Warner Park Nature Center

This morning we met up with Missy, Heather, and Jen and their kids at Warner Park. We walked around the nature center and had hoped to go inside the learning center, but it's closed on Mondays.  It was still fun walking around the outdoor area, though a little cold (I'm not used to the cooler weather yet!).

I brought along my good camera today (I need to do that more often) and took a bunch of pictures.

Luke, Rylan, Will, and Carter:

Heather said this tiny pond had hundreds of frogs in it last spring.  We didn't see any today though.

There was a vegetable and herb garden:

Doing a little more exploring:

Baby Lewis came along too (as did Chase but I didn't get him in any pictures):

It was a fun morning for us trying something new!

Race Pictures

There were a couple of guys taking pictures during the race this weekend.  I pulled the couple I found of me.

Only a few miles in ...

And a few miles left (and suffering just a bit more!) ...

Black Widow

We found a couple of black widow spiders outside the house a few weeks ago and found our third this morning. 

The boys and I were about to load into my car in the garage.  I had already opened the garage door and Carter was walking behind the car to get to his side of the car.  I was putting Rylan in his carseat and Carter told me there was a spider behind the car.  I didn't think much of it - figured it was just one of those common brown spiders that are everywhere outside.

When I went to check on Carter, there was a massive black widow spider walking into the garage.  I have only come across a handful before, but none of them were anywhere near this big.  I really hate squishing things so I found some wasp spray on a shelf in the garage and sprayed the spider.  I took a couple of pictures then but they don't do the spider justice because it was already curled up from the spray.

I proceeded to sweep the spider out of the garage and then bang on it with a running shoe.  It was definitely dead then.

Tomorrow I'm planning on cleaning out the garage (though most of our stuff is hanging on the walls) and spraying around the house.  We aren't using an exterminator currently, but we may start!

Speech

Carter has been doing really well with speech this year.  Especially when I remember to do his homework with him all week instead of just on the weekend before he goes again on Monday!  We did really well practicing last week and he was able to say all these words correctly by today.

Carter often substitutes the f sound for an s.  To help with this, when he's practicing, he's supposed to make a long, exaggerated s sound and then say the rest of the word.  Sometimes he'll do that, then make an f sound, and then the rest of the word.  But after a lot of practice, he was doing all these words perfectly (though the s isn't blended into the word yet - Ms. Judy, his teacher, is fine with that at this point).  Homework this week is to say "I have ____ts" (____ts is words like boots, fruits, etc).

Unfortunately Ms. Vicky, the lady that does Carter's session at his preschool, hasn't been able to come the last couple of weeks since she broke her foot.  Hopefully she'll be feeling better soon and those sessions will start up again.

Carson

Carter has a new best buddy - Carson.  Carson's mom (Ashley) went to high school with Missy and Heather and recently moved back here from Atlanta.  Carson is on Carter's soccer team and we recently went to his birthday party.

On Friday, Ashley had a playdate at her house and invited us and a bunch of our other friends.  Carter and Carson are obsessed with one another.  If one leaves a room, the other one is asking where the other went. 

When we got home on Friday, we had a thank you note from Carson for his birthday present in the mail.  Carter had to put the note on his bookcase and has made me read it several times.  It's signed "Love, Carson" and Carter will tell me, "I love Carson, too."

Treasure Box

Carter loves Thursdays at school because his teacher has as treasure box, and on that day, the kids get to pick something out of the box.  So far Carter has gotten a twisty straw, bouncy ball, slinky, and a kaleidoscope.

Last week was farm week at school.  On Thursday the preschool kids got to visit and pet farm animals that were brought to the school.  I don't think that Rylan went (since he's still in Parents' Day Out) and when I asked him about it, he couldn't tell me anything about it.  Carter though said he petted everything (a lamb, goat, rabbit, pig, rat with babies, some ducks, chickens, doves, pigeons, snakes, and a lizard).

On Wednesday, there was a list outside of Carter's class listing what farm animal the kids said they'd like to be.  Carter said a dog.  On Thursday the list was what their favorite animal was that came to the school.  Carter's was the snake.

