Everyday Legos

Josh’s sugar snap pea, peanut butter, apple sandwich:

My attempt at being a “fun mom”…  bath paints!  Oh how messy activities stretch me.

Washable, non-toxic tempura paints. 

Put a blob of a few different colors in the tub and let the kids have at it.

Kids are in charge of clean up and washing it all down the drain.

Game night at the Garlands:

Bad Mom:  Letting Zac climb on top of the car while we were washing it. 

I know, I know. 

He sure loved it though. 

And of course, it rained because I washed our car. 

It’s a gift.

 

German pancakes:

Sarah’s been hard at work on her biography of Eleanor Roosevelt. 
She’ll “be” Eleanor at the upcoming 3rd Grade Wax Museum.

 

Sarah and Josh have been on a First Lego League team since the Fall, and their big weekend of model presentations is coming up! 

The “Snack Attack” theme for models had Sarah’s group discussing dark chocolate, and Josh’s group figured out how to mass produce the popular “ants on a log” (raisins and peanut butter on celery sticks).

Josh’s team’s display and model:

Sarah and a teammate, with their display:

Moonsand play:

Finally, we tackled an organizational task this week.  Our Legos used to be in sets, but sadly those are long gone.  It’s all a hodge-podge mix-up now.

In a perfect world, we’d have a Rubbermaid box for each kit (fire engine, space shuttle, etc.) with the assembly instructions. 

Ha.  I can totally appreciate this, and some families I know do this. 

But.

There’s value in NOT having Legos sorted by kit also because that’s when you get colorful original creations:

So I heard recently that one of the best ways to sort Legos is by color.

We can do color.

After a few hours we had boxes for each color:  red, yellow, green, blue, white, grey/black and pink/orange.  We had separate boxes for Lego wheels and Lego peeps.

We’ll see how long it will last.

Just keep an eye on Rachel, the professional Lego container dumper-outer.

I can’t believe my baby is almost two.  2!!!

Rachel has been sick and simply refuses to take any medicine. 

I tried sneaking it in apple sauce, yogurt and her milk. 

She knows it’s there and refuses to eat the food.

It has been a long, hard week for this mama. 

Have a wonderful weekend!

blessings,

Wendi

Carlsbad Half :: Team Laura

What a beautiful morning for a half marathon!  If you enjoy race details, then read on… if not just plough through the photos. 

My friend Laura was running the full 26.2-mi marathon, and I was only running the 13.1-mi half marathon.  Laura started her full at 6am, and I started my half marathon at 7:30am.  We trained some together (no I didn’t go with her on her 23-mi solo training run, eek!) and I knew well from my own full marathon back in 2009 that the last few miles of a full are tough.  “I want to quit” tough.  So I decided that I’d run my first “half” 6 miles solo, then basically wait near her mile 19 (which was very close to my mile 6) so we could run our last 7 miles back to the finish line together.  So I ran just under 15 miles total (a little over a half marathon)… not 26.2 like Laura.  Make sense? 

Carlsbad was the perfect course for our grand scheme. 

Here’s Laura the day before the race, bib pick-up day:

 

Race day morning sky:

Laura was long gone by the time I arrived at the race start (since she started at 6am), so it was so nice to see my friend Jennifer there! 

And can I say I love her black eye!  She got it playing baseball with her son.  It’s a “motherly love” badge of honor.

I’m usually never alone at races… I’m usually there with Alisa, but with a strained IT band, she needed to take a breather on this one.  Next time Sacker!

The energy at a start line is like nothing else.

Electric.

What a beautiful course.  It’s tough, but someone has to live here!

This was the first race I carried my little point-and-shoot camera on, and it was so much fun to capture the course and the people.  My camera fit nicely inside my running belt, with my cell phone and gu’s.  (Hmm what is the plural of “gu”?)

This cute fan club showed up at 6 miles.  These cheer leaders are the best.

It was at this point that I busted off the half-marathon course and ran “upstream” on the full marathon course (south on the PCH from Breakwater), looking for lovely Laura.

And then I saw her… yeah!

Laura’s hubs (and their 3 kids) followed her around the course all morning cheering her on.  So, so sweet!  Here Laura’s waving to them top of the bridge overpass holding the white sign:

Blurry photos… it’s hard to snap clear photos while running!

