while in utah

the weekend i was in utah happened to coincide with casey's mom and sister's half marathon race!

i got to be there at the end to cheer them on and it was so fun to celebrate in their accomplishment.

i kept thinking about the half marathon we ran all throughout it.

and although i said i didn't really want to run one again, after seeing all the fun costumes for the halloween half marathon, it sure would be fun to be all dressed up with others around you in their funny costumes!
getting to see my MIL, SIL, and cousin was just pure awesomeness.

maxson LOVES dogs, have i ever mentioned that?ever since he was like 6 months he freaks out in happiness when seeing them. it's adorable.

so when we went to my brother's house and got to LIVE with their indoor labrador for a week he was in h.e.a.v.e.n.

such a good dog, she rarely ran/walked away from the kids, and just sat there as he tugged, pulled, pat harshly, and love on that dog.

ALSO this is the post i wrote the sunday i was there and took 3 children to church by myself:

this weekend i became the pseudo-mother of 3.

abby (almost 4)

britton (18 months)

maxson (11 months)

and holy cow!

it is tiring!!!!!

to all my friends with children close in age, hats off to you!

the weekend actually went great. britton and maxson entertained each other for the most part. and i decided to not try too hard on meals and just give them what they wanted food wise instead of intorucing them to new things so we had a lot of mac-n-cheese, pb&j's, grapes, apples, gogurts, gogurts, and more gogurts. maxson became super attached and whiney though while i've been watching my niece and nephew. i'm guessing it's either because he doesn't appreciate my lack of complete attention on him or he's teething or if he's just done with all this traveling. nonetheless, my back hurts from holding that boy so much. funny things i noticed a) maxson does not want to go down stairs or off things, he will stay at the top of the stairs yelling until i go up and help him come down, ha. some day he'll learn. so his not wanting to go down the stairs provided a natural baby gate for me/him while he was in the upstairs completely child-proof and fun toy infested area. b) if all 3 children were upstairs alone, they could play happily without whining for a long time, if i was in sight, they would each take turns whining at me for various actions of others, too funny. 

hardest part: CHURCH. HOLY COW, ha! on a scale of 1-10 stress level, i was at a 30. my toys, food, and other distractions did not suffice them during all of sacrament meeting. one was singing "i'm a child of god" loudly during half the meeting, one let out exclamations of frustration if food didn't get to his mouth fast enough, and another voiced his opinion with small shrieks every once and a while.  i definitely questioned my sanity of wanting to have more than 1 child it was so fun! so me, alone, 3 rambunctious chillins, surrounded by lots of people. ooooy. we survived though. church was where we were supposed to be during those 3 hours and i'm glad we conquered!