Funny Stuff the Kids Say

While taking a tour through Marvel Cave:
Carter: Oma, do you know you're hurting my hand?
Oma: Yes, I know I'm holding your hand. It's in case you slip again.
Carter: No, you're hurting my hand.
Oma: Oh, I'm sorry. I don't like heights.

Elise: I don't like burping in front of Oma.

Me: Why?
Elise: Because she thinks it's funny and she might take a picture.

Elise singing in the car:
"Shave your beard, shave your beard.
No, no, no, not Santa.
Just other people!"

Elise: Why can't they come to our house?
Me: Because we're meeting them at the park.
Elise: I want them to come to our house instead.
Me: Why?
Elise: Because I hate wearing shoes!

Elise singing in the car:
"Someone is going to get sick.
Who will it be?
Will it be Paiton, will it be Caden, will it be Aubrey?"

Elise in the car: I made a panda hand!
Me, thinking she traced her hand on paper and decorated it to look like a panda: Oh cool, I can't wait to see when we get there!
Arrive and find her hand fully colored black.
Me: Elise, what happened?!?
Elise: I made a panda hand!
Me: What will Santa think when he sees this? We were going to visit Santa that evening.
Elise: That I was naughty!

She thought it was hilarious!

"Those kids were going up the slide and down the stairs so I teached them to go down the slide." -Elise

Woman talking to son: Come here, you little monkey!
Elise: My Opa likes flamingoes!

"What you just did was not pleasing." -Carter to the dentist

"I don't like the sense of paper on my skin." -Carter

"You're a Christmas Mommy because you are so nice!" -Elise

Discussing the rules of Go Fish.
Me: You have to have 4 cards before you lay down.
Elise: I have to lay down! Thinking she had to take a nap.

Ty got off work early and surprised us by returning home with a haircut.
Carter: You got a haircut?
Ty: Yes.
Carter: I can't tell.
Me: I can tell. He looks handsome.
Elise: Yeah, I can tell. He looks bald.

"I don't like driving on the highway because it's not as pretty. I don't get to see as much nature." -Carter

Carter: Daddy's wearing glasses again. I don't like them.
Me: Oh, I do, I think he looks handsome!
Carter to Ty: Do you have to wear glasses all the time?
Ty: Yes.
Elise: Well, you won't have to wear them when you are dead!

Elise described a safety pin by saying, "One of those sharp things that you use for races."

Carter: Can I re-wear these pants tomorrow.
Me: They look clean enough. Why do you want to wear those are they the most comfortable?
Carter: No, I want to wear them because I have rocks in my pockets.
Me: You have rocks in your pockets?
Carter: Yes, I have a whole bunch of them!

"He was saying 'I can't hear you, I can't hear you.' I was dying laughing!" -Elise

Elise singing in car: Elsa has the same hair as me and the same skin and the same eyes!

Stranger to Elise: I like your dress.
Elise: Thanks, my grandma made it for me. I call her Oma. My Opa has lots of jokes.
Stranger: Well, I like to laugh

Me: Did you toot?
Elise: No, your breath smells, that's why.

"You know what I like? You and my daddy and my tablet and mac and cheese and wrestling!" -Elise

My Year in Books

Last year I used information from my Goodreads account to do a post about the books I read in 2018. Read that post here. It was fun to see my stats from 2019 as well. In 2018 my goal was to read 100 books and I hit that well before January so for 2019 I decided to shoot for 115 books. This year I read 132 books but I think I'll stick with a goal of 115 books. Really the number of books can vary depending on the length of the book. In December I read a bunch of books but that was because I read a bunch of short, easy reads with Christmas books. Then other months I only made it through one audiobook because it was over 20 hours long. So it all just depends. You'll notice I only read 4 more books than last year but read almost 4,000 more pages. Which pretty much makes my point for me! My reading is for me to enjoy and have fun, not to worry about hitting a certain number of books for the year, so I'm not going to increase my goal. 

This year I read 41, 911 pages across 132 books.
Last year I read 38,074 pages across 128 books.

I love the book cover collage that Goodreads makes out of the books you've read. I've included screen shots of the prettiest covers.

My shortest book was And Still I Rise by Maya Angelou at 54 pages.
My longest book was 11/22/63 by Stephen King at 849 pages.

The average length of book I read was 317 pages.

The most popular book I read was Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury with 1,681,046 other people reading it.

The least popular book I read was Elmer McCurdy: The Misadventures in Life and Afterlife of an American Outlaw by Mark Svenvold with 133 other people reading it.

