NYC Half

Yesterday, Sean and I ran the NYC Half.  I really wanted to run a race in the city before we move, and it was a blast.  I am so thankful to so many wonderful family and friends who helped me get through all the training...Michelle, Lynette, Lindsay, Suzanne, Haley, Ryan, and my pace man yesterday, Sean.  My dear husband trained by running a total of 3 miles before this race, and he was still able to stay in front of me the whole time...how is that fair?)

I had mixed emotions when I was selected in the lottery for the race as I was dreading training, in the winter no less, and while I was sick (I seemed to have something wrong during most of the training...but that is a whole post in and of itself!), breastfeeding, etc.  BUT...I really needed some motivation to lose some baby weight. 

The course was absolutely fabulous.  I took pictures throughout the run and tweeted them (only b/c that was the fastest/easiest way that I could figure out for posting pics).

I didn't 'PR' as my runner friends talk about, but we ran much faster than I had trained or thought I would...2:22. 

A special thanks to my dad who came out to watch the kiddos while we went to the race...thanks so much, Dad :)

scenes from yesterday...

getting ready to run!

 good morning, central park...

 guggenheim...

 so many gorgeous buildings to check out as we went by...

 Hello, NYC. 

 When will we ever have the chance to leave Central Park and run straight up 7th avenue to times square with no cars around again? 

 Pretty sure we stayed at this hotel for one of the dance weekends back in the day...

 we are still moving!

 times square, here we come!

 hard to see, but we had just made it out to the west side highway, right by the Intrepid...

 this was a long stretch...all the way down to battery park...

 I liked this 'You go, girl' message...I needed it right about then!

 Oh, how I was hoping the Novogratz's were outside (not even sure that they still live here)...but if they were there, I was going to try to go sneak a pic with them :)

 I got choked up around the new Freedom Tower that was disappearing up into the fog.  There is truly nothing sweeter than our great, free country.

 Nearing the end...the acoustics in the tunnel were perfect for the end of a race...

 here we go!

 there is the light at the end of the tunnel!

 

800 M to go!!  Yippie!

 Brooklyn Bridge...one of my favorite NYC sites.

 getting the medal...

Now...will I keep running or quit cold turkey? :)

Sunburst!

After Jenny posted about DIY Sunburst mirrors (by the way, Jenny, when are you going to have your own book?  You need one, and I would pre-order!), and we heard of an impending snow in, Michelle and I decided we would get our glue on and attempt to make these suckers!

All you need is a good friend, a glass of wine, a LOT of shims, and a LOT of wood glue :)

We followed this tutorial the most.  I won't recreate all the wonderful tutorials that exist, but just a few extra notes...

--Holding rays together - some people recommended craft tape - we just used rubberbands, and they worked just fine...

--To prime or not prime: I had some extra half used cans of white spray paint laying around, so I used those as a pseudo-primer.  The shims, especially the large ones, are very porous, and I just wanted to make sure that the gold really popped.  I don't think this step is necessary though...Michelle did not prime, and hers looks fantastic.

 -Assembling the rays:  We spent a LOT of time trying to figure out how to push the rays perfectly into the middle and not have gaps around the sunburst.  We did break off some of the long shims that were pointing into the middle to allow the longer rays to fit more snugly. We finally decided that 80/20 was good enough, and we both had some gaps in between the rays, but once the mirror was on, the gaps didn't bother us.

-Hanging:  We both just had our husbands put some screws into the back of the mirror.  Sean screwed right into the shims, and it seems to be pretty solid.  They didn't screw the screws all the way down to allow us some space to wrap hanging wire around the screws. 

 We are both happy with how our mirrors turned out.  It cost us about $42 to do the whole project.   Michelle painted hers silver, and I went for gold.  I made this knowing that I didn't have a huge open wall to hang this on right now, but hoping that in our next place, it may find the perfect home!

For now, it spices up the basement a bit...

Paint Swatch Mobile

I had some fun with paint swatches for Jamie's baby shower back in September...I copied an idea I saw on Pinterest...it was a fun project and very inexpensive - just had to buy the embroidery hoop!  The sewing was a little tricky for me...it probably wouldn't be for most people but I had to make lots of extra strands as I ended up throwing some away because they were just jacked up.

