This is what happens when i leave her with the iPad

legos

Celia has been loving her legos. She wanted me to share her latest creation.

So...

Okay, so some people now that at one point, a few years ago I suppose, I was somewhat of an athlete.  I have a number of marathons under my belt and at one point was a nationally ranked racewalker (okay, details, details so I was only ranked for a few days when there was another race and someone easily beat my time but I always have to throw that out there).  And yes racewalking looks really, really, really odd but how many of you can say they have sprint a 10 min walking mile???  I was also a coach for a marathon team for about 8 years.

Any whooo

Guess what I am doing on May 12????  I signed up for this

I am only doing the 1/2 marathon and quite honestly I think 1/2s will be my limit for quite awhile or forever.  Honestly as I look back to how I felt after my full marathons I can't say I have a huge desire to try them again!  This time I will be trying to run/walk it.  I would love to racewalk it but time is likely not going to allow for that training.  We will see if my body cooperates.  

So Grandpa are you interested in cheering again????  I plan to have Celia as my cheerleader there.  Won't she be thrilled???  I mean after the first hour she will want to see more and more and more runners, right???

I do not know if my poor hubby is thrilled.  It is so great to be the spouse of a marathoner and stand outside for hours cheering them on.  I mean one of the ones I did ended in rain and he was so very excited about that!!!  I mean he got to walk through the awesome streets of Baltimore city to cheer me on.  Sarcasm is involved here folks.  To be quite honest, years ago, he was my best cheer leader.  My Mom was a very close second, she only gets a mark down for holding my cheer sign upside down at the Virginia Beach Half.

so ummm

So many things wrong with this picture

Snow

We were away when our area had a small snow storm.  I think there was about 2 inches on the ground.  When we returned from our trip, some snow still remained.  Celia wanted to go out and sled and build a snowman.  Umm  no can do.

So I promised her that after some quiet time she could go out in the snow.  I thought she would lose interest. Nope.

After quiet time, girl friend got on boots, mittens, and warm pants and went out on our deck to plan in the inch of snow.  15 minutes later she asked to come in because she took off her mittens and her hands were now cold.  I am told to buy her better mittens.  After an exhausting argument over the fact that if she had kept them on then her hands would have been okay and having a 5 year old come back with things that I have no answer for I finally agreed that they were awful mittens.  We did agree though that she will have to live with them this winter.  They are waterproof, great mittens if you keep them on your hands!!

Our Year

January:  So Audrey continues to be very high maintenance but she is cute so we accept it

We enjoy our one and only snow storm.  Okay Celia had fun, Audrey fell in the snow and ranted at me the rest of the day.  Celia had a great visit from Grandma Jean who read at her school in previous years.  Grandma Jean from what I am told retired this current school year after reading for many years to the kids at Celia's school.

February:  We are enjoying the lack of snow this winter and the warmer temperatures.

We have a blast at Longwood Gardens!!

 March:  Celia starts potty training Audrey, ha ha!!  Miss. Audrey is well on her way though at this point to using the potty full time, she just needed to wait a few months.

She loves to do anything that big sister does.

April:  My Aunt's and Cousin came to visit the girls.  We had a great time!!

We also took a trip to see my Mom and my sister was there too so it was a fun time with all of the cousins.  Oh and this is by far my favorite picture of Audrey!!

May:  We had fun at Tyler Arboretum's chair exhibit.  Okay, so most of us had fun!!

June

We finished out the school year and started a fun filled summer!!

Audrey officially potty trained (during the day) about 3 days after school ended

July!  We drove to Nashville to see my sister's family and to bring my niece Katie back.

We had a great time but it was a long trip with 3 kids!  They all did great and we had another fabulous week with Katie.  She is most certainly Celia's best bud.

August

Fun, Fun, Fun at the beach!!  We had another fabulous vacation in North Carolina

Sigh, I wish I was back there right now, oh but the warm weather would have to be there

We did discover that Audrey really, really, really does not like sand nor ocean, but loves the pool.

September:  Happy Birthday Celia!!!

We celebrated Celia's 5th birthday and she started her last year of preschool with the most amazing teacher that ever existed

October:  We had a great Halloween and enjoyed some unseasonably warm days.  Celia loved playing in the Fall leaves.  I ended my 11 years working full time with my school system and switched to work as a Preschool Special Ed Teacher.  Pete is doing okay too!!

November:

I am working part time now!!!  Yeah!!

We celebrated Thanksgiving with our family and enjoyed Celia's final Thanksgiving show at her school.

We celebrated Audrey's 2nd birthday and enjoyed her happier personality coming out!

We had a great December, especially our visits with all of our family.  

The girls dressed up very pretty in their Christmas dresses for church and we were so grateful that our neighbors could join us this year at church!

We had to say goodbye to the best Great Grandpa this month, Paw Paw.  He will be missed.

We are looking forward to a fantastic 2013!!!

We can not be more proud

I can not stress enough how proud we are of Celia's reading and writing skills.  Her reading is coming along quickly and she is also an amazing artist.  The picture below is a perfect example of her artistic abilities.  She required no help with the spelling for the title of her picture.