Swim. Bike. Run. Post Baby Workouts

So I have an addiction to triathlons.  Ever since I did my first Tri For The Cure in 2011, I've been hooked.  And for me triathlons and pregnancies seem to go together.  Tony and I tried unsuccessfully for years to get pregnant again after River and after seeking infertility help and still no success we had just about given up on the idea of being able to have more children.  After a summer of tri training,  I found out I was pregnant with Ryder the day after my very first triathlon.
After having Ryder in April 2012, tri season was just around the corner.  Training for my triathlons helped my get back in shape by focusing on being strong and preparing for my races without obsessing over the number on the scale.  Being outside and enjoying the amazing Colorado weather helped me fight off the ever-changing hormones and "baby blues" and scheduling time to train helped me make myself a priority and not just get sucked into the "selflessness" that accompanies motherhood.  I take great pride in the fact that even being a homeschooling mama of 3 and now 4 kids, I have been able to train for triathlons without a gym membership and without spending a ton of money.  (I do have to say that Tony's teacher's schedule and his willingness to be supportive does make a huge difference.)  Just days after doing the Tri for the Cure 2013 with my mom (a breast cancer survivor) I found out that I was pregnant with Rowan.  So evidently triathlons are the key to getting pregnant! : )

Fast forward to today.
After my last pregnancy I didn't do a tri until August so I had most of the summer to train.  This time I signed up for the Tribella (one of my favorite triathlons to do : ) which is at the end of June (yikes!)  They offer a super sprint distance instead of the Sprint and even though I knew it would bug me not to do the full sprint, I wasn't sure how my delivery and recovery would go ( since I was signing up during my third trimester : )  and decided that would be the best option for me.  A dear friend of mine was recovering from a leg injury and we both decided to do the super sprint together.
  
After having Rowan on April 3rd, I've felt like the weight just isn't "melting" off like it seemed to with my other babies.  Even nursing all the time doesn't seem to being greatly affecting my baby belly.  It's been particularly hard to find workout clothes that I feet comfortable in, but once again I'm glad to be focused on tri training instead of just "losing weight."
I planned to start my tri training plan right after my 6 week dr. appointment, so during my 5th week, I decided I would try to walk/jog once, swim once and bike once just to get back in the groove and get over my "fears" after not doing these things for 6 plus months.
Unfortunately, I found out that the pool at Bally has been under construction, so swimming was out and we weren't able to get the bike tuned so biking was out.  Instead, I ending up spending my first 2 workout weeks walk/jogging and doing pilates.  Here is what my postpartum/ tri training workouts looked like:

week 1 & 2 - Enjoyed little Rowan and adjusted to being a family of 6 : )

week 3 - Family walks

week 4 - Family walks

week 5 - Walked/jogged twice (2 miles each time)
              Pilates once ( my core is soo weak!)

week 6 - Walked/jogged 3 times
              Pilates twice

week 7 - Swam half a mile twice (felt amazing! I missed swimming so much)
              Biked 6 miles ( nearly killed me! sore for 2 days)
              Walked/jogged 2 miles
               

week 8 -  First brick workout! Swam 400 m and Ran home from southeast - 2.5 miles (hard!)
               Biked 8 miles (a little better, but still really tough)
               Ran/walked 2.5 miles (feeling stronger)
               Pilates once

week 9 - Ran/walked 2. 5 miles twice (felt much better/ faster)
              Biked 7 miles (quick bike ride before we left for Cheyenne for my bday weekend : )
              Swam half a mile once
              Pilates once (in Cheyenne)
               
week 10 - Biked 14 miles with Shayna : ) (so hard!!)
                Biked 11 miles in Cherry Creek State park (tough but super rewarding : )
                Swam 400 meters during adult swim at Shayna's pool
                Swam 600 meters at Southeast fitness center
                Ran/walked 2.75 miles twice (feeling much better!)
                Pilates once
 
week 11-  Ran/jogged 3 miles twice
                Swam a half mile twice
                Biked 16 miles at Aurora reservoir
             
Race week: 
                 Ran 2 miles
                 Biked 11 miles then Ran 1 mile (felt stronger)
                 Swam 400 meters
                 2 days off to Rest : )

TRIBELLA!!! 

