Kitchen, Color Run and More...

Depsite the lack of blogging, lots has been happening in our lives lately!  I am nearing the end of my over-1-year-long kitchen up-do project.  My dad came over a couple weekends ago and put up the rest of the tile.  Now I have to grout it and it will officially be done.  And, truthfully, it makes the rest of my house look pretty shabby, so we may be looking at up-doing a couple other rooms in the house!  :)

The kids have been enjoying the really nice weather by playing in the sand and riding bikes.  Carter loves finding lizards in the sand! 

On October 6 my sister and I and some friends ran in the Color Run in Lawrence.  It was a blast!! This race was the funnest, not-boring-est race I've ever done!  It was also a real confidence booster as I finished in 24 minutes!  (Only 3 minutes behind my speedy sister!!)  I'm pretty sure it was not a full 3.1 miles, but it sure was worth the drive to Lawrence!!

(Jamie, Brandi, me, Erica)

(me & Tiff)

5K

Well, I did it.  I ran a 5K.  I finished a 5K. It was something else...  I thought that asking my hubby to take pictures would be a good idea.  I'm not having second thoughts.  (I'm glad he did though - when I gave birth to Carter I was so self-conscious about myself I wouldn't let any take pictures of me in the hospital.  I regret that now...)

Anyway, the race.  I met my goals - I didn't walk and I finished in under 35 minutes.  I think my time was 33:31, but I don't know that for sure.  

 Heather, me & Brandi.  I was so fun running with theses girls!!  It was Heather's first 5K and Brandi's 2nd.  They both are running in the Color Run - we will be in Texas.

 (We were joking that we should have taken a picture in an ambulance just for fun!!)

 My mom's sister, Jo, came down from South Dakota.  They did the one-mile fun run/walk.  

This is my trophy!  I finished 36th over all, but 2nd in my age bracket!  Bonus!!!!

So that's the story of my first 5K.  I will do another one and maybe more after that.  I might even work my way up to a 10K.  Honestly, my biggest challenge now is finding time to run AND having someone around to watch my kids!!  Currently, I run right after work so they are still at daycare, but I don't know if my daycare people would be very excited about keeping them an hour longer, if I decide to train for a 10K.  :)

Tomorrow's the BIG Day!!

Tomorrow morning at 7:30 I will be running in my first ever competitive race.  I will be running in a 5K (3.1 miles) in our church's 14th Annual Alert Road Race.  This is something that they started years ago as a fund raiser for our youth group and every year it has grown bigger and bigger!  I am exited that some of my friends are running with me.  Or maybe I'm running with them?  Either way, my goal is to finish.  Without walking or stopping.  And I hope to finish in under 35 minutes.  I've run 3 miles a couple of times before in "training" just to prove to myself that I could do it.

It may be raining.  It may turn into a mud run as we are running part way on pavement, part way on country roads.  Should be a good time!!

Teresa, the gal who's putting this together (and does a fabulous job every year!) posted pictures of the trophies and awards and the T-shirt design on Facebook - here they are:

There's still time to join in the fun - you can register in the morning, the race (10K and 5K) starts at 7:30 and the 1 mile fun run/walk begins after that! Breakfast will be there... :)

Projects

Before Christmas I became enthralled with sewing. I stole my mother's table and I set up my sewing machine in my bedroom in a semi-permanent status. My mother would very much like to have her table back so I'm working on something else to house my machine. I have a goal to make a blanket for Gemma for her first birthday in mid-February, but time is quickly passing. It may be Easter.

Anyway, I wanted to share with you just a couple of the projects I made that I had a lot of fun doing.

For my mom and my friend, Laura, I made journal covers. I used this pattern from allpeoplequilt.com. (I've really like this website - they have a lot of easy-ish beginner patterns.)

For Carter, I made a car blanket/quilt. I used this pattern, also from allpeoplequilt.com.

I really had fun making these gifts. Carter's blanket didn't take as long as I thought. I don't have a quilting machine, so I tied it. I've been researching 'free-motion' quilting (watching YouTube videos) and I think I could do it. I need to practice and I need to figure out the settings on my machine.

I think I decided to make this one for Gemma. This one wouldn't require any 'quilting'.

It says the approximate crafting time is 8 hours. For me that might be doubled, and when you can't sit for 16 hours and do it start to finish, it's hard to tell... Hopefully, but her birthday. Now I just need to go fabric shopping. I've been hearing a lot of good things about shopping online for fabric. I may just give that whirl...

Long term goal is to make a queen sized quilt for mine & Jeremy's bed. I think I might even have a pattern picked out. Need to narrow down colors. Our walls our white(ish) and we don't have a set color scheme in our room. I figure I might want to paint a wall or two and I should do that first.