Running for Nena!

Since I'm getting back into running and on week 2 of my 5K training plan I've now devised a short term goal on my way to the Music City 1/2 marathon, the Evansville Susan B Komen 5K on Sept 25.

I've chosen this race for 2 reasons, first it fit nicely a couple weeks after the end of the 5K training program and most importantly, it's something I feel like I can do to help.

Some of you may or may not know our family friend Nena Lorenz, who is my age, was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year and is currently undergoing chemo to shrink the cancer before surgery. She's an amazing trooper and will beat this with class and dignity! Nena was one of my bridesmaids in our wedding and essentially the sister Ben never had. Her brother Nathan is Ben's best friend and their families have been friends since before Ben and Nathan were born. Thankfully she has an amazing family and support system!

I asked Nena if she cared that I do the race in honor of her and of course she was happy that I do so. She said she'd even crack the virtual whip and keep me on my training schedule!

Nena is keeping a blog with her journey through this and if you are interested in learning more about this amazing girl, you can visit her site at www.lorenzstrong.com. She's a fitness nut so running a race fits right in with her!

So I'm running the race and raising money with Nena as my muse, so if you would like to support me, support Nena or someone that you've known that's had breast cancer, feel free to click on the Komen Race for the Cure Logo to the side of my blog or here to make a donation. $5, $10, $25, whatever you can to help. My listed goal is $250 but I hope to do much more than that. Thanks in advance for whatever you can donate!

I'll keep everyone up to date on my training and meeting our fund raising goal!

Training is going well by the way. I'm doing the Couch to 5K plan, C25K, and I'm on week 2 of 9 and so far so good. It's going better than I thought it would since I haven't so much as ran in months between pregnancy, hospital bed rest and then the whole having a baby thing! We should be good to go for the 25th!

On the home front, things are good as well. I'm seriously wondering if Mallory is teething. She's showing a lot of the symptoms, so who knows, I guess when a tooth pops out we will know! Babies can cut teeth that early, so who knows.

We had a relaxing weekend at home, Ben went to Louisville on Saturday for the Quality Deer Management Expo and somehow came home with no purchases other than lunch, parking and the fee to enter the expo. Although he did inform me that he wants a bow, so the money will get spent regardless!

Mallory is doing great other than a tad crabby from this whole apparent teething thing. She's smiling more and I've even caught her laughing a time or two which is THE CUTEST THING EVER! I can't wait to catch it on camera and video but just haven't been able to yet.

Here's a few pictures from the past several days, and Aunt Sue, the pink polka dot top and white 2 tiered skirt picture is just for you ; )

Shades and Scales

I guess I’m a sucker for cute stuff for Bean. After having her at the pool briefly the other day, I decided she needs some sunglasses. I had bought a pair at Target, but they were still too big and didn’t stay on her face. So with some help from Google I found Baby Banz. Guess that’s a take off Ray Banz, but whatever. So they have these super cute retro style glasses for babies that have the soft neoprene type fabric that wraps them around their head and Velcros into place….so of course, I had to have them for her. They came in on Thursday and I think she looks pretty darn cute in them if I do say so myself!





I’m also tired of not knowing exactly what she weighs. Trying to subtract from the house bathroom scale and then trying to convert 10th of pounds into ounces, well it was driving me nuts and I wasn’t going to take her to the pedi every few weeks to see how much she weighs, so I found a scale on sale on Amazon. It also came in on Thursday and we got it set up quickly and determined that she now weighs 10 pounds ½ ounce! And no crazy subtraction and division was required to figure it out. Now I can weigh her once a week and just make sure she is gaining well, which hasn’t been an issue, but the NICU spoils you in finding out how much they weigh every day, so I just want to know and now I can!

Now for my next iphone app rave. Since we’ve already established I’m a book nerd and will hope that Mallory will enjoy reading as much as I did as a kid, and even Ben read a lot as a kid….I recall stories about him reading his families entire encyclopedia collection, which is probably why he’s such a vat of useful and useless knowledge. I’ve found the app Tales 2 Go. Basically is audio books for kids but instead of having to buy each book/story individually you get a free month subscription and then if you like it it’s $24 a year for their entire collection of books and it’s broken down into age groups. It really doesn’t claim to start until 3 years, but I figure it can’t hurt to play them for Mallory while driving down the road and since the Edge has the sync system with my iphone, it goes right through the speakers. So far we’ve listened to some of Aesop’s fables and a book about frogs playing soccer, but it’s much more tolerable than say, Sponge Bob. So far I really like it, and I really like the fables, stuff that kids probably don’t get much exposure too anymore. It played the one about the crow who wanted the water in the bottom of the pitcher but couldn’t get to it so he put all the rocks in the pitcher and brought the water up to him. Totally forgot about that one, I love books with “morale of the story is”. Can’t wait to read her all my Serendipity books from when I was a kid and I still have them all and they are in great shape!

