The Flick Four

I've been a photo taking SLACKER lately, so I wasn't even planning on doing You Capture this week. But when I opened Beth's blog, and saw the theme was "Looking In", an Instagram photo I took a few days ago immediately popped into my head. And I couldn't NOT post it...

My babies. Hanging out. Being brothers. Why Gavin is sitting on the dog crate, I will never know...

Check out more of this week's You Capture, at I Should Be Folding Laundry.

Remember last week (or was it the week before?) when I mentioned I had eleventy billion projects on my waiting to be done list? Well... *insert drum roll here*... I FINISHED ONE! Woo hoo! AND- I took pictures of it, just for you :)

Wanna see? No? Too bad... you're here, so I'm showing you. It all started with these awesome clipboards I saw on Pinterest. Since one of my kids isn't in school yet, and the other one is only partially in school, I didn't need totally school based clip boards for them. So I put a few little chores that they can start being responsible for around the house. Even Grady, who's only 3, has a short list of stuff he will have to do every day.

These were really totally easy. I bought the clip boards at Wal-Mart for less than $2. I used plain ol' acrylic paint that you can buy anywhere, and a sponge brush to paint them. White vinyl cut on my cricut for the words, and papers I already had (and even the letter stickers that I never use) for the personalization. The most labor intensive part was finding and ordering a sheet of dry erase vinyl for the squares. I think regular vinyl would have probably worked with dry erase markers, but I wasn't positive and I didn't want to do the project then find out it didn't work.

I ordered it from here. They shipped super fast, and have tons of other vinyl to choose from. I'm thinking there will be chalk board vinyl in my next order. (the shipping is a little high, but this is pretty much the only vendor I found, so I sucked it up and bought it anyway). I'm glad I did decide to order it. The dry erase vinyl is a little heavier, and FAR shinier, than the regular stuff. It works GREAT!
 
Because I made my boards for every day use, rather than school week use (like the original ones I found), I put 7 squares along the bottom, for a parent to mark off that the kid completed their chores each day.You can see in the above picture, that Gavin has already used his and gotten marker on the painted part. He used a marker that wasn't dry erase. I think that's why it smeared, rather than breaking up, when he erased it. I'm hoping I can peel that square off and touch up the paint in that spot before I hang these on the wall for regular use.

 I used all Echo Park Playground papers on these (including one for myself that I didn't take a picture of.). They aren't hung on he wall yet, so I cant comment on how well they are working. BUT- Gavin was very excited when I finished them. He loves to check stuff off!

On to the next project in the queue... Still working on the elements to put on that blank wall in the kitchen... Here's a little sneaky peek!

About 4 months ago, I got a wild hair and decided to start running. I have never run in my life. Well, I have. But never willingly. And not for a consistent form of exercise. Until now! I find myself actually enjoying my runs. Don't get me wrong- its not necessarily FUN- its *hard*. ESPECIALLY when you haven't ever done it before. But I'm getting better, and enjoying it more and more. I like getting out and enjoying our sunshine (that we have plenty of), having more energy, and seeing a difference in my body (especially through the middle, where all my "baby fat" hangs out).

Shortly after I caught the running bug, a good friend said she had just started running too. She also told me that she and another girl I know were planning to run a 4 mile race on Superbowl Sunday. She invited me to run with them, so I took a leap and said yes!

Yesterday was the big day. My first REAL race. not that I was racing really. Not anyone else anyway, just myself. I was planning on finishing the race and running as much as I possible could. I was secretly hoping to be able to run enough to get a time of 45 minutes. But I was also realistic with myself and knew I would likely get somewhere closer to an hour. And I was OK with that. I mostly just wanted to do my best.

It was a gorgeous day for a run! Chilly in the morning, but the sun was out and it warmed up pretty quick. This is my friend Jazzmine (the one who roped me into this whole deal) and I right after we picked up our T-shirts and numbers. We were freaking freezing at this point. And I was standing on a little bit of a hill and look oddly tall...

The race started at 9, so when it was time to line up- the sun was shinning and we were warming up. Here is one more pre-race shot of the three of us... That's Raquel in the middle. Shes an old hand at this running thing. She beat my time by like 20 minutes. We saw her at the starting line, and that was it until the end. lol.

The first half of the race was along the streets. It was mapped out well with cones and spray paint, and people on several corners to make sure there were no wrong turns. Just after the start of the 3rd mile, the course cut off the road and continued on a trail along side of a small lake. You cant see the lake in this picture (it was before I realized that's where we were headed) but I had to stop and snap a quick shot of how GORGEOUS it was out side.