How the West Was Run 5k

Jeff ran his 5k this morning. He did excellent!! He ran it in 32:42!! Madison and I are so very, very proud of him. The race had a fun run, a 10k, and a 5k. They started in 15 minute increments. We arrived at the race waaaay too early. We thought they were starting a little earlier.

Here's the 5k runners getting ready to take off. You can see Jeff standing off to the right.

Here's Jeff running past us at the beginning.

And, here he is passing us at the end.

As you can see, here he is just about to finish. The clock says 47:40 because of the 10k race.

He is very excited about his finish, and now he's ready to do the McNellie's Pub Run and the Guinness Challenge! We ran it a couple of years ago. I did the 4 mile run, and he did the challenge....where you drink 3 pints of Guinness during the 4 mile run! It's the Saturday before my birthday, so it will be good to go home for it!

Dallas Arboretum

We went to the Dallas Arboretum last weekend since Jeff's Mother was in town. We had never been before, and I knew last weekend was the start of their autumn festival. It was gorgeous. So pretty and peaceful. It sits right on White Rock Lake. I think we will be going more often, especially when Madison is walking all the time (she's walking about 90% of the time now, but still a little unsure about walking on grass, bark, etc.). It took about 45 minutes to an hour to get there from our house though, which was the only drawback. But, I think the beauty of the place outweighed that negative!

They had pumpkins everywhere!! They lined most of the beds along the main walkway. They had a specific area that had a pumpkin patch, a pumpkin house, and a maze!

Here are Jeff and Miss Madison doing the maze!

This was the pumpkin house. It was so cool looking.

Here's the pumpkin patch. All the pumpkins were for sale, and the kids could climb all over them. They had photographers roaming around too, and you could buy a photo for $15. Madison really, really just wanted to crawl in this area, but it was soooo muddy from all the rain, that we didn't let her. So, she wasn't happy.

Miss Madison really wanted to get out of the stroller and explore. So, this was the main walkway that was paved (i.e. not muddy) where she walked and walked and walked!

We will definitely be going back there. I think our next place to try is the Ft. Worth Botanical Gardens. I heard the Japanese Gardens there are really pretty, and you can feed the fish at the koi pond.

Just because she is cute!

Don't mind the drop of water on her cheek. We were playing in water, so she was getting it all over herself!
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Miscellaneous Stuff

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile. We've been busy around here. Plus, Jeff has been working on his thesis, so I don't have the computer at night. Anyway, I was loading pics on the computer, and I found some that I never posted. So, there are a lot of random shots in this post.

Here she is after she ate some berry applesauce. This was right when she was really learning to feed herself with a spoon. So, just imagine the mess!

This is her "international signal" of "ALL DONE!" She usually throws her hands up and says ALL DONE!!

We took her to the park sometime too. This was before she was walking. She had a good time, but she couldn't walk places. So, she spent a lot of time doing her bear crawl!

She did like to stand and bang on the slide though. However, she wanted nothing to do with going down it!

And, we ordered her a wagon from some credit card points. We opened the door yesterday morning to discover two HUGE boxes. I had also ordered a play kitchen for Christmas using the points. They had told me that it would be 10 to 12 weeks before they would be delivered. Yeah, it wasn't even a week!! So, Daddy, Miss Madison, and JJ put together the wagon yesterday morning. It has a canopy, but Madison didn't want anything to do with that. Anyway, we spent the day yesterday hauling her around the house (in case you haven't seen the news, we are getting pounded with rain).

So, here they are putting it together.


And here are JJ and Miss Madison taking a ride!

Here is Daddy pulling Madison through the house.

Here is Mr. JJ in what he thinks is his wagon!

Yesterday, Miss Madison and I baked some muffins. She had been giving me this muffin box for awhile now, so I told her she could help me. She had a lot of fun, and we will be cooking together more often.

Here we are pouring in all the ingredients!

And here we are stirring it all together!

So, those are all my random pics!

In other news, Miss Madison is walking about 75-80% of the time. She hasn't mastered the whole getting up on her own. She still wants to pull up on things and then takes off. She's getting better and better each day at the walking. She's even tried to run a few times. She usually gets to going too fast though and falls. We are going to a playgroup tomorrow. Another mother in our neighborhood, who has a 2.5 year old, is wanting to start a playgroup. So, we are both excited about it. Also, we've been in our house now for 11 months!! Wow!! And, we turned in a list of warranty items. There were 20 of them!!! So, I'm going to be a busy, busy person. I'm hoping that it's not going to be as bad as I think it is, but I'm not holding out a lot of hope! Anyway, I probably won't be on here a lot. I'll try to post something at least every few weeks. I hope everyone is having a wonderful Monday!

Birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEFF!!!

Madison and I both love you very much. We hope you have a great day!!