Overdue Updates!

I think I can give up on getting a full post on all of the things I just downloaded from my camera, so I'll just make some quick notes and try to get them all covered! I'll try to go in chronological order to keep the randomness to a minimum.

Half Marathon
This was my fourth year to run the Gainesville Five Points of Life Half Marathon (took last year off when I was preggo).  I managed to finish in a reasonable time (for me) and ran the whole time, which is my main goal. My official time was 2:23, 37th in my age group.  I didn't realize until the next week when I finally cleaned out my camelback that I had only had about a quarter of my Gatorade (I usually suck it dry on the shorter training runs..). So that helps to explain why I was sick with dehydration the whole night and ended up having to get some IV fluids the next day. Embarrassing? Yes.

Chad and Henry met me at the finish line, I was so happy to see them!

Grandma Overman
A few days before the race we received the sad news that Chad's grandmother, Lynn Ora Overman, had passed away. She had been sick for the previous few weeks, but prior to that, at 95, was leading a fairly healthy and independent life. She was with us at a football game just a few months before, one of her favorite things to do! We will remember her life and legacy of faith often, but especially when we are sitting in her seats cheering for the Gators! The day after my race (once my IV fluids finished) we headed to Pensacola to celebrate her life. Everyone wore orange and blue to the memorial service in her honor.

Splash Park

All last summer I was wanting to take Henry to the splash park in Alachua and never made it. Well, this year, it was first on the list! It's so much easier to do outings now that he skips his morning nap, not to mention having a new friend living nearby who motivates me to go do things (thank you Jamie!)! I think Henry is now at the perfect age to enjoy it. He loves the water and really enjoyed having the freedom to run around and do what he wanted (unlike at the beach!). Hopefully we will make lots of visits there this summer. 

The glare on my camera was so bad,  I couldn't really see what I was snapping.  I promise he was smiling more than the pictures show!

Homasassa Springs Park

I went with Mom and my Aunt Sissie and the girls to Homasassa Springs State Park for the day. I didn't get too many pictures, but we had a fun day and got to see lots of wildlife!

BEACH! 

We made a pretty impromptu visit to the beach last week and had a blast! The kids all enjoyed it and the weather was perfect. It's so nice getting to spend days outside in the brief time before it becomes sweltering! Thank you, Suzanne, for planning a fun trip!

Esther, Corbin, Lucas, Henry and Adeline

Christ is Risen!

Well, with or without my deviled eggs.. we had a wonderful time celebrating Christ's Resurrection with family and friends!
We started the day with a good discussion with friends in Sunday School about the necessity of the resurrection to show that Christ not only died for our sins, but then conquered death and essentially had the final Word when He came back to life! Praise the Lord!
Then we went to Newberry to spend a relaxing afternoon with family and sweet friends. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves...

Mom, loving on everyone's kids so the
parents could enjoy their meal

Henry LOVES playing with the big kids!

Feeding the ponies

Deviled Eggs are in fact of the Devil

I used to love Deviled Eggs. I would often offer to make them to take to share at holidays and even used to think it was cool that I could sometimes get the entire shell off in one piece. Then, last year sometime, I was up at midnight cooking the night before a get together and was very disappointed that my eggs were not peeling very well, they came out all mangled, but I went ahead and made them and my family graciously ate them even though they looked like they were made by a bunch of small children. Actually, I think that happened at least twice.

Then I was at Bed Bath and Beyond one day and in the check out line I saw this: 

I should have known by the "as seen on TV" sticker, that it would be a disaster, but somehow I was sucked in to the magical idea of "perfect" eggs. Long story short- they were disgusting and went in the trash after the first use. 

Fast forward to tonight. I decided I wanted to have some Deviled Eggs tomorrow for our Easter dinner. We just had some at friends house the other night. They were perfect, so surely it's still possible for chickens to lay peelable eggs, right?  Just for fun, I re-Googled "how make perfect hard boiled eggs", which is how I have made them in the past when it worked, I thought I just must have forgotten a step or something. The top 3-4 recipes were pretty much the same all claiming that the eggs come out perfectly cooked and easy to peel. So, I figured it was a sure thing and went ahead and dove in with all 18 eggs. Fill the pot with water cold water and some salt.. put the eggs in.. bring to a boil.. turn off heat.. cover and wait. How hard can that be? I pulled one out to test, it didn't peel, but also wasn't quite cooked, so I waited a few more minutes then tried again. Perfectly cooked but the shells are permanently attached to the whites so I ended up with mangled stupid looking eggs again! My goodness! 

my sketchy, mangled stupid eggs

My apologies friends and family, I will not be serving Deviled Eggs tomorrow. I've decided Sweet Potato Casserole is pretty much "heavenly" (and hard to mess up), so I'll stick with it.  