Laura’s good family friend joined her for one of the last miles.

Mile 26, baby (blue sign on left)!  Laura kicked in the after burners and was on.fire.fast for the last 1-2 miles:

I was so impressed… I honestly thought she was going to lose me!  I had a hard time keeping up and I had only run 14 miles compared to her 26!  Sheesh.

Out of breath paparazzi Me:  “Must…. keep up…. to take…. photos…. at … finish.” 

The home stretch…

Success!  Introducing… Laura, the Marathoner!  So proud of you!

Congratulations sweet lady!

(With a silly flower hat like that you might think twice about being my running partner.)

Such a wonderful day with the perfect happy ending.

Tours

The devoted Mr. Garland and I love to take tours of factories, shops or places under construction.  We love to see how things are made – we are engineers after all!  If we had tv, we’d probably watch a lot of those “how it’s made” shows.  As a kid, I loved getting tours from my dad of the hospital where he worked… mechanical, behind the scenes hospital stuff.  Cool things like HVAC and oxygen lines.  (Go ahead and call us nerds, we don’t care.)  Over the years, Jeff and I have toured the Jelly Belly factory in Northern CA, Celestial Seasonings (tea) in Boulder, CO, and the Denver Broncos new Mile-High stadium when it was still under construction (May 2001). 

Panoramic:


We toured the newly remodeled Carlsbad Airport in October 2009, and even got to go up in the air traffic control tower.



So when Jeff’s friend from bible study recently offered to give us a tour of his local cabinetry shop this week, we jumped at the chance!


Jeff tried to keep drool from pouring down his chin.  This shop was so well organized and clean… the saw dust collection system was extensive and effective.


Bruce was so great with the kids, explaining what every piece of equipment was for.


Wood clamp heaven (the steel bars leaning against the wall).  The devoted Mr. Garland loves his clamps.  Clamps are definitely a guy thing. 
I didn’t notice this until just now… that bike wheel on the lower left side.  Could that be a unicycle?  Awesome.


A radio frequency wood welder:  helps the glue to dry super fast!


The cabinets pieces come together.


The painting room… now this is what I need at home!  The room heated up in a matter of seconds so that paint wouldn’t get cold and to speed up the drying process. 



Such a fun day for us!
We’re studying physics in school right now, and I enjoyed high school physics, but I’m no mechanical engineer.  So glad I married one.




The “phun” of physics is the hands-on labs!  So yeah, get that inclined surface ready (our bike ramps) and throw a heavy 5-gal paint bucket load in the wagon.  Does the ramp make it easier to lift the load?


Next was pulleys (aka our bike storage)… the kids pulled the rope to raise and lower the paint bucket. 

And what physics lesson is complete without looking at some gears?

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Friday nature hike with friends overlooking the lagoon.


Monkey bread for a bunch of monkeys.  Hankering satisfied.


I’m a Pepsi girl.  But recently, I’ve been replacing it with this wonderful milky beverage.  Oh how I love that it’s slightly sweet very yummy!  It’s my “special drink” for now. 


I’ve also discovered “Chocolate Cheerios.”  We never got sugar cereals as a kid (Hi Mom!  Thanks for helping me to learn healthy eating habits as a kid! I’m so grateful!), so I’m apparently living it up as an adult now.  The chocolate coating turns your cereal milk into chocolate milk.  Mmmmmm.
I’m sure my dad (a plain Cheerios purist) thinks these are downright wrong.

Hmmm, perhaps I should pour my coconut milk on my Chocolate Cheerios?  Oh my I’m thinking that would be a little too much.


Only two days until our big race, the Carlsbad marathon.  My good friend Laura’s running the full 26.2 and I’m running just the half.  The race has a staggered start:  full runners start at 6am, and the half runners start at 7:30am.  I’ll run my first 6.5mi solo, then wait for Laura at her mile 19 (when she’ll have finally slowed down to my pace!) to run our last 7 miles together.  This is my first time running Carlsbad, and I love that it’s so close, only 10 minutes away.  So excited for Sunday!
Go Laura go!  You have worked so hard.  You can DO THIS!!  The LORD is your strength!
Have a great weekend!
blessings,
Wendi