Looking back most of my "A Day In Our Lives" posts have been when we were meeting somewhere for a playdate. We usually have one or 2 days a week where we don't have anything scheduled and just do our own thing. I've been wanting to write about one of those days so I went with Tuesday, April 5th as we had no playdates or outings scheduled. It was a pretty typical day outside of the afternoon where things took a bit of a chaotic turn during naptime, but there are always days like that, so oh well! Here is what our day looked like.
5:00 am- Ty's alarm goes off and he gets up to get ready for work. He's in a new position and is still performing duties from his other position so he has been putting in a lot of hours at work. He lets the dogs out and feeds them so I can go back to sleep and they won't wake the kids. He comes back in the room at 5:30 to kiss me good bye and I go back to sleep. Harper and Skippy take Ty being gone as an opportunity to hop in bed with me.
My bed buddies.
6:40- Elise cries out so I get out of bed. I go to the bathroom and she hasn't made any other noise so I figure she must've just cried out in her sleep and isn't really awake as she does that sometimes. I check on Carter who is still sleeping soundly as I head into the kitchen to do some chores, but when I get in the kitchen I hear Elise again and realize she really is awake. I go into her room and nurse her in the rocking chair. I love those morning snuggles and soak up the nursing session as it's the last one left and Elise will probably be fully weaned soon. Sister is a big snuggler but really only snuggles into me and lays there while nursing or right after nursing. I will miss those sweet snuggles when she's weaned. When she's done nursing I change her diaper and we head in for breakfast.
Solid night sleep according to my Fitbit.
Little sweetie sleeps with his thumb in his mouth.
Good morning, sunshine!
I can't believe how big she is!
7:15- Carter wakes up and heads into the kitchen. He sees me making Elise's oatmeal and wants some too. I make him some oatmeal and sit down with a bowl of cereal so we can all eat together. Carter starts asking me about our day and wants to know where we are going. When I tell him we don't have any plans he asks if we can go to the Children's Museum. He's so funny saying, "Yesterday they had dinos in that one room, Thursday they had yucky stuff (grossology exhibit), and Friday them had Legos." It cracks me up how he uses yesterday for any time in the past and then to differentiate here he used days of the week. When Carter finishes his breakfast he starts playing with his toy cupcakes. He's so cute, offering them to me and Elise, singing Happy Birthday, blowing out the pretend candles, and taking the tops off to stack the bottoms and make a tower. When Elise is finished eating I clean her up and get her out of her high chair. While I clean dishes, load and run the dishwasher, and scrub the counters and sink, Elise stands at her high chair playing with it and her spoon. Then she moves on to playing with the car.
Morning stretches.
Oatmeal with honey for the big one year old.
Carter requested blueberries in his.
Would you like a cupcake?
Her high chair is so much fun!
8:30- We get ready to go on a run. Carter picks out toys to take in the stroller and I get drinks for them to have while they ride. When we go out for a run first thing in the morning I let the kids go in their jammies. Carter just has to put shoes on if he wants to walk with Harper after our run. It takes a while to convince him to get on the potty before we go, but he finally does. We let the dogs out to potty and then head to the car with Harper leashed up. Carter says he doesn't want to run from the house because he wants to ride in the car with Harper so we drive to the closest parking lot to the large running trail system and are there in less than 10 minutes. As I get Elise out of her car seat to put her in the stroller I notice she has pooped so I quickly change her diaper in the front seat. We then run 3 miles. I run out a little past the 1.5 mile turn around so Carter can get out after I'm done running and walk to the car. He loves to hold Harper's leash and walk for a bit after riding in the stroller.
Picking out which cars they want to take in the stroller.
Surprise diaper change! She's in a disposable because I didn't throw a cloth diaper in the diaper bag as we left, didn't think I'd need it.
Ready to run!
Carter walking Harper after our run.
9:30- We make it home. I clean the poopy diaper in the toilet and put it in the diaper pail. Then I go in to take a shower. Ty is remodeling our main bathroom so we don't have a tub right now. Carter asks to shower with me and he's still in his jammies so I say yes. It actually works out great because then he won't have to shower in the evening before bed. I put Elise in Ty and my bedroom and close the door so I can keep an eye on her while we shower. She decides she wants in on the fun and tries to climb into the shower so I take her clothes off in case she really does get in. Once she's naked she crawls into the shower and then sits on the floor crying. She's hit and miss, sometimes she climbs in and loves being in with us. Other times she climbs in and then instantly regrets her decision. I end up holding her during the rest of my shower which makes it difficult to wash my hair, but I get it done. Once we're all out of the shower and dressed I pack snacks and we let the dogs out to potty again. Then we head out to the Children's Museum.
