One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you

Look out... here she comes.



Joining the ranks of the walking and
living the dream!

So, I think I forgot about this blog!

Ok, no, I didn't, but I certainly have neglected it for quite a while. Where were we?

Marathon!
Well, back in the beginning of October I did end up running the Lakefront Marathon. It was a gorgeous day and it was the kind of day that you could run a PR on. We had an absolute joy of a time running and the three of us finished together as planned. I think we ended up around 4:25 or so.

After finishing, I was ready t o start thinking about the next marathon. I would love to train for a Boston Marathon qualifying time but I think that would be pretty selfish considering what life looks like in this family right now.

Al's Run
About a week later I did Al's Run just to see what kind of time I could get. Let's just say that I didn't pay enough attention to diet before that run and it was not pretty. I ran pretty well, but for as short of a run as it was, it was not nearly as enjoyable as it could have been.

Running since then
Since then, I have only run a few times but they have been awesome runs. Yesterday I ran with Clare and we had a wonderful time on, what may be, one of the last beautiful running days this fall.

Clare's developmental joys!
Let's see... where to begin! She has been crawling with great ease lately. She pulls herself up on everything. She stands on her own. She has taken a few steps here and there. Clare loves to laugh. She claps and eats finger foods. She hasn't decided on her first word yet, but she "talks" all day long. She has a tooth coming in and so far, it seems to have been a relatively painless process.

On to the pics!

Here is my little Gopher fan! She doesn't know that the bad-gers won that game and I guess what she doesn't know doesn't hurt her (though I am sure that if she knew, she would be quite sad).

She is 9 months now and actually she is quickly coming up on 10 months! Unreal! Yes, that is a bow in her hair... it is long enough for a bow!

And here she is with uncle Ben (and his rice)
living the ream!

Less than one week until the marathon!

So the Lakefront Marathon is coming up quickly! I think I am ready. Should I be more certain?!?! I missed more training runs this time than ever before but I think family and work must take priority. I ran 6 and a half this weekend with a little over an 8 minute pace. This was pretty fast for me at this point and it was a tough run. I think my shoes are running thin and I worry about my knees come race day. Well, we'll see how things go. The only goal is finishing this time.

Elizabeth asked me if I wanted to do the Green Bay Marathon next. It is in the middle of May and I can't imagine running in May weather. We'll see!

This past weekend we had planned on going camping at Devil's Lake. The forecast for this past weekend was rain, rain, rain, with a chance of rain. So we decided against camping and opted for a quick weekend in the Dells.

Can I tell you how things just fell into place? I called the owner o this cabin on Thursday for a reservation on Friday! "Sure!" She says. I am not exactly sure what to expect with this Cabin but to my delight, it was right on Lake Delton--literally right on the lake.

We had a fire in the fireplace, we walked the riverwalk, we ate at Mr. Pancake, we read, played games, did crosswords, and generally enjoyed each others' company. This was a weekend that was much needed. Elizabeth and I have been a bit on the stressed side of life lately and the break from the norm was much needed.

On an unrelated note, Clare is loving books these days and "Moo, Baa, La La La" is both her favorite and mine.

Living the dream.

Back in stride!

And one week later...we're running again! This was a week ago today:

Today I ran 4 miles to see how it would feel and I struggled more because I had not run in a week than because I sprained my ankle a week ago. Pretty amazing!

Clare is crawling with ease and pulling herself up on everything. She gets wherever she wants to go and we have been enjoying books together. She loves the baby animals book. I point to the monkey and say daddy!

Running, reading, and
Living the dream

p.s. Clare photos here... scroll down a bit to find them
http://www.caseybowerphotography.com/blog/

You know how it goes

So school is off and running and you know how it goes... it becomes (seemingly) everything I do, think, and breathe. That is not true, but it sometimes seems that way and so I haven't posted since really getting into full swing at school.

I also have not been updating my runs online, so if you are wondering if I have stopped training, the answer was no. I finished my 18er last weekend in beautiful time. Today is supposed to be a ten mile 'short run' (as I look out the window, I see a couple running by). I won't, however be doing my run tonight and we'll see how things go this week.

I got together with a group of coworkers for the sunrise basketball league (at 6:00) and my contribution to the game (ever so small) came to an abrupt end when I landed on my ankle instead of the bottom of my foot.

I will not be running tonight as it looks like I have elephantiasis of the leg (thank you sophomore biology class).

On a brighter note, I will get to spend the evening on the couch (with ice) watching this:

Talk about living the dream!

My Happy Camper!

So we went camping a week ago or so. We thought it would be an adventure as we were unsure if the little angel would sleep or not. She did and we had an amazing time. For those of you who are campers, I give Bigfoot Beach State Park camping a 3/10. I am sure that we have been spoiled by Devil's Lake State Park.