 

The race was awesome but still really tough as my cardiovascular fitness isn't anywhere near where I'd like it to be.  I'm doing a full sprint with Shayna on August 11th and I'm working on a post to show how I'm upping the miles and the intensity as I prepare for that : )  

Nesting

 

The Boys Room!!!! This picture makes me so happy.  River and Ryder have been in the same room for about 3 weeks now and they are doing great.  It's like they were meant to share a room.  No jealousy, no missing their "own" rooms - the transition really has been fairly easy and I'm so grateful.  It's a good sized room so it works really well and they have plenty of room to play cars : )  Tony and I had a big toy clean out and packed a big bin of toys to rotate because there was no way to fit them all in their shared room, but I'm not ready to let them all go just yet especially with another little boy on the way.  Thanks to Nana, they have fabulous matching bedding (which also matches baby's bedding : )

 

Tony also hung these rain gutter bookshelves in their room so we'd have more bookshelf space for toys and the books would be more accessible and visible.  This is something I've been envisioning for a while and I'm beyond thrilled to see it come to life.  It's amazing how transforming even a simple thing like a book shelve can be. 

A Board Book shelf!  We have a million board books all over the house and while I'm thrilled that Rdyer loves them and reads them nonstop, I've been trying to figure out a better way to house them than just piled up in bins.  They are so short that it seems silly to use a whole book shelf for them, so I've been bugging Tony to help me figure out a way to make a smaller shelf for them.  While we were organizing the boys closet, we realized it would be a simpler solution that we thought.  Tony simply raised the shelf up a bit and... voila!  I got my board book shelf!  Happy Day!  Again, amazing the effect these bookshelves are having on me... 

I have been dying to get some see-through drawers in the top of the boys' closet to put their outgrown/ off-season clothes so that I know where they are for the next boy that needs them.  Too often, when clothes go into a bin in the basement, I totally forget about them or can't find them until after the season they would have been used for, etc.  Or worst, I end up buying something new because I didn't realize we already it packed up somewhere.  I call this the "boy store" and everything is labeled 2t summer, 18mos winter, etc.  I am so, so so happy to finally have this done!  Thank you to Nana for hooking us up with the awesome drawers!  

  

Baby boy's room: updated by Nana : ) Still waiting to put his name on the wall - when we finally see his little face and decide...

Freezer meals!!! I wasn't sure that we were going to get a free day to get this done, but this past Sunday God gave us a blessed open morning and just enough energy to prep 11 meals.  It was the best I had felt in a while.  (After prepping the meals, we all cleaned the whole house and then I went to SipNPaint with some girlfriends.  It was such a fulfilling day for me.)  They are frozen and ready for Tony to toss into the crockpot or oven.  

2 lasagnas, 2 red beans and rice, 2 sweet and sour meatballs, 1 chili, 1 spaghetti sauce, 1 tortilla soup, 1 chicken soup, 1 teriyaki chicken.

Homeschool Summary Spring 2014

HISTORY
The Story of the World Volume 2 - The Middle Ages
(chapters 21 - 36)
I am so incredibly thankful for this series.  We really build our entire home school curriculum around it.  We focus on 1 chapter a week.  Scout and my "reading time" centers around the recommended books that go with each chapter.  I read the Story of the World book to her like a novel Sunday night before bed and/or Monday morning.  Throughout the week she reads the books we check out from the library to me and sometimes we take turns reading to each other depending on the reading level of the books.  She reads the non fiction books related to that time period/region during "rest time" in the afternoon and then colors the coloring sheets while listening to the Story of the World audiobook.  Usually on Tuesday of each week we do the map work and narration together and then post the colored map for the remainder of the week for reference.  It has just been such a great fit for our family and for our weekly schedule and I'm so glad we "fell into" this curriculum so early on in our homeschooling adventures : ) I would like to do more of the projects for each chapter, but I think that will happen when River joins us in the next couple of years.  Our plan is to finish up The Middle Ages over the summer and then dive right into Volume 3, Early Modern Times by August.
 
Some of our favorite books from this unit:
Favorite Medieval Tales, Saint George and the Dragon, Lives of Extraordinary Women, Tales of Robin Hood, Liang and the Magic Paintbrush, Fa Mulan, The Paper Dragon, Clay Boy, The Littlest Matriyosha, Baba Yaga, The Legend of the Persian Carpet,The Duchess Bakes a Cake, The Adventures of Tom Thumb, Musicians of the Sun, Moon Rope, So Say the Little Monkeys,

      

READING
Scout's Independent Chapter Books: Moonlight on the Magic Flute,  Gooney Bird Greene series by Lois Lowry, The Never Girls series,  Because of Winn Dixie, Little House on the Prairie, Geronimo Stilton, The Caroline Books, The Three Swords for Granada, The Sword in the Tree, The Kanani books, The Samantha books, Boxcar Children book 2, Anne of Green Gables, The Isabelle books,

