Rowland Ramblings: October 2016

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this mug that Will surprised me with! (if it is confusing you it's a Princess Bride quote and you should go watch it!)

Whew! October! As I was looking over all the pictures for this month I can't believe all of this happened in 1 month. Some of the things are so different and disconnected from one another I feel like its 2 months or even 3. And even though it feels like a busy crazy month when I look at these pictures it didn't feel that way, each day and event came one at a time with catch-up/restful days in between. Overall it was really a great month.

Once again I have a lot of pictures so I think I will just let them tell the story of the month for me rather than give reviews about each of us. (they are pretty much listed in Chronological order)

I let the boys each pick out a book in a book order recently and Grant picked out Dino Battles which came with 2 fossils to excavate. The boys really had fun breaking it apart and finding all the bones. Then we put them together (or rather I did, and it was HARD! they were pretty cheap! it was more about the digging them up than actually putting them together)

I feel like this picture captures the boys perfectly in the stage we are in right now. They are wild, and silly, and goofy, and FULL of energy! and they really feed off each other. Alone, one on one they sometimes feel like completely different children (children that honestly I like better) but together they are just nuts. (not all the time) I know this is an important part of growing up having a sibling you can be wacko with and grow and learn socially with, I really think and hope they will be good friends throughout their lives....hopefully someday that relationship will be able to express it's self in ways other than wrestling, daring one another to do things, and doing anything and everything to make the other one laugh.....but I have been around adult men and their siblings or best friends and well I don't hold out to much hope.
It's OK though cause I Love them both A LOT.

There was a special speaker at church one night a former cardinals pitcher, Fred bird came along!

At Preschool they had Donuts with Dad day (as part of the letter D week). Daddy really wanted to come but was right in the middle of a 4 day ILEAS (that's the SWAT team he's on) WMD (weapons of Mass Destruction) all team certification. Luckily they let Mommies come too. They really made it a fun special morning with donuts, pictures, handprint crafts, and build and race your own lego cars.

Grant got a black eye (from running into the gym wall at preschool!) You can kinda see it here...

Since Daddy couldn't make it to the official Daddy and Donut day at school. Later the next week when he was off he and Grant went out on a special date for donuts and 2 different parks! (Rex keeps reminding us he needs a Donut Daddy date now).

KANSAS TRIP:

One of the highly anticipated event of the month was our trip to Kansas. Even though it was a fast trip we packed a lot into our time there.

On the way we met up with Uncle Jason in Kansas City.

The boys always like seeing Uncle Jason....especially when he brings them bags of candy

brothers....

Will helping Kay set up her "new" computer.

Rex got a BB gun!! He has been waiting for a trip to the farm all summer so he could shoot a bb gun. (ever since he was too little to shoot one at the bb gun booth at the state fair) When we got to the farm we couldn't find Daddies old gun, so Rex and Daddy when to get a new one. We did end up finding Daddies old one later but it was too big for Rex so it was good we purchased a new one just his size.

Rex really enjoyed learning how to shoot. After just a little practice he was knocking down tin cans!

One Saturday afternoon we left the boys in Grandma and Grandpa's good hands and headed to Wichita for our Marathon the next day. The boys had lots of fun including a fall festival, a trip to the pumpkin patch (with an awesome hay play area), pizza and a movie night at the house, church, and getting a lucky private ride on the min train in town!

I got a picture with my favorite meteorologist ever at the pre race expo Merrill Teller from KWCH ch 12 Wichita weather! I used to watch him everyday in college! (what doesn't everyone have a favorite meteorologist!?)

Will and I fueled up with our favorite pre-race dinner of Chipotle, then we went to the Warren, still my most favorite place to go to the movies. It was fun and nostalgic to be back in Wichita with no kids (just like the old days)

BEFORE

AFTER

So I ran 26.2 miles....I'm a MARATHONER! What can I saw about the marathon. We really liked our hotel and got a good nights sleep before the race, which I don't always do. Then we got up went to the lobby and literally walked about 20 steps to the start of the race, that was wonderful. (although it felt like a death march to get back to the room after the marathon) The weather was nearly perfect in the low 50's and there was cloud cover most of the morning so it stayed in the 50's the whole race. there was 1 time we got rained on for a bit but it didn't last long. The course was flat and scenic. My mantra I told myself during the race was "my pace, my race, with God's Grace, I'll finish the race". which just meant go at my speed don't get caught up in the crowd or other people passing you and try to go too fast I wanted to conserve my energy so I'd make it too the end. and of course constant prayer along the route helped too. Will and I ran together for about the first 6-7 miles then he took off. I took it slow and steady and was pleased that the miles just kept going by. I walked through almost all of the water stops and took either water or gatorade. I did hit a bit of a "wall" around miles 18-20. I just felt tired and they felt really long, but I pushed through them and got a second wind and finished up the last miles feeling really strong which really surprised me. Will was at the finish line waiting for me. It was really emotional to cross the finish line, get my medal, and have my best friend waiting there for me. I had kinda thought it would be cool if I could finish is 4 hours and 30 mins but knew that would be tuff. I ended up finishing in 4 hours and 43 minutes. Which I was totally happy with. Even though Will took off and ran ahead of me he had some bad leg cramping the last 6 miles and ended up finishing in 4 hours and 20 mins. (that was his 3rd marathon!) I don't know that I will do another marathon, I told Will I'm not completely ruling it out forever but 1/2 marathons are a more my speed. I saw a girl at church the other day who is in my Mommy group at church and she ran her 1st marathon the same weekend in Chicago. We had fun congratulating each other then she told me 2017, we gotta run the Chicago Marathon together. I told her I wasn't so sure and she said she really wanted to run it again because she knew she could do it faster next time. I thought about that and realized I don't know that I could. I think that is partly why I don't want to do another. I fell like, I really had the best health, weather, course, and time I could hope for, my marathon journey feels complete.

Our family pic right after we got back to the farm. (yes Grant is holding a chain, dont ask)

I love these 2 in their matching outfits by the hay bale

I was excited I got to go on Rex's fall field trip to the pumpkin patch. I had fun putting faces to names of all the kids in his class and just spending the day with a bunch of 1st graders.

On the Hay ride

Rex is the king of the Hay Mountain

Rex's class. (15 kids, 10 boys and 5 girls. one kid was missing)

Treats for Grant's preschool Halloween party x 19

translated: "how to make a house, in survival or creative mode, if you want a house, then you have all of..... (he didn't finish but told me it was going to say "the stuff you need") Rex comes home with "books" like this almost every day that he makes when he has free time at school or if they have inside recess or something. I love them. There are usually picture pages included too My mom calls his writing Inventive spelling (that's the teacher term). I love translating them and figuring out what they say. It's like a puzzle. And honestly sometimes I think the way he spells words makes way more sense than the way the English language spells them!

I give you the world's smallest honey dew, that we grew in our garden. Grant enjoyed all 4 bites of it.

The weather was beautiful the last weekend of the month and Rex had a 4 days weekend due to the end of the 1st quarter and parent/teacher conferences. (we got a glowing review from his teacher). We took advantage of the weather and the time and did an art kit project we've had sitting around for a long time. Rex really enjoyed the process and was so so proud of his finished product.

HALLOWEEN 2016

This years Halloween festivities included, truck or treat in Greenville, Preschool dress up parade and party, Kindergarten end of the day party, that I helped organize and throw, and of course trick or treating at the end of the day.