Just Scootin' Around....

Hey, it's me.  Doin' my two favorite things.

Scootin' and stackin' stars!

WhooHOO!!  Sooooo, much fun!

And lastly, skinny jeans with a cloth diaper.  Adorable.

What's up in Jersey?

1) I got my hair cut for the first time in 6 months.  Holy. Moly.  Why is it so hard to get your hair trimmed after you become a mom?

2) I'm running a Diva Dash this weekend.  Obstacles, balance training and running.  I'm a bit nervous...especially since I will be wearing Wonder Woman socks donned with capes (this is a team outfit).  

3)  Audrey's hair is going through a difficult period.  I'm afraid to clip it back because I don't want her to eat the barrette. I've tried putting a rubber band in it, but she shakes her little head SOOO hard.  I guess she will have to look disheveled for a while.

4).  I would like some pumpkin pie ice cream.  Why is it that a carton of this delicious treat costs almost 6 dollars?  Scandalous.

Rockin' the Hawk

Good Morning!

Mommy, started snapping photos as soon as I woke up...

I guess my hair looks funny or something.

Momma wanted to show you the full 360...can you see the cowlick daddy passed on to me?

Fall Walks, Shoes and Big Smiles

Wanna take a walk to the park with me and mom?

Well, come on then!

Oh, look we're here.

PUSH me, mom!!  I promise I won't fall out.

Do you like my new kicks?  

Yeah, they are pretty sweet!

Enough chatting...mom's gonna tell you what's goin' on here in Jersey.

1)  Remember the race I ran?  I came in first place for my age group!!  Not bad for running willy-nilly this summer.  People have asked me if I'm going to run another marathon.  I'd like to, but I don't think I have the time right now.  Hopefully in the future?

2)  Audrey has become quite the little charmer.  Whenever I take her to the grocery store she smiles and bats her pretty eyelashes.  If someone does not comment on her cuteness, she grins at them until they can't resist smiling back.

3)  Do YOU want to help our little cutie go to college?  Well, if you do your online shopping through this upromise link, a portion of the sale will go to her future tuition.  This includes hotel bookings and all your favorite stores!  It's legit.  We asked Joel's financial planner!  So, far we have saved $114!  You don't have to open an account or anything.  Just click on the link, search for your store (includes ALL your favorites) and buy!

4)  I'm in love with the weather right now.  MMMmmmm......fall.  I wish it could stay like this forever!

Feeding Faces...

Hey, It's me.  The little bird.  I am in my favorite spot....my highchair.

Momma, finally decided it was okay to give me finger foods.

 She wants me to LIKE fruit and veggies.

hmmmm.....I'm not so sure about 'em.

You eat 'em first, momma.

Alright, I'll try 'em if you say so.

No BUENO!

Ain't no way you're gonna get me to try those again!
PS-momma wants you to know that she does put clothes on me sometimes...just not while I'm eating!

So, Audrey is eating chopped up tomato in the pictures above.  Obviously, she's not a fan!

Did you know it will be in Audrey's first birthday, SOON?  Really?  The 2 biggest dilemmas I'm facing at this point are 1) Should I have a party?  2) Should I feed her cake?  I really don't want to do either.  I want my daughter to have a special day...but can't we do that as a family? Parties stress me out.  Especially here in NJ where everything is done OVER THE TOP. As for the cake, I know I sound mean, but I don't want her to know that junk food exists.  If she doesn't know it's out there, she won't miss it, right???  Am I the meanest mom ever?

Race Against Human Trafficking

Today, my friend Steph and I ran a 5K to help fight human trafficking (all the proceeds of the race go to a Christian organization that is opening a safe house for victimized teens and women).  I haven't participated in a race since my marathon back in 2006.  So, it was good to hit the open road again!  I was also excited about this run, because a few months ago I asked God to show me how to help stop human trafficking. A little later this race literally dropped in my lap.  Show me what to do next, God!!!

Steph and I before the race

The starting line

All done and feeling good!

I'll race with you ANY time, Steph!! 

What Have You Read?

Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here.

Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES.

Bold those books you've read in their entirety.

Italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read only an excerpt.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6 The Bible

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8  1984-George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott-read to me...that counts..right?

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia- CS Lewis

34 Emma-Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi- Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck~

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville Think I read this in Highschool--HATED IT!

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson BurnettRead to me

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray-read 600 pages and couldn't get any further

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazu Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Read-32

Started-9....Some of the books I've started I will NEVER finish. I began them because I wanted to say I read this whole list.  Then, I realized that some of the reads are rather smarmy.  I only have a few hundred pages of the Lord of Rings left, but have not been able to finish it b/c it is not on my kindle and  Audrey no longer lets me read while feeding her:)