Wanted: Time

Aiiieeee.... things around here have been rather crazy. Jason's been working hard, I've been running lots, and Drew has been growing teeth, crawling, pulling up, and getting into all kinds of things around the house! I've had lots on my mind that I'd like to write about, but no time to do it. Let's just say I'm looking forward to March 20th when this half marathon will be over and I can go back to half hour workouts (instead of the 1, 2, even 2.5 hours I'm sometimes doing now!).

I missed Wordless Wednesday this week! Sad! Oh well, I'll have to find something good for next week.

And do you realize that Drew is just about to be 8 months old? Where did 7 go?? Seriously, time has been flying, but I feel like this month took off on a jet plane!

And I really really really need a new camera. I have a bunch of photos I've taken this week that are horribly blurry! I tried cleaning my lens... hopefully that will help.

And Drew is awake it seems, so I must go. Leaving you with a few pics!

Bananas in his "baby feeder." He loves this thing!

Mowing the.... carpet?

Always so proud of pulling himself up!

Also always on the move! (And there's my blurry camera at work!)

In between all that "go go go" he's still my sweet little angel

New food! Avocado! It may not look like it, but he liked it. (Also blurry again!)

Flower Power

Those are all the beautiful flowers I just bought for my garden! They are helping me accomplish two things:

1. Check item #11 off my "11 things in 2011" list and...
2. Helping me raise money for CF!

As one of our fundraisers for Great Strides this year we are selling flowers! I thought it would be fun to sell roses as one of the monikers of cystic fibrosis is "sixty-five roses" (say it out loud...). Well, Flower Power doesn't sell roses (they mainly sell bulbs), but they do sell beautiful flowers, AND we earn 50% of every sale, which is pretty amazing!

They had a great $40 "All Season Perennial Garden" mix that had 4 different plants that bloom from late winter all the way to fall. But I wasn't a fan of all the flowers in it, and, when you buy online, you can get a set of gladiolus for free with the purchase of 4 items, so I created my own "All Season" perennial garden.  For $40 (and a flat-rate shipping fee of only $5!) I bought (clockwise in the photo above):

• African Corn Lilies, which bloom in "late spring to early summer".
• Mexican Shellflowers, which bloom in "early to mid-summer"
• Freesias, which bloom in "summer"
• and Montbretias, which bloom in "late summer to early fall"

Of course, I also got my free Gladiolus, which bloom in "mid-summer to fall". I also already have my pink daffodils which bloom in early spring, so I should have color from early spring to fall! And the best part is I only have to plant them once and they'll keep coming back!

Please check out our fundraiser here and consider buying some plants for your garden. *Apologies in advance to Canadian family and friends- they do not ship to Canada. :( *

Busy busy busy

I never got around to posting these pics, and I thought they were just too adorable to miss.

These are all from one busy Saturday!

Happy First Birthday Alex!

Eating hats is so much better than wearing them!

Wordless Wednesday: Yo ho ho and a bottle of milk

For Aunt Christine

Drew loves his towel that you made!

And I love him in it! Thank you!

My Valentine

Look at my little hunk...

Don't you want him to be your valentine too?

What a silly boy... I was trying to snap a pic of him crawling away from me (cute baby butt photo), but he turned around at the last second and "posed". Ha!

And as a sweet Valentine's Day treat, I have a whole line-up of posts coming your way this week! Woo hoo! Get ready to see lots of this little heartthrob!

A plea

When I was born the life-expectancy for someone with CF was in the late teens or early 20s. Now that I have a child of my own, I can only imagine how my parents felt hearing that news.

But here I am. At age 26 I am healthy and strong. I carried and gave birth to a beautiful 8.5 lb baby. I live, I work, I do all the things any normal 26 year-old might do.

In fact, on top of doing what a "normal 26 year-old might do" I am training to run a half-marathon; the more I run, the healthier and stronger I get and the more I prove just how far CF research has come. I am running for me. I'm running for my son. I'm running to kick CF in the arse.

I chose to run this particular half-marathon because I can run with "Team 65 Roses," a team that raises money for CF research. I knew it would mean a lot to run with a team of people all devoted to bettering lives for those with CF.

I write all this because I am asking you for your help and support. You can help me out in many ways!

1) You can donate to my half-marathon fundraising page here.
2) You can donate to my Great Strides team page here. (This is the fundraising walk I do every year- we raised a whopping $10,081 last year! That's right, we broke $10,000! You all are AMAZING!)
3) You can purchase flowers to beautify your garden and help me raise even more money here.
4) You can pray for me in both my training and fundraising efforts. (This might seem silly to some of you, but I know I can't do this without help and support!)

Please do what you can! It really means a lot to me. Your donations not only help show your support, but go towards the amazing research that has gotten me where I am today. You will not only be helping us get closer to a cure, but you will be helping to better the everyday lives of those of us with CF. You may not realize just how much time, money, and energy goes into daily care (even for someone as healthy as me!) and your money goes towards developing new, better, and faster treatments.

If you choose to donate, whichever page you choose doesn't matter. I love seeing our Great Strides numbers go up every year, but I also would love (and need) some support in my new endeavor! I will "count" both totals towards our Great Strides team total this year.

And maybe this cute little face will help encourage you...

Think he's ready to go for a run with mom?

Wordless Wednesday: Is that comfortable?

Lucky 7

I was getting this together last night, but as is usual for Friday, I was pretty much ready to just hit the sack as soon as I stepped foot in the house, and I figured, "heck, if it's already going to be late, I might as well make the seven monthiversary post seven days late!"

As is usual these days, getting a good picture was difficult. First, every time Drew saw the red light from my camera he would squint his eyes (even when I had the flash off!). So a lot of pictures that would have been good turned out kind of silly looking....

Then there was the typical "try to eat the set" photos. And in response to my Aunt Wynn Anne's comment, the blocks DID stay in their nice, tidy order because I had the brilliant idea to tape them!

And, of course, there were the "play with the set" photos too...

Then there were a lot of really good ones that came out BLURRY! I have no idea what is going on with my camera, but I think it's time to jump on #4 on my "11 things in 2011" list and get a new one! 

Maybe you can't tell it's blurry, but it is.

There were a few that were just plain funny (and blurry too!)...

I got the groove!

I'm gonna get you!

But, of course, there were a few really, really great ones too. I loved these two, and of course the two on the Monthiversary page (you can see his two little teeth in both of those pics!).

I feel bad because I didn't even realize until the end of the day on January 29th that it was his seven monthiversary! I had even said earlier in the day that he was almost seven months old without even thinking about it. Seven months seems so... uneventful...? I guess because it's stashed between 6 months and 9 months, which seem to be the months we use to categorize sizes, age/ability groups, etc. And 7 is an odd number and I don't like odd numbers. But so far 7 months is proving to be anything but uneventful with Drew now pulling himself up to standing on his own, and being on the very verge of crawling. He's a little go-go-go boy all of a sudden and I can only imagine the trouble he will get himself into this month.

Wordless Wednesday: Downward Dog