nature appreciation

I love it when I plug in my camera and I find a bunch of pictures taken by the kids. Most of them this time were of all the plants in our yard. All the bushes, trees, my dying flowers, etc. But this one was my favorite!

Do you see a cute little Drakey head poking up in there?

The other day while we were out playing in the yard, we saw a good ant hill buried in the grass. I had heard that a good way to kill ants is to pour boiling water on them. So we boiled up a big pot of water and took it outside to do away with the ant colony. Mass murder style. We poured out the water and watched the hill disappear. Later that evening though, we saw this...

do you see those little dark spots in the grass? (And the dead patch of grass from the boiling water?)

Those dark areas are piles of DEAD ANTS!! The ones that lived carry the dead ones out of the hole and pile them up! Those little hard workers were moving the dead bodies out of their home all day. (and never mind that I'm in my pajamas at 6:00)

See, look at these piles, all little dead ant bodies!

Nature is so cool!

Sorry to destroy you little guys, but we don't want you biting us while we play in the grass.

RIP.

10 things

My friend Monica has a darling blog, and she did this fun 10 things post and tagged me. So let's be honest, who doesn't like talking about things that you like? And in coming up with my 10 things, I can't help but notice, that most of my favorite things have to do with food! But that's me, my life just about revolves around food.

#1. Newton running shoes. I love these! Land, lever, lift. These are geared for mid to forefoot running, and are made to not tire your legs so quickly, but work with your stride to conserve energy. They are extremely light, and come in amazing colors!!

#2. I'm a creature of habit. Really.
If I could eat pancakes every morning I would!! Those are my fav, but since they are calorie ridden, I chose a healthier option. So I have two, depending on summer/winter. During the months that strawberries are in season, I have yogurt, berries and granola...every morning! And then during the winter, I have Basha's cottage cheese (because it really is the BEST!) with a fresh orange peeled and cut over the cottage cheese. Oh, so yummy! I'm salivating as I type this. And somehow I don't get tired of these. I eat one of those every morning, and love it!

#3. Cute socks.

I don't know where this came from, but I have some belief that if I'm going to be wearing pants, I have to have cute socks on underneath. LIke if somebody got a peek of my socks, it'd be a treat, not just boring white socks. So I reserve white socks for the gym, and the rest of my sock drawer is full of fun patterns.

#4. Frozen yogurt. Oh dear, I have a problem. A serious problem.
I really have frozen yogurt almost everyday! Sometimes more than once a day. I know where just about all the frozen yogurt stores are, and can make any trip convenient. Among my favorite flavors - NY Cheesecake from Yodipity, Coconut from Yogurtland, White Chocolate Mousse from Mojo's, Tart Mango from Goldenspoon, and Butterbrickle from Mesa FroYo.

#5. Watermelon. Holy smokes, the summer is one of the best times of year, because of this.

Once I start eating watermelon, it's difficult to stop. In fact one time in college (not band camp) I challenged this guy I was dating to watermelon eating contest. This guy outweighed me by a good 70 pounds, but that couldn't help him, I totally won! I eat until the skin on my stomach is stretched and I feel like I'm gonna die, but it's so good I just keep going!

#6. Pantries and staples.
I lust after a nice pantry. This one is just a dream. But even a fancy, huge pantry wouldn't quell my anxiety for not having kitchen staples in it. I'm uneasy if I'm low on butter, sugar, flour, etc. Basically I just need to know that should I need to bake anything, I've got it on hand.

#7. Knife throwing.
I don't know why, or where this came from, but I have always had a fantasy that I'm a knife thrower. I want to take knife throwing classes so bad, and just think it is a vital skill to have. If an intruder came in my house, and I don't have a gun, I can still injure him from afar by landing a knife in his shoulder. Oh just think of all the possibilities!!

#8. Candy. Yes, another addiction.
mmmmmm! Red vines, skittles, cinnamon discs, Sour Patch Kids, Swedish Fish, Tootsie Rolls, Cinnamon Bears, Gobstoppers, etc. I have a candy habit. I carry it with me just about all the time. I have stashes through out my house. And I have the cavities to prove it. Despite my next thing...

#9. Dental floss.
I have to carry dental floss with me, because I have to floss many times through out the day. The more I floss, the more I feel like I have to floss. One of the worst feelings is needing to floss and not having any! Try not to think about it, you'll start to get the urgent I need to floss feeling.

#10. I love Tina Fey.
I want to be her! She is so witty and funny, I love her responses to everything! I also love just about every movie/skit she's in. Mean Girls, Babymama, 30 Rock. She's a genius!!

And there you have it.

