Mr. M asked why I was crying and if Miss L said/did something to elicit the reaction.

“Our daughter just said the sweetest thing in the whole world.”

“oh really?”

“She said, ‘Goodnight mommy. I love you. Sweet dreams.’ All in little sentences. She totally knew what she was saying when she told me. She’s so big…”

23 months old… when you’re not crying from exhaustion of trying to get her to sleep, but just tears of happiness like you had when she was like a feather in your arms.

And with all of the echoes of “no mommy!” being yelled around the house these days (today… I refused to peel 3 bananas at one time for her for breakfast… I admittedly peeled two for her… but when she requested the third I sent her into tears), these little quiet moments make all the difference.

There are so many stages of childhood development and parental development as well, and it’s a battle to figure out which one you’re in and she is in and then what the heck you are supposed to be doing about it as well. So many highs and some random lows thrown in to make you feel human and realize that what you’re doing isn’t for the weak of heart.

Last night’s entry into the journal was about these tears… because even before she turns 2, I know that our little baby is really a little girl now.

And to illustrate the highs and lows, I’ll share a little video with you… we’ll start with my attempt to capture Miss L singing Jingle Bells and end with her saying two of my favorite words… 

If you’d like to add a little bit of extra love to your house this Valentine’s Day (or really… any day for that matter!), here’s an easy banner to help you proclaim your love! All you need is cardstock and some shiny gold brads (from any office supply store)

If you’re lucky enough to have a digital cutting machine (Cricut/Silhouette), then you can easily download these files and get cutting right away:

I LOVE YOU BANNER SVG FILE [6x12 version]:  Download   and   Download    (you’ll need both of them!)

I LOVE YOU BANNER SVG FILE [12x12 version]: Download

But… if you don’t happen to have a machine, but still want to have some fun, here are two PDF versions that you can print and cut out using scissors or a craft knife (ie. X-ACTO).

I LOVE YOU BANNER PDF FILE: Download and Download (you’ll need both of them)

… we also got a chance to enjoy the parks a bit both before and after the race.

On Saturday, we assembled quite a gaggle of a group, with friends F & T (with their kids F & E) from LA, CM & W from our hood, and BFF Auds jumping in at the end as well. What this really translates into as the parent of a toddler is that Miss L had a lot of people to entertain her while waiting for certain attractions, and we had some free arms at points throughout the day as well. And Disneyland is always so much fun when you’re experiencing your loves of the park with people experiencing it for the first time!

Miss L was a big fan of my medal, and she really wanted to wear all  5 lbs of it around the park at every opportunity.

On Monday, we used our tickets for a “Magic Morning” to get into the park an hour early… and because of it being off-season, this is the Disneyland we encountered:

That would be a lovely and empty Disneyland full of rides just waiting for an impatient little toddler to jump on and off of!

We walked right on Alice In Wonderland, the Mad Tea Party, Finding Nemo, Dumbo and the Storybook Canal ride within the span of 60 minutes.

Then, since it was only 10:30am, we decided to wait in line to meet the Princesses. While Miss L is only acquainted with a few of their movies, her diapers and sippy cups have helped her name and identify all of them with precision (hello scary marketing tactics!).

The Princess Fantasy Faire is nicely tucked away near Toontown and the “Royal Walk” allows each visitor some very nice one-on-one time with each of 3 princesses.

We thought she’d be insanely happy to meet Cinderella, since that’s pretty much her favorite word right now, but according to her memory, her favorite princess was Snow White. She did warm up enough so that she ran up to, and hugged, Aurora at the end as well… so we’ll count this as a successful meet and greet with royalty.

Afterwards, we stopped by Mickey’s house to snap a photo as well. Miss L, however was disapointed about the lack of presence of a certain canine companion. “Where Pluto go?” was the first thing she asked Mickey. No, “Hi Mickey!” or anything like that. She didn’t enjoy our explanation that Pluto was in his dog house down the way… which might be why she chose not to smile in the photo… hmm…

So while lots of things in Disneyland were just about Miss L’s size…

… there were still lots of rides she didn’t get to experience just quite yet.

But that’s ok, because I’m sure we’ll be back sooner than we know it and maybe she’ll grow to 35” by then….

“Bye bye Disneyland!”

I did it!

I finished an actual half marathon on early Sunday morning. All on my own. And then I walked around Disneyland for another 7 hours that day. Oh yeah.

