Star Tower

After Pat's Run, one of the very few things we did that day was drive out to the Star Tower and walk to the top. It's a pretty cool structure that is less than ten minutes from our house. Lexi and Amanda.
















Lexi and Amanda with all the kids. Seriously, the kids were in heaven with Lexi and Amanda around. The girls read to them, played jump rope with them, and just hung out with them. We were all sad when they left. :)

Our family.

Despite the fact that we were still all sweaty and gross and none of us had taken off our racing attire, we decided to take some "Teen Model" pictures.

Trackwear is the new look.

We make this look good.

Sareny loves having her picture taken, a thing which Keith cannot comprehend, since he has always avoided it like the plague.

Me and my boy.

Finley really took to Amanda. She talked about her for days after they left and asked when Amanda was coming back to our house.

Lexi showing Finley the ropes about how to be a teen mod. Somehow this ridiculousness all references back to The Brady Bunch episode where Marsha Brady gets hit in the face with a football and cries, "My nose! Now I'll never be a teen model."

All posed.

She's a cutie!

My cuties! I don't know why Fin squinched her face up like that, but it sure is cute!

Pat's Run 2011

On April 16th, we headed over to ASU stadium bright and early for Pat's Run. That is, if you can call 4:50 am bright and early...My sister Lexi and her roommate Amanda drove down from Provo the day before for the event. Keith and I had started training about six weeks before the race, but unfortunately, Keith was injured and unable to run the race, even though we had signed him up. (He would have struggled to even walk it at that point.) We also signed up Sareny and Isaac for the .42 mile kids race, which they were excited about. Pat's run is 4.2 miles, starts in the parking lot for the stadium, and ends on the 42 yard line where you are greeted by current ASU football players. I felt kind of nervous as we were waiting for the race to begin!

There were a lot of people here--over 20,000 people completed the race.

We are in that crowd somewhere, waiting for our heat to go. And when I say waiting, I do mean waiting. We didn't get to start the race until 40 minutes after the first runners...lots of people had already finished the race when we were starting! To start the runners off, a trumpet soloist played the national anthem, and it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever heard. I couldn't help thinking about what an amazing guy Pat Tillman was, and how that was what he gave his life for. By the end of the song I had tears streaming down my cheeks.

You can see a long row of porta-potties in the above picture. We were so glad we used them early, and before we crossed the street to the runners side. We had no waiting on the spectator side, but on the runners side the lines were huge and slow, and even when we were finally started to move towards the start line, there were still lots of people waiting for them.

The race itself was so awesome and inpiring, I can't even begin to describe how exhilirating it is to be a part of something like this. I had suffered setbacks in my training (shin splints, surgery) so I wasn't able to run the entire race, so I ran 5 minutes, walked 1 minute, and repeated. I had to modify it a couple of times, but this strategy actually worked pretty well. I made it to the finish line under my goal time, and I was shocked when I realized I had enough left to sprint for the finish. Here we are after the race.

The kids with Lexi.

While it was disapointing for Keith not to be able to run, it was convenient that he could watch the kids while we ran. He took them over to the bounce houses and the other kids things they had set up. They got free cotton candy, treats, jamba juices, and tattooes. Here is Isaac showing his Tillman pride.

And Sareny and Lexi being silly.

Then the kids ran their race. I was so proud of them--they did great! I was especially surprised to see Isaac running so fast, dodging around people and passing them right and left. He was so quick I didn't get his picture as he ran in, but here is Sareny with Lexi (you can barely make our her head,) who ran the race with her. (Amanda ran with Isaac.)

Afterwards, the ASU football players stuck around for pictures and signing kids shirts. I thought that was really nice of them.

We went home and relaxed for most of the day, but we couldn't stop talking about the race and how awesome it was. How glad I am that Holli and Johnny first got us interested in this race years ago, and that Lexi pushed me to do it this year! We are already making our plans for next year. You should join us!!

One Fine Spring Day

I love spring weather and seeing the beautiful flowers and colors blooming. These palo verde trees are gorgeous and everywhere around here, and I delight in seeing them.

We pulled out the bikes and scooters and the kids had fun riding around our little cul-de-sac. Sareny is sporting her new boots from her Grandma Nancy. She loves boots!

Isaac likes riding his bike.

He likes riding his yellow plasma car more, and I feel kind of bad always making him share it with Finley. But it's the only thing she can ride, so they have to take turns.

I just love this kind of fierce expression Fin does sometimes.

I thought she looked cute in this one too.

I love when they play well together!

Love them!

And then big sissy came and gave them a big push.

This made me feel a little sad, although it was certainly understandable. Sareny decided she was too big for the Disney princess stickers that adorned her bike and so she decided to take them off.

The end of an era. Although I really don't blame her.

Daddy came out to do some yard work, and Isaac pitched in to help.

It was a really nice afternoon together!

Celebrating Dr. Seuss

On March 2, Sareny's teacher had the kids dress in all black. Then while at school, they all got dressed like the cat in the hat! It was adorable.

Here is Sareny hard at work at her desk.

She is like 3 rows back all the way to the right.

When I was verifying Dr. Seuss's birthday for this post, I came across an interesting tidbit of information that someone put into a poem about him:

You’re wrong as the deuce

And you shouldn’t rejoice

If you’re calling him Seuss.

He pronounces it Soice.

 

Apparently, he later changed his mind and went with the Americanized pronounciation of his name, which is German, because it "evoked a figure advantageous for an author of children’s books to be associated with—Mother Goose" and because most people used this pronunciation. I was also interested to note that he went by Theo LeSieg when he had written the book, but someone else illustrated it. I always wondered why some of his books had a pen name. LeSieg was his last name, Geisel, spelled backwards, and Seuss was his middle name, and also his mother's maiden name. So there is some interesting, though totally useless, trivia for you.

Finley's First Haircut

Back in January, I took Finley to get her first haircut of her life. Previously, I had trimmed a little bit from the sides when they would get too long, but that was it.

I wanted them to shorten it into a cute little cut, mostly because she continuously pulls hair things out of her hair and rips what little hair she has out with it.

She liked getting her hair cut and did a good job of holding still. (She likes posing even better!)

A different day, I tried teasing it up a little bit, and I thought it looked cute.

But really, if you're just so cute to begin with, any hairdo would look cute on you, right??

Yes, she even rocks the always stylish "bedhead" look.

Oops--it's a New Year!

I was glancing through our pictures and realized that I somehow missed blogging about New Year's Eve. We spent a quiet night at home with just our family. We put together some Legos.

And some Citiblocks.

Then we toasted the New Year at 10:00 pm.

I love these kiddos!

Last photo of 2010

The next morning, the kids hurried down the stairs to see what Mrs. Santa had brought for them. (she comes on New Year's Eve and brings a book and something else small.)

Unfortunately, Isaac headed right for Fin's bumblebee and never thought his monkey was very cool. Earlier in the week, I had secretly bought a panda bear CuddlePet, not a real PillowPet, and asked Isaac if he wanted to trade, and he did. So he ended up happy and singing, "It's a Cuddler, Its a Pet, It's a Cuddler Pet."