Or out running. When my mind can go blank and I’m doing something completely monotonous like jogging or showering I find myself not thinking about my life or my future or world peace. No. I write blog posts in my head.

And then I totally forget them.

Last night I was up until about 4:30am with sick+puking girls. Oh and cutting paper for Bailey’s Valentine’s Day party in her Kindergarten class that she wasn’t able to attend. It was so insane that I was equal parts up in the middle of the night cleaning puke or holding hair for puking and cutting paper. And this morning was a crazy frenzy to finish the paper cutting. Every time I kill myself for something like this that will go completely under-appreciated I swear I’ll never do it to myself again. But I know I will.

(I was in charge of decorating the bags for the kids to gather their Valentine’s in and instead of sending in bags+stickers or something easy, I hand cut all you see above, bagged them individually and even organized the extra pieces for whatever parent could be there to run the craft I had to miss. I think it turned out cute but MAN was it a time suck!)

(I was also in charge of the Bingo game and rather than look online for a Vday inspired printable Bingo game I decided to add cut paper to antique Bingo cards that belonged to my Grandma! Again, 25 squares on 18 cards. 25×18=A LOT)

So I spent the day dealing with two sick girls and a crazy 2 year old on less than 2 hours sleep so at 5pm when I was cooking dinner and looking forward to Chris getting home I surprised myself  by deciding to RUN instead of take my long awaited shower. I read THIS post by my sweet friend and decided it just had to be done.

And DUDE! I rocked it! After having not run at all for at least 3 months (I think) I ran for TWENTY SIX minutes without stopping! That may seem totally pathetic to some but for ME it was so freaking awesome. Back in the fall I started the C25K and almost finished it before the first snow hit and the hills around the Allen’s house became too hard to run on. And if you’ve never done the C25K before it basically has you walk for 90 seconds and jog for 30 seconds (at least the first few days) getting up to running for 20 walking for 10 and so on. It’s supposed to ease your old+fat+out of shape body into running gently. So today when I cranked it back down to WEEK 1 DAY 1, started the music and started walking I changed my mind quick and found myself jogging. AND I DIDN’T STOP! Every time that voice said, “WALK” I said (in my head), “F-YOU BITCH!” and I kept running. It was so rad to scream obscenities to my “trainer” and totally kill the run!

And like Katie said, it felt good to shower the sweat off and not just shower b/c it’s the next day.

While running I thought a lot about the season changing. Today was in the 50’s I think and the sun has been an amazing sight. I really wonder if I have that seasonal disorder b/c the last couple of days has seen a vast improvement on my entire attitude towards life even with the pukes hitting our house. It makes me want to move to Florida but then I wonder if I would appreciate the warmth if I had it every day. Maybe I need to get a little gloomy to appreciate the change you know?

It also struck me while running that I’m more hopeful than I imagined for Parker. In high school and college I had really bad exercise induced asthma. I would have to stop runs short not because my legs were tired but b/c my lungs protested too much. Tonight I stopped running b/c my legs were Jello and my lungs screamed they wanted more! I grew out of it. Out of my asthma I mean. It just gave me hope that with the right diet, good supplements, a healthy home and TIME Parker will be just fine. A happy+healthy kid.

I was thinking today that it might be fun to kick the gloom for good with some giveaways on the blog! We’ve had a few takers since I mentioned it on FB earlier today and I wonder if anyone else would be interested in offering something to giveaway in exchange for a shout out to your business? Giveaways are fun and it’s a neat way to get your name out!

Which reminds me to tell you all that we have NOT forgotten completely about our Love Light giveaway from Christmas! We just forget to take a photo of the winning card every SINGLE time we’re in the studio! We have two sessions this weekend so I PROMISE to not forget this time!

Speaking of Love Light! Did you guys see our article? 10 points if the two couples made famous read this and comment or if you know them! HA! Here are some shots in case you missed it…

How ironic is it that we’ve stopped taking weddings and we’re in the Wedding issue! Is it ironic at all? I use that word wrong ALL THE DAMN TIME!

We had to send in 15+ images for them to chose from and it was interesting to see which ones they chose! The top is from one of my first Love Lights back in the Jodified days and the bottom image was from a COLD night last year! Just neat to see what they liked and wanted to print!

THANK YOU to Professional Photographers Magazine for featuring our Love Light idea! A lot of people are now using this idea (Lyndsay is rocking them out!) and it’s just cool to know we were the first!

This kid hasn’t graced the blog (or my personal blog) in forever because he’s in such a little stinker phase but today while he was looking out the back door at the birds I grabbed a few shots.

Total third kid with that paci in his mouth! It just screams “You’ve given up as a mother!” every time he has it! HA! Seriously, I kind of have given up in the sense that it’s going to be a fight to take it from him and right now I don’t feel like dealing with it! We’ll just put the braces on a credit card some day!

And just to show you how pathetic the other two were today…

So sweet and so pitiful! Hope they’re feeling better tomorrow!

And with that I’m signing off! After a day of constant “Mommy can you…” and I felt the need to blog.

Happy Valentine’s Day! Nothing remotely romantic happened around here but man did I love on my kids today and that’s way more how I’d like to spend my Valentine’s than with candy+roses.

One year old triplet sneak peek coming soon!