Amy's 2nd Marathon THIS YEAR...

Back on September 17th, Amy was able to check something off her bucket list. Prepare yourself... *2 MARATHONS IN ONE YEAR*... Yes, she is crazy.

She did the one in Seattle back in June and did the TOU this September. She didn't run at all from the one in Seattle due to a million things going on in her life. She didn't train for 4 months and STILL ran the entire thing and didn't walk once and still did it in comparable time to last year's TOU race. What? This woman never ceases to amaze me.

My mom, Josh and I did signs for her and we put them up the canyon. She didn't see any of them because of the wind, rain and hail. Oh well, the thought was there.

This one is my favorite. It any of you watch PSYCH, you know what these all mean. I'm sure she would have laughed hysterically had she seen it.

It poured the entire time. Rain, hail, thunder, lightning, horrible weather but that makes it all the better because you're numb.

Don't you just LOVE Halle's socks? They are my mom's fuzzy socks. She looks pretty darn cute, if you ask me.

About mile 17 and SMILING. What? I'd be dead on the side of the road.

About mile 21 or so. Pulling funny faces.

Another shot of the socks.

Look at those LEGS....

Man, somewhere in heaven, Micheal is drooling.

And now he's smiling because his crazy wife is smiling at mile 26.

Kennet gave her a dandelion as she was running past him. So sweet.

Coming in at the end. The sun showed up for a bit.

FINISHED!!!

Every year that Amy runs the marathon, we get a picture of Amy giving Halle a kiss after she finishes. I had to put the last 3 years in here. Notice that in all 3 of them, Amy is wearing the same hat and the same pair of earrings.

2009

2010

2011

I'm so proud of you, Amy!

I loved this picture of her. Her eyes just sparkle.

I love these weird, random faces we make to each other.

Look at how pruned her toes are from all of the rain.

Amy with her best boys.

Congrats Amy, I am impressed that you did 2 marathons. What a great accomplishment.

You rock!

Lagoon, Only Once?

Last year we went to Lagoon more times than I can count. Granted, he had season passes then. He had a fun opportunity to go with some good friends. My friend Emma's sister works there and on employee day we were able to get tickets for each of us for only $10. Wahoo!!! The girls have been begging us to go this year.

I love that Emma and I made the guys take the kids on this ride.

Emma and myself took the kids for a while so the guys could ride some rides and then we swapped, except that we couldn't get a hold of the guys when we were done. What are the chances? BOTH of their phones had died. That's fun, try finding someone at Lagoon when you have NO idea where they are, even though they were supposed to stay in kiddie land.

Halle and her boyfriend, Eli.

It was an interesting night. We didn't head back to the kids halloween stuff in time, they were already shut down. That stunk. Emma didn't feel good all night and either did I as the night went on. She ended up running a fever later that night, then I did the next night, then threw up. We are two peas in a pod.

The Letter of the Law

Today I was going to the bank to take care of some financial business. Halle was decked in her usual attire. A baby in one hand, a sucker in the other and sunglasses on.

I walked into the bank and had noticed a sign on the door that read something like this, "For your safety and others, please remove all boots, sunglasses and firearms before entering this branch." Okay, weird. I figured that maybe someone in boots would slip on the floor and someone wearing sunglasses would be robbing a bank and not want their face on the cameras and the firearm was kind of a no-brainer.

Halle and I strolled in and I was looking over to the right to talk to a financial clerk when a teller says to me, "Mam, she needs to take off her sunglasses", I was looking at her like you're joking right? She then said to me, "Did you see the sign?" I said, "Yes, I did. SHE'S 2!" She said, "I can see that. Remove her glasses." I gave her glint of "you asked for it" and I took them off of her....

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" and lots of screaming at the top of her lungs.

No one could talk to anyone else and anyone who was on the phone couldn't hear a thing. I looked at her like, "you asked for it and it's a good thing that now we know what this 2 year old looks like under these sunglasses cause clearly she is going to rob this bank!" All of the tellers then glared at her as I dragged Halle over to the financial clerk's desk.