The day began with a wake-up call at 3:30am … but that really translated into me waking up and wildly checking the clock every 30-45 minutes from my 9pm bedtime on… so there was a significant lack of sleep that occurred from Saturday night to Sunday morning. Luckily Auds was just one floor up in the hotel, so I got dressed in my distinctly not-girly-bright outfit, threw my iPhone in my ifitness belt and went up to eat our banana breakfast with her before hopping on the tram to the race course.

We got to the staging area around 4:30am, so I guzzled three cups of water and visited the bathroom before they started urging us to jump into the corrals around 5:15ish. Auds was in the A group (of course), so I squeezed the way to the front of my C corral and made friends with some of the lovely ladies in my vicinity. Since this was techincally a “women’s race” the guys were excluded from the first two corrals, so most of the 900 guys running were in my group, including the oh so awesome Sean Astin. (remember when Miss L got to meet him last time we were at Disneyland?) But the rest of the group consisted of women in varying degrees of pixie-powered outfits with Sparkle skirts and wings and everything in between.

We were serenaded by an awesome rendition of the Star Spangled Banner, there were fireworks, and live announcers and music and characters to get us off to our start… and then we were off on the course!

The first couple of miles were on the streets surrounding the park, but pretty early into the race they wound us through backstage and then into the streets of Disneyland. It was a blast to see backstage again and all of my old work haunts (even if they wouldn’t let me take a photo outside of the animal house…) and to pop into the park at twilight.

This is where you begin to realize that this is less of a race and more of just a 13.1 mile running course. People stop to go to the bathroom. And take photos. And wait in line to take photos with characters. I actually stopped for two bathroom breaks within the park, because I trusted them more than the portapotties at the water stops. And I didn’t feel horrible or bad… because it was all about just getting to the end. I think the people that were trying for PR’s and racing were a bit peeved (or so I overheard from those after the race was over) but I guess they’ll know next time around. I was happy. We were all trying to get to the end together. I liked that goal.

After we left Disneyland, the course winds away north from the park and east into downtown Anaheim on the other side of Interstate 5. This was the “boring” part of the race, but it was still lined with lots of people cheering and high school bands playing crazy happy music. My satellite radio (I listened to Hits 1 the whole time) went silent for about a mile in this area, and I didn’t die of boredom, so that was a good thing.

Once I hit mile 8, I started taking photos at the mile markers. You know, since I hadn’t ever run more than 8 miles before thanks to the rain storm in my last week of training. (Forgive the random expressions on my face – I never promised to stay sane throughout this process!)

By the time I hit the 13 mile marker, I was truly in disbelief. That I was at the finish line… and I had did it. And I wasn’t dying. And I was still running in intervals. And I was about to get a medal and say that I did it.

I’m not quite sure I believe it even right now! Well, except that my legs have a severe aversion to stairs at the moment. That part sort of makes it all real.

[there were 12,000 entrants... 11,080 women and 920 men - 10,280 people finished!]

Unfortunately, something wasn’t aligned in the stars the morning of the race, because my GPS tracker on my iphone decided that I had run a full 14.1 miles on Sunday instead of just 13.1. So while my mile splits are obviously a little off, they’re probably decently accurate as my overall time was about 13:35/mile.  I set my runkeeper intervals to a run 2 minutes/walk 1 minute pace and kept to that for the majority of the race, outside of water stops and a few extra walking breaks. I knew that would net me a 12 minute mile time… and for the extra walking I’d near the 13/14 minute mile pace. And you know what, it was perfect. I’d been pushing myself in longer intervals while training, and then I’d die at the end of it by running really really slow. This time, I was still running at a nice pace at the very end of it all.

And for all of the hurt I feel today… it’s nothing like the hurt I felt when I started this process long ago. Those first runs hurt so badly. Every muscle in my body ached after those runs and I could barely make it upstairs at the end of the day. And that was just going 2 miles.

So now I just need to find some prominent way to hang my medal with pride (cause wearing it around my neck causes a whole new sense of pain) and revel in the fact that I did this crazy and unthinkable thing.

I have to put out a HUGE thank you to all of my supporters, whether they were family or friends cheering me on this past weekend in person, on another coast at another race…

…. or online ready with cheering words of suppport or congrats. You guys are seriously the best cheering squad this non-runner could ever ask for… you really helped me believe that I could actually do this, and made my smiles at the end just that big because I proved you all right!

