FFA Flashback

A friend posted this old photo on Facebook yesterday. I think this was our freshman year of highschool...so that would be late 1989 or early 1990 and we would have been around 14 years old. Those were some good times. I am sitting second from the left.

I don't even remember what contest or school we were at. It doesn't look familiar. What is familiar is that we were all friends, and going on FFA trips were some of the best times of high school. Not that I want to do high school over again, but sometimes I really miss those FFA days.

The girl on the left of me, Crina, is now a mom and just had her 6th baby (born on my birthday a few weeks ago!). She still lives in our hometown.

The girl on the right of me, Ann, has a baby girl and is an ag. professor at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. She is simply amazing.

The boy, Brandon, left our school after our freshman year. We always called him "Nacho" because that is the name he picked for himself in Spanish class. I just "friended" him on FB, so hopefully I'll see what he's up to later.

And that girl in the middle with dark brown hair? Well, she's a redhead now! She has a wonderful husband, two spunky boys, and works as a Catholic school teacher in Clovis. Oh, and she's really happy with her life!

Asthma?

After running yesterday, I started wheezing and coughing. I just happened to have an appointment scheduled with the allergist. He heard me wheeze and ordered an asthma test.

I had to blow into a funny tube for as long as I could. I did this three times. Then they gave me a nebulizer treatment. Then I had to do the blowing thing three more times. The test showed that I do not have classic asthma, but the doctor is treating me as if I do.

He now has me on an asthma preventative. It's the same one Eric (who has terrible asthma) is on. I also have my very own inhaler. It's about time I got my own inhaler (just kidding). Everyone else in this family has inhalers, I guess it was my turn sooner or later.

The doctor also wanted me to get a chest X-ray which I did today at the hospital. He is worried about walking pneumonia. He was starting to scare me when he asked me if I'd recently been out of the country or had unexplained symptoms like fever or night sweats.

Um, I have night sweats, but I think that is because I'm hot. The doctor didn't share my technical diagnosis for my p.m. sweating. I'm just glad I got the X-ray done, and it was a fast procedure with little waiting. I had to register in the E.R., which was icky, but other than that the ordeal was easy.

I guess I'll know this next week if I have pneumonia. In the meantime I'll be taking my new "asthma" medicine.

New Beds

We bought the boys new twin beds yesterday. They were sharing a queen bed, but we were having trouble with Hudson getting up every two minutes. It was then hard to lift Hudson up and over Evan without waking him up. We figured it would just be easier for Hudson to have his own bed so as not to disturb his brother.

Both boys were sooooo excited yesterday once the beds were set up. Evan got to pick out his new Transformer bedding. Hudson got new Spiderman sheets, but he gets to use the old Cars comforter.

I don't want to jinx anything, but Hudson has gone to bed easily two nights in a row. I know tomorrow night I am going to be on here griping about how Hudson is refusing to sleep.


Hudson looks so little in his bed. He woke up all sweaty. That's why his hair is going every which way.


Evan snoozing away. He's never been in a bed that hasn't been pushed up against a wall. He is really happy to have a bed all to himself.

The flash in my camera works really well! These photos were taken in a very dark room. We bought the wire organizer a few weeks ago. Evan thought he had to load it up according to the picture on the box! He didn't want to put his shoes in the top cubby because the box showed the shoes on the bottom. Funny kid.

SJCL Race

We got up this morning and headed to the San Joaquin College of Law race in downtown Clovis. (I went to law school here for a year and a half.) It was the first running I have done in over a week since my sinus infection last weekend. It hurt, but it also felt good to be back out running and trying.

Evan ran the kid's race. He ended up coming in first place in the 5-year-old boy's division. He's a speedy little guy!


I caught Evan mid-yawn. These races aren't super early, but we had already been up for a few hours by this point!


Evan is #210. He looks so little standing in between those two bigger kids.


Evan was super anxious about the race this morning. He didn't want to go to the starting line until the man called his number. Well, they never do that. They either call for age brackets or they call for all kids. We finally got him to leave us and go stand at the start. He still looks nervous, though.


Evan flew by so fast the camera could barely capture his image!


He made it to the finishing chute looking pretty weary.


Evan hasn't learned the fine art of being a good sport just yet. We are working on it. He was close to crying because he didn't enter the chute first (like the time he did at the Pelco race back in December). He also doesn't understand that while all the kids run together, the medals are given out for both boys and girls at each age level 3-9.


And he wins first place! This makes 2 first place finishes and 1 second place finish. Pretty good running career so far!


Evan needs a case for all his trophies and medals that he's stacking up.


