New Home, New TRADITION, and Lots of LOVE

The sunshine is coming through my windows.  My music is playing.  I have several hours to myself while my youngest is in preschool.  We are finally in our new home!  Life. Feels. Good.  Everything seems to be falling into place so perfectly.  And with that comes peace and a feeling of normal.  As much as I love adventure, I also love routine.  I love feeling settled and in control.  Being in our home and having this space to make my own is so exciting.  We still have so much organizing, unpacking and cleaning to do but this is all part of the FUN in making a new home OURS.  I'm just trying to remind myself that I don't have to do it all at once.

One room down.  The rest of the house to go.  But I can see the FLOOR!

Every day here brings with it a feeling of gratitude and happiness. The more that things come together and fall into place, the more the fear and worries fade away. Everywhere I look I see beauty... the mountains, trees, our neighborhood, my view from my office, the lake where I run, my kids running around and loving their new home... just feels RIGHT.  It could be that this is just something new and that it will all wear off but right now, this place just feels so perfect.  Feels like the place we've been dreaming about all along.  The only thing missing is our family and close friends back in Oregon.

With a new home and the craving of routine, comes starting some new traditions with my family.  As I unpacked box after box, I found all sorts of things that sparked inspiration.  I would pull out a favorite book and remember the feelings that the story evoked in me.  An old journal that reminded me of that time in my life.  Books about things to do with kids. Colorful paintings that put a smile on my heart.  And then I found a Gratitude Journal that my mom had given me back in 1998.  I've always loved this book but I never really did use it much.  I tried but it never really worked for me.  I've just tucked it away knowing that I'd use it someday.  Seems as if I must have known all along that it wasn't meant to be used until now.

I'm big on creating family traditions to help instil values and make memories.  There are many healthy habits and traits I want to help my kids learn and one of the most important things to me as a mother is to raise GRATEFUL kids.  I'm excited to make our new family tradition in our new home to keep a family gratitude journal.  Simple.  Quick.  Meaningful.  Every morning at breakfast we will have a new page with the date at the top and we will each take a moment to write down one or two specific things that we are thankful for. Or more.  We are only on day three but it seems to be a tradition that will so easily stick!  And what a treasure to have this book to look back on as the years go by.  It is already fun to see the things the kids come up with that are significant to their present moment.  The thing I love about it the most is that it doesn't take much time at all.  In fact, I wrote my quick bullets down as I was putting breakfast on the table and my husband wrote his after I called him back in the house before letting him leave for work. The ease of this routine is important in a busy house with three kids going all different directions.  I especially love that the kids see us doing this too.

This journal will sometimes be left out for when we pass through the dining room to the kitchen.  When I see a pen and an open journal, I will surely stop for a moment to write something.  Maybe the rest of the family will pick up on this too.  

In the process of creating new space, family traditions, and a happy new lifestyle here in North Carolina, I hope that above all, it draws us closer together and brings with it LOADS of LOVE.

Front Porch Kisses

What are some of your favorite family traditions in your family?  

Amanda

Advent Rocks, Bits of Running, and Meaningful Advent Activities With Kids

I'm not sure this day could be going much better. I haven't felt this much like my best self in what seems like forever and it is so nice to be here again after quite a long stretch of off months. I have marathon training to thank for so much of it. There is something about working towards a goal and having a training plan for something that give me such a sense of satisfaction and drive for the rest of my life. The endorphins and fitness that come along with it are wonderful perks too.  

 After going to bed last night with my hopefully soon-to-be no more friend called Motherhood Guilt that still shows her ugly head from time to time (I know, I know, I'm still working on getting rid of this stupid anxiety and guilt that creeps up after especially crazy and unraveling types of days...getting better actually and it has helped to be reading and listening to more and more of this awesome lady, Brene Brown), I woke up early enough to have some alone time to get my thoughts straight before I woke the kids up.  And although things were a bit rushed since I waited until 7:30 to wake the girls and get them dressed, fed, hair brushed, lunches made, tooth fairy note written found, shoes on and out the door for school by 7:55, I was EFFICIENT (Gosh, I love efficiency!) and ON MY A GAME!  Feels good.  To make things even better, my more than energetic and demanding bundle of POW WOW three year old slept until almost 8:30 and all I had to do was wake him up, hand him his breakfast, dress him, find his show and tell and get him to school by 9:00.  Things went smoothly, there were no melt-downs and I could see my positive outlook and attitude being absorbed and reflected in full force.  Amazing how when we are on our best behavior as parents and have positive attitudes about our day, our kids seem to respond in much the same way.  They really do mirror us so much of the time.  