I still can't seem to get paint swatches off the brain.  Walked out of Home Depot last week with a ginormous stack.  Got a couple of strange looks, but I just held my head high and walked out :)

Wreaths

I'm not very good at changing out wreaths.  Case in point, I made an acorn wreath (the final nesting project before Cormac arrived) back in October, and it wasn't taken down until yesterday.  All the grand plans that I had to spray paint it white and change to a red ribbon for X-Mas never materialized :)

My friend had pinned this wreath, and I had all of the supplies except for the wreath form, so I made this during nap time the other day...

Moss makes everything better

Paint Swatch Art

I'm cheap.  And I wanted some art for our bedside tables - something in a tall frame.  I found some white frames at Michaels for ~$4 each the other day, and I had been wanting to do something with paint chips...so, on my shopping trip with April, I made her my accomplice, and stuffed her purse full of paint swatches for my attempt at some art, and for a mobile for their nursery.  I got busy during naptime, and here is what I came up with...I am digging it so much that I would love to do a really large scale one.  So, if you see some crazy lady in the paint aisle at Home Depot, squirreling lots of samples into a big bag, it is probably me.

I used a 1" circle cutter and punched the circles out of Behr paint swatches.  Then, I used Elmer's glue and glued all the chips down, starting at the bottom of the page, overlapping as I went.  As you can see, I wasn't exact, I just eyeballed it, so it is not perfectly straight...but I am okay with that ;)  The beauty of all things imperfect....

love the texture...

Now, for the keeping it real shot...I REALLY need to find a good looking alarm clock.

Aunt...

'Aunt'...has such a nice ring to it.  Our family is thrilled to welcome Ryan & Jamie's new baby girl, Madelyn Marie on January 3rd.  She is perfect.  Now, I haven't met her in person - that is next week - but I just adore her so much already.  We refer to her as the Princess and Paddy walks around with his picture of the princess.  We all can't wait to meet her.  Even though at the ages of a few weeks old and 3.5 months old, the age difference seems large, I am so excited that as they get older, that age gap will be nothing!  We couldn't be more excited.  Jamie made it through her c-section and is being a champ about recovery, and it just makes my heart melt to see my little bro with his own baby girl.

When my dad sent me a note saying that as he was holding Madelyn, he was remembering holding me when I was that little...let's just say the waterworks began.

Ryan and I used to say that we wouldn't just talk about poopy diapers once we were parents - let's just say that we have already discussed them a few times.  Yikes...how times change.

Sean and I are so excited to be an Aunt & Uncle and have a cousin that our boys are going to watch out for and protect...our princess, Madelyn.  Welcome to this crazy world.

**AND...so happy that there are now three generations of MMM's - my mom, Mary Margaret, me, Meghan Mary and now Madelyn Marie...

Another Break...

I seem to have a break in blogging when I am feeling a lack of creative inspiration or life just gets busy.  I wish I could have a constant UP when it comes to creativity...any tips on how to live in a constant state of inspiration??

As always when I return from a blogging break, I am hoping I can keep up with this a little more often and consistently.  The blog may morph to encompass different topics along the way...maybe a little more family (if this post is any indication, yikes!), daily happenings, who knows?

In the last three months, we have had some highlights.  The biggest by far being that we welcomed Cormac McDermott to the world on October 13th.  He is such a joy, and we are soaking up all his smiles and laughs.  And we are so thankful that Paddy has been a good big bro (so far) :).

I made it!  Five days past my due date :)

he is a snuggler...

those crossed legs were irresistible...

I decided to do a quick recap of the last few months to help serve as a bit of a journal for myself...

• My mom came out before Cormac was born and stayed with us for a few weeks.  She was an enormous help and we were so thankful for all she did to help us.  My dad and brother were also able to come and spend a good amount of time here once Cormac arrived, followed by the Morrows visiting as well.  We are so blessed to have helpful families!

