Eye Openers

Two things I learned this week:

1) Haagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream beats Bryers all natural vanilla hands down. This really surprised me because I have been happily eating Bryers with their real vanilla bean specks my whole life and thought it was pretty top notch. I am not normally into plain old vanilla ice cream, unless there is some homemade chocolate birthday cake or cobbler involved. We had apple strudel this time with the Dazs and both were tremendous. Thanks, Aunt Linda for the introduction!

2) And, you should never shut your eyes while running on a treadmill. I did this tonight for a moment to visualize myself running in a race and ended up flying through the air and landing in a heap on the floor. It was really pretty scary and my knee is still throbbing.

Off to shower and then eat some ice cream as a reward for my 9 minute jog. I really would have gone farther if I hadn't been such a klutz.

Little Cassanova

Here is a picture of Emily's first "boyfriend" Sam (my best friend, Christa's son who is Lucas' age). Apparently, he is really smooth with the ladies as you will note in the photo. He was super sweet to her the whole time we visited always making sure that she was included in playing. He has several other girlfriends though, so I suppose she was just another one to add to his list. Just like a guy. Hmmph. Anyway, how fun would that be for my little girl and my best friend's son to marry someday. Ok, so I am really getting carried away here and thinking ahead, but...aren't they cute together?!

Long Overdue Update

It's been a month and a half or so with no blogging. Though it has been mostly refreshing taking a break during the busyness of the holidays, I have been feeling a bit guilty about not writing, too. Hopefully I haven't lost all of my loyal readers.

So here is an update as to what has been going on in the Lomonaco household and in my life:

• that wretched pinkie toe never got better and after 6 weeks of pain and I finally I went in for an X-ray. The doc called me the next day and said that after reviewing the X-ray, the toe was in fact fractured and not to run on it for 4 weeks. Fast forward to 4 weeks later: I get back from being out of town after taking the running sabbatical to find a letter from the doctor waiting for me. It says "Good news! The toe is not fractured." What the hell? I don't know why it hurt so bad and for so long if it wasn't broken. And why did he call to say it was broken and then that it was not. Pretty frustrating.

• The kids have been sick 3 out of the past 4 weeks. I am so over wiping snot, putting up with fussier than normal kids, having Lucas repeatedly miss school and all three of us miss church, getting up to administer cough syrup in the middle of the night, and getting too little sleep because of this. I am sick now, too, and it is no fun.

• I have resolved to run in the Nike Women's Marathon in San Francisco this October with my sis, Katie and my two dear running and blogging pals Karin and Jen. I will do it if my body--knees and that bloody, non-broken but still uncomfortably pinchy toe--will allow.

• Lucas has been potty trained since November, though we are still dealing with accidents and messy times where he misses the toilet altogether or forgets to put the lid up or squirts his shirt, etc. It has not been an easy process, but is sure is nice not to need to buy diapers so much (we still use pull-ups at night and on occasion).

• I think that I am going to be quitting my Pampered Chef gig. It hasn't been very fun or fulfilling for me and was quite harder to get into than I had imagined. When I mentioned to one friend months ago that I was now doing Pampered Chef, he said, "Who isn't?" I guess that the market is pretty saturated out here. I am also newer to the area with less of a friend network here to help me get started than if I had signed up a few years ago in Orlando. I hate to fail at something and this experience only made me feel bad about myself. Plus I could never quite get past my hate of these types of parties and not wanting to be pushy. It just wasn't for me!

• Emily is starting to speak more now which is really cute and fun. Last night when I got her up to give her cough syrup she held out her little animal to me and said, "Bear!" I can't wait to be able to have real conversations with her like we can with Lucas.

• In December, I traveled by myself for five glorious days to Ohio to see my family and visit my grandma who was having health issues. We also went as a family to Orlando for Christmas to see our Florida family and friends. It was such a fun time complete with a trip to Disney, which the kids LOVED!!
  

Enough already. I will try taking a blogging laxative to be more regular again. Gross.