The Christmas Card That Never Was & Update

Every year I say out loud to Phil: "we should do Christmas cards this year." And every year I fail to send out anything! I think it always comes down to time and money for me. Someday it will happen, but for now we'll stick with the virtual kind! 

Update on the Singer Family:

PHILLIP

Phil started his PhD program this past fall in Health Services Organization and Policy (I got the name from the website, because I always forget the long title!) He really loves his classes and the material he studies, but the amount of reading and writing really piles up. He's extremely busy and works really hard! This year Phil and I have taken up running, though Phil has been a little more dedicated than me this winter and still runs about 3 times a week in the mornings before he goes to school. He seems to really enjoy it and is looking really trim! Phil continues to be a wonderful dad and Felix never tires of playing with him. They take frequent trips to the library together and have recently started a nightly tradition of unloading the dishwasher! Felix enjoys it so much that we sometimes use it as a reward for eating all his dinner! 

JENNIFER

There are two things I'm most proud of this year. The first is running my first ever 5k back in July (you can read about that here). And the second is potty training Felix! It went so much more smoothly than I imagined it would. I think the key was waiting until he was ready instead of trying to push him. He amazes me everyday and I can't believe how fast he grows and matures. Most of my time is wrapped up in taking care of our little man, but I do get some moments to myself! I've been reading quite a lot this year, a lot of things I wouldn't normally read, like fantasy/science fiction and youth and young adult fiction. In the fall I was asked to serve in the Young Women's organization in our ward over the beehives (12 & 13 yr olds). It's been so fun to see Young Women's from the "other side." It makes me appreciate my past leaders so much more. It takes a lot of time and effort! This past spring I also had the opportunity to take my first train ride down to Chicago to spend a few days with two of my best girlfriends from high school/college. It was so nice to get away for a few days and indulge in good food, good conversation and a new city!

FELIX

Felix has had a big year! He turned 2 in April, flew on 12 airplanes (Boston, Salt Lake City, Portland all with connecting flights each way), started a preschool/play-school group, learned his ABC's, started singing songs, learned his numbers (1-10), potty trained, and recently started sleeping in a big boy bed! Felix loves to play with trains. I guess I should rephrase that and say, Felix is OBSESSED with trains. I'm not complaining. With the breadth of what's available to kids out there, I'm pretty pleased it's trains he's gravitated towards. I'm hoping the whole superhero/fighting phase will take a few more years to catch on. Felix is very smart and talks a lot! Its so fun to have conversations with him. The other day I asked him what he wanted to be when he grows up, he looked at me with a quizzical face and said "Christmas?" I'm pretty sure he didn't understand the question, but his response and the way he said it was priceless. One day he thought he heard the snowplow outside clearing the sidewalks in our complex. He said "mom is that the snowplow outside?" I responded that they were not outside, he must have heard something else. His response: "no, it was, I know snowplows" very matter-of-factly.  But he still reminds me frequently that he's still my baby boy when he wants to cuddle and play with my ponytail. He's played with my hair every since he was a baby as a way to sooth himself. To this dad he'll walk up to me and ask "play with your hair?" I sure hope that sensitive side of him never goes away, it's what makes being his mother a pure joy! 

Roseburg

The next part of our Oregon adventure this summer was spent in Phil's hometown in Roseburg, OR. Our first order of business was to celebrate Clem's birthday with a family luau. Rita decked us all out in leis, grass skirts and flowers for our hair. It was a really fun night spent out on the back deck.

We also had the opportunity to take family pictures. Phil's sister in law, Brittney took the pictures and did such a great job! For the family picture she just used her remote with a tripod. They turned out great.

We were lucky to have two sets of family pictures taken this summer after never taking any! I think we're going to start doing it regularly. 

This is my favorite picture from the whole shoot. That smile kills me! 

We loved being able to spend so much time with Phil's family, especially in Roseburg! Felix had never been, so it was fun to take him around to different places and show him Daddy's hometown.

The Coast

In August we went to Oregon to visit Phil's family. All of the brothers and their families were able to come, so it was a great family reunion. First, we spent a few days on the coast Yachats, OR, which was beautiful.

This is the view from the back of the house Clem and Rita rented. It was a great location and a great house. It was so great to able to sit out on the deck and just listen to the sound of the ocean hitting the rocks. I didn't know I missed the ocean. It is such a soothing place to be.

We also had a great time exploring the beach just down the road and playing with cousins. It was also so fun to see Felix bond with his cousins and his grandpa and grandma. He loved and we loved it. 

The sunsets were STUNNING!

(it was a pretty cool day, but nothing was stopping Whitney and Annie from taking a dip!)

(I just LOVE this picture. Felix loves his grandpa and its so awesome to see them bond!) 

