Halloween time is not complete without pumpkin carving. After Lilah went to bed on Friday night we had Lacey and Travis over and got our carve on. Thanks guys, it was fun!
Pumpkin Carving
October 21, 2011 By 1 Comment
Bean Museum
October 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Lilah, like most kids, loves animals! So, we decided to take her to the Bean Life Science Museum. I’ve actually only been there one other time, but remember that it was really cool. Lilah loved it! She has been making a lot of different animal sounds, and would run up to the statues and tell us what they said.
Lilah knows the animal sounds for: Tiger, Lion, Horse, Cow, Owl, Rooster, Dog, Chicken, Chicks, Mouse, Duck, Cat, Goat, Lamb, Donkey, Rabbit, Fish, Monkey, Bear, Snake, and Goose. So even though there were tons of other animals there, she would usually group them into something she already knew and make that sound. I thought it was so cute! She is scared of the sounds that lions, bears, and tigers make, even when she makes them herself. She usually wants a hug from mommy after she makes a growling noise. We had lots of hugs at the museum.
Idaho Weekend
October 15, 2011 By 2 Comments
The day after our annual Asian Star dinner our whole family headed up to Idaho for a mini family reunion. Angela, Jeff and their kids were making their trip because Jeff’s little brother was getting married. We all jumped at the chance to have the whole family there. My wonderful mother just found out that that she will need to undergo chemo therapy again along with radiation treatments. She knew that this would be the last chance to get everyone together for a family picture before her treatments and loosing all her hair.
We had such a fun weekend together and I credit this all to my mom. Even though she is going through something so difficult, she radiates strength and peace. She’s happy and full of faith. This sets a great example for the rest of us and allows us to go on enjoying our lives together. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers. I know she will feel and appreciate them.
Mom loves it when we are all home and we love it as well! We all arrived on Friday night, and enjoyed eating, talking, and playing games. On Saturday I was able to go on a quick run with Angela and her sister-in-law Amanda Stevens. I love running with these girls and jump at any chance I get. That evening was Jeff’s younger brother’s wedding reception. Jonny and Emilee make such a cute couple and we were happy to be able to celebrate with them.
Lilah loves dancing around to the music. She kept pulling her skirt up higher and higher especially when she realized that she was making us all laugh. Here are two funny little videos of her.
On Sunday we all got the opportunity to hear my mom and Lacey sing a duet in sacrament meeting. They did a beautiful job and it brought such a sweet spirit to the meeting. Lacey was actually planning on singing a different song by herself that day. Then while sitting in the chapel she asked my mom if they could switch the song and sing a duet. My mom was supposed to play the piano, so they quickly found another pianist and went to a room to run through the song. First of all, the pianist (sister Leach) did amazing and I can’t believe someone can play such a hard song without practice, and secondly both my mom and Lacey sang the song so beautifully on short notice as well. We were all blessed to be there and share in the experience.
We were also able to take family pictures, and we were so grateful to the photographer for squeezing us into her schedule at the last minute. I’m excited to get the pictures! I’ll put some up in a later post.
Annual Asian Star Dinner
October 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment
I can’t believe it’s this time of year again! Every year we attend a birthday dinner for Grandma Hiller at on of her favorite places, the Asian Star. The gathering gets larger and larger every year, so they give us our own room to party in. This year was a record year for Tanner attendance; My parents and Cole were able to make the trip down because it coincided with a doctors appointment and a wedding, Lacey and her boyfriend Travis came up from Provo, and Houston and Becca dropped in on their way up to Rexburg.
Sadly, this is the only picture we got of the birthday girl. Anyone who knows Grandma Hiller knows she doesn’t like getting her picture taken. I’m glad we were able to get one anyways.
Kendra, Baby Jackman, Dad-Tanner, William, and Grandpa Haworth
Lilah getting lots of love. I love baby open mouthed kisses!
Us with Lacey and Travis
I’m grateful that we have this tradition. It’s a great excuse to get together and enjoy each other.
Conference Weekend
October 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Tom and I decided to head up to Grandma and Grandpa Haworth’s Farm for conference weekend. We drove up Saturday morning and stayed till Sunday evening. It was a really relaxing weekend, and we were able to spend a lot of good quality time with Grandma and Grandpa.
I am in love with this cute high chair that my Grandma has had forever.
Danny, Branae, and Matt stopped by on Saturday afternoon and we got to spend a little time with them. Then Nathan and Kendra made the drive up on Saturday night and joined us for the rest of the weekend. It was fun to be able to visit and spend time together. It doesn’t happen nearly as often now that they are in Mountain Green.
Lilah learned how to jump on a trampoline while we were there, and she loved it! We spent a lot of time out there.