Oh, and while this whole exercise proved that I  can run, I’m still nowhere near being “a runner.” But who cares, cause I totally did this!

Excuse me while I repeat a mantra of, “stay calm Kim” over the next 48 hours, because I’m really freaking out about this whole race thing. Didn’t sleep more than 5 hours each night this week… haven’t been eating well…. and mentally I’m just eating myself up over this thing I’ve never done before.

Not like this isn’t the first time I’ve gone through this lovely cycle of stress. It’s happened before many other firsts…. first day of teaching, new jobs, performances, etc. And while I have many coping mechanisms, the inevitable period of “Kim freak out” still comes up and I still have to conquer the anxiety of that along with the task at hand. I can channel it all I want, but it’s still there and fueling the days leading up to those big events. And no matter the preparation for any of these events, I still get a giant lump in my throat before I get out there and actually do it.

But, at sometime around 4:30 in the morning on Sunday, I’ll be standing with 11,079 other women (and some random men) at the start line… and around 5:45am I’ll actually start the task of running 13.1 miles without causing myself more harm than good.  I might link up the virtual tracking to my twitter account so friends and family can peek in at my progress, and so that in my mind I can pretend I’ve got hundreds of people cheering me along and helping me get to the end.

I want the medal. I want to wear the race shirt with pride. And I want to check this random endeavor off my list. As someone related to me this week, “Doing the half marathon only takes a short period of time compared to the amount of time you spend bragging about doing it.” So yeah… I’m going to do this thing.

We threw a “twins” baby shower at work last week for a colleague, and because it’s someone I work with every day, I decided to make sure I contributed something a little extra special to the event. I opened up my “yummy yummy – sweets” board on Pinterest for inspiration and found a link to a dessert I’d discovered over a year ago and had yet to indulge in…

Banana Split Cupcakes

They were an absolute hit and perfectly fancy/cute enough for the occasion. Take note though, I did subsitute stablizied whipped cream for the frosting listed on advice of the recipe’s author.

p.s. a cupcake corer is a ridiculously non-essential tool, but made did make this recipe very easy to finish in a short period of time (I got mine at Target on super sale for $1.50)

p.p.s. if you still need an invite to Pinterest… just let me know!

But today I want to mention it again in light of an email that was sent to me just the other day about a package of brownies and candy I shipped over to Afghanistan on July 14, 2011 with a “thank you” note to the soldiers. It’s the kind of email that makes you stop and think and remember why you want to spread smiles in the world. I won’t lie and say that it didn’t make me cry, because it did.

And it’s one that will have me signing up for Round 38 as soon as I’m done writing this entry… maybe you’ll join me now or later as well.

[all names have been changed – locales have been deleted]

p.s. via a Google search, I can share that “Lt. Marks” has recovered from his injuries and is back in active duty stateside.

So excuse my squeals of excitement and glee (Mr. M had to endure my, “OMG… the cuteness! LOOK AT THE CUTENESS!”) when I happened upon these insanely adorable board books from Gibbs Smith.

Pride & Prejudice: A BabyLit Board Book

[also available for the iPad]

Romeo & Juliet: A BabyLit Board Book

[also available for the iPad]

And two more books are coming out in March:

Jane Eyre: A Counting Primer  and Alice in Wonderland: A Colors Primer

I’ll admit I wanted to go so badly. And when I saw others signing up, I pined in jealousy. And everyone I know that is there deserves to be. They’re that cool. But, you see, I’m not. And I’m ok with that.

I read a lot of those beautiful blogs. Most of them are read in a category in Google Reader labeled, “The Pretty Life.” And I love all of the pretty things that they share with me and the new and cute ways to look at plain ‘ol ordinary stuff. They’re artists and creators and visionaries. They make the Internet a big giant magazine that I never want to put away. They recreate pinterest every day with their content. And boy have they made the blogosphere the idyllic escape that we all want to climb into and play with. And they do it day in and day out with ease.

But I’m not a part of that blogging club. I’m in the more practical camp and still running with my blog in more or less the same place and voice that it started with over 5 years ago (~10 if you count my personal website days) and it’s still just regular me here.

