color me bad

so, the color run.  because it's become such a popular "race," it's really more of a walk with the bazillion folks who register for it.  and for the bean, it became her first official 5K.

as i sat in the back seat of the minivan lilcee had borrowed from her folks, i noticed something on my bib - guess they're still using up a bunch of supplies from last year.

whatever.  we were still excited to have some fun.

pre-color.

by the time we arrived, most of the 10,000 people were already standing at the start line and waiting for the run to start.

lilcee and i seized this opportunity to go over and have our picture taken with the color run mascot, a unicorn.  who, i'm guessing in his confusion and limited visibility through that costume head, got all discombobulated as we posed together and inadvertently palmed my ass quite thoroughly.  i couldn't get away from it fast enough.

lots of folks in the crowd were already doused with color from head to toe.  pre-gaming, i suppose you could call it.

we were the very last wave to be released onto the course, and the announcer hopped up to toss out some final prizes via the air gun.

alas, we won nothing but the opportunity to finally start our 3-mile journey.  this is the first time i've been to this place in years.

after waiting around for so long, the bean was already complaining that she was tired.  i reminded her of how much walking she does at disneyland as we plodded along behind the rest of our crew.  and then the first color station proved to be a welcome distraction.

at the next one, she decided to lay down and make an orange snow angel.

her BFF mini cee was also not too big on this walking thing.  she spent most of the walk either riding on her daddy's shoulders or piggybacking with lilcee.  this was pretty much the only time she and the bean walked together.

yellow!

most people did not heed this sign.

my favorite color was the last station.  the bean decided to repeat her snow angel routine here.

with just yards to go, she finally pooped out and her sister gave in and carried her like a sack o'potatoes towards the finish line.

best group pics EVER.

yay, we finished!  and i was super proud of the bean for hanging in there for pretty much three full miles of walking.

i think she was pretty pleased with herself, too.

i knew quite a few folks who were coming to this thing, but we didn't actually see anyone until cousin seven came running up to us to say hello.

we were all pretty much over it and didn't bother to take part in the finish line color-bombing festival.  looked cool from afar, though.

as we headed back towards the parking lot, we decided to stop off with the dude wielding the gardening blower to get rid of some of the excess colored powder.

the start line was completely empty, ready for the next wave at 2:00 that afternoon.

like my blue 'stache?

too bad the bean ended up getting sick the next day.  she complained of a sore throat, and ran a low-grade fever.  i don't know if it had anything to do with the 5K at all, or if it was pure coincidence.  and luckily, it only lasted for a day.

i wonder how long it'll take her to agree to doing another one.  hmmm.

putting it to a vote

with less than a dozen kids in the bean's class, i thought it would be fun to bust out an idea i'd seen on pinterest last year.  i think that's when the majority of folks did this valentine card, so while i'm totally on the late train, maybe there won't be too many others like it for 2013.

i made the bean pose with her fist out in a handful of different spots around disneyland during our last visit.  she didn't really understand why she was doing this until i finally showed her the two test runs i'd put together.  i'm really torn between these:

help me.  which one should we use?

bedazzled

a few months ago, my friend winnie put out a call to me and lilcee to see if we were interested in joining her in the color run at dodger stadium.  although the teen and i had already conquered a similar race last year, we'd talked about taking the bean the next time one of these came around.  and so it wasn't very hard to talk us into signing up.

because i hate doing race day check-ins, the girls and i trucked it out to burbank the day before the run to pick up our bibs and tees.

as you can see, they really make a big deal out of this being a super duper fun 5K.  looks like all that marketing works, though, because the race sold out.  20,000 people split into two waves - crazy.  this also meant that there was a plethora of folks heading to sports authority to pick up their stuff.

inside our goody bag was a t-shirt, a sweatband, a numbered bib, and a color pack.  the teen and i got orange and blue.  because she got to participate for free, the bean didn't get a goody bag.

so we headed to the merchandise stand to pick up some stuff to make her official.

it didn't seem to faze her, though.  she was more interested in heading over to the exercise equipment to work on her fitness.

back at home, we surveyed our loot.

and because our shirts weren't fabulous enough, the teen got to work with a heat tool and some rhinestones.

here's hers:

her sister sweet-talked her into sprucing up her shirt too.

well, since everyone else was doing it...

pretty snazzy, right?

terrific thursday

with the bean in a regular school schedule instead of the easy breezy MWF deal we had going in preschool, i miss our random tuesday morning trips to disneyland.  we loved having the run of the place without having to dodge a bazillion strollers and giant crowds of folks blundering through the walkways with blinders on.

so when the schedule gave us a half day followed by a day off (thanks to parent-teacher conference time), i decided it was the perfect time to head down to anaheim for an afternoon of fun without having to worry about hurrying back in time for the evening routine.  after the teen got home from school, we packed up and hopped in the car.

while it was still fairly busy for a non-holiday thursday, we still managed to pack all sorts of fun in.  lines for characters were blessedly short:

and we had a rare photo op in front of a nearly-empty castle.

i love when the teen is in silly mode.

something else we don't usually get to hang around to see - both parks at night.

i indulged in this gut bomb for dinner: a mac & cheese hot dog covered with bacon bits.

ah, disneyland.  will we ever get tired of your magical ways?  i sure hope not.

felt up

my renewed addiction to pinterest of late is actually pretty timely, with valentine's day around the corner.  i've gotten all sorts of fun ideas, and although this one is pretty old and overdone in the pinterest world, around here it's still fresh and exciting.  well, at least it's about as fresh and exciting as a wreath can possibly be.

the last few days of my life have been mostly spent doing this:

that, my friends, is a fabulous handy-dandy perfect circle cutter.  it's actually one of the most awesome things i've picked up at michaels in a long time.  although due to the sheer volume of felt circles i've had to cut out, my hands are all jacked up.  i think i put a permanent indent in one of my fingers from overuse of this thing.  i went through a couple of yards of red felt, cutting it up so that it ended up looking like this:

and that wasn't even enough to finish one measly wreath.

i'd actually wanted to do three hearts, but with a couple of weeks left till v-day every craft store around me was sold out of them, save one.  i picked that one up, and a couple of hours later i had this.

but it's not very big, and i thought it needed a couple of friends.  so i went back to the store and grabbed two simple round bases, mangled my fingers cutting more circles, and after about four yards of felt and an entire box of 500 straight pins (and then some), i had this:

the window still seems a little bare, so i think i might use up some leftover felt and create a little heart garland to jazz it up a bit.

honestly, i don't even know why i'm going to this much trouble.  it's not like valentine's day is particularly big 'round these parts.  but we all know how much of a glutton for punishment i am, so there you go.

i wonder what i'll do for st. patrick's day.