Thanks!!!!

So, I decided I am not going to wait until I have something brilliant to say or something amazing happens before I write something else on here! As if I wait to say something brilliant in real life before I say it! Since it was Thanksgiving yesterday, I thought I would at least share some of the things I am grateful for. I am grateful for:

• My wonderful husband. Lamon is so positive and fun, and does goofy things all the time on purpose to make people laugh. I am so thankful to Lamon for making me feel loved, comfortable and safe. One of my friends teased me the other day telling me that Lamon was my favorite subject, and it is probably true. I never get sick of telling people, and Lamon, how much I love and appreciate him. He is such a great father to our children, and makes me so happy. I don't think I could ever get sick of being around him. He is such a hard worker. He does so much for our family. He is a great provider and he is a great leader. And okay, lets be honest . . . He is pretty much hot. Not that that is important! He is funny, and tender, and just has good character. I wonder a lot of times how I was lucky enough to get him! I'd rather spend my time with him than anyone else on Earth!
• Drew. I am so grateful for Drew. Drew is so creative and imaginative. He brings so much life to our household. I don't think there is ever a boring day with Drew. It is so easy to stay in touch with the child within with Drew around. I am so grateful for this fun age where I get to play with him. He lets me put on a cape and be batgirl, run around the house and play hide and seek, and share and read stories with me. I am thankful for the hard days when I have to discipline Drew for doing something he shouldn't do, because I love watching him see and realize the things he does wrong, and for those gospel teaching moments we have. Drew is very inquisitive and bright and can be so sensitive and loving. I just love him. He also teaches me by the way he is so passionate about things. If he is doing something he wants to do, nothing can detour him from it until he has finished it to his liking. And he is very confident in his work which makes me so happy!
  
• Hayden. I am thankful for Hayden. It's hard not to want to just grab him up and squeeze him a zillion times a day. He is so darn cute. His little voice coupled with the funny things he says and the adorable faces he makes while he says it . . . makes it impossible not to just love that kid. He is so fun. He's got his nursery teacher wrapped around his little finger. She has told me that her and her daughters keep eachother entertained often with "Haydenisms." They love quoting things that they have heard him say to eachother. On my birthday Hayden said something off the wall funny and gave me a funny smile, and I said, "Hayden . . . I love you! You are so cute!" Then Hayden smiled and said, "Mom . . . I love you! . . . You're a good camper!" That same day in Nursery they were taking about fish, and Sister Hahn was talking about small fish and big fish and Hayden blurted out, "Oh . . . Oh! I know! Like Free Willy! Free Willy has two wheels." She couldn't stop laughing about that. He just says all of these things with such an all knowing serious face.
• Ada. I am grateful for my little girl! She is so different from my boys. She is so . . . girly! Which I am grateful for. I think that is an area I struggle with sometimes. Ada has been helping me learn to be "girly" again. I painted her toenails the other day and curled her hair in little ringlets . . . and it was surprisingly very fun! Ada has such a strong personality. I think that she will be a girl who knows what she wants! She certainly knows what she wants on many occasions and she loves to point at what she wants and say, "Uuuuh." I will be grateful for the day she will know how to communicate what she wants so I don't have to point at everything in the house saying, "This Ada? This? ?????" ! I am especially grateful for her sweet and tender spirit. She is such a cuddler. Sometimes when she is so fussy during the day, all she wants for me to do is to come and let her sit on my lap and be with her. She will sit in my lap and listen to me read books. My boys didn't do that until a lot later. I love it. She loves the boys and wants to do whatever they do. Lately at night she has climbed in bed with them after prayers and pulled up the covers looking up at us like, "Okay, this is where I belong Mom." And she will whine when I take her to her room.
  

Wow I'm long winded! I need to go to bed and I just got through my little family! I had better continue my thankful list throughout the week!!

28x2

On Sunday it was me and Liz's 28th Birthday. I feel so young, and yet I am getting so old! Not really, but time does certainly fly. I feel like I just turned 21. I don't really keep track anyways. I haven't for awhile. It usually takes me a second to figure out how old I am when someone asks.
I remember once when I was working in the Library at BYU a girl named Dixie Millet asked me, "How old are you Mary?" I told her, "I'm 22." She was like, "No you're not! Because we went to school together and I am only 20 . . . " Or something to that effect. For a minute I wasn't really sure if I really was 22. I had to calculate and make sure in my mind. And then I said assuredly, "Yes . . . I am 22, my birthday was in November . . . etc. etc." So then that same night another co-worker came in and asked me the same question. "How old are you Mary?" I turned to her and said, "23." I was completely serious. Dixie was like, "Mary! You are not 23!" Typical Mary moment . . .
Anyway, I am pretty sure I turned 28 on Sunday.
P.S. This is an old picture of me and Liz. We are certainly hot in this picture, but we are even hotter now!! :) Just kidding. (but not really)

My favorite Birthday gift yet!!!!!/

Drew was so excited to give me an early birthday present last night. He made a card for me, and it just melted my heart! He is so cute. He is trying to figure out all of the sounds, and he wrote this message all by himself, if you couldn't tell. In case you were wondering what momIlikyo Bkooz your NIs means . He meant, "Mom, I like you because you're nice."
How cute! I am excited for all the cards in the future. And I secrectly hope I get a few more that look just like this!! Is it bad to hope Drew won't learn how to spell perfectly too soon? Just kidding. But I sure think it's adorable.

It has finally happened . . . Drew can ride a bike!!

