Susan G Komen 5K

On Sunday I ran the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure 5K. I ran it with Jen who is a Wildlife Solutions wife. This event was like nothing I've seen before. It was so crowded (I think I heard that 7000 people were there) and there was an amazing feeling behind the whole event. Aside from all the pink, people were in costumes, walking with their families, big groups, supporting each other, remembering lost loved ones. The entire morning was very inspiring and touching and led me to count my blessings that my family has not had to face such a terrible disease.

The run was great, although very crowded. When the horn sounded to start the race, it took us another 4 minutes to even cross the starting line and then another minute or two to actually get to a clear space where we could run. This was the first time I ran the entire thing without stopping, so that was exciting for me. I'm not quite sure what my time was with the delay in getting started but I'm guessing it was close to what I've run in the past.

After the race we headed into the stadium to collect our swag (gotta love race freebies)! The Fuze booth was taking pictures and then donating money to breast cancer research for each downloaded picture, so here is ours..

Me, Jen, and Jen's friend Jessica


I'm feeling more and more confident with my runs and really enjoying it all. Running in the morning lets my thought go wild, gives me a time to pray, and is a nice kid-free start to my day of child-wrangling. Today I signed up for a 10k in Mid-November. It's a bit sooner than I'd like, but the next opportunity would be March, 2010 if I passed this one up. Steve and the girls will be coming to the 10k to cheer mommy across the finish line and there will be a kiddie dash for Brooke to participate in too. Can't wait!

Pumpkin Patch 2009

Miami vs. UCF

This past weekend, Steve and I engaged in a little spousal rivalry. His Miami Hurricanes were playing the UCF Knights. Now I'll admit I don't have much school spirit for UCF. I got two degrees there, but never got into the football scene or felt any huge sense of loyalty. But how could I pass up an opportunity at a little rivalry, tailgating, and football. We tailgated kid-free for about six hours. It was very relaxing and we had amazing weather and a beautiful location on a lake.

Cuddling with the enemy

Check out the view.. so much better than a parking lot in the ghetto!

Gotta love him, despite the tacky hat.

Steve and Ken

Unfortunately, the Knights fell to the Canes (not a big shocker) and I froze since I was too proud to wear Steve's tacky orange and green Miami jacket. But we had a great time and the Canes are having a great year!

Daddy's Birthday Carnival

My OLDER husband turned 35 last week. When I asked him how he wanted to celebrate his birthday, he said he wanted a quiet night at home playing games with the kids. I tried to talk him out of it, thinking there was a much more festive way to celebrate the big 3-5, but that is just his style these days. Quality time with his family makes for a happy daddy. But I was still feeling the need to crank his birthday festivities up a notch, so Brooke and I planned a birthday carnival for him at our house (Ali just can't keep a secret). We created four differentgames, printed "daddy bucks" and game tickets off the computer, arranged a prize table, and made him work for his gifts! This sign was ready to greet him when he got home.

The first game.. Pin the Daddy in the Zebra Truck!

Here Steve is trying to stick a picture of himself on the window of the truck while blindfolded.

The Ring Toss (Steve's favorite game to play at a carnival). We raided the pantry and recycle bin for all the bottles we could find and used the ring of a mason jar lid as the tossing ring.

We also had a bean bag toss and a dolphin dunk, but my camera did not cooperate.

Then we made one of our favorite family night recipes, deep-dish pizza muffins! YUM!

And sang Happy Birthday over a plate full of funfetti cupcakes (another Daddy fave)!

Family Date Night

The UCF Arena had a great deal on opening night tickets to Sesame Street Live, and I couldn't pass them up. Ali had such a good time last year and she still loves to watch Abby, Zoe and Elmo on TV. We let her pick her chaperon for the night and Daddy was the lucky chosen one.

So they headed off on their way and Brooke and I planned a date night for us too. We went to a new-ish pottery place in downtown Sanford called Hot Pots. Brooke made a mug for her daddy's upcoming birthday and also a Christmas ornament.

I made a family Celebration plate that we will use to celebrate a great accomplishment, a special day, or other family celebration. After pottery, Brooke and I eagerly headed to Cracker Barrel (she likes the shopping and the games, I like the chicken and dumplings and fried okra). We were also excited to buy her her first Moon Pie.

They had come up in a conversation recently and she was curious to try one. Unfortunately they were not all I had hyped them up to be, in Brooke's opinion. So I selflessly "disposed" of it in my belly!

Samantha's Sweet Sixteen

Our sweet Sammie is sweet sixteen! So hard to believe since I remember how small she was when we first met her. Sam, we are so proud of the person you are and the woman you are becoming. We love you so much and are so blessed to have you in our lives!



The girls and I drove out to Cocoa for her Sweet 16 party and had a nice time. There was a giant water slide. Ali went down once and was done, and Brooke made it twice before deciding it wasn't for her.

The girls hung out in the pool and tackled Sam every time she came down the slide. She was a good sport about it!

Brooke and Ali were cracking me up with their playful wrestling. Don't let this picture fool you. Ali can hold her own against her big sister. Every time I would think I needed to intervene, I'd walk over and see Ali smiling and loving every minute of it.

The Mighty Minnow!

We have a new boat! We are super excited because our new boat, named The Mighty Minnow, will allow us to enjoy the river in a way we haven't been able to yet. Our trusty Gheenoe was just too small for the four of us to enjoy for longer trips. Now we have a Carolina Skiff and are loving it! In fact we were loving it so much this weekend that we spent almost 10 hours on it! Here are the girls lovin' The Mighty Minnow..