 
                
      
Family Read Alouds:  The Boxcar Children, Mary Poppins Opens the Door, The Story of the World - 2  The Story of the Orchestra, Lyle the Crocodile books, Mary Poppins from A to Z , Mary Poppins in the Park     


River:  Teach your Child to read in 100 Easy Lessons (lessons 65-80)

Independent Readers:  BOBs books, Levels 1 - 5 from Carrie Lane's "book boost" list
            
PHONICS/ WRITING/ READING
River:  Explode The Code level 1.5
River was VERY excited about starting these books after doing all 3 primer levels.  He LOVES it and it meets several needs and really simplifies things for me.  Scout had a tendency to rush through these and get into some bad habits without me realizing it, but River likes to go nice and slow and really makes sure everything is done well, so this series is working really well for him so far.

Scout: Writing With Ease - level 2 (weeks 21-36) FINISHED!

All About Spelling - Level 2 - steps 15 - 25  FINISHED!!!




                            
LANGUAGE
Scout:  First Language Lessons - level 2 (lessons 51-100) FINISHED!!!



MATH
Scout - Saxon Math (level 2, WB 2)  FINISHED!!!    Teaching Textbooks - level 3 (lessons 20-60)
River   Saxon K and MUS Alpha (lessons 1 -18)

FINE ARTS:  
Artists:  Rembrandt, Linnaeus, Gainsborough, Degas. Monet, Morisot, Da Vinci, Michelangelo
Music: The Orchestra /Composers (Baroque to Modern)

MEMORY WORK:
Scout and River:  Ephesians 6:13-24
                               CC Cycle 2 weeks 13-24
Scout:
The Goops, The Year, The Little Bird
CBS - Mark memory verses and Job memory verses

The Orchestra and Lyle the Crocodile

For the second year in a row we have started off the new year with a unit study of The Orchestra.  It feels like the prefect fit after studying Tchaikovsy and Handel throughout the holiday season.  The kids love, love getting to read through The Story of the Orchestra and listen to the excerpts that go along with each reading.  This year was even more fun than last year because River was able to understand so much more and Scout remembered a great deal from reading through the book last year.  Throughout our study we also read the following library books and had 2 Fantasia move nights (1 at the Hawkins house and 1 in Cheyenne with Nana and Poppa on "the big TV screen" : )

True to our tradition, we ended our study of the Orchestra by attending the Inside the Orchestra Concert at the Wildlife Experience.  We were invited to this concert 4 years ago by a dear friend and we haven't missed it since.  Scout and River drank up ever second of the concert and loved me so close to all the instruments we'd been studying.  Ryder actually blew me away by how great he was - I think he was a little overwhelmed by the whole experience; he just sat in my lap and stared at the violins and the conductor : )

That same dear friend that invited us to the Inside the Orchestra concert years ago, also invited us to see the spring Children's Theater production at the Arvada Center for Performing Arts.  We saw a production there last year and it was fantastic.  This spring's musical was Lyle the Croccodile, based on the popular children's book series.  

We checked out a ton of the Lyle books and read them in preparation for the play.  I'm glad that we did, because the play followed the storyline pretty much exactly and it was so fun for the kids to see the book "come to life."  We are always so impressed with the productions at the Arvada Center. 

  

What We're Reading - Winter 2014

 

    
Our Family Read-Aloud:  Mary Poppins Opens the Door by P. L. Travers.  If you haven't noticed our family simply cannot get enough of Mary Poppins.  Fortunately, each book seems just as magical and well written as the last. (They might even be getting better)
        
Scout's Independent Reads: 
 Christmast in Camelot,Ghostale at Christmastime,and Midnight on the Magic Flute by Mary Pope Osborne.  Minstrel in the Tower by Gloria Skurzynski. Goonie Bird Greene by Lois Lowry.  The Never Girls by Kiki Thorpe.



                

  Scout's Read Alouds: Lives of Extraordinary Women by Kathleen Krull.  St. George and the Dragon by Margaret Hodges.

                                 
     
River's Read-Aloud: Boxcar Children              



 
Ryder's current Favorite book: Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle

               

         
Ally's Winter reads:
Circle of Quiet by Madeline L'Engle.  Breathe by Kerri Wyatt Kent.  Elegy for Eddie by Jacqueline Winspear.   
         

Tony's Winter Reads: 

The Core by Leigh A. Bortins.  Among the Mad by Jacqueline Winspear