Triathletes!

Ace and TJ kept very busy this past weekend…they ran the Spartan Race on Saturday (10 miles of mud and obstacles) and then got up Sunday morning and competed in the Spotsylvania Sprint Triathlon. I skipped watching the Spartan Race on Saturday to hang out with our friends Sara and Ben who were in town, but we all went to watch the triathlon on Sunday. Here’s what we were witness to:

Andrew started first with his swim.

Yep that’s his watch. Swimming pictures are very difficult to take….

Then he ran outside to transition to the bike portion of the race…where he had a major shirt malfunction. It rolled up behind his back and he couldn’t get it to cooperate and unroll.

So he gave up and took off on the bike without it.

Then it was back inside to watch TJ take off on his swim. He wasn’t too thrilled about it at first…

But soon he was in the water and doing just fine.

Then it was his turn to run outside and get ready for the bike portion.

Clearly, he was more excited for this portion of the race.

After a 12 mile bike ride, Ace returned…

..and took off on his 5k run!

Then we waited to see which would happen first…would Ace finish running or TJ finish biking first?! There were many false alarms and I admit to having a few pictures of strangers thinking that it might be one of our guys, but soon we got to see them both return!

Ace’s race was officially done, but TJ still had the run to go due to their staggered start times. Ace decided he didn’t want to let his friend run alone, so he took off again down the trail. (Yes, this did nearly make me cry…what a good guy I’ve got!)

And soon it was time for the BIG FINISH. Ace was clearly quite done at this point….TJ was clearly SO EXCITED to be done…

Ace peeled off and let TJ run in for his finish.

Then we waited it out to see how well they did. Official times were posted and awards were given out.

 

Ace won third place in his age division! Way to go, honey!

We were all super proud of these guys.

Did you know these two are running the Marine Corps Marathon together this year too?! Impressive, aren’t they!?

32 Week Pictures

So this is actually week 33 of my pregnancy, but I have yet to post my week 32 pictures…so we’ll just make do, shall we? I had an ultrasound last Wednesday afternoon to check and make sure that Kennedy was still happily growing away. Here’s her profile and you can see her little hand at the top of the screen too.

She’s gained about a pound since the last time she had her picture taken and is now at around four pounds according to the ultrasound measurements. Her head and belly measurements put her about a week ahead of where she is gestationally, and her leg measurements are two weeks ahead….aka she has long legs. When the tech measured her leg bone she paused, looked at me, and finally asked, “Is your husband tall?” She was concerned that the measurement was really off based on my height…what’s she trying to say?! After hearing that Andrew is, in fact, quite tall she laughed and said that it seems Kennedy has her daddy’s long legs.

Here I am at 32 weeks. I am definitely beginning to feel huge. I frequently run into chairs thinking that I’ve left myself enough room to slide past and then discover (the hard way) that I haven’t. Sleeping through the night has been a thing of the past for weeks now and I certainly have many days where I feel like I’m dragging due to the lack of consistent sleep. Yes, I do understand that will only get worse after Kennedy arrives. No, that does not somehow make me less tired now. (Have you ever noticed how people seem to think that telling you it only gets worse is supposed to make you feel better? Silly logic, I think.) 

In many ways we are getting closer to being ready for Kennedy to make her debut. We have a car seat installed and a pack and play set up in the family room. We only have 3 weeks left in our childbirth class. We go to visit a pediatrician next week. And yet, we’re not quite there yet….hospital bag hasn’t been packed, baby clothes haven’t been washed, changing table and crib are still being used as storage places, haven’t made her mobile for her crib, etc. But we’re getting there. Day by day and week by week. And we are getting more and more excited to meet her with all of those passing days and weeks!

Stafford Baby Shower!

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again…I am so lucky. This past Saturday was a wonderful day filled with great friends, yummy food, tons of laughs and celebration of Baby Kennedy. I could not be more thankful. Melissa deserves a standing ovation for all the hard work she did to make this thing happen. As you check out the pictures, please keep in mind that she did ALL OF THAT! I mean, seriously, it was amazing.

All my wonderful local(ish) friends, who battled traffic and train schedules to celebrate Kennedy!

 

It must be noted at this point that my mom took this picture for us and therefore is missing from it. She also managed to escape the camera for much of the afternoon. Here is the only documentation I have that she was, in fact, there…See her in the kitchen behind the banner?! I know, its terrible that this picture is the best I’ve got…I promise to do better in the future.

The decorations were all coordinated to match Kennedy’s room. So cute.

 

The food was amazing.

 

I have no idea what we were laughing about in this picture. But I had to include it because it’s quite clear we were having a good time.

Nutty had to get in on the action too.

 

It was such a great day. Thank you to everyone who made it super special.

Happy Gardener

And I picked another one of those huge tomatoes today. Summer veggies from the backyard are heavenly.

More Beach Pictures!

Just wanted to share a few more pictures from our recent beach trip.

Our first day we tried out this nifty tent/umbrella that Ben gave us. It works quite well until the wind blows really hard…then it struggles. I am sure part of this is user error as there was another one down the beach from us that did not seem to have the trouble we did.

Here are a few more pictures of our newly discovered beach dog! Now, if you have a dog that likes the water, you will not be impressed. But please understand that our dog normally will not even approach the water…he normally runs like crazy in the other direction. He was SO brave this year!

 

This one offers a pretty clear view of Kennedy as well :-)

 

 

Certainly we couldn’t leave out Dad’s “I’m enjoying the beach, put the camera down” picture.

 

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

Our family had a great time at the beach.

Andrew stayed quite active. Surfing was just one of the activities that kept him busy.

Nutty shocked us all when he decided that this year, for the first time ever, he’d walk in the water and play in the sand. Here’s his hole.

Please note his attempts to get his grandpa’s chair to fall into his hole. His real plan, however, was to lay in his hole and enjoy watching the waves.

Yes, that is my hand in the picture and yes, my hand is featured in EVERY picture I took of Nutty laying in his hole. I’m just that good apparently.

And Kennedy and I enjoyed our time spent on the beach reading and floating in the ocean. Here we are at 28 weeks prior to leaving for the beach and 30 weeks while we were (obviously) at the beach. The first is such a bad picture I cropped it so that you’re just looking at Kennedy and I didn’t turn far enough sideways in the second picture for you to truly appreciate how big she’s getting. Not to worry though, I’ll post a few more beach pictures soon and I promise you’ll get to see her more clearly!