Each time our family has gone for a bike ride this summer, I have continually told Lamon, "I think it is time for Drew to learn how to ride a bike!" It just looked a little funny to me seeing our big 5 year old cruising around on training wheels. But for some reason it never happened.
So this week after we got our school work done I said, "Drew, do you want to learn how to ride your blue bike?" And he said excitedly, "Yes!!" So I took him out in the middle of the street and held on to his shirt and ran alongside him and let go, and it was so awesome. Not only did he keep riding, but he started going really fast! I couldn't keep up with him! I was like, "Whoa Drew, don't go too fast . . . you need to practice first!" And boy has he been practicing! He has wanted to be riding that bike as much as possible. And he has done great. It has been so fun to watch him. Just to see that pride in his face is the funnest thing for me to watch. He keeps saying, "I am so good at riding bikes!" Yes you are Drew! I love your gutz, you cute thing.
Anyway, Today we had a family dinner at Great Grandma Mack's house in Holladay. We were getting the kids in the car, and after getting Ada and Hayden in I was looking around for Drew and he was in the garage with his helmet on and guiding his bike outside. I said, "Drew? What are you doing?" He looked up at me confidently and said, "Well . . . I'll see you guys in an hour!" It was so hilarious. He was so serious. He was going to ride his bike and meet us there! Oh, if I could only have captured his face and his cute little voice when he said that . . . My kids are so fun, they always keep us entertained.

Family Pictures

These are not professional pictures or anything. But for setting the timer button and running, they turned out pretty cute.
We went camping a couple weeks ago, and it was a lot of fun. Lamon had Monday and Tuesday off so we decided to go camping. We borrowed Lamon's parents tent trailer and headed up to Granite Flats camp ground up past Tibble Fork. It was so beautiful. Our friends the Vandenburgs came up and sat around the campfire and ate cobbler with us. It was fun. It was a little chilly, let's be honest . . . but we still all had a blast. And having a tent trailer was nice. We had the heater running until about midnight and then it stopped. We all slept good, but when the kids woke up they were all complaining about their feet being icecubes . . . and so we put them in the car with the heater on while we packed up the trailer. Okay fine . . . so I'm lying . . . I was in the car with the heater on most of the time too . . . while Lamon packed the trailer. Someone had to keep an eye on the kids! J/K
I barely made it home in time the next day to teach History at Jills. But we made it. We are way too spontaneous! But we sure do have fun. I love it.

We are alive!!

Oh my cow! I have been terrible at updating this blog. There are so many fun things to put on here, and I guess I will just have to poke at it a little at a time eh?

I will try and write about two things tonight . . . and maybe if I don't flap my jaw to much like I usually do I can do it without making this too long.

So for the last few weeks we have been having some fun family exercising bonding time each week. My sister Sue is doing the P90X program and she has been bringing her Plyometrics video every Tuesday to do with us. And may I just say that we have been having some riotous fun? My sisters Sue and Liz and Lamon's twin sisters have been coming to do it with us. Lamon sat on the couch the first time and just watched and critiqued us. We got him to do it with us the next week and now he can't miss it! So we move all of the furniture and 6 of us sweat it out on Tuesday evenings. It has been awesome.
So yesterday I was babysitting one of my friends kids and I hadn't heard them for awhile . . . and that usually means trouble. So I went and peeked downstairs and there was Drew doing P90X. He looked so cute. He was saying to his friends, "Come on guys. Come and do this exercise. It will make you super!" So Hayden joined in. It was so funny. And Drew kept doing it and saying, "Hayden . . . do you need some water? You can go and get some water if you want." Drew turned on that video about 3 times yesterday. He cracks me up. I am going to have some buff children.

I did it!

I am so behind in my blogging it is quite pathetic! But I thought that I had better at least put my marathon pictures on here!
What an amazing experience!
All through my training I had problems off and on with my hip flexor. About a week and a half before the race I was hurting pretty bad. I could barely walk at one point. But luckily I have a brother in law who is an athletic trainer who stretched me out and on a few different occasions pulled on my leg and popped something that made the pain dye down. I didn't run the entire week before the race so that there wouldn't be a chance of injuring myself.
The night before the marathon I was going to go to sleep really early to prepare to wake up at 2:00 in the morning, but I could not go to sleep! I was so nervous and excited I was laying in bed but could not get myself to go to sleep. So at 2:00 I got up without having had a wink of sleep and we headed to Rice Eccles Stadium where I got on the bus at 3:15 in the morning. On the bus ride up there were these two guys behind me talking about the steepness of the course and they were saying, "Ya . . . they say that when some people come out of the canyon they can't even walk . . ." I started to get a little nervous, because I had read and heard from a few people that Deseret Morning News was hard on the body because of the steep downhill. Anyway, I didn't really think too much about it until I hit about mile 10 and started cramping pretty bad in my hamstrings and quads. It was pretty brutal. My feet were on fire and the cramping hurt pretty bad. But it just made the whole experience that much more worthwhile. I had to run through pain, and it was pretty hard. I could never put into words what it was like to finish that race. It was the experience I hoped it would be. It didn't turn out like I "planned." I am someone who always wants a perfect "plan" or "recipe" with a guaranteed perfect outcome, and I am always grateful to God for ruining my "plan" sometimes and giving me what I really need. What I wanted? I wanted to finish it in close to 4 hours but knew that being my first marathon and with my hip flexor it might be closer to 4 and a half. What happened? I didn't have one ounce of pain from my hip flexor, but I had to run through the pain of cramps and charlie horses starting at mile 10. I finished the race in 4 hours and 34 minutes. I learned a lot about life and the atonement. I highly recommend it! I will probably do more in like 30 years when my kids are gone. After all . . . both me and Lamon agree that we need to redeem ourselves!