Nathan and Kendra brought their dog Lady with them. These videos show Lilah’s enthusiasm for dogs! I don’t know where she got it! Neither Tom nor I have a thing for them. I guess it just makes her a kid.
Conference itself was so uplifting and inspiring. I enjoyed it so much and found myself really sad when it was over. But I am really looking forward to going home and re-listening to all the talks right off of lds.org. A few things that stuck out to me were 1) building my ability to receive personal revelation, 2) serve, serve, serve, 3) the best way a father can teach his daughter is to love her mother 4) faith is acting on what you feel is right even when you don’t know what will happen–and so much more.
I have a testimony that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is true. I know it can guide us to happiness. And I am so grateful for this little pick-me-up every 6 months.
Random September
September 30, 2011 By 1 Comment
I have been able to do a little bit of canning this year with the extra tomatoes that our garden produced. It is my first time canning and I was surprised at how time consuming it was. I canned on 2 separate days and got 14 quart jars of stewed tomatoes.
Here is a video of Lilah saying some of her favorite words for me.
Lacey, Lilah and I at the elementary school carnival. Tom was there with us too, but he was taking the picture. Lilah couldn’t go on any of the bounce houses, but she still loved walking around with all the other kids. We have such a fun neighborhood with tons of kids.
Here’s Lilah sitting on her very own potty seat. We have been doing this a lot lately. Things have developed quite a bit since my last post. On most days Lilah will go #2 in the toilet 2-3 times depending on how many times she has to go that day. I have gone for 4 day stretches without having to change a poopy diaper! She is very regular and always goes #2 at least 2 times a day.
She’s having a more difficult time with #1, but sometimes catches it really well. One day she went #1 6X! I think she still goes #1 so often that she doesn’t realize it’s happening sometimes. It’s probably because she’s still so young. I wasn’t even expecting her to be interested in doing this so early. She thinks it is really fun and gets excited to sit on the toilet. We get some false alarms because of it. When she does go potty or if she just wants to sit there for a while, her reward is getting to read a book. She never ever gets tired of reading books! I usually just let her run around in clothes without a diaper until lunch time. She is usually really good about telling me when she needs to go during that part of the day. Things get tricky when we are driving or somewhere other than home.
Lilah enjoying her very own bowl of stove-popped popcorn while we watch ‘Biggest Loser’ together as a family.
Here are 2 videos of Lilah all dressed up in an outfit of her choosing.
Here’s a video of Lilah’s crazy static hair after going down a slide.
15 Months
September 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment
I really can’t believe that my baby is now 15 months old! She seems more and more grown up every day. Here are her 15 months stats:
Weight 20.1 lbs (11.3%)
Height 29.25 (16.9%)
Head 18.1 (53%)
Lilah loves to dress up in pretty clothes. She will go into her bedroom, pick out some clothes, and bring them to me to put on. She usually picks out things that are really frilly. Then she struts around the house looking very proud of herself.
Her love of dogs seems to be growing. She can pick out a picture of a dog anywhere. I had a t-shirt on the other day and she started screaming “doggie, doggie” while pointing at my shirt. I looked down and found a very tiny dog in the middle of a design that I hadn’t even known was there. I have to really watch her around other people’s dogs, because she will run right up to them and try to kiss them right on the mouth.
We caught a video of her reading to herself.
Lilah still loves reading books. We go to the library and get new books often so that we always have something new to read. I usually keep the library books way underneath the couch so that she doesn’t play with them and bend the pages. One day while I was doing the dishes she started yelling and banging against something. I found her half way under the couch, trying to pull the books out. She had to turn her head just right to fit it under the couch and couldn’t figure out how to get back out… lol
Lilah is really interested in going to the potty. We bought her a seat to fit over the toilet a while back and I’ve started talking to her about it a little bit. I mainly just talked to her about it. Well, for the last 4 days she will tell me every time she is going popo. After telling me she will run into the bathroom and wait for me to let her sit on the toilet. Today when she told me she needed to go, I put her on the toilet and she peed right away! I was so proud of her! She hasn’t pooped in the toilet yet and usually notices right after she has already gone. But she likes to sit there and try to go more. It makes changing diapers really easy because it barley even touches her skin before I put her on the toilet. I’m hoping this means I’ll be able to potty train her early.
Lilah is still a great nurser. I didn’t really have a set plan for how long I would nurse her, but it’s still going great and I don’t see any big reason to stop yet. I love knowing that she is getting so many good things from the milk. I also enjoy the time I get to just hold my crazy toddler. She is so busy and not a cuddly girl, so I really cherish the time even though it’s only about 10 minutes 4 times a day.
Lilah says; mama, dada, doggie, Nana, Grandma, Grandpa, Lacey, Jesus, Lilah, this, that, popo, pepe, all done, knees and toes, bye bye, a-huh, fish, and tries to repeat lots of other words we ask her to. It usually ends up sounding like some variation of the other words she knows and for the most part sounds like it starts with the letter D.
