A cute giveaway

My husband's cousin is a fellow crafter! She does some quilting, but mostly cross stitch. I was recently at her house and her work is just beautiful! She is giving away an adorable ornament on her blog to celebrate her 100th post...check it out here!

Trick or treat, smell my feet....

That song has been in my head all day. Missymiss picked it up on the playground and has been singing it and now I have been singing it all day too. It is annoying, but I guess that are much worse things that can be learned on the playground...


The kids are so ready for tomorrow. We had a trial run this week. My favorite local grocery store did trick-or-treating through the store one evening this past week and it was such fun! At the entrance to the store we got empty goodie bags and a map of the store noting the location of each spot where treats were given out. Some of the departments gave out department-specific items, such as an apple at produce, cookie at the bakery, etc. Others gave out good old-fashioned candy.


The kids loved it. This year MissyMiss is going as a hula dancer and Bubby is Thomas the Tank Engine. Hope everyone has a fun and safe Halloween!!

Fall Fun

Fall is in full swing here in NY and the kids are having a blast. We had a very wooded yard, so we get TONS of leaves. The kids love to rake the leaves into a pile and then jump in it. Here are some good leaf jumping shots:








Bubby has really gotten into helping Daddy with yard work. He even got to help push the mower, which he talked about for days. See those big paper bags? We have to put the leaves in them and set them out at the curb for pick-up. To give you an idea of just how many leaves we get, we have filled 30 bags so far and there are still a lot of leaves on the trees...yikes!

Last week we got snow! Just under an inch...just enough to get the kids excited. This week it warmed back up and was close to 70 today...Bubby and I had a picnic lunch at the park. It was a gorgeous day. :)

A Great Weekend

I have fallen a bit behind in my blogging..things have just been hectic here.

First of all...thank you so very much to all of your wonderful people who left me such positive comments on my last post. I was feeling the love and really appreciated it. I am sticking with things and toughing it out...and starting to see an improvement. :)

Last weekend my aunt got married, so we traveled down to Long Island for the wedding. I grew up on LI, but we now live in upstate NY. It was great to get back for a visit. The wedding was lots of fun. My daughter was the flower girl and did such a wonderful job!

Here is a great pic of me, hubby and kids at the wedding.





Whenever we are in NYC/LI there are some foods that we must get at some point during our visit...including a slice of pizza, a bagel with schmear and italian cookies/pastries. We were able to get all three this trip!

We went to the pizza place that I grew up going to. It was so strange to sit and eat a slice of pizza with my kids at the place that I sat and ate a slice at as a kid.

It was a fun and delicious weekend!!!

Crawling Back up the Hill

To recap, I had to take off from all exercise for August due to medical issues. Early in September, I was finally cleared to run again. My first run back was amazing....I was so happy to be out there again. Then reality hit.

Since then, I feel like I have been climbing back up a hill. It has taken me a while to feel like I am back in the groove again. My mileage hasn't been great, my runs have been slow (for the most part) and my body still feels a little out of whack. Before my forced running hiatus I was at the top of my game...I had just gotten a new PR in a 5K and was feeling awesome. Now...not so much.

But, I keep telling myself that I just need to keep it up and in time I will get back to where I was. But..I am not a patient person and am struggling a bit with it. My long run this past weekend was 5 miles, a far cry from the 10.5 I had been up to.

Here is what I figure. It is easy to cruise along, feeling great and having great workouts. It is a whole other ball game to feel like you have been pushed down a hill and are clawing your way back up to the top.

I was running along listening to my iPod the other day when Lonestar's "Mountain" came on and I completely identified with the lyrics.

There are times in life when you gotta crawl,
Lose your grip, trip an' fall
When you can't lean on no-one else:
That's when you find yourself
I've been around an' I've noticed that,
Walkin's easier when the road is flat
Them danged ol' heels'll get you every time
Yeah, the good Lord gave us mountains,
So we could learn how to climb

This world ain't fair,
It can knock you on your butt
You can just lie there, Or you can get back up
You gotta get back up

I'm gonna get back up...