Half-Marathon!!!

While I usually reserve postings for stories and pics of the boys...I have to claim a short one as my own. I ran the Cellular South Half-Marathon (13.1 miles) this past Saturday. This is something I've wanted to do for a very long time! I am so glad I did it, and so glad it's done!!! :-) My official time was 2hrs 15mins 40secs. I was lucky to have Annie as a great running partner getting ready for it...it was her first half as well. We made it through really well despite the 38 degree rainy weather! And I had a wonderful surprise to see Wes and the boys at the finish. My parents were there as well, and I'd expected Wes and the boys to stay home due to the nasty weather. It was awesome to look up as I was coming in to the finish and see Wes. :-) Just had to post a couple pics of it.

Please note that I've added two new posts about the boys as well, titled 'Halloween and Thanksgiving' and 'SNOW and Will's 5th birthday'. They were both long, so you might have to click on either "older posts" at the bottom of the screen (scroll all the way down) or you should also see them in the "table of contents" list on the right side of your screen and can click on the individual titles. Make sure to see those!!!

finishing!!! I was GLAD to stop running!

My training partner, Annie, and me after the race.

My friend and running buddy, Scarlett!

SNOW and Will's birthday

Ok, the next installment of all that has been going on with the McCleese's. Next on the list after Thanksgiving and Halloween was, of course, Will's 5th birthday! (Wes and I can't believe we have a 5 year old!! It's bittersweet. But Will is an amazing 5 yr old, for sure!) Will gets to celebrate his birthday over a week or so. We did his extended family b-day party at the Thanksgiving get-together. Then, on his real birthday he got his presents from us and we took cupcakes to his preschool class. THEN, he had his real b-day party at Build-a-Bear on Saturday, December 5th. We have, in the past, had really big birthday parties at our church (if you are in a gym, it's just as easy to have 20 kids as it is to have 10). Will really wanted to do something different for his party this year. He thought and thought and decided he really wanted to have it at Build-a-Bear. I thought that was sweet...he's always loved teddy bears. We told him he could only invite 4 friends (2 school and 2 church) along with his best buddy Caleb, who now lives in Tupelo, and our nephews. Surprisingly, Will easily agreed. I must say that the Build-a-Bear party was GREAT. The kids all got to build their own bear to take home, put a heart in it, name it, stuff it, etc. They did some fun things with the kids in the process and best of all...I just got to watch most of it!!! I highly recommend a party with them!

One of the best parts of his birthday was that Caleb came down from Tupelo to spend Friday night with us and come to the party with us. Will and Caleb have been best friends since they were 2 1/2 yrs old and started in Mothers Day Out at the FBCJ together. They were in SS together, Sunday night church, Wed night church, Rejoice bible study and mothers day out together. So they were together basically 5 days a week for some amount of time over almost 2 years. They are so sweet together and have a deep friendship that seems almost uncharacteristically so given their age. As Will says "no one is better than Caleb!" Caleb got here Friday evening and the boys played and played. They finally feel asleep about 10 and at 5:30 in the morning Will came in to tell us that they'd been up playing for "sooooo long" and could they please come in the living room. Sure enough, they'd been playing for awhile, b/c every toy in Will's room was out. And to top off having his favorite friend around...it's SNOWED Friday night. So we got the boys all dressed and headed out into the snow to play. Will said this was his best birthday EVER! I believe it, great buddy with him for the whole time, his closest friends at build-a-bear, and SNOW. It doesn't get a lot better!! Here are pics!

Best buddies

Doing the "shake the snow off" dance before coming inside

Will, Caleb and Owen all ate their share of snow!

The 3 boys and their superheroes!

Owen in the snow

Snowy woods

Gettin' the party started!

"waking up their bears"

Will with his almost finished product!

Everyone with their new bears (except Owen who kept throwing his on the floor...he likes it a lot better now!)