Then it was time for my race. I am wearing black pants and a light blue top near the center of the photo. I am just to the right of two ladies wearing bright yellow-orange shirts.

I started off well. Then I slowed down considerably. My chest was burning. I think it was because of being sick last week and not training for so many days. It's hard to rebuild your stamina.


Evan got a pretty good shot of me near the finish line. According to my Garmin, I finished 1.96 miles in 23:42. Not my best by a long shot. Still, I was happy I came in under 24 minutes.


Evan and I share a hug after a good morning of racing.

As always, thank you to Eric who stands around for 2 hours while Evan and I do this racing thing. I'm sorry I took your jacket out of the car, Honey.

Maybe I will sign up for next weekend's race! It felt good to be motivated again.

Mish Mash

As my mother ever so politely pointed out, I haven't updated the blog since Monday. This will be a jumbled group of thoughts and activities for the past week.

-I took myself to the doctor on Saturday morning after waking up with my throat on fire. I had my nose swabbed with a 9-foot Q-Tip. It was that big, I swear. I had a sinus infection and was on antibiotics for 5 days. Feel much better now.

-Being sick severely messed with my motivation in running. I'll find it again.

-We celebrated Mardi Gras by eating yummy steak and onion blossoms from Cool Hand Luke's. We decided to give up eating out for Lent. Two days into Lent, and we are successful.

-We got our ashes on Ash Wednesday. The lady who put my cross on my forehead did such a fine job that she got ashes all over my nose. She even told me, "Oops, I got ashes on your nose." I spent the next five minutes begging 7th graders to look at me to tell me if my nose was clear of ash while trying to be quiet because we were still in the middle of Mass.

-Evan was so well behaved at Mass that he got a little angel cutout pinned to his sweater saying, "I was an angel at Mass today!" Good thing after his little debacle back in December blowing on the kid next to him during Mass.

-Hudson refuses to stay in his bed when we put him down for the night. He is also weaning himself from napping. He's only 2 1/2. Doesn't he know that his mom needs sleep?

-I am busy finalizing plans for the Science Fair next week. I hope it goes well.

-I am hoping that entering a race on Saturday morning will jump start me back into the mental aspect of continuing with running. I'll run like crap, but I think I need to just get out there.

-I can't wait for Tuesday to be over.

-Evan is worried that he won't be able to go to 1st grade because he'll only be 5 when he starts. I think he is noticing that his friends are turning 6, and he won't be 6 until a few weeks after school starts next fall. I am trying to convince him that he's right where he should be.

-T Ball will be starting shortly.

-Hudson speaks in sentences.

-Evan got a new lunch box because his disappeared at school. Very bizarre.

-Hudson uses Evan's old lunchbox from last year. He was rather angry when Evan had to borrow it back for a few days until we got the new one.

-Hudson knows that "W" says "whu, whu, whu."

-I got a massage. I don't like it when they wiggle between the muscle fibers. Makes me nauseous. But I enjoyed the massage overall.

-Worked on setting the school calendar for next year. It's weird to plan for 2011 when we barely started 2010.

-We decided to not worry about Valentine's Day. We did cards. It was perfect.

-I bought Evan an umbrella and haven't given it to him yet.

-Eric had roses sent to school for me for my birthday. Sweet man.

-A student bought me the Glee 2 CD, and I love it.

-Praying, Praying, Praying.

There. There's all the exciting, boring, and random stuff going on in our family. Now my mom will be happy.

Where Evan Go?

Evan is spending the afternoon playing at a friend's house. This is causing much confusion for Hudson. Hudson is rarely home with just Mom and Dad without his brother being around. Even though they bug the heck out of each other, I think Hudson misses Evan.

As soon as we pulled away from the friend's house, Hudson said, "Where Evan go?" But you have to imagine him saying it in his baby 2 1/2-year-old voice without the "r" or "v" sounds. It would sound more like this...Whewe E'an go? And it's breaking my heart.

Hudson isn't crying or carrying on, but he seems to be genuinely lonely without his brother. However, he has been playing really well outside by himself. He even wanted to eat lunch on the swing set.


Eating in the sunshine. And no, I didn't get him dressed. It's a holiday.


It's a rough life being this cute.


Hudson told me a bit ago, "I go friend's house," because that was our answer every time he asked where Evan was. In time, baby, in time. You'll be big enough to head off to a friend's house. For now, however, you get to stay home with us.


This kid needs a haircut. He always needs a haircut.

We'll go pick Evan up in a few hours. I'm sure the boys will be back to their regular bickering. I just hope Evan is behaving at his friend's house.

