From making the dark chocolate ganache, I had some leftover heavy whipping cream…and since I’m not much into drinking straight cream, I decided to let the kids shake it…

shake, shake, shake…

shake, shake, shake…

shake that butter.

Mmm…tasty.

Ok…so there are a few things I wasn’t expecting this morning.

I wasn’t expecting 38 degrees when I woke up to run 4 miles. I also wasn’t expecting to wear many more clothes than i normally do when i run, and i wasn’t expecting that with the cold my underwear would slip while I was running…but don’t worry, by mile 1 it had settled nicely and wouldn’t present a problem for the rest of the race. (I just thought you’d all like to know about that.)

I woke up nervous. Silly…nervous??? I “run.” Why should this run make me any more nervous than any other…perhaps could it be because there were A LOT of other people that were going to be running with me…probably much faster than me…probably passing me… After all, it should just be another nice 4 mile jog.  I tried to calm myself down on the drive there with a little RENT soundtrack. Pretty much worked until I stepped out of the van, dressed for winter and was still cold. It just got colder as the layers started coming off.

I’d love to tell you that I’m a good enough runner to take my camera with me…I’m not.

I’d love to tell you that I even thought about taking it with me this morning so i’d have it at the end…I didn’t.

But Beth did!

I’d love to tell you that I ran the whole thing…so I will. Ran it. Ran it. Ran it.

I even ran it in the time I wanted. I was just aiming under 50:00.

Time says 49:17.

I’m just proud of myself…doing something I really never thought I’d do.

And…here is my children’s favorite part of the race…enjoying the ding dongs they had at the end! We decided it was too cold for them to join me out there at the finish line…so I brought a little race home to them. I think they think exercising and cake go together now. Maybe they should.

I realized though that I’ve been depriving my boy of the joy of ding dongs…the look on his face reminds me that I wasn’t the only one with a first today…Mom = first race, Ev = first ding dong.

Ahhh…more to come…for both of us, I’m sure.

For not liking to spend money…I sure have been doing enough of it lately.

However, I think this will be worth every penny!

I can’t even believe how long ago this was already. Mid-December…where did you go?

A friend and I took in the Phelps Youth Pavilion (in Waterloo, Iowa for the non-locals) in mid-December for her boy’s birthday. If you’ve never been, you must go. It is a wonderful way to let kids explore art and just have a ball. Ev was the youngest kid among the four, but there were still plenty of things for him to touch and explore, and he had a great time too!

Everybody gardening…minus Ev. I think he was dragging around a watering can at this point…

Yep,..there it is!

Ellie and T getting ready to explore the “cave” and use chalk to make cave drawings. They ultimately decided it was too scary…

Ev exploring the fruit market. This kid is really into food, can you tell?

and lastly, little L exploring China in the multicultural section. The noodles were made out of a rubbery string. She was trying to pick them up with the chopsticks. Seriously cute!

Wonderful day! Wonderful friends!

Four kids really kept us hopping though. We decided next time we may just bring one for each of us…maybe then we could explore some more too!

Ellie got to go to her very first movie at a theatre this week.

It only took us this long to get there because we decided to wait until we were sure she could sit through a whole movie without having to go potty, and without driving us, and those people around us, crazy.

We kept it a secret from her until the moment we got to the theatre (and oh how i wish i took my camera with me!)
I showed her the movie poster for “Cloudy with a chance of meatballs” and asked her if she remembered the book…she said yes…and when asked if we should go see the movie…she started yelling “yes…come on guys.”

So like her. Ready for anything!

So, we get in the theatre and get our tickets and instead of saying thank you, she asks the person taking money for popcorn.

Oh, my impatient child.

After scoring some popcorn…we walked into the theatre to a chorus of “wow…look at this place!”
We get to our row of seats and I tell her to go in and pick a seat.
She, playing with the chairs that flip up and down, explains that she can’t climb into one because they’re tippy.

The people a few rows back find this hysterical and and asked if it was her first movie. My comment “is it that obvious?”

We did settle down, watch the whole movie, eat almost a whole bag of popcorn, and drink hawaiian punch to our hearts delight…

and when food started falling from the sky, no matter what it was, Ellie would exclaim “a chance of meatballs.”

Seriously cute.