They each have their own seat next to each other, and mommy gets to sit next to daddy too (instead of in single file like on the Gheenoe). It takes us a little while to make our way down the Wekiva towards the St Johns, but I really don't mind since the scenery is so beautiful.

On Saturday I noticed that the girls were getting a little restless towards the end of our trip, so I knew I had to come up with a trick to keep them more entertained for our Sunday adventure. I created a River Bingo card for each of them so they would be on the lookout for items they could cross off their papers. It actually worked out really well and kept them looking and excited about all they were seeing. Unfortunately, they DID get to cross off the one picture I had hoped they wouldn't .. a rain storm. But despite the rain, they were troopers and the bimini top game in very handy.

Here's a closer look at the BINGO sheet. It had things like animals, boats, people, signs, and other items you might see on a boat trip. I think next time I'll try to make a more educational one for them so they can start to learn the names of the birds we see on our boating trips.

Fort Wilderness Camping Trip

In September we spent a fun weekend at Disney's Fort Wilderness campground. Mom and Dad brought their camper and we brought ours (newly restored from the years of abuse it took during our home construction). The girls were really excited about camping in the trailer. Neither of them had any memories of camping in it before, so Steve and i were looking forward to changing that! We arrived Friday afternoon, set up the camper and headed off to the pool for some fun!

Grammy and Papa waiting for the bucket over their heads to fill up with water, and then...

SPLASH!

Brooke waves from the camper..

Grammy and Leann lead Brooke on a pony ride.

Is it Chip or Dale?? Brooke could tell you, but I'm not sure! Every night they have a sing-a-long with a campfire and an outdoor movie. We also walked down to the lake and saw the Magic Kingdom fireworks and the electrical water parade.

Yum! Smores!



My daddy the grill master! Camping with mom and dad means you can bring NO food with you and still leave stuffed.




Shuffleboard.. improvised!



We rented a golf cart to help get our crowd around the campground. At one point we had 11 people on it at once! What a fun memory!

Yeah! Let's do it again next year!

Cat Traps

Brooke has been making books for some time now. She will disappear for hours at a time and emerge with a new creation. Sometimes she will come up with her own storylines and other times she will recreate a story she already knows. She literally has piles of her homemade books in her closet. I can't bring myself to throw any of them away since she puts so much love and effort into each one. Last week, we were at the library and she checked out a book called "Cat Traps". It is a beginning reader that she was able to read all by herself. That same day she announced that she was going to make her very own copy of Cat Traps. I was surprised since this book has 32 pages, but she is a persistent little girl. Two days later, she proudly presented her completed book! Each page had been copied (pictures and words) in her own handwriting. I guess we'll need to have a conversation about plagiarism later, but for now, she's five and in love with book-making, so I won't interfere. After she finished Cat Traps, she announced that she was going to make more copies so she could sell them. Steve encouraged her to make up her own twist on the story, rather than copying the same book again, and so Bat Traps was born! Today she made two books for Ali; one about colors and one about numbers. What will she think of next?

Here is the original Cat Traps and Brooke's Cat Traps side-by-side

Publix Fieldtrip

Brooke's first field trip of the year was to Publix. I got to go along with her for the fun! Fun? Yes, I know.. another trip to Publix is like doing another load of laundry. But I knew it would be important to her to have me there.

Brookie in a hairnet! Stylish!

Watching the cool pineapple cutter!

A cookie in the bakery!

Maitland 5K

At the last minute, I impulsively signed up for the Greater Maitland 5K. I had such a good time last week at Miracle Miles, I was ready to do it again and keep motivated to continue exercising. I was able to beat last weeks time too! I finished in 29:05 and was 33rd female and 9th in my age class. The 10K is sounding more and more tempting!! :)

Hot Stuff

If you know Steve, then you know that Steve loves heat! He has his own hot sauce cabinet in our kitchen and is a connoisseur of all things spicy. There's a running joke in our marriage that if I ask him if something is spicy and he answers no, the "true" answer is yes. So when Wildlife Solutions had a booth at a recent trade show with a Heat theme, the idea surfaced that WS could have hot sauce freebies at their booth. They got in contact with Tijuana Flats (Dos Tacos, por favor!) and the zebra truck hot sauce you see pictured below was born!!

Carson is ONE!

I am super late in blogging about our sweet Carson's birthday, but Steve kidnapped the camera so I am just now getting around to this. Carson James turned 1 in September and we celebrated with a fun bubbles, bouncing and balls party. Jill did a great job and Carson had a "ball"! We love you Carson!

Devouring his cake!

All the "DeMoor" cousins

Big Boy Carson!

5K Mamas!

A few months back I was hanging out with the girls from homegroup and we decided to run a 5K. We wanted to hold of until fall, since running any distance in the Florida summer is just plain torture. We picked the Miracle Miles 5k which supports Winnie Palmer Hospital's NICU. I started running a couple times a week in the mornings and was enjoying it more than I thought I would. Running is so peaceful in the early morning.. no children yelling my name, no pile of dishes to look at, and with some luck, I usually stir up some deer or turkeys. I had been running the full length of our street for a few weeks when I decided to check the length with my car odometer. To my excitement I found out that a round trip on our dead-end street was 3 miles (just 0.1 mile short of a 5K).



The big day of the 5K arrived and Heather, Amy, Christy and I met up early in the morning. The air horn sounded and we were off! I was able to run the first 2 miles without stopping (I was really pushing myself to do well). Then I paced myself a bit better in the last mile. I finished in 33:58. I was very happy with my time and did right about what I thought I might. It was a fun experience and I have already signed up for another one in late October for the Susan G Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. Training for a 10K is tempting, but I looked up the training schedule and changed my mind pretty quickly.. at least for now.