Here is our happy little camper

...living the dream!

And we're babbling

So Clare, my little angel, is doing really well. She is officially babbling. Da da da ya ya la la are the favorite sounds right now. These in conjunction with raspberries and giggles is to die for. She is eating more solids. We've moved from sweet potatoes to peas and beans and pears and prunes along with the staple oatmeal.

She is movtivating! She is rolling over like her life depends on it and is getting up on all fours to throw herself forward. Crawling is in the not too distant future!






And she is still cute as can be...
living the dream!

perfect day for a run

Sorry, no pictures, but Clare and I went for a run today. I was having a hard time keeping up with training runs during the week. I splurged on myself and got a running stroller. Can I tell you how wonderful it is?!?!?!? we went out for half an hour today and she absolutely loves it! She has toys at her disposal but tends to just enjoy the sights and sounds as we go cruising around stallis! She absolutely loves being outside and it keeps me in shape. Win win here!

You know that feeling that you sometimes get on Sundays when you realize that you are going back to work tomorrow? I am starting to get the summer sundays. Don't get me wrong. I love being at school but nothing compares to spending my days with my second love. I am wishing that these days of being home with her could go on a bit longer.

I think it will be good to get back to school though. In the meantime, I am enjoying every last minute with my little angel.
Living the dream

Way to go!

Mainly, I just want to give a big atta boy to Prince Fielder on his homerun derby win tonight! It really was a thing of beauty.

Well, Clare is eating rice cereal and sweet potatoes. I think she is going to turn into an ogre pretty soon with as much as she is eating. Today I spent most of her time awake feeding her! I don't know where she puts it. I take that back. I do know where she puts it. I change her diapers! She is still a cutie though, don't you think?

I Want To Rock And Roll All Night (and party every day)

I think this is Clare's new motto! She wanted to party all day every day this weekend. She had no interest is sleeping which makes things, hmmm, interesting! Not only does she want to party every day, she enjoys rocking and rolling and singing all night! She is a true rockstar and from the looks of this photo...
she will, one day, rock out on an air guitar, at which point she will truely be
living the dream.

update!

So the Brewers pulled out another one last night. I particularly enjoyed Ryan Braun's score on an outfield hit and an error! It reminded me of Kendall's last week!

Keeping up with things around here have been a bit challenging lately as Angel Clare has had an upset stomach. She returns about 1/4 of what she eats and is not interested in doing much other than walk around the house with me. I was bringing a receiving blanket to use for returned food cleanup but I have moved on to a fullsize bath towel!

She is eating rice cereal regularly now and she is super cute. We are going to try to feed her rice cereal once a day for two weeks straight before introducing anything else but she is a really skilled eater! I think she takes after me!

A couple weeks ago we had a lot of rain and we got some water in our basement again. This prompted me to do a thorough cleaning and to get rid of some things that were just sitting around. For example, we had been meaning to re-sell the centerpieces that we used at our wedding reception! I put them on Craigslist and old them in an hour! We have had much luck with Craigslist. I sold the Beetle in a day and now this! We got some shelves and now have just about everything up off the floor which will make cleanup easy next time we get water.

I have been keeping up with running (kind of). I am typically missing one run a week which I think is pretty good considering I can not run until 7:00 on most nights.

We replaced the stolen grill and have locked it to the house (which I think is kind of funny). I got the window replaced in the car but I don't know if/when the dash/radio will be fixed (don't want to tempt anyone).

I don't think I put this up yet, but we got Clare a 'swimming pool'. It is about 36 inches in diameter so it is tiny. They sell swimming diapers but we could not find any in Clare's small size. We tried regular disposables. Let's just say that her diaper swelled up to be the fattest little thing ever and it didn't last long. It was a blast to see her kicking and splashing with her mom.

Now who's
living the dream!

She eats, she sleeps, she rolls!

So Clare is five months and she has had a few milestones. She has had her first meal of rice cereal. She didn't do half bad. She has been intently watching us eat for a while now and she got the hang of it pretty quickly. It was a blast to feed her and watch her lean and reach for the spoon with both mouth and hands.

She has rolled over quite a number of times now both belly to back and back to belly. We have not been lucky enough to get a good video of it yet.

We are trying to teach her to put herself to sleep now and we are in the second day of it. (We tried this once before but gave up because her crying was too painful to not respond to.) She has taken a while to fall asleep but she seems to be sleeping well once she does fall asleep.

