Running and weight loss...

I think I mentioned on here earlier that I was training for the Long Island Marathon on May 3rd. Well that was before I started having knee problems, and had to walk 2 miles home from the middle of Central Park in freezing cold weather because it hurt too much to run. Yeah, it was a sad day. But now, about 3 weeks later, things are getting better and I am slowly starting to run again. Sadly, I will not be ready for my marathon, but I have a couple of halfs that I am excited about, some awesome open water swims in the Hudson, a tri with the fam in August, and possibly another family marathon in the fall. I know, you've heard that before... 3rd times a charm... promise! 

But, in spite of my sad knee problems, I have managed to lose about 13 lbs since the beginning of January, and now only have a few lbs left to get to my pre-pregnancy bod. Pure joy!! I can't even describe to you how wonderful it feels to fit into my old pants, and not even have them dig into my sides. I honestly felt like I would never get there again, but alas... But, like I said, I still have a little ways to go, but I have been feeling so good lately, that I just had to toot my own horn. So, yay for me. :) Only now I feel like we need to get new family pictures taken, because every time I look at the ones on the sidebar, all I can think is "I can't believe how chubby I look!" (although I have to admit, I do think my hair looks pretty good!)  No wonder I have been having so many people from my ward comment on my weight loss... to them, I was a chubby girl.  But, no more.

**Ok, so I honestly feel SOOO dorky for putting this picture up here, but I kind of wanted to for my own interest sake... so that I could see it with my own eyes. You know how it's sometimes hard to tell that you've lost weight to your own eyes. Anyway, I know, I could never be a model, because I cannot for the life of me figure out the most flattering poses (I think the ladies in Hollywood must go through some special course on how to find their most flattering angles), but you get the idea.  Morgan, 3/30/09, sportin' her "skinny" jeans.  13 down, 4 more to go!  Oh, and for those of you who asked... weight watchers, running and swimming.

Bedtime

A little while ago I posted about the disaster that was Asher's sleeping. Well, I am pleased to announce, that that is pretty much a thing of the past. Things were pretty bad for awhile, he wasn't getting near enough sleep, and was a basket case all day, everyday. What we did...

We put the lock on his door, like I said we would. I ended up putting one of the crib mattresses on the floor next to the door, so the first few nights, he would cry for about 5 minutes, and then just pass out on the mattress. I could just imagine his thought process... "I'm just gonna take a little rest on this mattress, until they come open the door..." and then he would just conk out. After that, he pretty much stopped getting out of his crib, and would lay in there quietly before he fell asleep. We did end up getting a twin bed, which he LOVES to jump on. He actually does really well sleeping in it too. Sometimes he will ask to sleep in his crib, which is fine for now. Most nights he comes to the door and asks for "sippy cup milk", and we tell him that if we give it to him, he has to stay in bed and stop talking to us through the door... and he does. So that's working for now. Eventually I am going to stop the milk thing all together, but for right now, I know he will go right to sleep after we give it to him, so I am letting it slide. The important thing is that he is getting the sleep he needs and I don't have to be a meanie-mom. 

A few mornings a week, he will still wake up between 6:00 and 6:30, which we are not fans of. Throughout his entire young life, he has never woken up before 7, he has always been amazingly consistent with that little skill (aside from when we are out of town or when he is sick, etc). But when he started climbing out of his crib he would wake up so early, and he's just never really gotten all the way back to how he was before. I am hoping that this is not his new routine. He does still have his good mornings though, so we're still hoping he'll get back there.

Anyway... so yeah, disaster fixed. Bring on the next one. No, just kidding, not yet. Ok?!