Toothless

So Gwen's tooth was loose for a month!! She was scared to work it too much, and couldn't try to pull it. At one point she let Ryan try to pull it, but he chickened out and couldn't. I asked her if I could, but she wouldn't let me. Sunday in church I left the nursery room to go fill our water pitcher when I saw Gwen in the hall with her cheeks full of water, excitement in her eyes and her tooth in her hands!! Our primary president was there with her too, Gwen let her try to pull it, and she did! Gwen said it didn't even hurt.Gwen was so excited she was begging to go to Gigi's to show her her missing tooth as soon as we got home from church. We waited until Sunday evening, and Gwen (against my strong warning) took the tooth out of the ziploc bag it was in, and put it in her tooth fairy pillow she had sewn together... with yarn mind you. I told her that the stitches were wide and her tooth could come out, but she insisted. So as you can imagine, after she had shown Gigi her little tooth, played around, and then checked her tooth purse again and it was gone! We checked everywhere - floor, tables, couch, but we couldn't find it. She was devastated!!! So she wrote a letter to the tooth fairy that went something like this:

Dear toothfairy, i lost my tooth, please give me money. -Gwen

Luckily the toothfairy still came to our house, she got a "golden coin". (a Sakajawea dollar)

Ryan McPhie, J.D.

Five years ago, Ryan decided he wanted to go to law school. He applied late in the application process and got in to some schools, but decided he wanted to try again, to get into ASU. He did LSAT prep classes this time, took the LSAT again, and applied. He got into ASU, but got into McGeorge (University of Pacific) too. That one was in Sacramento, where Ryan really wanted to be. So I got a new job in Sacramento (I was working at Progressive here at the time) we got rid of almost all our stuff, and moved to Sacramento. A week later, Ryan decided he wanted to go to ASU. He packed up our now decreased amount of belongings, I put in my two weeks at my new job, and he moved out here just in time to start orientation. We joined him two weeks later. That was hard! But he was starting a journey that'd be even harder. Law school.

Ryan really did do well. He balanced school and family better than I can. He'd come home and play, and didn't even do homework over the weekends. On top of that he's held a couple of jobs to help support us (since I decided I would NOT get a job after moving back to AZ), participated in several competitions, and even has grown so much spiritually too. I'm so proud of Ryan and all of his hard work. To prove it I got this sweet sign that's still in our front yard-

These kids are pretty dang proud of him too. It was funny to think about how when Ryan was trying to decide if he should do law school, one of the things kind of holding him back was the thought that Gwen would be almost SEVEN and Drake almost FIVE when he graduated. I told him "well, in three years they'll be almost seven and five and you could be done with law school, or not." Well here they are, almost seven and five - and Ryan's finished with law school!

Ryan and his mom.

Ryan and brother, Gavin.

Ryan and sister, Emily. And Drake jumping in there too.

Gwen and Drake so happy to finally be out of the ceremony and see Ryan.

Ryan and his proud wifey.

Getting the party started! Unfortunately I didn't get pictures of his party. But thanks to everyone who came out and made Ryan feel special. It was a lot of fun!

Now on to the BAR!! He'll be studying like crazy for the next two months and will take it at the end of July.

no time to blog

my last final is Wednesday afternoon. Hallelujah! Then I can have a life again! And put together a grad party for Ryan!!! So here's just a couple pics to throw up until I can really blog.

almost out!

new one's already coming in

Don't let you kids play with your ipod, cause it might get lost. And that's not okay.

But if they get you one with double capacity and with this inscription on it,

then it's okay.

I'm blessed to have my body

That's my affirmation I keep saying in my head.

For the last couple months, running has sucked! I'm so slow and tired, and just don't have the energy to go. It all came to a head during Pat's Run. I just could run. My legs felt like lead. Lead that's on fire (if that's possible), and I couldn't get a breath. I just was remembering running before where I was pushing myself but I could still find a rhythm where my breathing was adequate for my level of exertion. That wasn't happening. I watched Ryan run away in front of me while I trotted and finally walked. When I saw the one mile to go sign I told myself, no biggie, I can pump out this last mile at a good pace with no walking. Nope. I was almost in tears as I couldn't go more than half a mile without walking again! I figured my heart rate must be though the roof and looked down at my watch to see it was at 89! Okay, something was wrong. I ran into the finish, sprinting the last little bit, and my heart rate was still in the 80s. :(

When I got home and plugged in my run, I saw that my heart rate started out good, I was in the 165-175 range, and then before I reached a mile, it dropped down into the 80s for the remainder of my run. I also counted the times I walked. TEN times in 4.2 miles. I cried myself to sleep that night.

Went to the Dr., he took my blood and referred me to a cardiologist. Blood came back that I'm anemic. That explains a lot - why I'm so tired (I've been blaming it on waking up super early), why I'm out of breath when I go up a flight of stairs (I thought it was because my backpack was so heavy), why my legs feel so heavy while I'm running (figured my legs couldn't support my added weight), why i've been getting so many headaches (figured it was all the reading and lack of sleep), and the light headedness (so I'm not just an airhead!). Sweet. Now I take supplements throughout the day giving me an additional 600% of the RDA for iron. Then to the cardiologist with my fingers crossed that the iron is responsible for the irregular heartbeat too. He did an EKG, but it was inconclusive for my symptoms. I'm scheduled to go back at the end of May for a stress test, an echocardiogram and an ultrasound, and he's guessing it's an intermittent heart block that's exercise induced. I'm still crossing my fingers that it's just the anemia, and that it gets better so I won't even have to go do those tests in a month.