Halloween and Thanksgiving

Yes, I know I am so past overdue for some posts. There will be two here...this one with pics from Thanksgiving and Halloween and then the most recent happenings will be posted next. First, for Halloween Will wanted to be Snake Eyes (ninja from GI Joe) and Owen wanted to be Bumblebee the Transformer. Can you tell what the interests in our house have shifted too? I'm surrounded by action figures! We had several opportunities to dress up this year since we went to 3 different Halloween Carnivals around town (and Will got to dress up for a fourth time at his preschool). Two of the three carnivals succeeded in giving me a few more gray hairs (due to Owen, of course)...and the third, actually ON Halloween was much more manageable! The short run-down of events went like this. The first carnival was put on by my parents church at a big park in Madison. Games, inflatables, lots of food, etc. Wes couldn't be there until later so Mom and I were juggling the boys in the crowd. After 20 minutes of games, we said "hey boys, let's go to the inflatables!" In the 3 seconds it took us to grab candy buckets, we looked up and Owen was...gone. We really couldn't find the little guy in the crowd for a couple of minutes. (probably 3 or 4 minutes, but it felt like an hour!) I was so terrified he'd run out into the nearby street that I just paced up and down the parking lot where the games were hoping he'd gotten back in line for the games. Mom and Will were looking up closer to the rest of the carnival. I was really sick for those couple minutes trying to find his short little self in the crowd of kids and costumes. Thankfully, Mom had gotten a couple of friends to help look closer in to the rest of the carnival and it turns out that he, as we had suggested, had marched his little self across the fields to the inflatables. We found him happily jumping away in one of the big "bounce houses." He is SO independent...it wouldn't have occurred to him that he was lost until he got hungry or tired. He'd even talked the lady at the door of the inflatable into holding his sucker for him while he jumped. He never knew anything was wrong. That was at least 10 new gray hairs for me! (I'm sure the same for Mom). The second carnival was in Clinton. To say that I was on Owen "like white on rice" is an understatement. I considered a retractable dog leash attached to a belt loop, but refrained. More inflatables. Hyper alert Mommy. Here we go. Owen is completely unafraid of anything that looks fun. He did the BIG inflatable obstacle course for big kids and adults (pics below)...nothing but sheer determination and a nice older kid that helped pull him to the top of the wall climbing portion got him through it. He LOVED it and did it over and over. The he did more inflatables. Then we realized we had a problem. He wouldn't come OUT of the inflatables to give other kids a turn. So Wes started having to go in and pull him out, or sometimes Will would lure him out. After playing that game about 10 times, he got a spanking for not minding at all and we headed home with a screaming 2 yr old. Oh, the injustice in the world when you are 2 (and a dramatic 2 yr old at that)!! I was flat out dreading the 3rd carnival...on actual Halloween night. It was really big (1600 people was the count I heard) at Wes' brother and sis-in-laws church. We usually spend Halloween with them so Will and Owen can play with our nephews and it's always great fun. Praise the Lord, this year proved no different. It was fun...and Owen did really well. O and I stayed for just over an hour and made a bail-out to my parents house so that Will and Andy could continue playing until later. Overall, everyone had a good night, and I learned that Owen could put away approximately his own body weight in cotton candy. When I put him in the car he was holding a stick of it about the size of his own head (I'd look in the rearview mirror and see Bumblebee's body with a big cotton candy head). When we got to my parents 5 minutes later, he handed me an empty stick and said "I'm sticky." No kidding, kid. Sticky and levitating from the sugar high. A successful night overall! Also in the pics you'll see Will's preschool Halloween carnival. We had fun putting that on for the kiddos and Will had a ball with his friends!!!

Will with some of the other boys in his class at Preschool Carnival (Will is in all black)

from left: cousin Andy, Owen and Will at a fishing game

Will and Andy

Wes and Will at a game with Owen watching in the back

Owen climbing up the ladder of the BIG inflatable. He ain't scared.

He Made It!! Down the big slide, now!

Can I do it again, Daddy?

Owen with PopPop (my dad)

These next pics are from the Thanksgiving Pow Wow at Will's School. This is a big deal and they practice hard getting lots of songs ready to sing. It was really great!

10 Little Indians

Playing his Tom Tom. This is a like a rite of passage. Only the 4-K kids get to play Tom Toms. He's been waiting ever since last year for his chance to play the drums.

Marching with his Tom Tom (notice how tall he is-even though he's slouched- compared to his classmates!)

Mommy with my Indian!!!

And here are a few other random fall pics...

Will has learned to read and I heard him say "Owen, do you want me to read to you?" HOW CUTE IS THIS?!?!?!