Sis was not a happy girl in the shower.
Caught Skippy getting hair on all my clothes and knocking them off the shelf!
Checking on the dogs as they go potty.
10:40- We arrive at the Children's Museum a bit later than planned since we drove somewhere to run and then both the kids wanted to shower with me. Carter wants to play on the park outside before going in so he does that for a bit until he sees other kids going inside and then he wants to go in too. After we show our membership to get in, we head straight for the restrooms and as we are walking down the hall I notice Carter's pants are on backwards. Carter goes potty quickly and we head off to play after washing our hands. They have re-done the toddler area and it is awesome! I'm glad because a school field trip is there and all the kids are too old for the toddler area so I'm able to take the kids in there away from the crowd. One of the new additions in the toddler area is a ball pit which both kids play in for a long time. Elise is cracking me up laughing and grabbing balls. Once the field trip leaves we head over to the tape tunnels which are Carter's favorite. He wants Elise to come with him so I walk Elise through and she LOVES it! When we are going down the tape slide for the 2nd time I decided to let her ride down by herself rather than in between my legs. At first she panics a little bit, but then she rolls over to her belly and has a blast pushing herself down. It's the cutest thing and I can't stop laughing. Carter heads off to a building area after our 4th time through the tape tunnels and an older kid shows him how to use some Hex bugs while I walk Elise around because she's desperate to walk. I tell Carter we are leaving in 2 minutes and set a timer. When my timer goes off we head to the bathrooms but Carter doesn't want to go in. I go ahead and use the restroom and when I come out he still won't go in. I finally talk him into going to the bathroom before heading home and then we are off.
Playing on the playground outside the Children's Museum.
Elise was excited about the tape tunnels.
Leading the way!
Building track for the Hex bugs.
12:20 pm- We make it home and Elise is asleep. I decided to let her sleep in her car seat while I make lunch. She has just started transitioning away from her morning nap and some days she gets tired earlier than others. Carter plays outside while I get lunch ready and then we eat in the backyard. I carry Elise's high chair out and she eats by the table Carter and I are sitting at. She now takes a sippy cup of whole milk at lunch since we dropped her afternoon nursing session. Carter plays for a little bit while I clean everything up and take Elise's high chair back inside.
Napping in her car seat.
Lunch outside is always so much fun!
Playing after lunch.
1:20- I change Elise's diaper and put her down for her nap. She's typically my no muss, no fuss baby. I change her diaper, lay her down, and she puts herself to sleep. If Carter is busy with something and staying out of trouble sometimes I rock her for a bit just for fun, but she doesn't need it. Once I have Elise laying down, I have Carter go potty one more time and then we lay down together in his bed. I lay with him to help him fall asleep. He falls asleep really quickly but I don't feel like getting up yet so I check my email and mess around on my phone for a while before getting up.
Laying with Carter at naptime.
1:45- I head into our room and start to sort laundry. Then Elise starts crying. I'm not sure if she hadn't fallen asleep yet or if she was asleep and woke up because our monitor hasn't been working. I head into her room to help her fall back to sleep. I try rocking her, but she is wiggling all over and not closing her eyes. I decid to lay her down in her crib and pat her booty. As I'm patting her booty I upload my activities from the morning to my Wellcoin app to get my points.
2:30- Elise is quiet and resting as I pat her booty but she's not closing her eyes, so I decide to leave and let her put herself to sleep. She starts crying which wakes Carter up. He's still tired and asks me to lay in bed with him for a little bit. We lay there for a while and then he says he's ready to get up. He plays while I fold his and Elise's laundry from the day before. I put his laundry away while he reads books to me and then we clean the windows together. Cleaning the windows was his idea because he saw the Windex was still out from me cleaning the counters earlier in the day. Elise didn't cry for long and falls back to sleep at some point.
3:40- Elise wakes up. She and Carter play in her room while I put her laundry away. When I pull out her shirt/onesie drawer it is so full there's no way I can put any more clothes into it. I go through and end up pulling out some 6 month and 9 month onesies that somehow ended up in her drawer after my last cleanout. I reorganize her drawer now that there is more room and finish putting her laundry away. Carter has been learning about Russia this week for his learning theme so we watch a couple Youtube videos of Russian dancing. I ask Carter if he wants to try it and he says, "No, it would be too much bouncing!" He cracks me up. We go to do an activity with our matryoshka dolls and realize the 3 smallest ones are missing so we start searching the house. We tidy up as we search, but we have no luck.