I've been home with her during the day and I love it! I can't get enough father daughter time in. I love when she wakes up and is super cuddly, I love when she giggles and laughs, I love when she talks to me or to herself, and I love watching her play and playing with her. She keeps me on a tight schedule as she needs much attention. I find little time to email, call, work, clean, shower, and often do not get to brushing my teeth until she naps at 9:00 (gross). She definitely keeps me busy and on my toes. I have learned to plan errands in 1.5 hour chunks. That is enough time to get somewhere, feed her, go in and do or get whatever needs doing or getting done,and then go home and get her ready for naptime. She falls alseep, I start on cleaning, washing bottles, doing laundry, watering plants, (changing out of pajamas, time permitting), and planning out the next 1.5 hour chunk of time! Love it (and I think she does too!)

I have been keeping up with running (for the most part) though it is tough finding time when Elizabeth is home, I am not needed here, and it is still light out. I keep my log of runs online and it helps keep me motivated because I feel a sense of accomplishment when I put in the details of how easy or hard the run was and see what my pace was.

This afternoon we went down to the lakefront. We sat out on the grass at Alterra. I will take this opportunity to remind you all that back when that building was vacant I kept telling people that I would love to turn it into a coffee shop. Too bad I didn't have thousands to put into the place when I was in college!

We also took Clare for a walk. She is super cute (they both are).

Life with these two lovelies...I must be
living the dream.

What an exciting day!

Oh what a day! I have been working ever since my daughter was born and even on days that I had off, my wife was on maternity leave. For the first time ever, I spent the day with just my daughter and what fun it was. I was a bit nervous last night as I didn't really know her routine. My lovely wife was so kind as to tell me all the details this morning (while I was waking up). Needless to say, I remembered the first directions and called for the rest (I had to write them down to remember them).

But this morning we were off and running. She was in really good spirits as we played on the safari mat, in the exersaucer, bounced on the bed, rolled and jumped and bounced and giggled. She ate well, napped well, and all was good. I made plans to grab lunch with Elizabeth and I was so proud of myself at being able to get both the little angel and myself ready in half an hour!

I walked out the door and toward the car and realized almost immediately that we would not be taking mommy out to lunch. The phrase that comes to mind is "lightning never strikes the same place twice." I thought maybe nothing would strike "white lightning" twice! Some of you may know that I lovingly named my 'new' car white lightning after selling the green jellybean about five years ago. Anyway, my car was struck again and although I don't believe in superstition, I wonder if my car is a thief magnet or something (fourth or fifth break-in... I lost count). I had to look back to see if the photos always look the same and they do (Right down to the mess of papers and assorted garbage on the passenger side floormat)!



This time..................

Last time.....


I won't go on... you get the picture!

On the bright side, while I had the camera out documenting I snapped this one.

We planted this annual a few years ago and it never took, but this year we have this lovely flower and there is at least one more bud on the plant. How beautiful!

So Clare got to meet the friendly police officer, listen in on conversations with patient insurance agents and claims adjusters. She helped me make an appointment for glass repair. And then, when we thought the excitement was all over, the sirens went off. We migrated downstairs to wait out her first tornado warning!

Yikes, I thought my biggest worry was going to be a fussy baby! She was my little angel though. We had a blast today...
living the dream!

It is such a tough life!

So marathon training officially began today. I ran into TUNA at school today and he was so excited about training starting today. I was quick to point out, what I think is absolutely hilarious, according to our training program, the first day is a rest day. I have been training so hard today. I sat around and watched the Brewer game, I went and sat out on the porch to read, I am blogging. Marathon training is tough!

In other news, Clare rolled over! Both from front to back and from back to front. She has rolled over once each way. I am sure she'll be doing it regularly soon. We are in the process of teaching her to put herself to sleep. It is a lesson in patience as it involved allowing her to cry for a while without going to "rescue" her for a few nights. Really, it has only taken a couple days and tonight she let out some weak cries for less than a minute and then talked herself to sleep. It is quite fun listening to her talking to herself.

Here she is:
Not sure what to think of that horse
Four months
Hanging out on the front porch
A day at the park
She loves her lamb "Larry"

Well, I am sorry I can't write more. I really must get back to my marathon training
a.k.a. living the dream.

The Spirit Moves

So I went to a Confirmation tonight for students at St. Joe's and St. William's. I love Confirmations. I love Bishop Sklba. What a wonderfully spirit-filled night. Congratulations to the students who were confirmed tonight.

I guess I knew that it was a short week on Tuesday but I never thought Friday would sneak up so quickly!

And for a final thought tonight before I head up to bed:
Nothing better for dinner than a big bowl of ice cream!
Now that is what I call
Living the dream!

Wouldn't you like to be a pepper too?

I ran I went out for a leisurely run and it was fantastic. One of the most brilliant feelings is cruising along and feeling good while running. This was the first of many training runs. Lakefront Marathon is in October and my official training begins on Monday!

The school year is finishing up and things are coming to a very nice close. I look forward to my summer with my daughter. We are going to have all kinds of fun and get into all kinds of trouble.