She loves stacking cups into a tower then taking them all down one at a time. We’ve spent a lot of afternoons doing this over and over again. She doesn’t like to knock the towers down. In fact when Tom tries to show her how to do it she just looks worried and says “uh Ooh.”
She loves singing and will often walk around the house making up a song. It usually ends up saying “knees and toes” from “head, shoulders, knees & toes.”
Lilah loves; drawing with side walk chalk, swinging on swings, sliding down the big kid slides, helping me harvest vegetables from the garden, chasing dad around while he mows the lawn, giving big open mouthed kisses, stomping her feet, dancing, almond milk, dates, blueberries, peanut butter, the neighbor kids, having her picture taken, looking at pictures & videos of herself, and much much more. She has so much personality and spunk. I am enjoying this stage so much. We love you Lilah.
Cheer Reunion
September 8, 2011 By 1 Comment
A group of us who cheered together met up Kiwanis park to catch up. It was a pretty small group, but I’m so glad we met up. A lot has changed since we all cheered together… lol But it’s amazing how quickly things can almost feel like old times again. I wish I had remembered to get a group picture.
KC and I doing a stretch minus
KC and I doing a Scorpion
I actually felt quite nostalgic afterwards; I miss our daily practices, warming up to the “Spelling Song,” getting thrown into the pit, sitting against the mirror talking…complaining, braving the ice bath up to our stomachs and sometimes our necks, trying new stunts, dances and pyramids, getting bruises over and over again…lol, the butterflies I got standing on the field as the football team ran out of the tunnel. I really enjoyed my time cheering for BYU. There were definitely ups and downs, but I’m grateful for all the time I had to do something I loved.
Lilah has never seen anything like that before and actually really enjoyed it! She ran around trying to do somersaults and tricks herself. She also kept wanting to hug and kiss me. I think she thought it was pretty cool… lol
Memorial Weekend at the Haworths
September 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment
After the Pocatello Marathon we all headed to Grandma and Grandpa Haworth’s farm for the long weekend! Pocatello is only about 1.5 hours away from their house, so we didn’t have far to go. We also had more family meet us there. Houston and Becca drove up that morning and beat us there, and Lacey met us up there on Saturday night. Nathan and Kendra were actually there for the weekend as well!
On Saturday we arrived just in time to watch the BYU – Ole Miss football game. We were grateful to start the season with a win! Go Cougars! We pretty much spent all of Saturday relaxing and eating. I couldn’t believe how hungry I was all day from the race!
On Sunday morning we attended Grandma and Grandpa’s ward. We know so many people from the area, since my mom grew up here, so it is always fun to visit their ward. On Sunday night we played games together as a family and I am always surprised at how funny Grandma and Grandpa are! They just jump right in and join the fun. We are so grateful to have a home-away-from-home to visit.
After heading off to bed Tom and Cole surprised us with some pretty funny outfits they found in a closet. The best part was that Grandma and Grandpa had 7 girls…. so you can imagine what they found…
On Monday I was able to get in a short and very slow jog with Kendra to help work out the soreness in my legs. They actually felt a lot less stiff by the time I got back. We spent the rest of the day just kind of relaxing and enjoying being together. We didn’t have a lot of time, and everyone ended up taking off by around 5pm.
I always love the drives home from the farm. Tom and I have so many good things to say about our wonderful grandparents and what good examples they are to all of us. They work so hard to keep our family close and you can tell they love us all so much. It was a great weekend.
Pocatello Marathon
September 3, 2011 By 4 Comments
Angela and I decided that we would run the Pocatello Marathon this year. We have been wanting to run a race together for a long time, but it just never seemed to work out. I was really excited to be able to do the same race. Then Angela’s sister-in-law Amanda decided to run it with us as well, and it just got better! This post is kind of long and detailed, but I want to have it documented for me to look back on.
Angela flew into SLC on Thursday night. We got to spend most of Friday hanging out, and talking about strategies for the next day. Tom was able to leave work a little early and we took off for Pocatello around 2pm. Angela and I tried to get a little extra sleep on the way up, knowing that we probably wouldn’t sleep very much that night. After arriving in Pocatello we met up with Amanda Stevens, her son Gideon, and Angela’s mother-in-law Lori. Then we all headed over to the expo to grab out gear. We got a bag and a pretty cool long sleeved shirt, which I thought was a good deal for the $60 entrance fee.
After the expo we decided to head to dinner. We basically just stopped at the first place we saw…Texas Roadhouse. I was really nervous because I never eat out the night before I run a race, but after looking at the menu I was able to pick something that seemed pretty safe. I had chicken, a plain sweet potato, and fresh steamed veggies. We had a great time eating, and laughing.