Rita was able to get free tickets for the whole family to the aquarium just up the coast, so we took a morning to explore. Felix loved the starfish. He touched them a few times and even tried to pick one up! He sat and watched the sea lions swimming for a good 15 minutes which was really fun. 

We loved being on the Coast. I loved the weather, even the rainy days were so nice. Thank you Clem and Rita for giving us some great memories!

Menu Planning

We've recently really buckled down on budgeting and with that means I need to really menu plan so I'm not spending more than we need to on groceries. I've been looking and looking for a notebook or planner to help me do this, but I haven't been able to come up with one that is strictly just menu planning and nothing else. So I decided to make my own! I thought I would post it here in case anyone else wanted to use it too. I'm going to see if I can make it into a notebook or something to print it out.

Download the PDF HERE. 

5K

I've never been a runner and I've certainly never run more than a mile at a time and even then I was forced to do it in gym class. So when I started running in April, I didn't have high hopes. I had been working to lose the baby weight that I never lost after I had Felix (I know! 2 years is a long time to not do anything about it) and I needed to have a form of regular exercise that I could do on my own either at home or in the mornings before Phil left for the day. At first I decided to do workout videos from home. That worked for a few months, but then I started to feel like it wasn't challenging enough and sometimes was hard to do with Felix trying to play in my workout space...

I have a neighbor (a very good friend of mine) who started running in the fall three days a week and completed a half marathon recently. She gets up before 6am so she can run and shower before her husband leaves for work/school. I always thought she was crazy for getting up so early. I thought I could never do something like that....until I needed something else to do for exercise. So I downloaded a couch to 5k program on my phone and decided to give the 8 week program a shot.

I started getting up at 6am to run before Phil left for school. The first week was killer! Seriously. Having not run since before I got pregnant with Felix (when I was trying to do a c25k, but only got 3 weeks into it before I got pregnant) my body and muscles were not in shape. That first week has you alternate running for 60 seconds and walking for 90 seconds, alternating until you reach 20 minutes. Sounds easy, right? Well I struggled! I did it, but I struggled. Each week after that increases the running and walking intervals and then by the last few week, you're doing longer stretches of running and shorter stretches of walking and doing a long run on day 3 of the week. By the end you should be able to run for 30 minutes straight (assuming you run about a 10 minutes mile, then this would be close to 3.1 miles).

It took me about 12 weeks to get through the whole program. I repeated some weeks because I wasn't able to complete all 3 workouts or couldn't quite do the workout (that first 20 minute run was a doozy). I even went running while on vacation! When Phil and I went away for a few nights we went running together and when I went to Chicago with some friends from High School I got up and ran in downtown Chicago.

The best thing about it? Phil decided to do it too! We've only been able to run together a few times, but I really enjoy doing that. I kind of wish we had started doing it a long time ago, before Felix came along. So when Phil started running, we decided to sign up for an official 5k race together. We found one in Detroit on July 13th on the Detroit River Walk.

Before the race, neither one of us had run the actual 3.1 miles. I did three 30 minute runs every week, but never more than that and I never went the full 3.1 miles. I'm slow! So I was VERY nervous about the race, so nervous in fact that I didn't sleep very well the night before. My only goal for the race was to run the whole thing without stopping! On race day, we headed downtown bright and early for the 8am start time. They gave us our bibs and we waited for the race to begin.

Well, in the end, we both finished without stopping! I could not have done it if Phil were not running right there by my side. I know he could have gone much faster, but I only had one moment where I almost stopped running, but pushed through and kept going. The only thought in my head was how disappointed I would be if I didn't finish the whole thing. By the end I was exhausted, but after catching my breath I couldn't stop smiling. I never have felt a true "runner's high" but I did that day. I felt like I could do anything and I felt so proud of myself (not very humble, but I felt I deserved a little self congratulations).

To be honest, this experience has really shown me that I can do hard things; things I never would have in my wildest dreams thought I could do. Its extremely empowering to set a goal, work towards that goal, and finally achieve that goal. I've also learned the power of physical exercise in my life. I have more energy with Felix when I'm consistently working out, I sleep better at night and I tend to be a bit happier. So since the race, I've kept up running 3 days a week for anywhere from 25-30 minutes. I hope this becomes a lifelong habit! I also hope there are more 5k races in my future.

That's Canada!

The start/finish line

Family Pictures

Phillip and I haven't had good quality and professional pictures taken since we were married about 7 years ago! So it was about time for us to get our little family captured on film. Julia's good friend Lisa and her husband have a photography business and Lisa came up for a Clark Family Crazy Morning of Picture Taking. I can't imagine trying to get 15 adults and 18 kids in one picture! But she did a great job. Here are a few of them plus the ones of the Singers.