Milk buddies

Asher has been in this phase lately, where he wants to be just like Sayer. When Sayer drinks his milk, Asher wants to drink his on the floor just like him. Today I took Sayer's onesie off so he was just in his diaper, and Asher insisted on taking off his clothes to be like Sayer. When I try to get Sayer to walk to me, Asher steps in front of him and walks to me instead. It drives me a little crazy sometimes, but I thought this was a cute picture of brothers drinking milk together. While we're on the subject of milk, Asher has turned into a HUGE milk drinker. He used to not care whether he got milk or water, but now it's almost always milk he wants. I do regulate it, but he really would drink milk all day if I let him. Oh well, there could be worse things.

Cookies

These are from awhile ago, but I thought they were cute, so I wanted to post them. This is Asher rolling and cutting out sugar cookies for Valentine's Day. He had so much fun getting messy and playing with the dough. I gave him his own little section that we weren't going to use, so he could do whatever he wanted with it. He loves to help out with stuff like this.

Staten Island

This week is spring break. Coming from BYU, we are so not used to all these breaks, but we'll take 'em! Nate still has lots of studying and reading to do, but today we decided to take a little day trip to Staten Island. It was so weird, as soon as we got out on Wallstreet (the kids fell asleep, so we decided to get lunch before we got on the ferry), it felt like we were some place far away. It felt like we were on a vacation. While we were down there, we got the impression that kids on Wallstreet are somewhat of a novelty. The people in the little cafe we went to were quite taken with our children. Nate said it was like when the Chinese see blond kids in China, the way people reacted to our kids. So that was kind of fun.

The New York Stock Exchange

After lunch, we walked down to the ferry station and got on. Asher was thrilled to be on the boat, and kept exclaiming that it would be dangerous and scary to go swimming. I'm glad that he seemed to have some sense of danger when looking down from the boat into the water. 

When we got off, we walked down the harbor and stopped for a little while on a little "beach" area. Asher and Sayer would have been happy throwing rocks there for hours and hours. It really made me so happy to see them so happy and having so much fun. My boys seriously love being outside, and it makes me sad that we haven't been able to be outside much lately. Thankfully the warm weather is fast approaching, and days like today will be more frequent. 

After the beach, we decided to walk to this park we saw on our map. Of course it ended up being MUCH further than we anticipated, not to mention completely uphill and in the ghetto. I was very grateful when we finally found it. It was worth it... it was a very nice big park with a little lake and lots of grassy areas. Again, the boys would have played here forever. 

We did have a little scary moment, when Asher decided to almost run into the busy road. He had been walking up the hill, just looking around, but then all the sudden he decided to run toward the road, and Nate (in my opinion) was not running fast enough toward him, and I was freaking out. Luckily, as I said before, Asher seems to finally be sensing when things are dangerous, and instead of heading into the road, he just turned onto the sidewalk and started running down it. But Nate was so far behind him, he totally would have been able to run into the road before we could get to him. Oh my gosh... it makes my heart beat faster just thinking about it. Anyway... when Asher came back, I gave him a little talking to, and he almost seemed to be expecting it. 

Heading back to the ferry was much more pleasant, and we had a nice quick trip back to Manhattan. By the time we got off the boat, Sayer was starting to lose it. He has a bad habit of taking his binky out while in the stroller and dropping it on the ground, and unfortunately, he chose a time to do it when Nate and I were deep in conversation, and so we didn't notice until much later. So the poor tired and hungry kid had a rough ride home without his binky.

Despite the rough ending, it was a very fun day. The weather was perfect, and I think Asher and Sayer really had a ball. We are hoping to be better at the family outings once it starts getting warmer, and are already looking forward to the next one.  Well... we might need a nap first! ;)

Just like his daddy

Asher likes to be just like his daddy. Here he is, making great use of our balcony, reading a lovely book about anthropology.

Dinner... AND a show!

Last Saturday, Nate and I got to go out just the two of us for a night on the town. We decided to head down to the village and get some dinner and just walk around. We ended up eating at Five Guys, which neither of us had ever eaten at before. It was so yummy! After that, we just walked around and talked, talked, talked, and then stopped into Rocco's Pastry Shop and got a yummy piece of chocolate cake. On the way home, the subway was packed, which we didn't mind, because we were quite entertained the entire time...