4:45- I'm feeling really frustrated about the missing matryoshka dolls so we head outside for a break. It feels good to get some fresh air and the sunshine always brightens my mood! Carter goes inside to get a drink and comes back with sippy cups for both himself and for Elise. He goes up to the top of the hill by the fence and tells us we should come sit by him in the shade. It does look like the perfect spot so I walk Elise up there. As we are sitting there, the kids are drinking their milk, and we're all relaxing. Harper starts getting all excited about something in the grass so we go over to check it out and find a baby bird with it's eyes still closed which appears to have fallen out of it's nest. We search in the tree for a nest and try to peer into the bird house we have to see if there is a nest in there. We can't tell and I'm not sure what I should do so I call Ty and he advises we leave it alone and hope it's mom finds it and takes it back to it's nest. That's when Carter realizes there are 2 baby birds. They are so sad opening their mouths, hoping we will feed them. Using leaves so as not to touch the baby bird, we move the first one over closer to the second, hoping if they are together they won't be as scared. Then we head inside to make dinner.
Carter up in the shade, drinking his milk.
5:15- Carter and I wash our hands and start making the pizza crust for dinner. Carter keeps watching out the window hoping he'll see the momma bird find her babies and fly them back to the nest. I am very doubtful that will happen, but I don't want to dash his hopes. At this point it's basically one calamity after another. We are making 2 pizzas because my parents and Jeremy are coming over for dinner. I decide it will be easiest to make 2 separate batches of pizza crust rather than double the recipe so I can let Carter knead the dough of one while I make the other and then knead it. Elise is nicely playing with the toy cupcakes while we add the ingredients. Then as we start to mix the dough I feel something brush my arm and look over to see Elise standing in a chair on the opposite side of me as Carter. I am shocked and amazed at the same time and can't help but laugh. I send Carter over to the table to knead the dough as I start the next batch. I move the chair Elise was on and find something for her to play with. From that point on she is following me around, clinging to me and screaming because she is hungry. I have the ingredients added and ready to knead as Carter says his dough is funny and won't stay together. I look at it and realize I accidentally added 2 cups of oatmeal instead of 1 so it is too dry and is falling apart. We end up doubling that recipe so we can add twice as much of all the other ingredients to even out the oatmeal. Now we have enough dough for 3 pizza crusts. I know we'll have enough sauce, but we will run out of mozzarella cheese. I know we have another bag of mixed cheese so I decide to go ahead and make the pepperoni pizza and the pepperoni, mushroom, and olive pizza we had planned along with a plain cheese pizza. Elise is still screaming so I put her in her high chair and send Carter over with some pepperoni (it's turkey pepperoni) to feed her. I move the pizza stone from on top of the stove to the counter and start to press the dough out when I look down and notice the stone is cracked. I look closer and realize it has broken in two. So now instead of making a second pizza while the first is in the oven, I will have to wait on the pan that is in the oven! Ty arrives home around 5:30 and gives us all kisses before heading in to work on our bathroom remodel. I go to get out the other cheese for the third pizza and find there is probably a quarter cup left is all. It had gotten used throughout the week without me knowing. So now the third pizza will mostly just be crust and sauce. It's just one of those kind of days! I finally get the last pizza in the oven and start setting the table, pulling out salad and strawberries to go with our meal.
Playing with the cupcakes while Carter and I cook.
Wild woman Elise decided she needed to help!
Eating some sweet potato and grapes while we cooked.
5:45- Dad and Jeremy arrive for dinner and mom is on her way walking. I tell them about the cooking shenanigans and my dad spends a considerable amount of time during dinner talking about how good the pizza is, I'm guessing to make me feel better. We have a nice dinner and enjoy chatting about our days. Elise drinks milk since we've dropped the nighttime nursing session and she eats a considerable amount considering I'd been feeding her in between steps pretty much the whole time I was cooking. Before dinner started she'd eaten quite a bit of pepperoni, an avocado, half a sweet potato, a bunch of grapes, and string cheese. Then at dinner she had some strawberries and some pizza!
7:00- Dad wipes Elise off and we skip her bath since she took a shower with me earlier in the day. I put her in jammies and take her around for night night kisses before rocking her a bit and putting her to bed. When I come out of Elise's room I am pleased to find my mom unloaded the clean dishes from the dishwasher which I had ran earlier in the day. Carter plays hide and seek with Jeremy, dad, and Ty while mom and I clean up from dinner and do the dishes.
Dad making Elise get Carter.
7:30- Elise starts crying. I'm not sure if she hadn't fallen asleep yet or if Carter running around yelling in excitement about his hide and seek game woke her up. I go back in to help her fall asleep and rock her for a bit. Then she poops so I change her diaper and she's sitting up slapping me in the chest when I sit back down to rock her some more so I lay her down in her crib.
