So true...

Today we showed Zack and Sydney a video that was sent from Santa. It's really cool, it says several specific items about your child and even has their picture! It's called Portable North Pole. As we watched the video Zack was pretty surprised to see all of the stuff about himself - his picture with "Nice" marked, where we live, his request for "jets" and even that he has been trying to get along with his sister! At the end of the video he ran off to go tell Sydney about it, and he said "I didn't know I was going to be 'Nice'!"
Yes, that was pretty surprising!! haha

A visit to see the Big Guy

We went to see Santa over at Levis Commons tonight. It went well - neither kid was too shy to talk to him. It was cute, Sydney forgot what she was going to tell Santa, even though it had been rehearsed in the car several times before we got there.
Sydney asked for a "make a plate kit" and Zack asked for "jets" and a "nerf gun". Since Sydney couldn't think of what else she had wanted, Santa recommended that she write a list and give it to Mom & Dad so we could let Santa know. Good plan!

Manor House

One of our annual holiday traditions is going to the Manor House to see all of the decorations. We used to go see these displays when I was a kid! The house is so beautiful, I like to walk around the estate and imagine what it would be like if I lived there....

The solarium was decorated all twinkly and these glass trees glowed along one of the many fireplace mantles.

Here are the kids - and they even stayed out of trouble and didn't touch anything :)

A large train track is set up the basement. As always Zack was mesmerized by the trains. Fortunately this year he left without tears in his eyes!

$17??

Today Zack asked when were were going over to Grandma B's house again. I told him I wasn't sure because they were on their cruise.
me: "Why?"
Zack: "I wanted to ask Grandma a question."
me: "What is that?"
Zack: "I wanted to ask her if she has $17"
$17 is how much the HotWheels Power Drop Transporter truck costs at ToysRUs that he wants for Christmas. He saw it there last time we were shopping and has had it on his mind every since. He wants the orange one. I told the kids how much several toys cost, so we didn't end up with $80 toys on the "I want for Christmas" list!

Lights at the Zoo

It was a cold night at the Zoo - but we bundled up and braved the cold weather. The lights were beautiful as usual.

The dancing tree lights are always a favorite of the kids.

Here is the grand tree at the front of the zoo. Looks just like the one in our yard!! haha

Here is what keeps everyone going - a cup of hot chocolate! First Sydney complained that she was only getting a half a cup of hot chocolate, and then she spilled half of it on the floor. There was so much in Zack's cup that we shared and everyone still had enough. Despite the weird look on the kids face, they really did like it :)

Home repair

Alan has been repairing the squeaks in the upper floor. Last weekend we had the carpet pulled up, he peeled it back, and put screws in about every inch of the floor. It really worked! No more squeaking. In a couple of areas he had to put in shims to even out the flooring. Since that worked, he decided to go over to the other loft and do it there too. And then Sydney excused herself from the kitchen and said she wanted to go look at something. And she stood there, just staring at this....

oops. yes, that is the shim pushing out of the wall upstairs... I think Alan hit that shim in just one too many times. :)

Happy 50th Anniversary Grandma & Grandpa!!

The day I have been waiting for has finally arrived - my parent's 50th wedding anniversary! With a little persuasion from my Aunt Louise, we decided to throw a surprise party for them at our house. The only challenge has been keeping the kids from mentioned it to Grandma & Grandpa. Of course the kids really had no clue what was going to happen, they did know we were having a party for them and that would have been enough to tip them off.

But the kids did a great job of not mentioning it, and Grandma & Grandpa were truly surprised. We even made this little sign for them, and Grandma didn't get it when she saw it.

All of the Aunts and Uncles were there along with some old friends: the Littles, and the Henry's. The kids wore their finest for the special occasion.

Alan was our chef for the evening - thanks so much Alan!! I really appreciated it.

The look on the kids' faces is priceless - dig in!! Even they could find something they liked to eat - well, mostly just treats, pretzels and maybe a cucumber, but hey, that's what parties are for :)

A family picture - Brian, Mom & Me The party was a great success!

There's a mouse in our house!!

Wow, some mornings are way more exciting than others. You know, school mornings, work mornings, yawn, snore. But what about this dreary looking Saturday morning. The kids are watching Disney Playhouse, I'm working on my computer looking at pictures... and all of sudden I see Pico jumping around in the train room. What the heck? A spider? A bug? As I get up to investigate I see a *field mouse* scampering an inch in front of Pico's paws. What?? First thought, how the heck did a mouse get in our house?? Second thought, quick get a bucket to catch him! Luckily he made his way out to the kitchen, and into the sunroom. We closed the doors fast and he snuck under a cabinet. Soon he ran out and I stuck a bucket on top of him. Poor little guy, he was so scared. After a thorough investigation of the mouse, Alan set him free out by the fence in the back yard. Fun! but I hope I never see one again in the house :) Pico has earned her treat for the day.

Photo session

In honor of my parent's 50th wedding anniversary I thought it was time to get a portrait of the two of them. So I offered my semi-professional (haha) photography skills and took them out to Wildwood park for a photo session. It turned out to be a great day and we got some good shots. Here are a few of my favorites. Still a cute couple after all of those years :)

Happy Halloween!!

Happy Halloween everyone!! We went over to Aunt Anita's house for Trick or Treating this year. The kids were dressed as a cheerleader (yep, a repeat from last year) and a football player from our favorite football team - Ohio State!

Zack loved running around with the football.

Go Bucks!!

In contrast to our all American kids, we had the vampire princess over at Aunt Anitas! Doesn't Alexus look cool?! We all had a lot of fun. The weather could have been a little warmer, but the candy was good anyways.

