November 8, 2003

This was the happiest day of my life. My life changed forever. I'm so lucky to be married to such a great guy! He has taught me so much, he's so sweet & patient & loving.

Jeff is such a wonderful dad! I love that he will listen to all my stories... or at least pretends to ;) I love that he supports me in all that I want to do.

It was my year to plan our anniversary. We have never been away in the 7 years we've been married. We were both ready for a break, so I booked a room at the Anniversary Inn. My in-laws were sweet enough to take the kids for the night... the kids did awesome! Slept through the night & behaved themselves... what a relief! We spent the day at Gateway & went to a movie. There's a store called Brookstones, they have massage chairs & we took advantage & sat there for a 20 minute massage. We window shopped & then went to Rodizio's Grill for dinner. I loved spending time with just Jeff, no other responsibilities, we focused on each other & enjoyed every minute of our getaway. It was much needed! On the drive home I started missing my kids. I was glad to see them again, but loved having a day away.

Happy 7th baby! Love you forever!

13.1

After giving birth to my 4th baby, Kyler, I decided it was time to take a little time & take care of me. For some odd reason I decided to start running. My neighbor found out I was running & asked if she could run with me. I thank my Heavenly Father for her because she has kept me going, we have pushed each other & struggled together to lose our baby weight... our babies are just a few days apart. We started running in June or July & signed up for a half marathon in August? I don't remember the exact time, but after I did it I remember thinking... What WAS I thinking? Another friend joined us in our training & pushed us harder. On October 30th we ran the Halloween Half, we had every intention of running this race together... with over 2500 runners we got a little lost. My mom also joined us in running the race. My goal was to run it in 2 hrs 30 min. The first 5 miles were very much down hill & pushed me a little faster. I finished the race in 2 hrs 13 min. Jeff was holding a sleeping Kyler, so he didn't get a picture. Which is fine, afterall I had just ran 13 miles & I looked it. However if you click here you will be linked to Zazoosh photography. They took all the pictures for the half marathon & if you type in my last name or my bib #:1590 you will find some photos of me. I warn you if you do this, they're not pretty & please no making fun :) In one I'm eating my sports beans, so I've got a very funny look on my face... but those sports beans saved me! Thanks Amy for introducing them to me! Also if you hook on the link link from my blog-The Callahan Clan-you will find a picture of all of us before the race started. I had a lot of fun running the race... I think I'll do it again.

...I'll cry if I want to!!

I don't know where the time has gone. So many people-family, friends, & strangers have all said treasure this time!! It has been engrained into my brain & I am. We still have our bad days, but for the most part I am enjoying my young kids. Makelle has been such a treasure to our family! She is so sweet, very much laid back...well, she is a girl & so we do have our ups & downs. But for the most part very, very sweet. She has been my best baby by far, sleeping through the night at a month old & still is. She loves tomatoes, noodles, & candy. She is obsessed with Minnie Mouse & Daisy Duck; hence her birthday cake & her Halloween costume. She gives the BEST hugs! She's very ticklish & we all have so much fun tickling her to death. She started talking really well during family scripture study. We read the words & have the kids repeat it. She does very well & looks forward to scripture time.

She started off her birthday opening up presents from Grandma Jann. In the far right picture on the bottom she's digging deep into the bag to get the stuff out. When the other kids woke up she opened the presents we got her. She got a Minnie Mouse doll, a purple baby (she's obsessed with purple!), a stroller, a Minnie Mouse shirt, Red Rover... she spent the day playing with Minnie, her new baby & stroller, her coloring book & running from Lexi; who felt so left out that she teased Makelle all day long, just for attention. We took the birthday girl to Chick-Fil-A for dinner & let her play on the play set. Then came back for her Minnie cake & pink ice cream.
Can I just mention that birthday girls still need their sleep?! She missed her nap & by 7:00 I could really tell; she was flipping out over everything! So the birthday girl got her last birthday present... early bed time!!