On a more serious note... thankfully, the celebration of the Resurrection of our Lord will not be affected by the absence or presence of any silly eggs. Or bunnies, or anything else for that matter! Praise the Lord for the sacrifice He made for my sins. I have been reminded repeatedly lately of how imperfect I am and it makes me all the more thankful that He died in my place, taking the punishment that I deserved so that I might glorify HIM with my life. Thank you Jesus! 

Can't have a blog post without some pictures of Henry, now can I?

Quiet time in his crib "reading"

Are these two related or what?

A Year Already??!

Well, I really can't believe this little boy has already been in our lives for a year. At the same time, it's hard to remember life without him. It really seems that he just keeps getting cuter and finding new ways to amuse us. Anytime we go out, he is always making friends and entertaining all the tables around us at restaurants. Unfortunately for us the main times he's been crying these last couple of months have been at night.. He had his first ear infection on Christmas Eve and it seems like it's been almost continuous since then.  His ears don't seem to bother him at all during the day, but they do make him wake up at night. Thankfully when he finally cleared up a few weeks ago, he went pretty easily back to sleeping through the night again. It was a long couple of months though! (actually the sleepless nights pretty much started when he got his first teeth, so sleeping again was very exciting for us!). 

By his first birthday he was crawling like mad man, pointing, clapping, standing for 5-10 seconds on his own and making all sorts of noises. No walking or talking though. He has since (a few weeks later) started signing for milk (even though sometimes it just means he wants anything besides milk) and took his first few steps (at a rest area while we were out stretching our legs oddly enough). He still much prefers to crawl, but if you insist he will take a step or two and then dive into your arms. Chad picked out a little basketball goal to give him for his birthday and he couldn't be more proud of the fact that Henry immediately knew just what to do with the basketball and loves slam dunking it whenever he gets a chance! For some reason the idea of the "First Birthday Party" really had me stressed out. Maybe because I know some very creative and organized people who have thrown some super fancy ones! Anyway, we decided to go low key and just enjoyed having our family over for a cookout. I was really looking forward to Henry devouring his cake, but he honestly wasn't all that interested. His cousin Essie had set the bar pretty high. I can't seem to import the video of her eating the whole thing, but i bet you could find it on Suzanne's blog if you were so inclined :)

Here's Henry making his daddy proud:

this is about how well any sort of formal photos went on the big day

Henry had some great helpers when it came time for presents!

"Hey, what's Uncle Bryan doing?"

My attempt at cake decorating

Kind of looks like snot, gross

My favorite shot of the day

Since I just got around to finishing up a video from the 9 months clips, I can't imagine when I'll actually make the "memories of the first year" video that I have envisioned.. we'll see. For now, here are a few recent highlights. 

Not much to say about this one.. he's basically standing there holding a can. I thought it was cute, but then again, I'm his mom.. I won't judge you if you don't make it through the whole 46 seconds :)

Finally made another video

Well, I put together a video of Henry after his first 6 weeks and at that point figured I would probably make a new video every 3 months or so. I didn't start the next one until 6 months, then it was 8 months and I was still working on it, then I just went back and found it almost completed. We'll call it a video of the first 9 months or so..  These are the same, just one from blogger and one from youtube in case some computers are picky.

The Conrad Circus McGurkus

Mom got us all tickets to the circus for Christmas. Not just any tickets, but front row VIP tickets; we even all got to go out on the floor for one of the acts to watch up close. It was in Jacksonville, so we stayed there the night before- Henry's first night in a hotel. (I wouldn't say that part went very well, as we were in the midst of one of his recent ear infections that kept him up all night). But he was a good sport, as usual, and we all had a great time.

Our pictures didn't turn out very well, must have been in the wrong mode

Can you pick out the real clown?

Thank you Meme and Papa!!

Don't worry, Henry also had a one of a kind circus shirt to match the girls,
but after a blow out and an unprepared mom he ended up in the smallest shirt
they had for sale at the show!

Love our little family!

Here kitty, kitty, kitty.. 

I love that the elephants are smiling, or look like it anyway