The Streits

We had a wonderful time a celebrating Thanksgiving with Geoff's family up in Granbury, Texas in their beautiful new home. Here are some of the highlights:

Quality time with family members

Olivia: "Ok, Mommy. Here's the plan - You distract Avalon by taking her picture and I'll go for her grapes!"

Olivia: "Success!"

Not so sure about the "quality" time spent together here!

Olivia: "Wow, Granddad's mustache is very interesting

Lots of play with cousins

Sweet Julie Bug

Cousinly love :)

Parents trying to get the perfect picture of three little girls and instead getting pictures to be used someday as leverage

Attempt #1:

Attempt #2:

Attempt #3:

Attempt #4:

Attempt #5

We give up!

We have so much to be grateful for. I am overwhelmed.

A couple weeks ago, I ran my first half marathon at the San Antonio. After watching plenty of Geoff's full and half-marathons for the sidelines and being the cheerleader, it was time for us to switch roles. I had run a decent amount before I got pregnant. I even ran some while pregnant until it got too hot and too uncomfortable to keep it up. But I never did anything beyond 5-6 miles at one time. So it was good for me to set a stretch goal of running 13 miles and then commit to training in order to achieve it. The training wasn't easy. The alarm clock went off on a lot of mornings between 5:00-5:30 am. However, I really enjoyed the training. The early morning runs allowed me some quiet time with thoughts to myself to focus on the day, pray or just reflect on how blessed I am. I also got to see different neighborhoods around Houston by foot that I normally don't see and I was treated to some beautiful sunrises.

Other than it being super crowded, I thoroughly enjoyed the race in San Antonio. It was fun to see 13.1 miles of the city and run by places such as the Alamo and the Riverwalk. Plus, as the name suggests, there were bands about every mile blasting out music in their attempt to temporarily dull the pain in your legs by making your ears ring. I set two goals for the race and I achieved both of them: 1) Finish in under 2 hours (I finished in 1:57) and 2) negative split (run the second half faster than the first half), so overall I was pleased. Plus, it was encouraging and fun to see Geoff and Olivia on the course cheering me on. I think I saw them a total of five times.

Down there somewhere at the start

So happy to spot my cheerleaders

Almost to the finish!

With my biggest fan

Our little family of runners

Also special shout out to Geoff who was the overall winner of a 10-K race in The Woodlands the same weekend. Thanks to his win, we now have a $100 gift card to Jason's Deli...we're set!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On a separate note, Olivia is almost 15 months! She is doing so many new things these days I can hardly keep up. We are having lots of fun with her right now as we never know what she's going to come up with. Here is a list of some of the latest things she's up to:

Says "Ba" when she sees balls. She also says "Baaaat" when she sees water. I guess she associates all water with her baths or something.
Loves to make funny noises with her mouth, whether she is blowing with her mouth on her arm, strumming her lips or making indian pow-wow chants
Waves bye-bye. Sometimes she will pick up my purse, put it over her shoulder and wave bye as she heads towards the door. Hilarious!
All four of her first molars to come in have arrived. She now has a total of 12 teeth.
We can tell her to do certain things and she will do them. For example, if we tell her to but something in the trash, she will go do. If we tell her we are going to go upstairs or downstairs, she will head straight over to the stairs.
When asked where her bellybutton is, she pulls up her shirt and points to it. When asked where Daddy's bellybutton is, she pulls up his shirt and points to it.
When we say "Let's pray for our food", she folds her hands to thank Jesus.
Loves to run, jump and climb on everything
She is finally sleeping past 6:00-6:30 am. Which is wonderful...especially on the weekends. Geoff and I now get to sleep in until 7:00 am! :)
Goes down the stairs on her feet rather than her bottom with a little assistance from the railing and Mommy and Daddy.