Us 3 runners waiting at Texas Roadhouse
After dinner we dropped Lori, Gideon, Tom & Lilah off at my cousins house and us 3 girls headed to our hotel. We decided that a hotel would be a good option since we needed to go to bed real early, wake up really early, and be close to the shuttle. I loved having our little girls night before the race…I’ve never done anything like that, and I really enjoyed it. Sleeping was pretty much horrible for all 3 of us. I literally only slept for 3 1/2 hours…my nerves really keep me awake. Angela and Amanda didn’t get much more than that either.
We were all pretty much wide awake by 4:30am. I was grateful that I didn’t need to try and sleep anymore and was very ready to just get this race started. We got up, threw our clothes on, talked and laughed a little more and were out the door by 5am. The bus ride was about 15 minutes long. It dropped us off at the starting line, which didn’t look like much of anything. We spent all our time in a barn full of animals… lol (literally, there was a barn full of animals on the property next to the starting line) and standing in line for the port-a-potties. After our 2nd time through the line we threw our duffle bags with our warm clothing in the truck and jumped in the pack of people ready to start the race.
Here we are hanging out in the barn, trying to stay warm…lol
I was very happy when the race finally started and felt great right from the start. It was still dark when we started, but I could tell that we were pretty much out in the middle of nowhere. I would have to say that this may have been my favorite course I’ve even run on. We watched the sun rise over the mountains and it was beautiful. There was nothing but trees, mountains, and a few random cabins. It was very peaceful running down the quiet windy road. The first half of the race dropped about 1400 ft in elevation, which was very significant. I had to hold myself back from going out too fast. I really wanted to be able to enjoy this race and not kill my legs right at the beginning.
I made quite a few friends a long the way and was reminded at how much I enjoy racing and spending time with people who love doing what I love doing. About mile 7 there was a little loop that made it possible to see all the front runners go by and I was able to figure that I was either the 9th or 10th girl overall at that point. I decided at that point that I was going to focus on my time and that I would be be really excited if I came in, in the top 10. I had decided that I was shooting to run the race under 3 hours & 20 minutes.
Mom Tanner, Tom, Lilah, me, Cole, & Angela after the race.
For this race I decided that I only wanted to eat my own homemade power bars instead of Gu’s. I had trained with them and felt great. They were made out of dates, walnuts, oats, unsweetened coconut, cinnamon, and sea salt. At mile 7 I started eating my first bar and finished it around 10. At the half way point (13.1 miles) I was feeling really good and really having a hard time holding myself back. I had been trying to keep my pace between a 7:20 and a 7:30 for the first half, but ended up averaging a 7:15 pace. I decided to let myself speed up a little bit. My legs were feeling fine and my lungs were feeling great. I pulled out my 2nd bar around mile 14 and accidentally dropped the whole thing. I was pretty sad about it, but wasn’t about to turn around to get it. I only had 3 bars, so I had to rethink my strategy for my last bar. I decided to eat the first half and save the 2nd half for later. I drank small amounts of power aid at each aid station.
Lori Stevens, Gideon, Angeal, and Amanda after the race.
The 2nd half of the course dropped about a 150 ft total but actually had quite a few rolling hills. There were a few that were quite tough, but I was still feeling great and this is where I started to pass people. There was one hill at about mile 20.5 that was really tough. I could see 2 girls ahead of me and decided to go after them. I passed one in the middle of the hill and the 2nd closer to the top. I knew by that point that I should be in about 7th or 6th place.
At that point we were starting to get closer to town and there were a few people around cheering us on. I was actually missing the quiet country roads, but definitely appreciated the encouragement. I picked off another girl pretty soon after the hill and set my sights on 2 more ahead of me. I ate the second half of my last date bar around mile 22. By mile 23 I was keeping my pace under a 7 min mile and picking off people pretty quickly. I could tell that a lot of people were hitting the wall and just trying to get to the finish line.
I really picked up my pace for the last 1.5 miles and was able to pass 2 more girls. As I came down the home stretch I got to see my parents, my brother Cole, Tom & Lilah, and Lori & Gideon. It was really fun to have them all there to cheer us on and support us. I could see one last girl ahead of me and watched her cross the finish line. I heard the announcer say that she was the 2nd girl overall. I had stopped calculating my position by that point and was surprised that I would take 3rd place! I came in 10 seconds after the 2nd place girl. I felt great after the race and even jogged back down the course to find my family. I finished the race in 3:08:34 which was a new PR by about 22 minutes.
Family celebrating after the race. Thanks again for coming guys!!
Amanda and Angela both were able to run PR marathons as well! We hung out at the finish line and ate a bunch of food, took part in the awards ceremony, and just celebrated our accomplishments. All in all it was a fantastic day!
The 3 of us hanging out before the award ceremony.