Love 'em or Leave 'em

Hello all!  I hope everyone is doing great!  We sure are around here!  Looking over my pictures from this past week it seems to be a little run-centric, but that's probably not a bad thing.  Before we get to that though, we have to do the customary best picture of the week.  Per usual, it's of Brooke.  We got some Valentines candy from Brooke's great aunt Alyson, and she was soo excited!  Just look at that smile.

A couple weeks ago we started all running together as a family again in preparation for an upcoming town 5k.  It was the Valentines Love 'em or Leave 'em race.  Of course that means training runs, and here's Brooke, back in the jogging stroller and ready to go.  I forgot to take a picture like this earlier, so instead of getting a picture of us training, and then another on race day, you just get them both together.

We really like running in our town races, and to be honest, after this past Saturday I wish we had more races each year we could run.  I think they do 3 or 4 currently.  I didn't place this race, but instead pushed Brooke and ran with Monica.  She even beat me!  Everyone had fun, Brooke included, and we got a free pancake breakfast after!

Brooke still enjoys playing with our rugs and door mats.  We recently got one to go by the sink.  I guess we're still giving it a try, so the tag is still on.  You know, in case it isn't as stain resistant as we want or something, then we can go return it.  Anyway, Brooke found out that she can not only peal up the edges of this one, but she can lift and move the whole thing!  I'm surprised it's stayed in the kitchen so far!

Brooke has also started to enjoy feeding herself more.  In fact, sometimes she will stop eating at meals until we let her feed herself.  Usually we just drop pieces of whatever on her tray, but she's started trying/learning how to use a spoon!  She usually puts it in her mouth and then sucks hard to try to get everything off, which works pretty well for things like apple sauce and yogurt, but less well for more solid things, like carrots and apparently ramen noodles.

Anyway, things are going great in these parts, and I hope everyone is looking forward to a great week ahead!