Mother/Son Dance

Tonight Evan and I went to our first Mother/Son dance at school. It was a lot of fun. However, I forgot to take my camera. Bad Mommy. As soon as we got home, I had Eric take a picture of us together.


Me with my handsome date.

We had a pretty great night of dancing The Chicken Dance, playing musical chairs, stomping on balloons, doing the Shuffle Slide, and so much more. There were a few tears when we failed to win any of the games, but overall, it was a fun night.


Daddy and Hudson spent the evening together. And the silly Chicken was still up when we got home. In just a few years I'll be taking both boys to the Mother/Son Dance!

On a different topic, I didn't post anything yesterday on my birthday. I had a pretty fantastic day, right up to the point where my throat started to hurt.

My boys got me some great presents: workout shirts, the Glee DVDs, and an iPhone! Eric also sent me red roses as school! Swoon!

We went out to The Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner, and the waiters sang Happy Birthday. Pretty great day! Oh, I forgot, my room mom also surprised me with a birthday cake at school, and she brought cupcakes for my whole class. That was really fun!

It's been a fun two days.

Last Day of 34

Today was my last day of being 34. It was a pretty good day. We had a good lunch at work. I had a good run (hence the sweaty photo of me above). I got the first four books of the Percy Jackson series. The boys weren't too crazy once we got home.

It's the small things that added up to a nice last 34-year-old day.

Proud

I am so proud of Evan. It is amazing to watch him as he learns to read new words everyday. I hope that he develops the same love of reading that I treasure. Tonight he read Green Eggs and Ham by himself. It's the neatest thing to watch him sound out words and understand what he is reading!

We had a very productive evening of dinner, finishing up the week's homework, signing Valentines, and reading. Could it be possible that the Valentine's will actually be signed and sealed before Thursday night?! One can only dream to achieve!

Then Evan saw my camera and said, "Hey Mom! I have an idea. I'll take a picture of you, and you take a picture of me."

Sure, whatever you want kid.


When I asked Evan why he was posing like this, he said it was because all goalies stand like this. Okay.


And here's the shot of me that Evan took. I am choosing not to focus on the horrid mess that is my desk, and instead I'll look at how my hair is getting longer. It's weird how you don't notice it in the mirror, but seeing it in a photo gives you such a different perspective.

Anyhow, nothing overly exciting here tonight. I'm off to kiss Evan goodnight and run on the treadmill. Hopefully no passing out like I almost did yesterday. You can read that wonderful story HERE.

Letter to Hudson

Dear Hudson,

I love you more than anything. You are my adorable, high-spirited, full of energy child. You go go go go go until you can't go anymore. And then you crash. You make me want to pull my hair out, and then you fall asleep on the couch and look so innocent and sweet that I want to hold your little curled up body in my arms for hours.

You haven't been sleeping for long, but I am about to go wake you up. As much as I love looking at those chubby legs curled up under you on the couch, I know that you aren't going to sleep tonight if I leave you there much longer. And Mommy really needs to sleep tonight. Mommy needs more than 5 hours of sleep to function.

I really wish you had just gone to sleep in your bed, where I put you, several hours ago. Now it is 5 p.m., and I have to disrupt your sleep. I am sorry for that, but I'm not crazy enough to let you continue in this early evening slumber.

I love you, Chicken Little.

Love,
Mommy

So Glad

I am so glad that Santa Claus brought Hudson a Sit N Spin for Christmas. My goodness does he love that toy! Spends tons of time on it. Loves the music. Gets good exercise.

My only issue is how he is using it.


Yes, that would be my two-year-old balancing on top of the handle of the Sit N Spin...while playing his GameBoy no less!

I'm so glad Santa only paid $1.64 for the thing. It certainly won't surprise me if the handle breaks off in the near future.

Tired

We are at our wit's end dealing with Hudson and his sleep issues. He just doesn't want to go to bed at night. He's also giving his daycare provider problems about taking his nap.

Eric, Evan, and I were all sick on Sunday. That left Hudson (who passed his germs to us all) to flit around the house causing chaos with every step. We must have been really out of it, because we forgot to put him down for a nap.

I know, how in the world could we forget that?! Somehow it got to be 3 p.m., and we NEVER want to put Hudson down for a nap that late. He tends to crash for 2 hours and won't go to bed at night. So, we just kept him up all day.

This is what happened at about 7:15!


Little Chicken sat down to eat some dinner. Then he asked for his blanket. The next thing I knew, it was really quiet. I looked over to see Hudson fast asleep, graham cracker in hand!

Let's just say we had no trouble putting him to bed Sunday night!