Power of the pink

Mother's day weekend is a big deal for our family. This isn't just because we are so keen on celebrating on moms (though they all are pretty gosh darn important to us) but more because Mother's day weekend always brings the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure.

Before I was ever officially an Ellwood, a tradition was established of running the Susan G. Komen. This tradition has carried on so long that this year was actually the 20th year of participation! So amazing and such an incredible even to be a part of. Sadly, D and I have not been able to join in on it for the past two years. Thankfully, this year, our schedule and life events finally didn't prevent us from joining in and we were able to surprise everyone by showing up almost at the very last minute and completely unannounced.

We came in the evening before the race and were able to spend a little time relaxing...

... as well as having an amazing dinner of pure CARBS (Yum!) for the sake of all those running in the race the next morning. Everyone headed to bed extra early and then we were up even before the sun the next day so that we could get down to the race and avoid any issues that might result in starting mishaps. I heard tons of story about all of the things that have happened in the past on race morning but (thankfully) everything went off without a hitch and we were done to the starting line with no issues. Check out all of the other people who were running the race that morning. I took this picture of the starting line a good while before they even started the race and then I tweaked it a little in photoshop so that you could see it tilt-shift style in order to enhance and emphasize the crowds there...

It was a really really cold morning to race but we all bundled up as best as we could and amused (and distracted) ourselves to stay in the spirit of the race and ignore the blustery winds.

Check out the "race warrior" car that led the runners from the starting line! Grammy was able to sneak in for a picture quickly before she took her place at the starting line.

Minutes before the race was officially kicked off, Grandpap, Miss A, and I retreated to the top of the hill over the race start and watched as all of the runners took off.

After the gunshot started the race, we hurried over to the other side of the hill (and across from the Phipps) to line up and look for Grammy to cross the finish line. She came around pretty quickly and it was so exciting to see her cross the line as the second survivor. I can't help but be impressed and amazed at the fact that she does this year after year and is actually legendary in the local area for her race wins.

D came across the finish line a little behind Grammy and even though I missed the photo op of that, I can confirm that he was smiling ear-to-ear when he crossed the finish line.

Per tradition, Grammy and D looped back to pick up Great-Granddad and they all came around the bend toward the finish line together. I very rarely do hand-coloring of pictures but this one of them just called for it...

Miss A was a real trooper all day as she weathered the blustery cold day but it sure did help her to be a little happier when we were able to figure out a way to bundle her up against me papoose-style. She fell asleep quickly after we managed this set-up and all the while holding her, I couldn't help but think, "This is the stuff that mother's day is about. I'm such a lucky mom!"

What a great mother's day we all had together celebrating all of the mom's of the family!

Stay tuned for the continuation of our adventures of mother's day weekend. There's probably two more posts to come of all of the fun.

Motherhood is so marvelous

I used to think it was unfair when people said things like, "You would know... if you were a mom..." Who did those people think they were anyway? It was like motherhood was this super exclusive club full of really cool secrets that only a few lucky people could ever be privy to. I mean, COME ON.

But... it makes sense. And for as much as I'd like to be a more eloquent with explaining how it all works itself out, I can't. And so I'm going to defer to something someone else wrote about mother's day today because she is someone (unlike me) who has a real way with words. Thank you, Rebecca Woolf of Girl's Gone Child for telling it like it really is.

"To the keepers of the band-aids with trains in purse pockets. To the bedtime story-tellers, shirt menders, coat checks. To the dawn-patrol chiefs and the bad-day fixers and the peacemakers in the play room. To the hand-holders and the owwie kissers and the stained-dress wearers and those who wake first and sleep last. To the toy car fixers and the hosts of tea-parties and nights of stargazing in the yard. To the wait-up-all-nighters and try-not-to-worriers and the nurturers of passions all - to the time tellers, memory collectors, masters of tucking in bed-sheets.

"To the music-makers with bottle shakers and the fight-for-what-is-righters and those who watch for fingers before they close car doors. For the lunch packers and the show-and-tell reminders and the tear-wipers who open their beds to tiny folks with monsters in their dreams.

"To the book-readers and the homework helpers and the lovers of freckles behind knees. To the back-scratchers, rule-makers-sometimes-breakers and those whose laps have no vacancies...

"Whether you have children, take care of children, plan to someday have children of your own: Happy Mother's day. Thank you for teaching and loving and guiding and caring and working and sharing and supporting.

