My Sweet Girl is 1!

Ava's first birthday was today! I can't believe a year has gone by already! I remember going into teach my kinders on this day last year, but having a feeling that Ava would be joining us.

This was taken two days before..

She gave me contractions all morning. At about 12:45pm, I had to pause while reading my kiddos a book because the contractions got a bit more intense. That was the point that I called the doctor and left school a little early. The doc didn't think she was coming that day. He thought I just needed fluids. HA! I was admitted to the hospital at 4pm for those fluids and she was born at 6:17pm. Randy walked into the OR as Ava was being lifted right out of my belly. My mom was speeding from San Diego trying to make it in time.

She has been such an easy baby, but her "baby" days are coming to an end. :( There are some great things about this, but at the same time...she was/is such a cute baby.

She woke up this morning as her happy little self. Her hair is so funny right now because she has a reverse mullet. If I don't tie it up then she has a curtain in front of her eyes. So today I decided to try pigtails. :)

The problem with this is that then I decided she needed to wear matching bows. On any other day, she could have sported plain ponies and it would have been fine, but today was her birthday so I decided to make some bows at 8:30am while drinking my coffee. Crazy I know!

While I was working with the glue gun, Ava was running around and teasing Dylan just enough to have him lose it. It starts very young. Yikes!

We knew we were meeting up with our Friday friends so Dylan wore his backpack for about an hour until we left. I wanted to make sure Ava had a special day even if she wasn't going to remember any of it. :)

 We headed over to our friends' house for some play time at the park then at their house. Ava loved just running around without a care in the world. Dylan was able to play with his friend, David, while also exerting LOTS of energy. Love this!

As always, a good time was had by all! After a nice long nap and trip to get cupcakes, it was time for Ava's celebration.

After dinner, we gave sang Happy Birthday to Ava and gave her the birthday cupcake.

She didn't like how the icing felt on her finger. LOL! We'll see how she does with her cake on Sunday! :)

Next up...gifts!

I just put them in bags to make it easy for her. I think she like the bags more than the toys at first. :)

Daddy, I'm so excited!

Look...I've got a remote control of my own!

The hardest part for Dylan was letting Ava try out her new toys. He wanted to try them all out as if they were his gifts. He asked a couple times if he was getting presents next Friday. Don't worry Dylan, we won't forget your birthday. ;)

We had a pretty good first birthday! Now just wait for the party on Sunday! I'm ready for the madness! :)

A Very Busy Morning!

The race is over and I'm feeling pretty good! It is now 3pm and this is the first time I've been able to sit down and relax all day! It would have been wonderful to be able to lounge after the race, but between two busy kiddos and a birthday party, resting was going to have to wait.

Or maybe a birthday cupcake in my case. ;)

So how did the run go? Let me back it up for you...

I got a phone call this morning at 6:30am. My friend that was sick decided that she felt well enough to go for it. Yay! I have a buddy again!

It was FREEZING this morning! Some of the hardcore runners wore tanks and shorts. Me...not so much. I think it's funny to watch the macho guys take off like a rocket at the beginning. Then as the race proceeds, these guys crap out. I had a few of these types around me. Two got hurt by mile 2 and a third was walking at around 2 1/2 miles. The walker even decided to hurdle a cone right before walking. Don't they know that slow and steady wins the race. Ok...maybe not wins the race, but at least finishes the race right?! I already know that the guys that have about 5% body fat wearing only shorts, shoes and hat and position themselves at the front will be the actual race winners. ;)

Guys like this right?

The first mile was the hardest in my opinion. This was the warm-up mile where I have to find my stride. I did have to laugh when I saw one of the trainers from my gym on the sidewalk ringing a cowbell for encouragement right around the one mile marker. :) Overall, I believe I ran the first three miles at my regular pace. I stayed around a group of four men. As we all started to put a little more space between us, I think I chose the wrong runner to use as a pacer. I realized this when I passed the mile five marker, Taio came on (Dynomite song) and I took off. I dusted the guy for the remainder of the race. Taio, Enrique Iglesias and LMFAO brought me in for the finish.

When I hear "Party Rock" on my playlist I know I am almost there. I got a little ansy at the end. I was ready to be done. :)

I was pretty pleased for my first time. I ran a little slower than I have been around the neighborhood. I thought I was on pace, but I don't have a watch or anything to check up on me. Oh well. I still ran the race with a 10:30 minute mile. The event clock said 1:05 when I crossed, but I definitely was not at the front of the pack so we'll see what the results say once they're posted. :)

My friend came in after me and we enjoyed the post-race goodies.

This is something I definitely want to do again. My goal for next time is to run it under 1 hour. This should be no problem since I wasn't too far off this time.

So why did I have to wait until 3:00 to rest? We had a birthday party of course!  The fam headed to our friend, Ethan's, house for his 1st birthday party. I got Ava gussied up, Dylan went with the hockey/baseball theme and we all had a good time.

She was running towards the camera. :)

Now it is naptime so Team Krekeler is taking a break. Aaaahhhh!

Get On Those Running Shoes!

Tomorrow morning is big...it's my 10K! I picked up my #55 bib and t-shirt...I'm excited!

This is a big deal for me because I've never completed a run longer than a 5K and I really didn't think that I was this kind of runner. ;) I mentioned awhile back, a run in Sacramento where my dad and I will be a team for a half-marathon. Now this isn't until October, but there is some competition amongst family so I need to be ready. This is what got me fired up to be "a runner".