As soon as I sat down (Halle is still screaming at this point) the clerk told me that she could wear her sunglasses. Halle shut right up as soon as I put them on. The clerk was shaking her head about the moronic teller. I took care of our business there and on our way out, I turned around to that teller and told Halle to "say bye" as she was wearing her sunglasses with an oh-so smug look on my face.

"You Embarrass Me"

Chloee's teacher had asked me if I would help out to do skill sets in the class on Tuesdays. I was sending a note back to her saying I would help. I told Chloee to give it to her teacher and the following conversation happened:

Me: "Give this to your teacher. It's a note telling her that I'll help with skill sets."

Chloee: "No, no, no, I don't want you to come to my class." (tears streaming down her face)

Me: "What? Why not?"

Chloee: "YOU EMBARRASS ME!"

Me: (now tears streaming down MY face) "How do I embarrass you?"

Chloee: "Just don't come to my class. I don't want people to ask me if you're my mom. I don't want people to know that you are my mom. I don't want you there. Just don't come, PLEASE!"

Me: (now crying harder) "Chloee, if I've done something to embarrass you, please tell me. If you really don't want me to come to your class, I won't but you are really hurting my feelings."

Chloee: "Oh good, then I don't have to take the note? Cause you're not coming to my class, RIGHT?"

Me: (heart has been shredded to tiny pieces) "It's not like I'm going to be teaching your class, I'll be in the back with each kid while Mrs. Thurgood is teaching. No one will even know I'm there. Chloee, do you want a new mom?"

Chloee: "No, I still want you to be my mom. You can stay at home but I don't want you at school. You embarrass me."

Me: (kind of wanting to slap her and still feeling like she's stabbing my heart) "Just tell me what I did to make you so embarrassed of me. I'm sorry!"

Chloee: "Okay mom, you can come to my school, but will you please NOT wear your pajama pants?"

Me: "That's what this is about? That can be easily fixed. I will never wear pajama pants to your school."

Chloee: "Thanks mom! I love you."

Ok, a few things to learn here on my part. CLEARLY I wear my pajama pants way too often and my daughter is embarrassed of it. Obviously I would NEVER wear my pajama pants to the school but I will admit that I do not get dressed to take her to school and that is when skill sets start. Another thing I learned is that even though Chloee has called me fat and has told me that she hates me, NOTHING has ever hurt as bad as her telling me that she is embarrassed of me.

I was beyond relieved to hear that it was pajama pants and not something wrong with ME. This one will go down in the books. I will never forget the pain I felt today. That was a stab and twist.

Fire Safety Fun

We went to fire safety night at Station 51 in Layton. It was just me and Chlo. Halle was staying at Amy's and Josh stayed up there that night to cut out one of the commutes. My LONG time friend, Paul, is a firefighter there and his wife was coming down for it with him. She contacted me and asked if we wanted to come. I have known OF Alisa but never known her. It was an INSTANT connection. She is hilarious and soooo has a personality like mine. I enjoyed every minute we spent together, whether it was talking about in-laws or laughing.

This picture is of Chloee on the fire truck. We got to take a ride around the block. She loved it.

Alisa and their adorable little boy, Carter.

She wanted to keep going on rides.

They did some fire demonstrations. Chloee was too short and couldn't see... who am I kidding? I was too short and couldn't really see.

Alisa was a sweetheart and put Chloee on her shoulders so she could be in on the action. Mind you, it's not like she was putting Carter, an 18 month old up there, it was an over 40 lb, 5 year old. After that, I knew I liked her even more and so did Chloee.

They got to spray the fire hose at the "fire".

Carter was not so interested.

As soon as Alisa and I started talking, she said that Paul had said, "You'll get along with Kim, she's mean like you." What is that supposed to mean? Then we both said something to him, because clearly that is a bash on both of us.

It's okay, turns out that because we both aren't sickie sweet and we tell things the way they are and we are both spit fires, we did get along really well.

