1/2 MARATHON? IN MARCH? YES!

The plan was to do a lot of 5Ks and 10Ks in 2009 in preparation for the Disney 1/2 marathon in 2010. My husband has been very into this whole thing and I am very proud of him. But then we kept talking to a certain friend who is doing the ING 1/2 marathon in March and she has prevailed upon us to do the race. I have no illusions of any sort of fast time. No, no, no. I just want to see if I can really do it. This time last year I wasn't running at all and I can't believe I'm about to sign up for a 1/2 marathon. Last Saturday I ran with my husband and we had a great time. It ended up raining quite a bit but we finished a little over six miles in good time. It's been great sharing this interest with my husband. I think he's getting more excited about it than me.

DOES HE LOOK OLDER TO YOU?

Today we are celebrating my oldest son's birthday two days early. He will be 12 on Sunday but since we have so many activities going on this weekend, we agreed to take a day off and let him enjoy his presents and have a friend sleep over. I am an observer of preteen and teenage boys right now. I think it's amazing how they can literally change overnight. One of my friends has two boys in high school and I remember how they shot up over a period of just several months. And their faces seem to get longer and more mature without you noticing. I'm hoping I don't miss a minute of this boy's "shooting up" period. It's true that part of it can be trying but I think it's exciting to see all the changes that are happening. They still need hugs and kisses too, even if they're not the pudgy cheeked toddler who used to climb into your lap.

A NEW FAMILY TRADITION?

Years ago, I started a short lived family tradition of trying to finish a really big puzzle between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We did several large Christmas themed puzzles and even had one of them framed but when table space became limited and we couldn't have a 1000 piece puzzle laying around with a frisky dog, that tradition kind of went away. I think we've found a new one though. Our church has a candy house decorating "contest" where any group of people can get together and have fun creating a big candy house. Here is our entry for this year. If you're interested in the details - we used Juicyfruit stick gum for the siding, the brick is Stride berry gum, the windows are cookies and cream Hershey bars with Special Dark shutters, I piped the wreaths and bows on the windows, the green trees are upside down sugar cones rolled in green icing, and my favorite part is the Nerds ropes on the corners of the house and on the sides of the roof. The house is now sitting on a display table at church with 7 or 8 other houses that other people have done. People were really creative this year. One person did a beach theme with brown sugar sand and the winner did a church with a steeple and "stained glass" candy windows.