Happy Halloween

It was a beautiful night for trick-or-treating!

I feel like we’ve been celebrating Halloween for over a week now.  Oh wait, we have been!

Pumpkin time!

Per usual, the kids picked out the fun stencils and then ran amok while Kevin and I slaved away at their masterpieces.

Here is the finished product.  Can you name those characters?

Trick or treat

Today, Lauren and I went trick or treating at the assisted living home by our house.  Jack stayed home and napped. It was a good time!

I did the dash…..

The monster dash!  This is the race that I have been training for.  I did a full half-marathon train (and then ran the 10 mile race, silly me!)  I wish I would have been more confident in myself when I registered, but with price increases the stinginess in me made me register early when I wasn’t confident I could do it.  Oh well, with my hurting foot, it’s probably a good thing I didn’t push myself.  It’s been in a serious hurt since last week.  On the left I’m pointing to my name on the zombie wall.  On the left, I had just finished my 10 miles.  My goal was to finish in under 1:30.  I made it (by the skin of my teeth and averaged an 8:40 ish mile.)  Here are the details if you are into that kind of thing.  I would also link to my Garmin dashboard, but as always, I forgot to stop it (and I don’t have auto pause turned on.)

Trick or treat with the Mavericks

Today, we hit up a fun trick-or-treating even on campus with all of the athletic teams.  Each team had their own station with a game (and candy for the bucket after playing the game.)

Here is Jack doing the beanbag toss with the wrestling team.

Here’s Jack with the baseball team.  I corrected Jack and put the ball into his right hand and all the players boo’d me and told me to keep the ball in his left hand as they need lefties apparently (just lefty pitchers or in general?)

Lauren was mostly into the cheerleaders, Stomper the maverick, and face painting.  She did, however, break out some excitement for the track team and their hurdles!

Yes, I bribed Kevin into wearing his costume with me.  No, we weren’t the only ones in costume (but the only other parent in costume was with us-Janet.)

Even Vikings have to care for their brood!

The 10k

So this morning, I got up bright and early and ran a 10k.  When I did the women rock 10k on September 1st I came in just under 60 minutes.  My goal this time was to do it in under 55 minutes and I succeeded.  My official time was 52:08 and I came in 16/183 (in my division.)  Overall I came in 131/647.  Unfortunately, Dad beat me by about 28 seconds, but I didn’t think I would be able to keep up with my old man.  He’s too speedy for me. :)  I averaged 8:24/mile and I think that was because a good stretch of it was downhill.  I don’t typically run at that pace (I think mile 3 was around a 7:20 mile.)  This was my last long run before the monster dash next Saturday and I was supposed to “take it easy.”

Don’t worry, sportpix will get their money.  I just haven’t received my photos yet, so I borrowed their proofs for the blog.

Like I said, Lauren was so proud of her medal that she wore it again today.  It was quite adorable.  We celebrated a good race with a trip to Old Country buffet (LMAO!) Kevin said that’s going to be his motto to run races “5k to the  buffet.” 

Marathon Weekend!

Lauren was sooooo excited to run in the kids K for Marathon weekend.  Yesterday, I took her up to campus and we practiced running the path.   I also gave her some running strategies such as don’t start out too fast and give it all you’ve got when you see the finish line.  During the practice yesterday she started out way too fast and was pooped by the half way point “I’m dying, when are we done?  When can I stop?” HA! I told her you stop when you reach the finish line and not until then (I may be a bit too hardcore for the kindergarten running set.)  Anyhow, she was stoked for today and excited to run a race like Mommy.  She started out at the VERY end of the pack.  When she finished the race she was in the first 1/4 of the finishers.  We were so unbelievably proud of her.  She was extremely proud of herself and loved her medal!

Kids club

Today, Jack and I attended the kids club at the mall.  Every month they have a morning where the Children’s museum comes and puts on a little program surrounding a theme.  Then, there are various table-top activities to do as well.

My new favorite dress

I just had to snap a pic of Lauren in her new dress before school this morning.  Matryoshka dolls, it just doesn’t get much cuter!

Here is princess beanitude after school.  She was super excited because I allowed her to play outside in her dress up clothes.

Weekend in Duluth

This is the only picture I took of our weekend in Duluth (which is quite odd for me.)

My little pumpkins

The kids wore their coordinating Halloween gear today.  I didn’t get a very good photo of them together, but then again, I so rarely do anymore.

Chef Beanitude

We made some pumpkin cookies today, thanks to Chef Beanitude for her help.

Gooooooooooooaaaaaaaal!

This was Lauren’s 3rd season of soccer and she really blossomed as a player this season.  I think she finally “gets” the game and is more inspired to play and participate.  Don’t get me wrong, she still can be seen occasionally daydreaming and picking up junk off the ground, but most of the time she’s running hard up and down the field.   She also had a fantastic team this season.  Two of her good friends were on her team, a friend from her Kindergarten class (who she’s played soccer with before) and a friend from MOMS club.  The girls all played together really well.

Today, was also the day that Lauren scored her 1st GOAL.  She was so excited to finally have a goal under her belt she went and scored another in the 3rd game (the final day of the season is a 3 game all-day extravaganza.)  We celebrated with ice cream (even though it was freezing outside!)

Open House

This outfit arrived from Gymboree in yesterday’s mail.  As soon as Lauren saw it she insisted that she wear it today. (Yes, I can still buy her clothing without her prior approval, here’s hoping it stays that way for a long time!)

Tonight was a busy night of running from here to there.  We hit up Lauren’s kindergarten open house before running over to Jack’s “ready for kindergarten” class.  Lauren can do the monkey bars all by herself and is quite proud of it.  This is part of the SMART time (I think that is what it’s called) program (nothing to do with SMART boards) and is inside of the “dome” of Lauren’s school (the kindergarten classrooms are around the outside of this huge shared area.)