"Thank you (as my mother always says) for holding the umbrellas over the heads of our future. You win."

Rebecca said it best above and below is my version of all that she has said already... (This one's for you, Grammy! Thank you so much for letting us share such a special day with you!)...


Happy Mother's day to one and all!

Counting our many blessings

Hello! Remember us? It's been over a week since we last updated but that doesn't mean that we've been short on things to update about. It's more that things have been ridiculously busy and hectic around our neck of the woods. D and I are in the homestretch of the school year and with that upon us, we barely have time for anything these days.

Anyway, Miss A has been busy as well. She's almost one month away from being an "old lady" of two whole years and if we weren't already busy with everything else, she would easily end up making up for that! Last evening she finally figured out the lock on her bedroom door and she ended up locking herself in her room. I kind of knew the day of such things would come soon enough but despite all of my mental preparedness for it, it still freaked me out when it happened.

While I tried to remain calm and knock on the door to encourage her to try and unlock the door by herself, she stood on the other side of it giggling about the whole situation and knocking back at me. After what felt like an eternity but was probably not even a full minute, I was able to get a little screwdriver to open the lock. When I opened the door she was standing there laughing about the whole situation so much you would have thought that what had happened was the greatest thing in the world as opposed to something that was much closer to a recipe for disaster. I'm sure this is barely even a glimpse of what she has in store for us in her later years.

Aside from all of last evening's excitement, things with Miss A have served (mostly) as the highlights of all of our days. She's such a joy with all of her curious toddler ways and interests, continued spontaneous dancing and singing, and natural excitement and exuberance for all of life's offerings. Just last Sunday, she experienced a lollipop (a tootsie pop, to be exact) for the very first time...

We had a guest pastor who generously shared them during the children's sermon. Miss A was called to pick her choice flavor (banana) before all of the other children and the pastor actually paused the service to note that of all of the times he's done this before (over a dozen) no children have EVER picked banana and Miss A was the very first little person to do so! And after Miss A made such an adventurous move, would you believe some of the other children followed in kind? And after this happened, again, the pastor stopped the service to comment how wonderful it was for all of the kids at our church to be so much more adventurous with their choice of flavors. It was pretty amazing and Miss A ate the ENTIRE lollipop by herself with the exception of the very last bite of the tootsie roll center because D thought it might be gum.

So that's been our week. And thank goodness tomorrow is Friday and the next day brings the weekend because we absolutely positively need it!

NummaNummaNUMMA!!!

In case you didn't know, D is an Ah-MAY-zing cook!!! This is awesome since 1) I can barely cook even if I've got a recipe and everything is premeasured and 2) I LOVE to eat!!! So for what I lack in culinary skills, D definitely makes up for it all and then some.

The other night we had big plans to do a Japanese feast of Godzilla proportions. We planned for sushi (sashimi to be exact) and also tempura. As it happened, we completely filled up on the sushi and had little room left for the tempura so we wrapped up all of the tempura makings and decided that tonight would be the night to finally make it all happen!

Since D is the resident expert of Japanese cuisine, Miss A and I just hung around, stayed out of the way, and looked cute. (Well, it was mostly Miss A who was doing the most of the looking cute but you get what I mean, right?)


Isn't Miss A adorable with all of her "little mama" ways? She wrapped her baby up like that all by herself and carried it around like that!


Still, the food tasted so good that we had to interrupt D so that he could give Miss A's baby a quick kiss...


And also so we good get a little peek at what was smelling so good...


:-O (that's emoticon speak for "Good GRAVY does that every look incredible!!!")


I mean seriously?!! It looked just like something that you could get in any top-rated Japanese restaurant. And if you can get past how gorgeous it looked, you better believe that it tasted just as good! Don't believe me? Ask Miss A... she will COMPLETELY attest to the fact that it was so delicious it was worth wearing even...



Pictures don't lie, folks. Pictures do NOT lie!

Tweet tweet tweet!

Check it out!!! No - on the left!!!

<-------------------------------------------------Way over there on the sidebar and then down just a little bit.

See it???

We are now microblogging via twitter. *sigh* Yes. I've officially caved and done it.

*shrug*

And as tech savvy as I feel like I am, I actually don't know a lick about how to microblog or twitter so 1) I'll let you know how it goes and 2) we'll see how long this lasts until I get mad and quit all together.

Until the fat lady sings though? Keep an eye on that feed over there to the left. I've already tweeted four items since registering earlier today and my most recent (and last for the night) is one about Miss A.