119/365: Apr 29

A nice happy birthday to Ben's sister, Jess. (Even though she'll never see this)

And today was a good day and a nice one to end out the week. Due to several fires that are burning in Mexico... (That's the thing about living in AZ, during spring and the monsoons, we typically have quite a few wildfires) the sky is a hazy mess... but it made for pretty coloring in tonight's sunset.

And to finish out my week... I have to go arrange, pack, and generally worry about the Vow renewal photog gig I told you all about a few weeks.... or was it months.... ago. I'll let y'all know how that goes!! :)

118/365: Apr 28

Differences Between Boys and Girls: Food Edition.

Boy: Digs right in and make whatever mess they need to...

Girl: Picks off little bits at a time, and makes sure to use a napkin.











That is all. :)

117/365: Apr 27

Week 2 - Day 2.. Complete! And it went sooooo much better than day 1!! It makes me look forward to next week, and the next and the next. But while I'm in the middle of one the running segmants... I wonder "how the HECK am I going to manage {the set time for the next week}?!!?! But, I'm sure I'll do fine. And if not... I can re-do a day until I get it. Seeing as I'm someone with the personality that if I can't do it when I try, I'm done trying then and there..... it's a hard concept for me to grasp. BUT I'll never get anywhere near my goal for the 5k in June if I don't keep trying. So... all in all things are going well. Both me and Jene' feel that just doing 1 session each "run" day is.... let's say "not enough"... so we've been doubling up. I'm hoping that this will help us in the long run instead of somehow hurting us... but come on! We started the program with only 7 weeks before our run. So we are going to try to get the most out of it that we can!! :)

In addition to running jags (lol) I'm maintaining my walking on "rest" days. But now I'm also going to start incorporating core strengthening exercises and arm workouts to the list. And while it seems daunting right now, I REALLY hope I can keep it up and get in a groove where this is more of a lifestyle change than just a "fad".

So... after all my blah blah blah about myself, you might be wondering about the rest of my family? :)

Ben is starting to work out too. Every Wednesday at work is "Weigh in Wednesday" I guess they have a big commercial scale at the yard, and every... you guessed it... Wednesday, all the guys take turns weighing themselves. And since Ben's been working out he's gained 3-5 lbs. (for those who aren't that close to us... picture scrawny 30" waist-ed dude who's a little under 6' -->that's Ben for you. He's has the metabolism where he can sneeze and loose weight. So nearly 5 lbs is a big deal for him... LOL.

Rebekah... oh my what a handful. She's starting to realize (and use) her moods and sensitivity to add leverage to whatever it is she wants. In most cases it's very sweet... and other times I have to do my best to keep from laughing... but mostly I wonder to myself if there is a good way to discourage this... that way it doesn't get out of hand as she grows up.

Tommy... Well, it seems day by day he's getting more independent. I can't believe that I don't have a baby anymore. I mean... he will always be MY baby... but it's just not the same that he doesn't need me the same. That and he changes so much every day. He's starting to add more words and gestures and sounds to his vocabulary. And he is SO smart. But he also likes to push our buttons. Just so he can see just hooooooow far we will let him get away with something. I remember Rebekah doing it as well. Our little guy is just growing up!

Ok.. well, I think that's all I got for today. Hopefully tomorrow will be a grand day and I can bust out the camera to get some pictures of SOMEthing. But for tonight... I'm off to bed.

116/365: Apr 26

Another beautiful day... if not a bit windy. This morning it was nearly bad enough to be blown away! ;) Even so I went almost 3 miles. Also, much to my dismay, I realized that my dormant knee problems aren't very happy with me for all this strenuous use. After researching on Google, I'm pretty sure I figured out what my problem is right now.... and hopefully with the aid of stretches, exercise, massage, and wearing a brace; I should be able to keep up with my running program.

This evening was one of the best we've had in awhile. Ben got home early-ish... and since he hadn't had time to eat lunch, I decided to get an early start on dinner. We ended up eating at 4:30. After dinner there was a nice break in the wind (but still a nice cool breeze) so we played outside for awhile. The kids had fun. Tommy started climbing up the playhouse by himself. And his new favorite way to slide is on his tummy feet first! Of course, Rebekah's favorite thing on the play-yard is the swings.. and she's such a big girl that she can swing herself!