Karin and the boys

Wes and Will decided they needed a guys night camping out in the yard. :-)

Time for an Update

Yes, I know I've neglected my blog. Sometimes life happens so fast that I can't keep up. But since Halloween is right around the corner, I'd better get some things up so that I can post Halloween pics soon too.

First, when I say that "not a lot has been going on" I just mean that while we are running rampant in "2 and 4 yr old chaos"...it is simply the normal chaos. Normal chaos for us is starting to approach the "alarming" a lot more frequently than I wish it would. And the "alarming" most always has to do with sweet Owen. Here's an example or two. For one, Owen wanted to play with Will's Cubbies (Sunday night Awana material) vest/patches/etc. I explained that those weren't toys and took them away. The two year old fit ensued, so I had to put them up on the high shelf in Will's closet. I expected some resistance to this (as usual with Owen) and caught him soon after dragging the step stool from the kitchen in to Will's room to try and get the Cubbie bag. I took the stool away and put it back. Then I caught him dragging the little stool from the bathroom and other toys over to the shelves to see what he could stand on to get that bag. I let him try for awhile, since I knew those things were not tall enough for him to reach that high shelf. Every now and then I heard an "Oh, dadgumit or Oh, MAAAAN" from Owen and knew he was still trying to get to that bag. I went on into the kitchen to start dinner and heard Will shout "Mom, come see what Owen's doing!" Well, nuts. Those are never, EVER good words to hear (second only to Owen himself saying "Mommy, see what I did!!!...you better run fast if you hear those words). Owen had managed to unhooked Will's bunk bed ladder from the bed, drug it over to the shelves and propped it up against them. He was standing on the top rung holding the Cubbie bag when I got in there. I'll give the kid kudos for being tenacious, but shhhh...don't tell him I said that. I know that Owen's tenacity will turn out to be one of his best qualities later in life...but it sure is going to make my hair turn gray by the time I'm 35!

Next "alarming" story. For those of you with boys, I'm sure this will come as no surprise...but apparently it's ingrained in boys to leap from as many high objects as possible over the course of their life. I've pulled my boys down off of more pieces of furniture lately than I can count. Thank goodness for swingsets and monkey bars...since they are literally turning into monkeys. One day they'd piled their beanbag chairs up and were running and diving onto them. They'd laugh and laugh and do it some more. I was, yet again, in the kitchen. All of a sudden I heard the laughter crank up a notch and walked to the living room to see what was going on. I got there just in time to see Will flying through the air to land on the beanbags. It was obvious he'd jumped from high up. I looked up and there stood Owen, like a perfect statue decoration, beside the television on the built-in shelves. They'd climbed from the couch up onto the shelf over the cabinets that my tv sits on and were planning to jump to the bean bags below. Will was airborne as I entered the room and I got to Owen just as he was planning his Olympic decent from the shelves to the bean bags below. Good grief.

And then a cute story from this morning...Owen has gotten interested in some different characters of things he likes to watch. Ex. He's been saying he wants a Blues Clues dog or a Curious George monkey. Well, I went looking for the Curious George monkey that I knew we had and found it yesterday. Owen has been so excited. He almost wanted to take George to school instead of his infamous teddy bear, but changed his mind at the last minute. This morning, we heard those cute little "pitter patter" footsteps come into our room (Owen's getting out of bed on his own now) and Owen was there with his bear and George. He was about to climb onto the bed with us when Will shouted from the living room "Owen, Curious George is on!" I hear a quick gasp and "Oh, Curious George! I'm coming, Will!!!" pitter, patter, pitter, patter as he ran out of the room. So cute.

And lastly, since I know y'all want some pictures...we took the boys to the State Fair. Praise the Lord, I have no alarming stories to share about that! (that's a miracle in itself) Surprisingly, Owen was scared of a lot of rides (which secretly made me happy...I like it when he occassionally acts like a toddler instead of his usual independent, unafraid little self). Will, however, was not. His cautious nature seems to have disappeared these days. He rode the airplanes by himself (we had to rescue Owen off of those, so Will went alone), did the Indian Jones course, and something else I'm forgetting. Oh, but he still wanted me to do the big, green slide with him. (that made me happy too!) Then he and Owen both did the racecars together (Owen liked them), and we all headed over to the fun house. The Fun House took the cake. Owen loved it, although they wouldn't let him go through without Wes. Will loved it too, so we spent all of our remaining tickets on the Fun House for the 3 boys. Then we got some cotton candy, fed some animals and called it our annual trip to the fair. Here are some pics!