Mom's been watching Bean yesterday and today since she can't start full time at the new sitter's until next week, so I think they've been having fun doing some bonding time. I find it funny how Ben's mom likes to fix things I like and mom likes to fix things Ben likes....Mom brought all the stuff with her to make Salmon Croquets, Black Eyed peas and Fried Squash. I like all that, but that is very much a BEN meal!

I wrapped up Day 2 of the first week of my Couch 2 5K program at the gym today over lunch and came to a couple realizations:
1. I need to order more Sweaty Bands. I forgot mine today and had to resort to the crappy ones from Target that I keep in my gym bag as backups. About 30 seconds into my workout I quickly realized how much it is worth the $15 to have a hair band that does not slip and stays on my head when I'm working out. Will be buying a couple more so this dreadful experience never has to happen again.
2. Running is a lot like riding a bike. For the most part I'm in horrible shape but although my endurance is crap, half of running is form and breathing technique and after running off and on for 15 years now, those 2 things you just never forget, so thankfully the endurance can be regained as I continue on my plan to get my butt across the finish line of the Nashville 1/2 Marathon in April.
3. I love my SPI Belt. I had bought myself one around Christmas when I ordered one for my friend Mary Ruth who also runs. I've heard people on the running forums rave about them, basically they are little bitty streatchy pouches that are on a belt you wear around your hips/waist. Think fanny pack but much sleaker and smaller, specifically for runners/walkers that doesn't bounce and you can fit an iphone, cash, key and that would be about it. I've yet to use mine until today and I love it. My iphone was shocking the crap out of me via the treadmill some how so I went to my gym bag, got it out, stuck my phone in it, snaped in on my hips and carried on. It never budged, the ear phone cords were perfectly long enough to reach from my rear to my ears with just enough slack to move around without cathing your arm in your cords. How did I ever live without it??

Most of you know my husband and know that weight has never been a problem for him, unless you consider not really ever being able to GAIN weight as a problem. Apparenlty there is some "get fit" program at Whayne Supply and they are encouraging everyone to wear a pedometer and try to get in their recommended daily amount of steps to maintain their weight, or lose some if that is their desire. Ben said for his height and weight he should take 8,000 some odd steps a day for maintaining his current weight. So, if you talk to Ben, be sure to ask him how many steps he walked today, although I seriously think if he only took 2 steps per day he would probably maintain his weight!

Have a great weekend and here's a few other Mallory pictures from the past couple days:

Annoyed and other less Annoying stuff....

Annoyed….

Here I was all excited at the prospect of having someone come to clean our house again and she called me Thursday afternoon before we were supposed to meet and told me that she just thought we lived too far out for her to drive and clean our house. Whatever. She told me where she lives and we can’t live more than 10 miles from her, it’s probably further for her to drive to the other side of Owensboro than to get to our house. Again, whatever. Just pisses me off.

I guess I need to remember that small town America people don’t like to drive. For me its nothing to hop in the car and drive an hour somewhere because I want to, not so much the case with some people. So, the quest to find someone to clean our house continues as the dust continues to build….( just kidding, I will clean/dust, but it probably will not get done as frequently as it should.)

This week has been crazy with babies, birthdays and weddings….so, just so I don’t miss anyone….

Monday the 14th: Happy Birthday Aunt Sharon
@ 12:59 pm Easton Mills was born, a happy baby boy! Yeah Lacey & Justin!
Tuesday the 15th: John Douglas Rue was born to Mendy and her husband Ryan! (Love it when
they use her maiden name in the baby’s name, unfortunatly Caughlin doesn't have quite the ring that Douglas does, LOL!!)
Wednesday the 16th: My birthday, enough said.
Friday the 18th: Ben’s Dad’s Birthday, Happy Birthday Bud!!
Kelli at works Birthday, the big 3-0 I understand!
Saturday the 19th: Misty and Jake are getting married!! So happy for you guys!
Sunday the 20th: Ben’s first Father’s Day and Happy Father’s day to Daddy and Bud!

I think that covers it all…..it’s been a good week!

It's summer and that means the college kids selling Southwestern Books are running around.....and somehow, although the cleaning lady doesn't want to, Lathen from one of the Florida schools, found our house. I know a little about Southwestern, Ben's brother sold books for them one summer and got shipped off to Eugene, OR to do it, and I'm not sure Lathen quite knew how to handle someone that acually understood what he was doing and just wanted to see the books! It's like he didn't quite know how to handle straying from the very scripted sales pitch they are supposed to give at every house. So, I mustered up some patience and just let him go through it all!

Thankfully the books were for little kids, educational and scientific, and I bought them because I'm a sucker for books, and I wish Lathen the best, and although this is his second summer with Southwestern and it does take balls to go knock on random peoples doors, I'm not real sure he's cut out for sales in the real world......thankfully he is a computer engineer major, that should work better for him.