115/365: Apr 25

I forgot. I know. Make-up time!! :)

Hmm.... yesterday...
My sister (& also running team mate) and I did our C25K thing yesterday. We thought we'd be sneaky and actually run the race course to get a feel for it, learn the ups and downs of the route... and we did, for the most part. Until we got back and realized we didn't exactly stick with the route!! That's okay though. With our plan to run (and walk at this point) the route at least once a week, we should be Golden by race day.

So.... I might have mentioned a design for our race day shirts.... but if not, I'm going to now. You see... I like the idea of having a theme. Especially since Jene' and I are running as a team. So I/we/whatever came up with the Dr. Seuss "Things" team. (You know... Thing 1 and Thing 2) Anyways, the front of our shirts will have our respective "Thing" name. And the back of the shirt will have a picture of both Things running with the phrase: "Twins run in our family" under that. I'm excited about it. Here's a *rough* image manipulation I made....

There you have it. Now I just have to go buy the shirts and some iron on transfer paper. (because of course, I HAVE to make them myself!!!) So maybe that will be a project for next week. Until then... I need to keep keepin' on with C25K, as sad as it is... I just wanted to quit, or at least drop back to week 1, yesterday. But alas! I did it! Okay, that's enough of the make-up game. On to live today!!!
;)

114/365: Apr 24

"Now let the heavens be joyful,
Let earth her song begin:
Let the round world keep triumph,
And all that is therein;
Invisible and visible,
...Their notes let all things blend,
For Christ the Lord is risen
Our joy that hath no end."
-- John of Damascus

Today is Easter. We had a wonderful Resurrection Celebration for church. Then we got some pictures taken. Then we headed out to Benson to spend the afternoon with Ben's family. It was a great day full of love and blessings.

♥ My Easter Cuties ♥

My lovely Ne' & Jack

113/365: Apr 23

HOPSCOTCH!

I loved playing this game as a kid... and while Rebekah is still to little to "really" play it... I figured #1- she likes to jump
#2- she likes to count....
IT'S PERFECT!
All all that matters is that she (WE) had fun playing together.

And after our fun and games outside, we went to Lowe's to dream some more (and price) about the stuff we want/need to re-do our front yard. And while we were there I decided to take some pictures of the pretty flowers. :) I really like these two in particular. 

 I rounded out the evening with my Week 1 Day 3 C25K run. And yay for me, I made a personal record for both a mile AND 5k (as in distance... not race). That's enough to keep me happy and motivated to keep going!

112/365: Apr 22

Another good day in the bag.

This morning put in a brisk 5.04 miles this morning with a good friend. Came home and stayed here all day :) And after dinner Ben and I + kids in the stroller went out and did another 3.52 miles walking-- walking faster -- and a little bit of jogging. While we were out, the sun set... and it was . STUNNING. Of course I didn't have my camera. But then a little bit later... it hit me... I have a camera on my phone!

So, the scene wasn't AS good as it had been just a few minutes before and given the whole walking aspect, the view had changed some... I still thought it was worth getting a click or two. I set up my camera, set it to "sunset" and this is what I got....

Not exactly "sunset"-y... but still pretty dang neat looking if you ask me!! And well... that is all I have for this Friday evening. Ciao!!!

111/365: Apr 21

So.. what's my excuse for last night?.. Well, I'll tell you.

I went to the store to pick up a new tire for my stroller (AGAIN) after the kids were in bed. So by the time I got home it was late... Pretty lame excuse, huh?

Anyways... Yesterday. Our "Great Stuff" tire experiment failed. The foam only filled part of the tube, and when the pressure (air) filled part of the tube got punctured, I was left with a partial filled/partial flat tire. Even so, I still did a little over 3 miles.