8:00- I come out of Elise's room and find Carter watching a movie with Oma, Opa, and Uncie J. He wants to read 3 books: one with me, one with Opa, and one with Uncie J. Then I have him brush his teeth and he's off to bed a bit late since he got to read an extra book. We all sit around talking for a while. I add pictures to a post I had already written about the Aquarium Run 10k and then I publish the post. We all have brownies with ice cream my parents brought over.
9:30- Ty heads for bed. Dad and Jeremy are lifting weights in the garage and mom is doing laundry because the washer at Jeremy's house isn't working. I sneak into Carter's room to give him kisses. Then I brush my teeth and head to bed around 10:15.
I love sneaking in to give Carter kisses at night!
It was a bit of a crazy day with naptimes not going the way they normally do, but there are those days where things don't go as planned so I figured I'd go ahead and document our day. I've since figured out that if Elise falls asleep on our way home from somewhere and she stays asleep when I walk her into the house, I just go ahead and put her down for a nap. Then she'll take a 3 hour nap and wake up ready for a late lunch. If she falls asleep in the car but wakes up as I carry her into the house I go ahead and feed her lunch and then put her down for a nap. She still takes about a 3 hour nap that way. My mistake this day was waking her up for lunch. It threw her off and she didn't go down well for her nap or at bedtime. You live and you learn and each child is so different!
After running the Sweetheart Run 10k I really wanted to run another 10k to break 43 minutes. My goal race for the spring has been a 5k we run in honor of one of Jeremy's high school classmates who died in a hiking accident. The race is very near and dear to our hearts and when I'm not pregnant or just coming back from having a baby I plan my spring around running my fastest at that race. I decided to run a 10k at the Aquarium Run a few weeks before the Get Busy Livin 5k and shoot for a sub-43 performance. I kept most my speed workouts geared more toward a 5k and my training has been for the 5k, but I knew all of that would also transfer over to a faster 10k. I just haven't been running long runs with my longest run topping out at 6 miles. The Friday before the race I started looking at past years' results to get an idea of how many people I would be running with. I was shocked to see that my 43:11 from the Sweetheart run would have put my in the top 5 overall (meaning male and female combined) all of the previous years and would leave me running pretty much alone. I'm glad I looked at results and was prepared for that mentally. I made sure to really look at the course map to ensure I knew where I was going. I ran the 10k in 2013 and remembered it was not marked particularly well and there weren't very many people out on the course directing us where to go. I wasn't worried about the way out because we would have half-marathoners running with us and I knew there would be sub-1:30 half-marathoners to run with. It was the return trip I was worried about because the course was not an out and back. Friday night Jeremy and my parents came over for dinner and I was telling them my concerns about getting lost on the course. When I laid Carter down for bed he asked me if we were going to a race in the morning. When I told him we were, he said, "Don't worry mommy, you will be okay. I'll be there and I'll cheer for you." It melted my heart. He is the sweetest!
Elise and Carter ready to spectate the race.
We arrived at the aquarium a little later than we had planned and I needed to use the restroom again so my warm up got cut short. I ran a 0.6 mile warm up rather than my typical mile warm up. It turned out I could've done a full mile because the race started about 5 minutes late. We took off and I was feeling pretty good, cruising along. My plan was to go out around 6:50-6:55 pace for the first half of the race and attempt to negative split. The course is extremely flat with the only downside being it is typically very windy which slows down the times. We lucked out with very mild wind the day of the race. I went through the first mile in 6:45 which was a touch faster than I was hoping for so I decided to dial it down during the second mile and immediately slowed my pace. Apparently I slowed down too much because I went through mile 2 in 6:59. Then I freaked out a little bit that mile 2 was so slow and I was going to have a tough time coming back from it like my 5th mile during the Sweetheart Run. At this point in the race I had caught up to a guy ahead of me and we were running side by side. We had a great pace going and were running along stride for stride. We crossed a bridge to the other side of the river and were running down a street that is also part of the Route 66 Marathon course and I had a flashback to my first marathon. I told myself no matter how much the last 3 miles of the race hurt, it would never compare to the last 3 miles of a marathon. I started to gain my confidence back and knew no matter what I could rock that last 5k. I went through mile 3 in 6:47. I was pleased with where my overall pace was at this point and I was also happy to be half-way done.
The race start of the 10k/half-marathon taken from the aquarium website, you can't see me but I like the picture.