My favorite fiction books I read this year: Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens and Beartown by Fredrik Backman

My favorite nonfiction book I read this year: Tell Me More: Stories about the 12 Hardest Things I'm Learning by Kelly Corrigan

My favorite fiction audiobook I listened to this year: The Alice Network by Kate Quinn 

My favorite nonfiction audiobook I listened to this year: Calypso by David Sedaris

Overall Favorite for the Year: I can't really decide which one was my favorite and there are a few others I'd like to include, so this year I'm doing an honorable mention. I guess for favorite I'd have to go with Beartown by Fredrik Backman.

Honorable Mention (how I read it in parenthesis):
In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware (fiction ebook)
Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty (fiction audiobook)
Summer of '69 by Elin Hilderbrand (fiction)
The Five Love Languages of Children by Gary Chapman (nonfiction audiobook)
The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey (fiction audiobook)
The Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson (fiction ebook) 
The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell (nonfiction audiobook)
I Remember Nothing and Other Reflections by Nora Ephron (nonfiction audiobook)
Us Against Them by Fredrik Backman (fiction)

Wordless Wednesday

Carter let Elise work on Legos with him.

Carter made this awesome train track.

Elise wanted to go on my run with me so I took her in the stroller.

Carter playing dress up in the circus area at the Children's Museum.

Ty helping Elise build at the Children's Museum.

Took the kids out for root beer floats.

Elise snuggling her Otty at bedtime.

Elise must've gotten up too early because after breakfast I couldn't find her and discovered her laying on the couch.

She had fallen back to sleep.

Elise dressed herself using tights as pants and wearing her Elsa necklace and tiara. She looked so cute!

 

I had to get another picture because I accidentally cropped out her tiara in the other pictures.

Opening LOL Surprises they got with Christmas money from Uncle Kelly.

My co-teacher's baby was crying so Elise drove him around in the stroller to calm him.

Took Elise to lunch at Panera with a gift card I got for Christmas.

Elise wanted to take her Scruff a Loves on a bike ride.

 

Elise was super excited she got to pet Skippy.

Trying out his new pot holder thing from Gigi.

Elise at school.

The kids coloring in Elise's room before school.

Coloring before school.

Elise wanted to do a bingo dabber page before school.

Elise wanted to wear tights as pants but I was able to convince her to put a skirt on over her tights.

Race Into the New Year

This race is always such a blast. It starts at 11:45 and you run into the New Year with fireworks at midnight. Last year I ran my fastest time on this course with a 20:24. It's a simple out and back in the shape of a u because you cross a bridge from the west side of the river to the east side and then back all on Riverside Drive. I was hopeful I could beat my time from last year to really kick off my spring training cycle with a bang. I thought 20:15 was reasonable and toyed with the idea of being able to break 20 minutes but that seamed a super lofty idea given that I haven't run any speedwork since October. I've never broken 20 minutes without having speedwork in the mix. My friend, April, from my running group was also running the race and was hoping to maybe be around a low 20 minute 5k. She broke 20 in a 5k for the first time at the end of November. I was hopeful we might be able to run at least part of the race together. When I thought back over last year's race I remembered we had done Christmas in Topeka after Christmas and drove back home on New Year's Eve. We ate burgers for lunch before heading home and I ate a whole basket of onion rings. I figured without 4 hours in the car and more reasonable food choices, I should already be able to beat last year's time.

Dressed and ready to leave for the race.

We started getting dressed and ready for the race around 10:30. I checked my weather app and it said it was 35 and felt like 35. But it showed that by midnight it would be 35 but feel like 25. I saw it was projecting the wind at 8 mph so I figured that wouldn't likely be a 10 degree swing in how it felt so I dressed for more like 30 degrees. We got to the race at about 11:15. That was perfect because I wanted to get a 2 mile warm up in and then upload my run so I'd have exactly 2,019 miles for the year 2019 which I was excited about! I took off on my warm up and I didn't feel the wind at all. Normally if I'm dressed appropriately for a cold weather race, I'm cold for nearly all of my warm up. I started my warm up feeling really comfortable and ended up getting pretty warm about a mile in. I took my hat off and ran with it in my hands. Then a while later I took my gloves off too. I figured if I ditched both before the race, my hands might be a little cold for part of the race but it would keep me from getting too overheated. I was a little bummed to ditch both as they were my only light up gear for the race. I did 2 strides at the end of my warm up and was surprised I was able to run 6:20 pace for them, feeling like I was running a comfortable pace I could maintain for the 5k. I saw April running a little warm up as I was finishing mine. I finished my warm up with time to drop my things at the car and take a quick restroom break. I headed to the race start with mom and dad and found Jeremy up toward the front. I stayed a little back from the start looking for April and she finally made her way up right before the race start. I was hoping to at least start with her.