• One week postpartum (not a great time to try to find clothes that fit!), we had some family pictures done by Haley at a bunch of our favorite places around West Point.  Thanks for helping us capture memories of our time here, Haley!

 another one of our very favorite things to do at West Point...watching the parachute team!

• I seem to have a new full time job of changing batteries in toys...why did I have no idea we would have to spend entire paychecks on replacement batteries of all shapes and sizes??  Any other moms feel this way?

• We attended the Army game on October 26th when Mother Nature decided to send a blizzard our way.  I had never seen anything like it in October.  Cormac even joined us!

 

• Paddy turned 2!  What a fun two years it has been.  He definitely has his terrible two moments and is testing all his boundaries, but for the most part, he is a tender, loving, inquisitive, independent, sporty and active little boy.  We are loving watching how he absorbs so much everyday.  We celebrated his birthday at an Army Women's Volleyball game...Paddy has such a crush on Ariana!

• Hallie and Nora visited! It was so fun just to observe Paddy and Nora together.  We are pretty sure it rocked his world that Nora showed up IN PERSON after he asks for Nora songs every night before bed :)

lead the way, nora!

• Helped host a shower for April and the twins...it was so fun to shower her during this joyous time! 

• Attended the Army Mule retirement ceremony...the mules are one of our favorite features of West Point - even after one of them bit Sean.  I am so pathetic that I was teary eyed as they retired the mules.  I also decided we must have enough land one day so that we can get one of the mules when they do retire!

• We traveled to Army/Navy in a 31 foot long RV with the Uthlauts...and even after spending all weekend in the RV with three kids ages two and under, we can safely say we are still friends :)  It was an absolute blast, and I would absolutely do it again with little kids.  Sidenote:  Did you know that RVs get 'winterized'?  We had looked forward to our own bathroom, shower and sinks...but we couldn't use shower/sinks and could only use bathroom by 'flushing' with windshield wiper fluid!

• Haley was so sweet and manned the boys all day for us and we headed down to Brooklyn for the day.  We checked out some places I had been hoping to check out.  It was so rejuvenating!

• Paddy took a swim class and loved it.  He is also in a Parent and Me Music and Dance class...he doesn't seem to be as big of a fan of that class.  I think he would do better in sports, but I can't seem to find any programs that will take a 2 year old.

• Did a NYC day to absorb the Christmas spirit, complete with stops at FAO Schwarz and Macy's to see Santa.  We weren't sure when we would ever be back in NYC around Christmas, so we were glad we waited in line at Macy's!   (Oh yes, and I squeezed in a quick spin through M&J Trimmings!  LOVE.)

• Santa visited our house, and we celebrated X-Mas day with just our little family.  What a glorious day it was.  After Christmas, sickness hit our house, not to really leave until the second week of January.  What is it about this area?  We used to be people that would get sick once a year, now it seems to be a monthly occurrence.

 Swoosh!

• Sean and I also somehow (obviously, COMPLETELY randomly) got slots in the NYC half marathon in March...so, let the training begin.  As you may know, I hate running.  Thankfully, Michelle has taken pity on me and runs at my turtle pace for the long runs.  Thanks, Michelle!  Haley somehow convinced me to start meeting her at the gym early in the morning a few days a week, which I needed...thanks for the accountability, HAEDU.

•  On January 3rd, another new munchkin joined our family.  Sweet Madelyn Marie Maloney (MMM!!!) arrived.  She's a doll.  She gets her own post.

• For Christmas, I got Sean tickets to see Lebron play against the Nets, so thanks to the Thompsons, we had a nice date night in lovely Newark, NJ.  Lebron put on quite a show with 22 points in the first quarter. 

• I was able to make a trip with the boys to Fort Drum to see Krissy and the kids, which was a blast.  Krissy, my body is in withdrawl from your over-the-top delicious coffees.  Can't wait till our next get together!

• I have been helping friends here and there with some design projects, which has made me endlessly happy.  I have had the BEST time helping April with the nursery for the girls.  I am so thankful she has allowed me to help as it has kick started me to feel more inspired on a lot of levels... 

Looking forward to all that 2012 holds!