Before picking my daughter up from kinder at 10:30, I had time for my 7 mile easy run.  I left the heart rate monitor at home and I just ran.  Happy. Easy. Clear headed and positive. And I felt like I had a new pair of legs or something.   Every time I glanced down at my watch I could see my mile splits in the low 8's and high 7's.  In fact, 5 out of my 7 miles ended up being in the 7:40's and 7:50's and felt like the same effort as my high 8's the other day when I came home feeling heavy and slow.  This has left me with a smile and even more motivation to make the rest of the day a good one.  

Advent/Christmas Focus
One of the things I had a chance to fit in after my run was to get a start on some non-traditional advent activities.  My oldest daughter is now seven and I've yet to do anything with advent.  No advent calendar.  No Christmas countdown.  It always sounds like a good idea but I never get around to it.  But every Christmas I think more and more of how I want Christmas to be for my family.  I want my kids to grow up remembering Christmas a so much more than just getting presents under the tree on Christmas morning.  I want them to think of giving, family memories, and LOVE.  Yes, I want this to be their focus all year round but I've always wanted to find more ways to incorporate some special activities focused on these things.  So, this year I was determined to come up with some sort of advent activities that are about doing things for others and together...focused on giving, love, and family.  

One thing I came up with when brainstorming and hearing about your ideas that some of you shared was the idea of advent rocks.  I know, I really seem to love using rocks for activities and memories with my kids like here and here. Hey, rocks are free and paint is plentiful around here so it works for me.  

My idea for Advent/Christmas rocks:

• Gather some rocks from the yard
• Kids paint rocks
• While kids paint the rocks, we brainstorm a list of character traits or qualities that we strive for:  Love, Joy, Peace, Thankfulness, Patience, Helpful, etc.  
• Once rocks dry, I write these words on the rocks and put them in a bowl
• At dinner time we will do a few things with these rocks during the month of December.  One idea is to have each person take a rock without looking and then talk about how they might have demonstrated that quality or maybe an example of where they saw someone else being a good example/reflection of that trait/quality.  
• I also thought that we could just take one rock out in the morning, then talk about it over breakfast before school and try to make a goal to be conscious of being more _________(loving, kind, caring, helpful, brave, etc.).  

We will see how this goes.  I'm excited to try it out!  Here are some other ideas we have for our advent activities (a lot of them are already things we do anyway):  

• Visit a nursing home or homeless shelter to volunteer.  I'd like the nursing home visits to be a regular thing.
• Buy two $10 subway gift cards to give to people who are asking for help on the street corners
• Buy groceries for a special person we know who could use it.
• Go to a cello concert as a family (Portland Cello Project).  
• Write letters to neighbors or special families in our life (spread this out over a few days). I'd like them to focus on writing very heartfelt letters where they give specific things that they are glad for about the person they are writing to.  
• Bake cookies together.
• Deliver cookies and letters to special friends
• Take the school office workers coffee or treats
• Take the teachers their favorite Starbucks drink
• Watch a holiday movie as a family and make it special with popcorn, treats, blankets, jammies, etc.
• Make gingerbread houses
• Have kids act out the Christmas story
• Use the double jogger and single jogger to take the kids to see Christmas lights in the neighborhood with hot chocolates
• Christmas Rocks/Advent Rocks
• Have our annual cookie decorating party with family
• Send a letter/gift to the parents of a friend of mine that just died not too long ago.  I'm sure they could use so much comfort right now.  
• Find someone's porch to sweep or lawn to rake.  
• Read Christmas stories and then play Charades using only the characters from that book.

 Do you have any special traditions for Christmas or Advent that would be good for putting more focus on loving/giving of ourselves to others and creating more family memories?  