Me and April before the race.

After the race I was a little bummed I hadn't started right at the front since they only used gun timing in the results. I was close enough to the front that it only effected my time by 1-2 seconds so I didn't care too much. From the get go there were a few women way out in front. I always like to finish in the top 3 because my running store gives out gift certificates to the top 3 finishers. A woman I had been chatting with at the start line was running next to me stride for stride. It was pretty nice. We chatted a little back and forth. We hit a couple icy patches on the trail and I slid out a little and had to slow down. I heard April yell out in surprise as she hit the icy patch and realized she was running along right behind me. We went up the little hill toward the bridge and I enjoyed crossing over the bridge with pretty lights they set out to light it up. My hands were cold at the start but were warmed up by this point. I hit the first mile in 6:16. I was shocked I ran my first mile so fast. I figured it was likely a little too fast but maybe I would be able to break 20 minutes. I watched as people who had already turned around ran back by. I saw one woman ahead of me toward the front of the race and counted that I was around 15th overall. When I hit the turn around I slowed a little as I turned. April passed me and I was excited that I'd have someone to work with to the finish. I was running right along with her but the people still on their way out were taking up enough room that I couldn't really run beside her as there wasn't room. I ran kind of on her shoulder and we shared a few words. When we came up to the little hill back up to the bridge I was able to get up next to her as there was more room. I went through the 2nd mile in 6:27. I was excited because I knew that meant I was still on pace to break 20 minutes!

I pulled ahead of April as we turned onto the bridge and I was feeling strong although the salami I had at dinner was pushing it's way up. She was cheering for me and yelling about the fireworks but I was afraid if I tried to respond, I may throw up, so I just put my fist in the air. The people still headed out on the course weren't moving over for us and there really wasn't sufficient room for me in some places. I bumped shoulders with a few people as I passed. On the other side of the bridge I passed a few guys as I pushed toward the finish. My last mile was 6:25 and I think I maybe saw it pop up but I'm not sure. I could see Jeremy ahead of me, thanks to his Nox vest lighting up, but he was quite a ways ahead of me. As I neared the finish line, I couldn't read the clock because it was sideways and when I did it looked like it said 24 minutes. I stopped my watch as I crossed the finish line and saw I ran 19:56! I ran the last portion of the race in 6:14 pace for a pace average of 6:23. The race results showed my time as 19:57 gun time so either way I still broke 20 minutes which was super exciting! I'm very pleased with where I'm at starting my spring training cycle!

As I crossed the finish line I noticed Jeremy wasn't cheering for me and that registered as odd. Then April finished and started talking to me. As I opened my mouth to respond I started dry heaving. So I totally forgot about Jeremy and just started searching out water to help me with my dry heaves. I ended up dry heaving/coughing up some drainage I've been dealing with which was gross! I finally found a bottle of water and April asked me to run a cool down with her so I took off to run my cool down with her. I didn't see Jeremy but that didn't register as odd with me since I was distracted with April. I knew he had finished because I saw him ahead of me so I wasn't worried about it. We saw mom and dad on the bridge. Dad was on his knee scooter since he's still in a boot from heel spur surgery and was keeping pace with mom surprisingly well. After the race I took his knee scooter to the car for him and I have no idea how he did a 5k on that thing, it was so awkward! I went ahead and ran out to a mile before turning around and caught back up to them with about a half-mile in the race. I took some pictures of them and then took the camera up to the finish line to take finishing pictures for them.

Mom and dad at midnight as the fireworks were going off.