I've made it to the gym at lunch 3 times this week, so yeah for me. I finally transferred some of my audio books to my iphone so I can listen to books while I work out. As I said above, I'm a book nerd, prefer non fiction, criminal mysteries and the occasional chick lit and since I don't really have a lot of time to just curl up with a good book right now, I listen while sweating on the elliptical. I've found www.audible.com which I love and buy books from there, and now that we have DSL and not Hughes net, it only takes a few mintues to download a book and not half a day. So, this week I started the Devil Wears Prada....haven't seen the movie yet, had rather invision it in my head as it's being read to me and then I might watch the movie. Books I love, movies, not so much. I think the Hangover was the last movie we saw. Once I work out my way through 14 hours of the Devil Wears Prada, I will move on to the next 3 books by one of my Fav authors, Kathy Reichts, the books that the tv show Bones is very loosly taken from. Can't wait!

Ben is making his way home from South Dakota today, will arrive back in Evansville around 8:30 tonight.....ready to have him back home!

Mallory went back to the doctor this morning for the rest of her 2 month shots, I'm trying to divide them up a bit and they wern't sure if insurance would cover these or not, so we held off on them until I could check and see. She's such a little trooper, hardly cries at all! We will see how that works when she's older and actually knows and understands what's going on!

She's also been congested, which isn't that alarming, but I was a little concerned when she was coughing this morning so we saw the Dr real quick while getting her shots. He said she sounds clear and as long as it doesn't get worse or start a fever she should be fine. I called him again this evening because she just sounds horrible, it's just the congestion and she's just going to sound that way but I so wish you could just blow her nose! No fever, so we will just watch it and hope it doesn't get worse..

I'll post some more pictures tomorrow, I'm on the laptop with her in my lap right now, so it's not real easy to get to the desktop.

Semi Wireless Baby!

Bean and I are about to head out to do a little shopping, gotta go to Kohls and Kroger and Target might get thrown in the mix as well...oh yeah, I need makeup too...lots of in and outs today. Ben gets to mow the yard while we are out and about.

I stayed home with Bean on Friday. She didn't want to eat very well Thursday night and then after sleeping for 7 hours Thursday night she only took 1 1/2 ounces instead of her typical 5 oz that she scarfs down after sleeping all night, so I was a little concerned. She acted a little more clingy than normal, so I think it may have had to do with her shots or she coulda just wanted some momma time and not been all that hungry, but either way, I may have over reacted, but we stayed home on Friday. Thankfully by lunch or a little after she seemed to be back to her normal self and I wasn't concerned anymore.

So, Mallory is doing great, she's awake more and interacting more with us. She likes looking at herself in her little mirror during tummy time and likes us to shake her rattle and there's another little toy that lights up and says different things that she likes to watch too. She's doing good at lifting up her head for longer times, so she's advancing along well! I still think she's a little ventriloquist because she can make more sounds without ever opening her little mouth!! She the queen of grunting!

Ben got to change his first poopy dipaer last night and he did great! I think his comment was it looks like paste....yep, mustardy paste, LOL!

We did a dump of her monitors data earlier this week and on Friday the Neonatal Dr's office in Louisville called and said everything was looking good, looked like she had only had a couple small "real" episodes back around Mid May that appeared to be due to reflux. How they can tell all that from the monitor that seems to go off for false alarms all the time is beyond me, but basically because she's been so good, we only have to have her hooked to the monitor when she's asleep and we aren't around her. So we have a Semi Wireless Baby now!! I feel a little bad because I never noticed or saw where she actually had a "real" episode, but they said they were quick and self recovered, obviously, but still, oh well. They said probably the next time we dump data we can take her off the monitor all together....part of me wishes we could just keep her on it at night until she's 6 months but I don't imagine the insurance will pay and we can just move to the angelcare monitor then I guess.

I've uploaded more recent photos to Mallor's shutterfly page that can be accessed here to the side of the blog to see other pictures. My new favorite app on the iPhone is the shutterfly app so I can quickly log on and see all my pictures of Mallory anytime I want!!

Also, in non baby related info, I was tipped off to two cool new websites this past week. The first is www.craiglook.com. Basically it's a search engine to search all craigs lists postings for whatever you are looking for, like a jogging stroller within 150 miles of Owensboro....very cool site!!

The second is www.sweatybands.com. I'm always on the quest to find a hair band to wear when I work out, clean house, ok, all the time, that doesn't slip and have to be readjusted ALL.THE.TIME!!! I think I've found them, these Sweaty Bands were inveted by a personal trainer up in Cincy and I bought one and it came in this week. LOVE!!! They don't slip off, I had it on for HOURS and never had to touch it. Will be buying more. They aren't as cheap as the rubbery ones you can get at Target or Walmart but they are SO worth it. Owning 3 is my goal, they are $15 each, but I'm sure I will want more.... I found these in my monthly email from my favorite running shoe store in Lexington who is now carrying them. They are AMAZING!!

Enough of all that, here's a couple pictures of Bean from this AM sitting with Daddy...

Photo Ordering

Greetings!

I set up a website where you can order pictures that I take and typically put on the blog from shutterfly.com.

You can get to the link here, or at www.mallorywernerphotosforsharing.shutterfly.com. There you can order any of the pictures on there and if you see one that you want that I missed in uploading to the site, just let me know.

This should make life easier for everyone and you can get a good quality picture sent to your house or local Target if they have a photo shop.

Enjoy!!