They then came back to my house and we talked and laughed until about 11:30 pm. Poor Alisa had to teach school the next day and they still had to drive back up to Logan. I am grateful because I made a new, awesome friend.

A Few of My Favorite Sites

Besides my friend's blogs, there are a few websites that I love and check on a daily basis.

#1. OUR BEST BITES. I love the recipes from these women. I have cooked probably over 30 of their meals and literally, have LOVED every single one of them. The picture below is of their Spinach Bacon Tortellini. It is divine. I have tried so many new recipes with them and have tried some stuff I know I wouldn't have probably tried to even cook normally.

#2. TEEFURY. I don't know why I check this site but once in a while I love a shirt that gets put on there. It is only on for 24 hours and it's ideas that just regular people have sent in. I love when they do a mash-up of 2 great things.

#3. U-CREATE. This website is amazing. I cannot believe some of the awesome things people can create. It is this woman who posts stuff about creations people have come up with and done and gives you step by step instructions on how to do so. You could pretty much find ANYTHING that you are looking to make along with its tutorial.

#4. KNOCK OFF WOOD. This site shows you how to make anything out of wood. She makes all of her furniture, beds, tables, you name it. I also saw a tutorial on there for a kids kitchen. Super cute.

#5. SUGAR DOODLE. What a life saver this site has been since I was put into primary. It has lesson helps, activity day ideas (my other calling) and lots of great ideas. It has help for any organization you are serving in the church. Love it.

#6. THE IDEA DOOR. This is a great site to help with visiting teaching. Every month it has a new handout you can give for your message. I do this every month. It's quick, easy and adds a personal touch.

#7. MPIX. This is a wonderful new site I've come to love. It is a great place to order your photos at excellent quality for an awesome price. A picture that I was looking into enlarging would have been around $100 at Inkleys, $38 on this site and the colors and quality were superb.

#8. PICNIK. I do a lot of touch-ups and fun things on this photo editing site.

#9. PINCHING YOUR PENNIES. I love this site for many reasons. Their online deal feed is my favorite. They actually send me an email every day with the new deals. I get most of my Christmas shopping done using these deals.

I have also heard nothing but good things about PINTEREST but have not gone into that world yet. I need to get a move on that.

September 11th

We went up to my parents' house on Sunday, September 11th. We decided it would be fun to all get together and remember Micheal. We had the usual dutch oven dinner with dad's potatoes, the ones we used to have when Micheal was still alive and we'd all get together every Sunday. Good times.

My dad bought this cow at a ward fundraising auction for the grandkids, but specifically Halle.

He was trying to get her all riled up. It worked.

Amy and I bounced the kids on the tramp for quite a while. They loved it and yeah I wet my pants. I guess that's what happens when you have a sister who used to punch your bladder til you wet your pants and after having 2 kids. No control.

That's Josh's yummy apple pie in the middle there.

Chloee totally tackled Matt!

Josh was trying to do this weird collar bone thing on Amy. Backfired! It creeps me out and makes me want to shutter and it didn't even phase her, not one bit.

Jordan is laying out the rules of the football game about to go down.

My fabulous mom and dad.

Of course Halle is laying on Amy and enjoying her snuggling time.

The girls.

Kennet is holding his tooth in this cup. He teeth kind of look like he has blood all over them but I'm pretty darn sure that it's kool-aid.

I cannot get enough of Halle's chub. I love when I can see her fat thighs. This picture may make me seem like a weird creep but I love to pinch her.

My dad got a fire pit for his birthday. We put it to good use that night as we made s'mores.

I love those BIG brown eyes.

Why can't both of us EVER look normal?

Halle stepped in a roasted marshmallow and Amy was on the way back in the house to help clean her off.

It was a fabulous day. I am so grateful for all of the men and women who have given their lives and their service for our country, especially after 9/11. I am so grateful for a fabulous brother, Micheal, who gave his life and left behind my sweet sister, Amy, and their 2 boys.

Thank you.