We went to Grammy's house (that would be my mom) for lunch. And after lunch, the kids got to swim in a kiddie pool while me and mom tanned (read BURNT). So all in all it was another good day. :)

one hundred sumpthin/ three hundred sixty-five

C25K day 2 complete. And I got a huge headstart on spring cleaning. But for now I just wanna curl up in bed and catch some zzzzzz's. Goodnight y'all!

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109/365: Apr 19

Today was "rest" day.... which to me, I guess, equals a 5.19 mile walk. Yay me.
lol
And it was Tommy haircut day. We decided to extend the life of his mohawk for at least one more go-around. :)

The moon was cool enough......

..... and the picture I got (I think) was cool enough, that I just have to share. :)

I love how the street light is "shining" on the moon. Anyways... that is all. Goodnight!!!

108/365: Apr 18

This morning was Week 1- Day 1 of C25K (couch to 5k) Jene' and I kicked it's butt.... probably a little too much. We actually ended up doing 2 rounds of it. I hope that doesn't end up kicking us in the butt later!
During our walk/jog, Jene' decided she's going to run the 5k with me in June! YAAAAAAAY!!!! That's very exciting to me that now I have a training and running buddy. No backing down (not that I was planning to)!!

From there the White's headed home.... got napped and cleaned up, then I took the kids to Bompa & Meemaw's. Bompa (my grandpa, their great-grandpa) watched the kids while I went out to lunch with Mom and Meemaw. It was nice to have a quiet hour in the middle of the day :) After lunch, mom and me + kids went browsing (I can't really say shopping since we didn't buy anything) at Marshall's. Then it was time to go home and get naps.

Sweet Sleeping Bubba

Now we're just waiting for Ben to get home from work, then we'll head out to Mom's house for Monday Night-Family Dinner.

107/365: Apr 17

Sad day.... Today Heidi and Jake left for home. I am so glad they had an awesome (well, I thought it was awesome) month out here in AZ... but it's time to get back to life. We had a farewell lunch today after church... and Ben so kindly got this picture for me.

My sisters & my best friends!!! I love both these ladies bunches!! ♥♥♥

In other news.... tomorrow = #1 training day for my 5k in June. I'm sooooooooooo excited!!

106/365: Apr 16

OOPS.... forgot to blog. So here's to catch up time....

Saturday morning = 7.15 mile walk jog with kids (in the stroller) while Ben went to do our weekly shopping.
Saturday afternoon = Surprise 80th birthday party for an superb man of God, and great family friend.
Saturday evening = I went "shopping:" with Jene' while Ben stayed at home with napping kids, and had a visit with his parents. (I say "shopping" because I didn't have any money to spend :)

But along with all that exciting stuff... When talking to a friend of mine (at the party) she kinda got me motivated and interested in training and participating in a 5k race. There is one in our town in June.

That gives me about 7 weeks to train. I am excited. Terrified. Worried. Confidant. How in the world can so many emotions be going through one person?.. I have no idea. But this is something I want to do.... something I need to do. For me. For my health. For my confidence. And of course, there is always the plus of benefiting an organization. ---> this race is going to benefit our area's Special Olympics team. So... we will see what happens with all that!!

105/365: Apr 15

Tax day!!!! We took care of that a loooooong time ago. BUT we did get to have a date night tonight. Very exciting. Jene' hung out at home with the kids... very exciting for Rebekah!
Anyway, we decided to go somewhere "new" --> read "different". We went to Mande Le. Pretty good food. Not much selection.
We got the bruchette as an appetizer, that was fantastic. For meals, Ben got the "surf & turf" = steak and shrimp. I got the Asian salad. Yum.
From dinner we went and walked the mall.... what else is there to do in SV... then we swung by DQ for dessert. All in all a great evening.
*note to those who care- we will probably never eat there again, but hey... just about everything is worth giving a shot once. :)

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104/365: Apr 14

Another 3.5(4) miles today. :) It would have been 7, but when we (Heidi and Jake joined out adventure today) got to our half way point, we decided the wind was just too cold to finish... and seeing as our 1/2 way point was Bompa & Gma's.... we were able to get a ride back to the house :)

From there, lunch at Chili's -->compliments of Momma. Back home to do some chores and laundry. Then Ben's mom and 1 each- brother and sister, came to visit for awhile.