I've been training for this for about 6 weeks now. I'm feeling great and I know tomorrow is going to be a great morning. My buddy got sick :( so I will be doing this one solo. It takes all of 5 minutes to drive to the starting line so it shouldn't be a terribly early morning. You may ask why I don't just walk. Well, I don't want to do an early morning walk by myself AND since 6.1 miles is my max at the moment, no need to add another 4 miles round trip. ;)

I have my clothes laid out, my coffee prepped and my bib on the passenger seat of the car. next time I post, I will be sharing how it all unfolds.

This is how smooth I'm going to look. ;)

Our Busy Social Calendar ;)

We've had a busy social calendar this last week. In one week Randy has gone out-of-town for work, Grammy came to visit, we had a playdate, we had a birthday party, Randy and I got date night then I got a ladies' night with my fellow mommies. Whew! In between all of these fun activities, I have been party planning for both Ava and Dylan's birthday parties. Their birthdays are seven days apart which means that I will be in this party-planning mode every year at this time. :)

It was nice having my mom in town because she is always so much help with the kids as well as being a partner in crime with my crafty endeavors. :) The focus this time was kiddo birthday parties. With Ava's party on March 11th and Dylan's on March 17th, I needed to get some things ordered to make sure I had everything here on time. The dates snuck up on me! So...first I ordered the invites...

I used Pampers points and got 30 of the invites for free! I just had to pay shipping. The remaining 10 invites, I used a $10 off voucher that Shutterfly gave me for posting Ava's invite on my blog. This means that I got some great invites for very little money! Couponing works for everything!!

Next, I got on Etsy and began looking for ideas. This is what really got me going! I ended up ordering birthday shirts for both kids! Ava got two shirts because Dylan's party is on St. Paddy's Day so she needed a shirt for that too! The shirts are scheduled to ship on Monday. I can't wait to see them!

As for party favors, Dylan's goody bags are easy! I'm having so much fun with all of the St. Paddy's stuff! Our house is going to be so festive! I can't wait!

Ava's party planning is fun a different way. We (my mom and I) got a bit crafty with her goody bags.

I still have to add the ribbons to cinch it up. My mom did most of the sewing, but I cut and ironed some seams. :)

We had most of our projects done by Friday when Randy came home from his work trip. My mom babysat the kids so that we could do date night! We didn't leave until after the kids went to bed because they needed some daddy time with Randy being gone for a few days. Since Ran and I got a late start, we just went to dinner. It was so nice to just be out with the hubs, eating good food and chatting. Of course, I had a margarita to mark the occasion. ;)

Saturday was party time! Dylan had two friends that were having their birthday parties together at Walton Park. It is such a great park! This was the scene the day before as I was trying to get a picture of the kids for the birthday cards.

 Hee Hee. :)

My mom took a family pic before we left for the party. This doesn't happen too often. :)

Don't you love messy cupcake pics?

What I loved about this celebration was that both Dylan and Ava wanted Randy more than me! It was so cute watching them hang all over him!

Randy was in the middle of protesting the pic. :) But, I had to post to share Ava's red shoes. Her new love!

 

She was holding onto his shorts. :)

Ava wanted to join the party.

The kiddos had so much fun running around, this was the scene when we got home. :)

Love it!!

Later that night, it was time for us ladies to go out! A friend picked most of us up and we went to the hot spot, Chili's. ;) We had a great time drinking margaritas, chatting and laughing. I even got to meet the newest addition to our group, baby Crew.

Now it's Sunday and we're still going. Dylan played a little dress-up this morning.

Dipping into the b-day goody bag

Randy's helicopter helmet :)

It is time to head to the hockey rink for a little ice skating. I tried to stay home with Ava, but Dylan informed me that wasn't happening. Shucks! Ava is a lot to handle at the rink, oh well.

Have a great Sunday!

My Mommy Night

It is a rare moment nowadays to have a night to myself. Not that I don't love my family, but the alone time just feels so refreshing.

The original plan for tonight was that I was going to meet up with some of my mommy friends for a wonderful night-in with wine and yummy food. Then Randy came upon some free tickets to the Coyotes hockey game. This was a great opportunity for the first of many father-son hockey games. Dylan was SO excited! I decided to give up the mommy group night for a quiet night at home.

You may ask, what about Ava? Well, her afternoon nap went late so we had about 2 hours together before it was time for her to go to bed. Regardless of how long she naps, she always goes to bed at 7pm. If I'm even a little late at putting her down, she whines. So we had some nice girl time. I turned on the radio and began singing and dancing for her.

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 I didn't feel like cooking so it was an easy dinner...

 For both of us...

I LOVE frozen yogurt and decided that since the boys weren't here, it was going to be my dinner. :)
We also picked up some wine. :)

Ok...I know the number of bottles looks a little extreme for one night, but I had to buy six bottles for my $25 rebate. The special ended today and it had to be certain brands of wine. The only kind I've tried is the Mirassou, but there are very few wines I do not like. :)

Ava and I played around a little more after dinner then it was her bedtime. As always, she went down very easily. :)

Now I sit in my awesome St. Paddy's Day pants

with a glass of the Mirassou Pinot Noir and watching Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 1. Since I don't get to the movies very often, I always catch these movies a little later than everyone else. ;)

I hope everyone else is enjoying their Saturday night as much as I am! :)

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