Lefty

I'm still thinking Rylan is left-handed.

When we were playing with friends on Friday, one of them was hitting baseballs, right-handed.  Rylan picked up the bat and immediately stood to hit the ball left-handed.  And he'll still only kick a soccer ball with his left foot.

Music City Half Marathon

This morning I ran the Music City Half Marathon.  It started and ended in a parking lot for the Titans Stadium and was on the Music City Bikeway and Shelby Bottoms Greenway.  I loved the course because it was extremely flat (just a few small hills).  But it was COLD this morning.  It was in the mid-40s, overcast, and windy.  We've still been pretty warm here so this was felt super cold.

I have not been running very much lately (only a couple of times a week) and my runs have been pretty short (usually 4 miles - not bad but not enough when you're going to be running 13.1).  So I am super happy with my time of 2:02:17 (9:20/mile pace).  I rarely run with music and have never raced with it.  But because I knew I needed more distraction, I used Brian's old iPod and listened to an audiobook while running.  I think it really helped today but I don't plan on doing it all the time now.

Brian surprised me by bringing the boys out to see me finish.  They were at the 11 mile point and the finish line.  It was awesome to see them and made the end of the race so much better.

However, the boys stole my post-race food - I only got one bite of my pizza :)

I got a finisher's medal and a nice technical shirt.

I haven't signed up for anymore races this year but if I can get back into running a little more, I may do a few more before it gets too cold (I really hate running in the cold).  First though, I have to let my knees recover - I can barely go up and down the stairs right now.

Things Carter Says

Carter says lots of funny things.  I always mean to write them down and post them, but I almost always forget.  I've made an effort to collect a few things over the last few days though.  Here they are:

• Carter asked a few weeks ago if he could bring his Goofy to school for his nap.  I told him he could and asked if Goofy was going to take a nap in his school bag while he was playing.  Carter proceeded to tell me that that Goofy can't take naps because he isn't real.  I asked if the real Goofy is at Disney World and he told me no, those are just people pretending to be Goofy.  According to Carter, the REAL Goofy is the one on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (the cartoon on Disney Junior).

• Carter often tells me he needs to "Get my exercise out".  He has combined Get my wiggles out and exercise.

• The other day we saw an airplane with a vapor trail and Carter was 100% sure it was a rocket taking off.  There was nothing I could say to change his mind.

• I took the boys to the dentist on Monday for their checkup (it didn't go well - I think both boys were still freaked out by the torturous tick removal the night before).  When the dentist is looking at the kids' teeth, he says he's looking for sugar bugs.  When we were driving on Friday, Carter told me that sugar bugs were biting him and he needed to go home and brush his teeth. 

• Lately Carter says (with A LOT of emotion), "Are you kidding me?!?!?"  Brian and I are trying to figure out where he picked that one up.

• Tonight I told Carter he was so smart after he told me something impressive (I have no idea what it was now).  Anyway, Carter goes on to say, "I'm so smart at lots of things.  I have lots of ideas.  I never run out."

Preschool & PDO Playdates

This week I planned another set of playdates with the kids' classes.

Unfortunately I had planned a playdate at the park with Carter's class on Monday and it ended up raining.  We moved the playdate to Monkey Joe's but no one responded that they were coming.  Luckily we were still meeting Missy and Heather and their kids.

When I checked on Carter he excitedly told me that Hunt from his class was there.  Even though I didn't have his mom's email and didn't get to tell her about the playdate, Hunt's grandmother randomly took him to Monkey Joe's on Monday.  His mom arrived a little later and I got a chance to meet and talk to her for awhile.  And Carter was so excited that he got to play with one of his school friends.

Here is Will, Carter, and Hunt about to go down the slide together ...

Today Rylan and I went to the zoo with a few of his classmates.  Three of us were able to make it and it was fun seeing the kids recognize each other and interact.  Here is Maddox (love that smile!) with Rylan and Kennedy in the background.