Then breakfast for dinner... Yum yum, waffles and bacon. :) And after dinner... PLAY. I'll say it again and again... my kids are CUTE! :) Let's see if you agree--

Daddy = Tickle Monster

Bekah ♥s Dolly

103/365: Apr 13

After a shoot like today.... it totally reminds me why I love what I'm trying to do. And it makes me want to aspire to get better. Anyways... my sister in law had me take some (classy and conservative) boudoir photos for her today. I LOVED IT! It was so much fun and totally girly. She is so absolutely gorgeous, she made my "job" easy. :) So... here are a few of my favorites!!!

I hope you all (whoever sees this) will agree that Mrs. Stewart is stunning.... and if you don't.. you're blind. ;-)  Well, that's enough for today. I'm off to bed.

(oh.... and can't forget.... I got in a nice 3.55 miles this morning!)

102/365: Apr 12

Today I got to take some Mother's day pictures of my favorite clients (The Denkers). I hope whoever gets them enjoys and treasures them. Those 2 boys aren't going to stay little forever. I cannot believe how much they have changed in the past 2 (or almost 2 in Caden's case) years I have been taking their pictures. So... here are a few of my favorites from today!

Oh!! And more exciting news, photographically speaking.... I got my speed-light today!
            (What's a speed-light??)
                      It's a fancy term for an external flash.... :)
I can't wait to use it in a photo shoot tomorrow!!!!

101/365: Apr 11

Here are the cutest kids.... EVER.

                                                                              ............. just sayin!

100/365: April 10

Oh dang it!! I was all excited to post about the 100th day of the year, yesterday.... but once again life and not wanting to spend a whole lot of time sitting at my computer got in the way. So.. there it is, in big red numbers.... a day late........ :)

But yesterday was another good day. We White's went to church in the morning. Heard a VERY good message, it said "hey, wake up!!" to both Ben and myself. From there we came home hung, out played around. Then after lunch I took the kids and left Ben at home to do some cleaning... (I know you're thinking I'm the luckiest woman in the world, right!?) ... Well, the cleaning I speak of is mopping the floors -as that is his one chore, and cleaning all the guns. But I still appreciate his hard work VERY much!! Anyways, my adventure was just supposed to be a nice long walk... and it was. We were just interrupted 1/2 way through due to a(nother) flat tire.... grrrrr... I really hate bicycle tubes in AZ. So when that happened, we parked it on the side of the road until Ben could come rescue the kids and the stroller... then Jene' and I (did I mention that she was part of the "we" that were walking?!) finished another 3 miles... so our grand total of walking was a little over 7 miles. Yay.

After I  got home, we hung out some more. Cooked dinner. Played, laughed, bathed (the kids), and got ready for bed and ready for the coming week.... So there ya go. Our Sunday in a couple of (probably) horrible-grammar and punctuation paragraphs.

All of you (who actually read this) understand I have absolutely NO desire to become a writer, right?! And that when I'm typing this stuff out..... I type it like I think it. If you didn't before, now you do!

END.

99/365: Apr 9

It was a quiet Saturday... and cold & rainy. We spent some time walking around Lowe's dreaming about home improvement projects. Then we drove around the foothills of the Huachuca mountains looking at houses ... dreaming again. :)

This evening we went out to dinner at Texas Roadhouse, compliments of mom & Bri. (A very huge thanks to them for that!!!!) But before dinner, Jene' and I decided we would be productive and healthy ... so we walked there. I'm glad I got in a good 4+ mile walk in!!! Oh and while we were out walking, we saw a very pretty rainbow.(Unfortunately, all I had was my phone camera.... bummer)

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98/365: Apr 8

What to blog about today?....... nothing extraordinary happened.... Woke up, got myself and the kids ready for a long haul walk, only to be disappointed by the nasty turn our weather took... and I was only able to devote a measly 1/2 mile on the treadmill.

