.) Sadly, I'm now trying to figure out if I can train to do it in 4:30 next year. I have no aspirations of qualifying for Boston, I just want to reach my initial goal! In other news, Nashville is a pretty cool place, even if it is the home of Ke$ha.


Juston closed on the Willard house today, which means we now only own two houses! It's a huge stress off of our family to finally have sold the house, and we didn't lose too much money on it. Now the focus is to finish our current house; we are still toying around with the idea of moving but nothing is set in stone, and after some of the events of this spring I'm kind of happy just to stay put. I'm working on Frankie's paperwork for kindergarten registration, Harper is enrolled in preschool, I've got my 3 jobs, Juston is still at Cartoon Network - things are nothing if not consistent and fairly comfortable. Oh, and I'm a blonde now. :)


Blogger is being stupid right now and won't let me upload any pictures, so images of cute kids - consider them forthcoming.

Tuesday, May 03, 2011

Almost there...

...and you can tell that I was really happy to be finished!

Shrocky

Our newest family member. That makes us humans - 4, animals - 3. If we aren't careful, they might take over. P.S. the fish was named by a 4-year-old, hence the name that isn't even a real word.