I could see the casino in the distance and knew our turn around was right before we reached the casino. My watch beeped for mile 4 which I had run in 6:51. As I approached the turn around I was hoping to see the pack of runners ahead of me turn around for the 10k, but none of them did. Then as I started to turn off for the 10k, the guy I was running with said, "Have a good race!" and continued on with the half-marathon. I was on the return trip with just 2 miles to go but I couldn't see anyone even in the far distance. I really strained my eyes looking ahead of me and there was no one to be seen. Unless someone passed me from behind it was looking to be a lonely trek those last couple miles when it would have been nice to have someone to chase after. I kept repeating 43 over and over in my head and pushing as hard as I could, knowing I was on pace to break 43 and I wanted to keep with it. I was tired and starting to hurt but I wasn't giving up. I hit mile 5 right before I turned back onto the bridge to head to the aquarium. I had kept mile 5 steady at 6:52. As I was crossing the bridge I was wondering where I would head once I got across the bridge and didn't see anyone at the end of the bridge directing runners which way to go. As I got close to the end of the bridge I could see the 10k runners ahead of me heading back on the road toward the aquarium so I knew that's where I would go. As I turned onto the road back to the aquarium I was having to weave in and out of 5k runners and 1 mile fun run participants who were finishing their races. It was a bit of a jumbled mess and made it hard to kick as much as I would have liked for the last mile, but I still ran my last mile as one of my fastest in 6:46 and ran the last 0.24 miles in 6:15 pace! As I neared the finish line I saw they had a bubble machine at the finish so bubbles were blowing across the finish line which was fun and helped me push just a bit harder. Then I heard my dad cheering for me and when I glanced at the finishing clock, I saw the time was just ticking over to 42:30. I had crushed my goal of breaking 43 minutes and was pumped!
A picture of me finishing that dad took.
I found my dad who was spectating this race with the kids due to a sinus infection and possibly a cold on top of that and Thomas was with him. Thomas had annihilated his time from the St. Patrick's Day 5k less than a month ago, running 21:49. With the 5k starting 20 minutes after the 10k and half marathon, I was excited at the thought that if Thomas ran just under 23 minutes, we could finish at the same time. But he ran quite a bit faster than that! He placed 11th out of 387 overall and 2nd out of 17 in his age group. We got to watch Ty finish in 27:56 which put him 5th out of 17 in his age group and 59th overall. My time of 42:30 put me 7th out of 195 overall, 2nd out of 126 women, and 1st out of 30 in my age group. When I looked at the results, it turned out the person closest in front of me beat me by almost 3 minutes and the person closest behind me ran almost 3 minutes slower than me. I was even farther spaced out than I had imagined during the race! I ran a mile cool down and got such a bad side stitch at one point that I got light headed and had to walk to catch my breath. I thought, that's how you know you ran really hard, you can barely run a cool down! Once I returned I found everyone else inside eating the finisher's food and Ty got in line to pick mine up for me so I could change out of my sweaty clothes. Dad took Carter into the aquarium while I helped Ty load the stroller and Elise up so he could take her home for a nap and get started on our bathroom remodel. Then I went into the aquarium with Thomas to meet dad and we walked around a bit before picking up Thomas' and my awards and then heading home. Although the race is a bit on the smaller side, I have always really enjoyed it. It's a bit surprising to me that it isn't more popular considering the great post-race food (breakfast burritos from a local Mexican restaurant) and free entry into the aquarium after the race.
A picture of Ty finishing that my dad took.
Thomas with the kids after his race.
Carter walking through the aquarium after the race.
I was once again so glad Jeremy got me to push out of my 5k/half marathon comfort zone and try out a 10k. I love the challenge of the 10k. It is such a different beast than my normal races. You have more pacing involved than in a 5k where I basically go out hard, run the middle hard, and finish hard. It's also faster than a half marathon where you can go out slow the first couple miles and have plenty of miles to make up the time. With a 10k being 6 miles you have to pace yourself from starting out too fast and burning up, but you also go long enough that those last couple miles are hard and your legs burn. I'd have to say I'm a bit hooked on the distance right now. I also love that I can train for and run a decent 10k without actually doing any long runs which is great with trying to time runs around the kids' schedules! During my cool down I was already thinking about running the 10k this summer at the summer race series we normally run and I usually run the 5k. My first 3 miles in this race added up to 20:31 and miles 4-6 were 20:29. I was pleased with myself that even though my mile splits were a bit up and down, my overall pacing was pretty even and I ran a negative split which was awesome! I looked back at the Sweetheart run and I had also run my first 3 miles in 20:31 but miles 4-6 were a crap shoot with that super slow 5th mile. I'd like to keep chipping away at my 10k time and really enjoy the chance to run PRs that are now so difficult to hit in the 5k!