Halloween Party

Sydney's class had their Halloween party. They couldn't dress in costumes, but the did get some yummy treats!

Pumpkin carving

First, we planned out what the faces were going to look like. Sydney instructed Daddy on how to create the perfect face.


Surprisingly, Zack wanted to help get some of the pumpkin seeds out.

We had 5 pumpkins to carve this year. Our hands were tired at the end!

We made two big batches of pumpkin seeds - including these "gourmet" ones. They were all yummy!

School pics are here!

Here are Sydney's 1st grade pictures. awwwww

My big race day!

The day I have been training for all summer has arrived. The 10K run! I made it my goal this year to not only run a 5K with Jennifer, but also to run a 10K. Alan agreed to run it with me, and he did. Look at us - we're Team Willford!! :)

It was a chilly run at the Racing For Recovery event, 39 degrees at start time I think. Thank god we had hats and gloves. There were only 80 runners in the 10K event, and 191 runners in the 5K event.

The results were:
54 30/38 339 Alan Willford 42 M 57:27 9:15
55 25/42 340 Lisa Willford 41 F 57:27 9:15

That's a time of 57 mins, 27 seconds. We laughed because I ranked 4th in my age division! yippie!! oh, but there were only 4 in my age division, so technically I was last in my age division - and so was Alan because he ran so slow with me! hahaha oh well, you have to start someplace. My only goal was to finish under an hour, so I was still thrilled with my results :) Next year... a half marathon. Destined to be Alan's slowest time ever!!

**** Update - the final results were posted and I now noticed that someone took 1 hour, 4 minutes to finish - making her 5th in my division. Whew! Ditto with Alan's group, 1 person was slower than him too. I love not being last!!

Poor Zack :(

After a weekend of dragging Zack over to Grandma & Grandpa's, Chuck E Cheese and the park, he was too sick to go to school today. Should have seen that one coming. He's been coughing a lot, runny nose and running a slight temperature in the middle of the night. Here he is with his new best friend, the box of tissues....

This is what he looked like a few days earlier - he fell asleep on the floor!

A walk in the park

It was such a beautiful fall day that I had to drag the family out to Side Cut park for a walk. The kids were lured there by the promise of being able to play at the park, while I had my camera in tow with other thoughts on my mind :)

We all tried to skip some stones in the river. Alan was the most successful.

We searched for the grasshopper... which got away.

My cuties on the rocks.

Then we finally made it to the playground as promised.

Wow! Look at the awesome fall colors! oops, maybe I photoshopped that one a bit too much, but it was really beautfiul.

We've been booed!

This morning I happened to glance outside on the front porch and saw two orange bags. Much to our surprise we had been "boo-ed!" The bags were packed with awesome treats that were hard to get a picture of without a set of hands in the picture!

Grrrrrrrrrrr

Grrrrrrrrr!!! that's the sound we heard all evening around our house. I've been toying with the idea of getting another kitten so Pico could have a friend. I've looked at the Humane Society every week looking for the "right" kitten. Well, when I stopped by our Vet's office a few weeks ago they had some kittens to adopt. I finally decided to take everyone over there to check them out. Of course we all fell in love with a little grey one right away. We decided to adopt her. She is so tiny, only 10 weeks old.

However, once we got the new kitten home, Pico was not so thrilled to meet this "friend" of hers. Ever since she saw her, she has been growling at her. And it's not just a growl and then walking away... Nope, Pico stalks her all over the house, just staring and growling at her.

Pico got so close to her and growled at her that her fur blew in the breeze from Pico's breath. Wow, hope they are buddies tomorrow. :)

Columbus Marathon Weekend

Well the big weekend has finally arrived. You know, the weekend Alan has been training for 18 weeks! The Columbus Marathon! But this year we decided to let the kids in on the fun and signed them up for the kids run. It was .35 miles for Sydney and .15 miles for Zack. They both did a really great job. Here are some shots of the kids in action...

Zack getting ready to make his way out of the back of the pack at the starting line.


Sydney zooming in to the finish line!

I was so proud of them because they both ran the whole distance without stopping - something neither one of them could do during our "training".

Proudly wearing their finishing medals.

We enjoyed a yummy pasta dinner at Carrabba's Saturday night. The next day, we got up at 5:30 am (much to my dismay, despite my disbelief that we REALLY had to get up that early - yes, YOU were right Alan...). It was so darn chilly!! In fact, it was only 33 degrees. All of the spectators and supporters were bundled up in hats, gloves, winter coats and scarfs - and the runners were in shorts & t-shirts.

Alan's training sure paid off - here he is right before mile 26. Still looking strong.

His official finish time was 3 hrs 16 mins - although the service provided by the marathon published a finish of 3:15 on Facebook! Either way, he rocked it. That's a Boston qualifying time. WELL DONE! His previous best time was 3:27. Quite an improvement. He placed 381 out of 4,078 finishers. In his age bracket, he placed 42nd out of 388 finishers. That was as pace of 7:30.

When we came home I ran a measly little 2 miles and then had to come back inside because my ears hurt from the cold. However, I was awarded with medals from my family - so we all had medals. If you could see mine, they say "#1 Mom!", "#1 Wife - Best Wife Ever", "Go", "First Place Mommy" and simply "You Won". Seems I have a pretty great cheering team too :)

The worst part of the weekend - I got a $25 parking ticket for not paying for my parking spot in a lot. Hey, I sure didn't see anyone manning the lot at 7am when we got there. Geez. Oh well, lesson learned.