The wind was too harsh and cold to spend any time outside, so we watched a fair few movies (including Tangled.... 3 times!)

Ben got home early today. That was a plus! He only had to work an 8 hour day instead of 10. I cooked a seriously yumm-o dinner. Played with the kids. Had some icy-creamy-yummyness for dessert... add in a little knitting and you have my day in a nutshell. I didn't really even break out the camera today... very sad.

On a side note though... Rebekah is now learning that she doesn't get everything she wants just because... and she's beginning to understand that she can ask for certain things for her birthday and Christmas.... so all day long I got to hear about how Rebekah wants a Rapunzel baby for her birthday. And she wants to go to the zoo for her birthday. And she wants a pink dress for her birthday. And she wants to ride an elephant for her birthday..... She is SOOOOO funny!!!! Needless to say... I've begun "shopping" (well, mainly looking to see what I can find) in the way of Rapunzel dolls.

I think so far this one is the winner..... her hair even glows when you brush it.... whoot whoot :) And just maybe, we have already figured out a theme for Miss Bekah's 3rd birthday party!!!
We shall see.... we shall see.....

97/365: Apr 7

Another pretty AZ sunset....

Which happened to end a pretty good day.
7.5 miles today.... a bit shorter than the 10 we had planned... but we can try again another day :)
After the walk we spent the rest of the day at home... reading, playing, and drawing with chalk on the back porch. It was good-mostly clean-fun.

96/365: Apr 6

Another LATE night... so I didn't get to blog. But it was fun. Ben stayed home with the kids while I went to the movies with my sisters. We watched....

It wasn't really my kinda movie, but it was surprisingly unpredictable. And the makeup was AWESOME!... But, it was nice to watch something out of my "normal" realm and spend some time with Jene' and Heidi without the kids taggin along. :)
it was funny because we were the only people in the theater when it started..... then like 30 minutes in I noticed 2 guys sitting up front.... and within another 30 minutes I noticed again that they were gone.

Anyways... that is my blog for last night... Talk to you later today!!

95/365: Apr 5

Caleb is #7... whoo!! GO CALEB!!

Tommy's ready to start playing too. I bet he has more skill than the JV players... LOL

Trecked another 6 miles today. Then this evening we went out to buena high school to watch ben's brother, caleb, play volleyball for the varsity team. They got whopped.... sadly. Better luck next time, guys!!!

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94/365: Apr 4

Well..... technically I did blog today... although that was for days past... but nothing really went on. Went for another walk - 6.64 miles. Then came home for the rest of the day. Did the normal cleaning up around the house... but again nothing exciting.

Oh wait! I do have a funny little story...
Last week, I thought it would be fun to teach Rebekah how to play in the sprinklers... she HATED it. The next day, Ben turned on the misters that go around our back porch. Rebekah had a BLAST running around and back and forth, in and out of them. So... that leads up to today. Rebekah asked me to turn the water (sprinklers) on, so I did. Then she had to get into her swim suit. So we did that. Then she wanted to run in the water. So she did..... once. And I guess that was enough for her. She would not go back out into the water for anything................... Silly girl!

92 & 93/365: Apr 2 & 3

Some might call not blogging over the weekend slacking.... I call it... slacking as well. :)
It was actually a pretty busy and fun weekend.

Ok, so Saturday wasn't THAT exciting. Ben had to work. So me and the kidlets + Heidi and her lil man we out for a walk. 6.65 miles.... then it was back to the house. Grandma (Ben's mom) was going to come over and hang out with the kids for a little while so I could get some grocery shopping done.

But the BIG exciting day was Sunday. We had a great big family fun day at the zoo and park in Tucson. We all (Mom, Popps, Kevin, Crystal, Ben, Me, Jene', Heidi, Tyler, Rebekah, Thomas, and Jake) all headed up there to see the animals and have fun. After we toured the zoo (which I've come to realize is pretty small and missing all sorts of "zoo" animals) we found a park to have a picnic in. Nothing like a picnic on a Sunday afternoon that includes good food, people you love, and toys. (Football and kites)
Anyways... here's a few pictures from that!