I finished out my 2 mile cool down before heading to the car to change into dry clothes. When I got back dad asked me if I'd seen Jeremy because he and mom couldn't find him. My heart immediately dropped and I remembered how he wasn't cheering for me at the finish and I didn't see him before doing my cool down. We checked the results and confirmed Jeremy had finished the race. I started panicking about where he could be. What if he started to walk out to finish with mom and dad, got disoriented and fell into the river. I checked all the porta potties and the smaller half of the parking lot with dad while mom walked the large parking lot looking for his car. His car wasn't there. I had my phone but it was at 1% battery so I just kept calling him off and on as he usually has his phone on him at races. Before I started to head back out to look for him, he finally called me back. He finished the race and was feeling really overheated. He headed to his car to take off some of his clothes and was disoriented and started driving home. But since he was out of it, he took the wrong road, thinking it was Southwest Boulevard and ended up somewhere he wasn't familiar with. That was scary as shit for us that he would attempt to drive home when he was feeling disoriented. He drove back to the race so we could see he was okay and then we headed home. So now we have something else to worry about with him at races, him possibly deciding to get in his car and drive when his brain isn't in a good place for that. I'd really prefer he just not all out race anymore since this is becoming such a serious and recurring issue. My night went from being excited I broke 20 minutes to worrying about Jeremy's life in a hurry. Needless to say, it ruined the night for all of us. Now I'm semi-dreading our next race and hope the visit to the cardiologist he already has scheduled before then will help direct him toward making better choices for his health and life.

Jeremy finished the race in 19:23. He was 5th out of 381 overall and 1st in his age group. I finished 11th overall and 2nd overall female. Mom and dad finished in 46:07 and 46:08, 301st and 302nd overall. Mom was 12th in her age group and dad was 7th in his. Read about past years' races here: 2018-2019, 2017-2018, 2016-2017, 2015-2016, and 2013-2014. This year's race was a significant course record for me! I took 28 seconds off my time from last year which was my previous fastest time on this course. I'm excited for what that may mean for my spring racing season and especially for the St. Patrick's Day 5k and the BOSTON MARATHON! Next up is the Sweetheart Run Double in February with Jeremy as my teammate, now if I can just convince him to stick with me during the races and not run all out, I'd feel a lot better about it!

What I Read: December

Tis the season of the cheesy Christmas Chick Lit that I so adore. I don't know why, but the kinds of books that just make me cringe from cheesiness during the year, I love at Christmas time. Add some Christmas trees, Christmas lights, and snow and I adore the cheesy and predictable storylines! I got so excited as December rolled around and I could dive right into them! By the time Christmas arrived I was so done with them, but I sure enjoyed them beforehand and discovered Debbie Macomber's books which were a joy. I was so ready to move on to something with more substance once Christmas hit, but I know I'll look forward to it all over again next year when Thanksgiving rolls around.

Books:

• Dreams of Ada by Robert Mayer- This was our book club pick for the month of January. I like that we now pick books further out so I can get ahead of the reading and don't have to stress waiting for the book to come in at the library. I started slowly with this book, having a hard time getting into it. Then by the end, I couldn't stop reading. It was a nonfiction story about 2 men who were convicted of murder in the 80's. It was stressful for me as the end of the trial neared and I was so sure they were innocent but also so sure they would be convicted. Their trial is also included in John Grisham's book Innocent Man which is now a Netflix series which I will have to check out.
  

• Already Ready: Nurturing Writers in Preschool and Kindergarten by Katie Wood Ray and Matt Glover- After reading In Pictures and In Words I saw Katie Wood Ray had also written this book. It seemed like it would be perfect for me since I'm teaching 3 year old preschool, Elise is in preschool, and Elise will be in kindergarten next year. I didn't like this one nearly as much as the other one and there were some points in the book that I felt like were incorrect or misguided opinions on the part of the authors. But like I always say, you can learn from anything or anyone. If you don't learn something you weren't paying attention. So I learned some things and also started to think about writing in a different and new way.

• Christmas Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella- I was so excited when I saw this was coming out and put it on hold right away. I got it in time to read it before Christmas which was really exciting! I knew I was behind in the Shopaholic series and, just now when I checked, I've missed the 3 most recent books before this one. I knew it wouldn't matter and it didn't, I really enjoyed this one. As always it was cute and had me laughing at multiple different times. 
  

• A Christmas Memory, One Christmas, and The Thanksgiving Visitor by Truman Capote- I've wanted to read more of Capote's work after reading In Cold Blood because his writing was so phenomenal in that book. When I saw this one listed on a Christmas list, I was really excited to read it. It was 3 short stories together in one book and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

• The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street by Karina Yan Glaser- I saw this on a list of Christmas books somewhere. It was cute and I enjoyed it. It was also a really quick and easy read.

eBooks:

• Merry and Bright by Debbie Macomber- I listened to an audiobook of one of Macomber's Christmas books and liked it so much I decided to find more of her books to read or listen to. This one was available as an ebook and I loved it. Her books are the perfect amount of sweet and cheesy. I'm excited to read more of her Christmas books either this season or next year!
  