Forts and Superheroes

There are so many things that I could blog about, and so little time. And today, so little creativity flowing. But, I know what most of you want is the pictures anyway, so I'll oblige. The last few weeks of playing have been largely consumed by two things. Forts and superheroes. First, we were out in the backyard trying to burn energy one day and Will started piling up sticks in the woods. I asked what he was doing and he said "building a campfire." (he has been camping with Wes and loves it!). I asked if he wanted to build a tent to go with it. He said "YES, well...not a tent but a fort!" (which still looks pretty "tentish" to me...but hey, I'm just "the girl" around this house! Will was surprised I knew anything about building forts!). Having no preparation for this, we just spent time stringing some bungee cords between saplings and hanging a sheet. We used the tunnels they had for doors, cardboard for floors and they played and played in it. Will asked to add a sign that said "Only Indians Allowed". Then we had to come back and add "Only (boy) Indians Allowed." Then we finally added an exception clause at the bottom that read "except Mommy and Olivia" (Elizabeth was also added after that). Will even told Wes that he wanted to camp out in their fort "but it's only big enough for me, so you'll have to sleep outside the fort but snuggled right up against it with me, ok Daddy?" The next Saturday, Wes spent most of the morning out in the woods at the fort with the boys...they named our woods Choctaw Woods and we all have family Indian names now. Come on, I know you are jealous. The next weekend, Grandaddy (Bill...Wes' dad) was over and was looking at the "fort" that had now been rained on and was looking pretty rough. He got a tarp, some rope and tent stakes to make a bigger and more weather proof fort. It's still up and going strong. Grandaddy got an Indian name that day for his work on the fort!!

Next, if any of you have seen Owen lately, then you probably know that he's obsessed with superheroes. What's funny is that, since we don't have cable, the only superheroes he's seen are the 1970s/80s Super Friends and Justice League that we let them get off of Netflix. Admit it...some of you are humming the theme songs now. Anyway, Owen is VERY two at the moment and pretty much refuses all clothing except costumes. Literally. You will most often find him in either a diaper and socks or Batman or Robin costume. On a good day, he'll be in clothes and only the cape and/or mask. We've been to Walmart, Kroger, the Nature Center, several friends' houses and many other places in full costume. Cause the way I see it...as long as he's dressed in public...why should anyone else care HOW? And I'm picking my battles. Some people dress their kids in smocked clothes, some in plaid, some in super nice stuff and some in Walmart clothes. I dress mine as superheroes, OK? :-) He'll be happy to show you any time.

Here are the promised pics...

original fort

"the sign"

the "updated fort" via Grandaddy

sandbox, robot claws and batman cape...it's a boys heaven!

I looked up from my computer and this is what I saw. Will in his Spiderman helmet and Owen as Batman. Apparently I was the bad guy they were fighting.

Owen in "too small" Robin costume and Will's "too big" cowboy boots...while playing ball. This did not end well. But he was happy while it lasted.

Owen was sweating profusely outside on a hot day in this mask. I asked if he was hot. His reply..."I not hot Mama, I BATMAN!!!"

I just thought this was cute...a sleepy Batman and Robin both holding their bears.

Owen. What else is there to say?

Goin' fishing'

Wes, the boys, Karin and I went fishing Saturday morning. Owen caught his first fish (and his second fish, as well)!!! Will caught his second, third and fourth fish ever! We all had a great time. Here are some pics.

Will was ready to go!

Selecting the best tackle

They love fishing with their daddy!

They both had far more patience that we expected! Owen mostly just wanted to reel in the line over and over. He kept "catching crickets!"

About to snag his first fish!

Got one! Reeling it in...

Yeah for Owen's first fish!

He wanted to hold the fish and then throw it back.

Will catching his second fish ever!

He did not want to hold his.

Second only to catching fish was the fun to be had playing with crickets!

Owen loved the crickets and dug into them like Pooh in a Honey Pot.

So still and patient!

Karin's fish!

Will wanted to get out on the boat with Daddy before we left.

The fam.

We all had a great day!