Amanda
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Training, Traditions and Time For Play.

Happy Wednesday! I'm going to have to make this a random post today seeing as my morning coffee/self time is quickly coming to an end and it is almost time to wake these wild things up and let our wild rumpus begin!  So a bullet post it is....at least until I have more time to compose my thoughts.  

• I know I've shared the picture above before and it is Runninghood's facebook profile picture, but I'm sharing it again this morning because it says so much of how I'm feeling right now with my upcoming training.  
• I'm still read, read, reading about marathon training!  I know that it would be easy to just pick up any plan and follow it but I'm really trying to wrap my head around all the science behind the training plans.  
• Base building is going really well.  I will be following a 20 week Boston training plan so that means that I don't start official training for another few weeks.  This gives me the month of November to keep building/maintaining mileage.  
• I'm realizing that although I didn't run a ton of miles this summer, I built more of a base than I thought.  It was a win win win of a summer.  I had fun, didn't have serious training on the agenda, but I still maintained a lot of what I had from my spring/early summer marathons.  With the random speed workouts, races that I "jumped" in, and other few weeks of training for the Girlfriend's Half-Marathon last month, I feel quite strong in my base.  Running 49 miles last week felt good. 
• Still trying to determine how big of a jump in weekly mileage I can safely make.  I want to take my training to a new level this time around but I don't want to get ahead of myself and end up being injured before I even reach half-way.  Finding that balance between setting lofty goals/dreaming big with being realistic about what is safe and wise.  70-80 miles as my peak seems okay right now but I'm not so sure how my body will respond.  And I know that some of these miles will have to be what some refer to as "junk miles".  Not so sure that they are worth it just to increase my mileage volume.  Still researching that.  
• Always Learning!   

Halloween was FUN!  We had one of our better family dress-up nights.  It was truly magical to see how excited my kids were.  I grew up never being able to celebrate Halloween and so I've held on to some of those feelings but after this year, I'm dropping those old feelings.  Halloween is what we make it to be.  In my opinion, it is a fun time of year for kids to dress up and be kids!  A tradition. And for us, it is an opportunity to make memories and have fun with our kids!  It doesn't have to mean anymore than that. However, I respect how others choose to celebrate.  It isn't for everyone.  

Motherhood bullets:

• I've been reading a book about growing grateful kids and it has given me lots of little things to apply to my daily life.  Today's chapter was about PLAYING with our children and enjoying them.  This was good for me to read because I get so one-tracked in my daily living. Always cleaning, reading, training, planning and thinking to the next thing.  This is all good too...part of being on top of things but I'm going to make a point of sitting down with my family more...to just play!  It can be as simple as giving piggy back rides or building a lego tower.  Or letting my kids perform a play and really stopping to watch them.  
• As serious as I want to be with my marathon training, my quality time with my kids and my husband comes first.  This is important to me.  It is also important for me to share my goals with my kids and allow them to see me working hard and reaching for a goal.  This is a great example for them and I think it is always good for mothers to have a chunk of their life for THEMSELVES!  I see too many stay-at-home-moms get lost in their family without having their own goals or things they do just for them...girl nights with friends, self-pampering, athletic goals, and other interests outside of keeping baby books and making sure they are making fantastic memories for their kids.  All this is WONDERFUL and admirable but I think it is so important to nurture and empower ourselves too!  
• Time to make our yearly gratitude jar and start filling it up for Thanksgiving!  It really makes more sense to have this thing going year round but it never seems to last.  

1.  Do you keep a running log, running journal, or calendar with your training?  
2.  What are some traditions that you have incorporated into your family life?  I'm always looking for traditions to help make memories for my kids.  One of the things we try to make a regular thing around here is date nights with our kids.  We try to take turns with each one of them so they each get personal date time with mom or dad at various times.  Also, this gratitude can is a big one for us.  And on Thanksgiving we all have cards we write on and read before dinner.  The cards then go into a gratitude album with our picture for that year.  It is a special book to go back to look at year after year.
3.  Don't forget to check out the jewelry giveaway I have going on.  Awesome stuff for athletes, mothers, and so much more.  
  
Amanda