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This just in...

Ok, so some of you may have heard some rumors that we were going to be coming home (home being Sacramento, Provo and Spokane) for the summer. Now that we know FOR SURE for sure, I am a little sad to say that this is only partially true. We were going to be coming home for the entire summer, and turned in our intent to vacate form, and then like 3 days later, Nate's professor said as it turns out, they do need him to stay for the summer, and will be able to give him funding. So, they were able to pull our form, so we can keep our apartment. But the good news, is that we will be out west for the end of July and the whole month of August. Hopefully we will be able to make all the rounds during that time. 

I was kind of excited for Asher and Sayer to be able to play in backyards, and go to swim parks and all that fun stuff, but there is lots of fun stuff to do here in the summer, so I think we will still have a good time.  There have been some warm, sunny days here, and it already makes me so excited.  Life here is so much easier when it is warm.  

The other good news, is that we will be here all summer for those of you who want to take a nice summer trip to the big apple! Hint, hint! ;)  Since we will now be in our apartment for awhile, Nate has given me an allowance to beautify our little place, so it feels more homey.  I already have it all planned out, so I will post some awesome pictures when it is all done.  Kay, that's all for now... just wanted to give a little update.  

Cutest one year old on the block...

Ok, so I know I am totally biased here, but just how cute is this kid???

He's got moves...

This video makes me happy...

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Happy Birthday Sayer!!

This hat was one of his gifts, and I thought he looked so cute in it!

Sayer's turned ONE on Monday! Crazy huh?! I still can't believe it. On Monday we made pizza and had a fun family night and sang happy birthday.

At the end of the day, my kitchen looked like this...

Not a spare inch on the counter. It was worse than it looks, trust me.

Yesterday (Saturday) we had a little birthday shindig for him, with another little boy in our ward. It was great fun filled with tons of sugar...

Nate asked me how many sticks of butter I used to make all the cakes, cupcakes, toffee and frosting. I think it was 12 or 13 in all. Gross, huh?! But it was worth it. For more on the cake, click here.

Sayer loved his cake and was not shy about diggin' right in. This kid loves food. LOVES it!!

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We had the party in the community room in the basement, and the lighting is so terrible. That's why everything looks all yellow-y.

Conversation with Asher about Sayer's party...

Mom:  Asher, what did you do at Sayer's birthday party?

Asher:  I made a mess with my cake.

Mom:  Oh, that's right, you did.  What else did you do?

Asher:  I pushed down the babies.

Sweet.

 

Asher says...

We take the subway to church. Today when we got on, it was really full, so there was no where to sit. Usually we let Asher out of his stroller because he likes to sit in the seats. When we got on, he was saying rather loudly:

Asher: "I wanna sit down on the chair"

Me and Nate: "Asher, there's no where to sit, sorry bud. You're going to have to wait until there's an empty seat"

Asher: (Looking at the man in front of him), "We have to take turns"

The nice man played along and said something like, "ok we'll take turns... it's you're turn now", and he got up and gave Asher his seat.

I thought it was sweet.

If nothing else, at least he is learning that he can't always have what he wants and that we have to share and take turns!  Love that kid.

Oh, and that picture at the top is just a random one that I thought was cute.  It also shows our living room really well.  Directly to Asher's right (your left) is the kitchen, and to his left (your right) is the TV.  Nate is taking the picture on the couch directly in front of him, which is against the other wall... that's the whole thing!  Sweet huh?!  It's kinda cute though.  Behind the curtains are french doors, and I LOVE the radiator cover in the corner.  I think it adds some character to the place, don't you?  It has a bunch of crap on it right now, but normally it looks really cute.  Oh, and Nate just informed me that he took this picture this morning, because it was the first thing that Asher asked him to do when he woke up.  He said "Daddy, take a picture of me on the potty!"  So he did.