Brewers have dropped the ball lately though, I was at school while they played today and have not yet looked at the score. **Crosses Fingers** Ughhhh. They lost 3-2. Whelp, it's a long season.

I planted last weekend. We have tomato plants, and hot peppers. Salsa city, here we come!

Salsa city=
living the dream

Annnnnnnnnnnnd she's famous!

That is right folks, Clarebear made the homepage of our photographers website as well as the newborn section. I think it is because she is just so darn adorable.

http://www.caseybowerphotography.com/index2.php?v=v1

By the by, if you are looking for a good photographer... Casey was great!

In those photos, Clare appears to be
living the dream.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend

So Parra did not exactly have a stellar night last night but luckily this guy is planning to whomp the twinkie hitters tonight!








Well, tonight is date night! We have a student from the better half's place of employment coming to watch the little one tonight and I think we are going to go rock climbing. I think I have put on about 20 pounds and lost about 98.8% of my forearm strength since the last time we have gone so this should be entertaining.... picture me falling off the side of a climbing wall and Elizabeth getting scooped up in the air by my weight on the other end of the rope... the two of us suspended in mid air with our respective ends of the rope getting more and more twisted as we writhe in goofy laughter.

You too could go to Adventure Rock someday and be
living the dream!

What better to come home to?

How cute is she? This is the cutie
that I came home to tonight.
Can life get better than this?
I submit that it cannot!

In news other than baby news, the Brewers are back and although I was upset that we would lose my boy Rickie Weeks, Gamel proved, in his first game, that he comes to play hard. I hope he keeps it up .

Some of you know that I have signed up for the Lakefront Marathon again this year. "Big Tuna," a buddy from school, and I will be running this October (provided we both follow through on training). This will be Tuna's first marathon and it will be an honor to run it with him. So if you are tracking the training log, you may see that my last run was quite a while back. The challenge for me will be to actually run after Clare is in bed for the night. That means not running until as late as 7:00! This could be interesting.

On the 18 week training plan, I should be starting to train on the 31st. That is a goal.

The flowers are blooming out in front of the house and there is something so wonderful about taking Clare out on the front porch and sitting, enjoying the breeze.

Talk about
living the dream!

My Fingers Were Broken... I Couldn't Type!

Ok, that is not true. I have just neglected the blog. At least I had a good excuse... I was hanging out with my daughter!

So Clare is four months old now and is as cute as ever. "Prove it" you say?

So there!

She is four months old and I will try to catch you up in a hurry:
She loves to eat her fingers
She has grown three+ inches
She had hair, lost it, and it is growing back
She loves baths and long walks on the beach (or outside in general)
She has a new cry (I call it the "I think I'm dying " cry)
She has a strong neck but hasn't quite rolled over.
She has finally grown out of some clothes (the newborn ones)
She spits up and pukes a lot (we call her vesuvius or blowhole)
She like to get raspberries on the tummy
She loves to be super-Clare (held as though she is flying)
She still has those gorgeous blue eyes
Sometimes she sleeps, sometimes she doesn't
She drinks bottles like a champ
She loves her mommy
She is grabbing things now (like toys and hair)
She is sleeping in her crib now (instead of her bouncy chair)
She loves being outside
She was baptized last week
She likes to go to church
She likes to nurse
She loves me!

SO now what you have been waiting for:
Baptism day with Mommy

With her Godmother

Old photo but a favorite


So yeah, you could say I've been
living the dream.

great new photos!

well i am typing with just my left hand while holding clare... i just had to pass on the new photos.

find them here and you too can be
living the dream

2 posts in three days... it's a record!

I know that the photos are what you really want!
Someday this will make quite a neat series!




Ummm... Cute!



Daddy Watching Tummy Time!


















Clare's Calvin Klein Advertisement


Clare thought it would be funny to get 5 straight hours of sleep a night for two nights in a row in order to make us think that that will be the norm. Then she went ahead and showed us what it will really be like! Ok, really it is not that bad. Although I say that after a week of being sick when the lovely Elizabeth did everything she could to help make sure that I got plenty of sleep.

Speaking of sleep. Here is what I have realized. I need to work on my waking in the middle of the night skills! I wake up, decide to go and get a bottle ready for Clare, then I think to myself... I'll do it in just a minute. I'll take just 20 seconds to wake up before getting out of bed. I even count down the seconds in my head. Somehow I never make it to the "3 2 1 ok, time to go" part!

I would also like to point out that there is nothing cuter than watching Elizabeth playing with and talking to Clare. They have so much fun together.

On the weight front, Clare has cleared 7lbs 3oz. Her cheeks keep getting cuter, as hard as that may be to believe.

She has decided that she likes to listen to the radio as she falls asleep. AM 610 is a favorite. Check it out sometime. They play all of your favorite white noise.

Alright folks, I have to run. But keep smiling







and Living the Dream!