So far, after a week of pumping my body full of iron, I'm already noticing a slight difference. Thank goodness too since I have a triathlon this weekend. (I signed up for it in Oct., and didn't realize it'd be RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of finals) I'm thinking of dropping from the Olympic distance down to the Sprint since my training has been so sparse do to the fact that my heart's going through a rough patch. The poor thing.

So there you have it. If you've seen me out running (or walking) and I was sobbing, now you know why.

**Oh, and I want to add, my time for Pat's Run was not terrible. If it was faster than yours, I'm NOT saying you are slow. I'm saying I'm used to being able to run faster than I did, and without such a struggle. That's all. :)

Easter 2011

Oh man, Easter just isn't the same without our egg hunt at the cabin. :( But we make do. This year Tawnya and Kolby hosted the hunt at their house. (After last year when we tried it at our park and some punk kids took all our eggs! But I did chase them down, and get them back.)

Tara and her kids came to town for their spring break.

The grands with their egg hunt loot.

Gwen

Aubrey

Kit

Jack and Drake

Look how cute this chubby, fuzzy headed, little boy is.

Saturday we also had our "Jerusalem diner", where we eat on the floor (supposedly with our hands), and we eat traditional food that has symbolic meanings. It's pretty cool, and an excuse to eat lamb. Mutton for you brown peeps.

Also, a great time to get the family together to talk about the sacrifice made by our Savior, and how the atonement has blessed out lives.

Then Sunday, we took the kids to the temple for some pics. I just love Easter!

vocabulary

Gwen and Drake fight a lot. I hope you're thinking "my kids do too."

Lately they'll call each other selfish.

So the other day as we were driving, and Gwen wouldn't share with Drake, and he said, "Gwen, you're selfish!"

To which she replied, "you don't even know what that means!"

I, overhearing the conversation, and seeing that Gwen wasn't sharing with Drake was proud of him because I figured he DID know what it meant.

He yells back, "yes I do, it means you sell fish!"

new me?

This morning I took Drake to school and went to give his lunch to his teacher while he was washing his hands. She took a step back and then laughed and said, "Oh, you look so different today, it took me a while!" Umm, weird. But okay.

Next I hauled buns to make it to institute on time. I didn't, I was late. I quietly walked in and took an empty seat right in the middle of the class. My teacher then walked over to me to shake my hand and says, "tell me your name", I just figured head injury (my teacher was in a motorcycle accident years ago and had a significant head injury that affects his short term memory, and so that's often his excuse). Then a couple of minutes later, while he was teaching he says, "oh KRISTIN!!! I'm so sorry! Of course it's you, but you just look SO different! What's different about you?!" Umm, I don't know? Unfortunately I can't answer him by saying, "oh, I lost ten pounds!" or "botox!!". But honestly, why aren't people I see ALLTHETIME recognizing me today? Because I took a shower? (oh wait, I didn't!) I curled my hair? I lightened my hair like a month ago? Really, what's different about me today?

Okay, that one I have crazy eyes. If I walked around like that I'd understand.

Try again, dork in the library taking a picture of herself:

Does this look different than normal?

so fresh and so clean, clean

Once upon a laundry day, I was washing the bedding from my bed. The comforter to be specific. Well I have an old school top loader washing machine, (oh how I miss my fancy washing machine!) so I can't put the fabric softener in when I add everything else. I have to listen for the rinse cycle and then go add the liquid softener then. (I don't trust the Downy balls to release all the softener at the right time) So when I heard he washer filling for the rinse cycle I went in to add the softener. Inside the washer, was the strangest thing, I found all these pulpy, masses. I reached in to discover that a brand new box of fabric softener sheets had fallen off the shelf into the washing machine apparently before I loaded it. I fished through the water and pulled out the dissolving box and almost all of the 80 sheets. I also figured I wouldn't need to add any additional fabric softener. Well, that was over four weeks ago now. And STILL, every time I climb into bed, I'm welcomed by the fresh clean smell of those fabric softener sheets! I just might have found a new way to wash my bedding!

Barrister's Ball

That's right, we went to a ball.

A fancy shmancy ball where we got to dress up,

and go watch our law school friends get drunk.

Since Ryan's graduating in just over a month (seriously!?),

we figured we'd go to basically law school prom.

Aww fun.

So, we'll be sending out Ryan's graduation announcements soon, so email me your address should you so desire one

kmcphie at asu dot edu

home improvementifications

We have a grapefruit tree.

A big, ugly, overgrown, half dead grapefruit tree.

Behold-

Ryan called up Kolby and asked him if he could borrow his chain saw.

Behold-

There was a little boy who was amazed by his dad and the chainsaw.

He wanted to play too.

Behold-

They worked hard, those two.

Behold-

Behold the before-

And behold the after-

Wow!

And still on the to do list,

building a block wall

installing a sprinkler system

But those things will have to wait since this weekend this happened:

I came home from school Friday afternoon, and our house was so hot!

This is what the thermostat read:

thankfully Saturday the blessed AC people came out to replace the old broken heap of junk on the roof.

A crane had to come out to lift the old one off and the new one up.

We are now basking in the coolness of our new AC.

And trying hard not to think of the price paid for that cool air.