Well today I went out and previewed the race course,and ran the first 5 miles of the race and turned around and came back to my car. It was hilly, but mostly rolling hills which I find to actually be somewhat entertaining on the run. Makes things interesting and fun. I was getting pretty pooped out,so I am glad I got in another “hilly run” before the race in two weeks.
Afterwards I treated myself to Starbucks 🙂

Meet our newest family member… Breeana. She is a Tortishell Manx cat mix, although our vet thinks she did have a full tail at one point.

Last Saturday I went for my run with Sara around White Bear Lake, and I made it the whole way without walking,so I was pretty proud of myself. Once I got home, Jason asked what I wanted to do for the rest of the day, and I said, “I don’t know, what do you want to do”. And he said, lets go look at dogs and cats…

So off we went. There were so many nice kitties at the Humane Society, and nice dogs as well. We wanted to check Petco out as well to see what they had on their adoption day, but in the end we went back to the AHS. We “visited” 3 or 4 cats, and settled on Breeana.

We came up with her name by going off some of the names we were going to name Kirra, and what she could pronounce. Plus she just looks like a Breeana to us!

We even found a new vet, and we’re really happy with them thus far. I think we’ll be bringing all the pets to Dr. Dan. We actually had to put Breeana on antibiotics already because she is sneezing! So we called the vet, and she has an upper respiratory infection. Poor kitty.

We’ve been keeping Breeana in our room and locking out Tyler and Kip, because they’re not all fully aquainted, and we didn’t want Breeana to get scared and hide in the basement ceiling, so for now, we’re housing the new kitty in our room. It seems like Tyler is kind of sad, but he’s been dealing with it pretty well. Breeana actually really likes Tyler, but she isn’t too sure about Kip yet. Kip would like to get to know Breeana, but she just hisses at him….

I’ll tell you what tho… since we’ve closed our bedroom door at night, I sleep a heck of a lot better!!!

Here are some photos to take a peak at Miss Bree. (Breeana)

Almost looks like she is smiling…

Jason’s cousin Annie had a beautiful baby today. Her name is Evie… or more formally Evelyn. She is absolutely beautiful! I got off work today around noon to close on the house, but first I took a quick pit-stop over to the hospital to give my Annie girl a high five and see Evie & Bryan too. You can’t forget about the dads! She had a planned c-section like I did, so no hugs, they hurt.

We were also supposed to close on our house [again]. What a bunch of who-whos! Closing got canceled at the last minute because their missing some piece of paper! Totally ridiculous. So… i took a half day of for nothing… although I did get to see Annie & Evie…. They’ve rescheduled for tomorrow at 5pm, so I don’t even have to get off work early,which is good,because its our staff retreat tomorrow so I wouldn’t be able to leave early anyways…. This is going to be officially the 3rd time we’ve gone to closing on our house. The first two times were for when we originally bought the house, and this last time is because we have re-financed the house to save a few hundred dollars each month, and pay off our bills and get on top again!

So. New life. A new baby, and a new financial beginning. –Kirra is doing amazing. I love coming home each day from work, and having her press her smooshed up face against the glass window to greet me, and then being so funny and hilarious in the evenings. She repeats virtually any thing you say…so our new phrase is “oh cool” or “oh awesome!”, and the best part is that she actually uses it in the right context!

She was a little pistol today however. When I got home she hadn’t napped yet, so she was pretty crabby and feisty. She just moaned and whined…so I told Jason, to straighten up the house,and i’ll take Kirra on a car ride… so… that’s what we did. I drove 54 miles and she took a nap the entire time! I also got to tour my county.

Food is still a battle sometimes. Jason has much better luck than I do. Usually for me, I think she gets so distracted that she wants to play with me, because she doesn’t see me all day, and sometimes all night, so when she DOES get to see me, she doesn’t want to waste the time eating. Our girl wants to PLAY! Tonight was an exception though. When we got back from our Tour de Nap I made Sesame Chicken Stir Fry and she gobbled it up and loved it and even called it nummy! YAY! The rest of the night we just played and looked at squirrels out the windows….

Wen’t down to the Stone Arch bridge last night to shoot some photos.

Enjoy.

We have entered into a new and exciting stage of the toddler years…. Food wars. Its not that Kirra is a picky eater at all…. its just that she is two, and needs to control something, because she has no control in the world otherwise. What we do,where we go, what she wears (except the time [below] that she dressed herself). And i learned you can’t make kids eat. If they don’t want to eat, they’re not going to.

Tonight we made Pizza, and everyone that knows Kirra knows that Pizza is her FAVORITE, but she didn’t want even a bite. I posted a “ready-set-advice” statement on Facebook so that I could gather up some amunition in this war, and my friends came thru for me.

Usually when Kirra doesn’t want to eat she wants to get down right away…. and then she wants to sit on my lap even though I’m still eating…. i tell her no, and then she proceeds to throwing a HUGE old temper tantrum. She’ll even throw herself on the floor if you let her. We usually end up throwing her food away, and it never occured to me to just put her plate in the refridgerator and see if she wants some later…. DUH. Normally I’ll ask her later if she wants something to eat, and give her a healthy snack, or make her a sammie. How genious is this? (Thanks Nicole).

So… i’m going to try this the next time she wants to play war at the dinner table.

On a bright note, she had fun at AWANA tonight, and learned about happy and sad, and that God loves us when we’re happy or sad. So I said to her, you were sad at dinner tonight, but God loves you anyway. She was happy for the rest of the night. 🙂