And, I’m not really one of them. I’m not the girl posting hair tutorials, but rather the girl who really needs a haircut and a root-touch up but hasn’t found the window of time to make Christmas fully disappear yet let alone a trip to the salon. And I’m the one who still has mascara in her back pocket because she was going to put it on before she got to work… but totally didn’t.

I realized just how “not in the club” I was when people started chit-chatting on twitter about the anxiety they had over outfit planning. I want to dress as cool as “my style” pinterest board, but I don’t most days. I wear one of my six pairs of UGGs or dozens pairs of flip-flops on most days without worry that someone will discredit me as a grown adult. I fail at even implementing a sock bun because my arms fall asleep before all the hair is rolled and tucked and pinned. My suitcase would have contained my favorite outfits – ones that flattered but that I beamed in, but most definitely none of them would have been OOTD worthy let alone Alt-enviable. And if I asked Mr. M to take a photo of me posing in said outfits to share with you, he would giggle and take a photo of my knee or something or zoom-in on my cheek. That’s how life rolls around here.

I take photos, but they’re snapshots instead of gallery-ready pieces of chromatically adjusted art. And when I try to follow a “photo a day” schedule I usually remember to take one at 10:30pm when my only subjects are a grumpy dog who wants to go to bed for the night, a relaxing hubby or a sleeping baby, so I take a photo of an inanimate object in a well lit area. And suddenly my life is 365 days of still life fruit, books and random figurines.

And my blog card is a Moo card with my name on it. That’s it. They don’t have washi tape awesomeness or QR codes. And my handwriting was never enviable by anyone at any stage in my life.

If the blog world was my high school, I know exactly who’d be at Alt. The editor of the literary magazine who is now an award-winning journalist. The art director for the yearbook who is now a big city gallery curator. The future FIDM student who took classic nude pictorials of her best friend for photography class. The hipster actress who loved ballet as much as she loved English, and now gets to pretend that Zach Morris and Dawson are her boyfriends on TV. They’d all be there and would so fit in. Even without a blog. I, on the other hand, was the digital transcriber for the the literary magazine and the yearbook, and I was “random male sub-lead” in all of the musicals (all-girls school, remember?) who could dance and sing but was far from being the star. Funny how group dynamics can still be attributed back to high school personas, huh?

When people find out I have a blog, they ask what kind of blog it is. You know, a design blog. A craft blog. A food blog. A mommy blog. A ‘”lifestyle” blog. I tell them it’s a blog. What I like, what I don’t. What I did or want to do. What I think you’d like because you kinda maybe like me, so maybe you’re like me? My husband, my baby, our dog. Our families and friends. Food. And Disney stuff. Me.

I guess that makes it a lifestyle blog but not cool enough to be categorized as a “lifestyle” blog.

And sometimes I feel bad that I don’t “fit in” to a niche. I’ve felt some tinges of regret in the past that I didn’t try to push my journaling and sharing here into a singular direction. And then I remember that I just write and share and don’t run a business or a label or a brand. And I don’t work for someone who needs me to be seen as someone uber stylish or crafty or “in.” I’ve just always embraced what I liked rather than what should be liked. It’s mishmash and definitely not edited for perfection or idealism. But you know what? I’ve yet to figure out any sort of category to plop myself into, so I guess this blog doesn’t get one either. Most of my favorite blog peeps are the just great people who I want to be friends with,  or they’re my awesome friends who I love being friends with who have blogs.

So I’m remaining the “outsider looking in” to the #altsummit world… and I’m enjoying looking through the window and content that way. Admiring the work of those in attendence and who fit into that group so well, but not with a jealous eye or a sad one. Just observing and enjoying and remembering I’m pretty darn cool as a non-member too.

And be I’ll be thankful for all these eyes reading these words and being virtual & real friends with this pretty darn not-so-sparkly girl.

<3 kim

Back in October… I saw this project on my Pinterest boards. Soon after, I went to IKEA, bought an 8×10 frame, and printed a simple phrase in as manly a typeface as I could muster and framed it. I took out a dry erase marker and filled-in-the-blanks. Then I plopped it on Mr. M’s dresser.

And every so often, I erase the message, pull out the dry erase marker that’s kept in the dresser and write something new. In fact, I think I’ll go change the message right now…

original pin source: http://kikicreates.blogspot.com/2011/02/howwhere-would-you-use-yours-large.html