• Starry Night by Debbie Macomber- Macomber was the big highlight of my Christmas reading this year. I couldn't get enough of her books. I loved this one too. I was cheesy and sweet. I didn't like it quite as much as Twelve Days of Christmas or Merry and Bright but it was sweet and enjoyable as well. Actually it was probably my least favorite of her books I read or listened to this year. It seemed a little hokier and ridiculous than the other ones but it may have just been that I'd been reading the cheesy Christmas romances all month and was getting a little tired of them at this point.

Audiobooks:

• 11/22/63 by Stephen King- I've never read any of Stephen King's books because I don't like to get scared. I mean, I did have nightmares while reading Hazel Wood which was a young adult book! But I was instantly interested when I heard my mom talking to Ty about this book because it's title was the day of JFK's assassination. This was a doozy at 30 hours of audio, but it was so good, I made it through it without ever taking a break to listen to a shorter audiobook. I was interested to see what King's thoughts were on what would happen if JFK wasn't assassinated because I have come to believe that the Civil Rights Movement would not have had the victories it did. Not because JFK wouldn't have fought for them, but because there wouldn't be the sympathy of citizens and legislators over JFK's death that led them to accept JFK's policies in his memory. One of my favorite parts of the book was at the end when King himself read an afterward where he discussed the book and revealed that he had come up with the idea of this book in the 70's but didn't have time to write it at the time. I think the book would have been far less accepted and successful if it had been written closer to Kennedy's death.
  

• The Chirstmas Letters- After finishing the lengthy and intense 11/22/63 I was super excited to dive into some Christmas books. I was definitely ready for some light and fun to be injected into my reading life! All the Christmas books I found as downloadable audiobooks I had to put on hold and wait. Eventually I just went into my app and searched Christmas in the keyword box and came across this one. It sounded cute and I enjoyed it but it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. It was more of a novella and left me wanting to know more about the family when it ended. I also felt like it was an abrupt ending with only one letter written by the granddaughter but it was a good ending all said and done.

• The Christmas Star by Donna VanLiere- This was another one I found just by searching Christmas. It was exactly the kind of book I was looking for! It was super predictable, as in I had the ending figured out within the first 30 minutes of the story, but it was sweet and I loved it! Not the best writing, but fun. I felt like she struggled writing dialog for men, just injecting some "dudes" to make it seem more manly, but I didn't let that distract me from the story too much, haha!

• Twelve Days of Christmas by Debbie Macomber- This book was everything I was looking for. It was sweet and lovely and full of Christmas. The storyline reminded me a bit of a Christmas version of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. When I finished it I was full of happiness and just wanted to give out hugs. That's all you can ask for with a Christmas book, right? This was my favorite Christmas book I read this month. I loved it so much I decided I must read more of Macomber's Christmas books!
  

• A Jane Austen Christmas: Regency Christmas Traditions by Maria Grace- I searched Christmas in my app and when I saw Jane Austen Christmas I was so excited. When I opened it I realized it was a nonfiction book about Christmas traditions during Austen's time. I thought it would be interesting so decided to go ahead and listen to it. It was interesting but the last chapter was all recipes. As a regular book I would have skimmed them but as an audiobook I was stuck listening to them read aloud. That was pretty boring.

• Winter Street by Elin Hilderbrand- Last year I listened to Winter Solstice, not realizing until I was a bit into it that it was the last book in a series. I decided to pick up with the series and listen to the first book in the series this year. I look forward to eventually catching up with the series over the years in December. My favorite part was when he says, "I saw Mitzy kissing Santa Claus." I feel like Hilderbrand must have planned out that whole portion of the storyline just so she could say that!

• Noel Street by Richard Paul Evans- I put this one on hold at the very beginning of December and didn't get it in until toward the end. I was pretty much over the sappy Christmas books by the time I started this and I probably should have just returned it but I powered through it and didn't enjoy it very much. I was so over the cheesy Christmas stuff.

• Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid- I saw this one on multiple book lists and when I saw it was a Reese's Book Club pick, I wanted to read it. I saw it as an available audiobook when I was looking on my app. I looked into it and saw there were multiple narrators. My favorite audiobooks are when each character has their own voice so I knew I'd like this one. I thought it was an odd concept, a fictional story about a rock band's rise to fame, but it was good! I liked how at the beginning there was a disclaimer that different perspectives may not line up and it was so funny how she spliced together people's interviews and how they at times were so comedic in their differences. I'm not sure how this would read as a regular book, but as an audiobook, it was gold. It had me laughing a few times during runs.