Halloween and Birthday Festivities!

This wouldn't be my blog if I didn't recap my favorite time of the year....Halloween and my and my hubby's birthdays! Halloween is one of my favorite holidays! And it's Andy's birthday! And then the next day is MY birthday! And the day after that is my Dad's birthday! :-)

Andy always gets to trick or treat on his birthday! I guess one day when the boys are too old for trick or treating we won't do it but for now Andy seems to enjoy sharing his birthday with that holiday tradition. His parents and sister came over to celebrate. My sister Christy, James, and Baby Ella came too! We ate tacos for dinner (Andy's favorite). His mom also baked him pumpkin pie for his birthday. We sang happy birthday and then it was trick or treat time! Of course we had to take a few pictures of the kiddos in their super cute costumes! Hayden was Dave the Minion, Sawyer was a green ninja, and Ella was Super Girl! So cute!

Andy's family left as we went trick or treating. My sister went with us for a bit but they had to leave pretty quickly because it was past Ella's bed time and she was so tired. Luckily some friends met us in our neighborhood and trick or treated the entire time with us. It's always more fun with friends!

We trick or treated around the entire neighborhood. But we always save the best for last. Each year this one house in our neighborhood goes over and beyond with the Halloween decorations. We call them the "haunted house" and this year they did not disappoint! The kids were super excited to walk through it!

After trick or treating our friends came back to the house and played for a bit. It was a great Halloween and a great birthday for Andy!

The next day was MY birthday! I started it out by running a 10K race that morning (I'll recap the race tomorrow). What better way to start my birthday than doing what I love, right? It was super super cold at the race but I still had a blast!

And one of my AWESOME friends made this amazing medal and bib holder for me! Isn't is beautiful? I can't wait to get it hung on the wall and fill it up!

When I got home from the race my men had birthday cards for me! Each one picked out their own special card for me! It was so sweet!!!

They then took me out for lunch. And we had birthday cake complete with the singing of the Happy Birthday song of course! :-)

Later that afternoon we headed over to my friend Paige's house. She was having everyone over for a cook out and to watch the Auburn game. As soon as I walked into the door she made me put on a birthday princess hat and necklace! ;-)

After we ate it was game time! The rule was...every time Auburn scored I had to wear my birthday hat for 3 game minutes! I ended up wearing it for a long time lol! It was fun! And yes I am all wrapped up in a blanket because I had been freezing ALL DAY LONG! I couldn't get warm from that cold and windy race!

Overall, it was an amazing birthday!!! My friends and family made it so special! And supposedly Andy still has a birthday surprise on its way! ;-)

QOTD: How do you like to celebrate your birthday?

Half Marathon Training Has Officially Begun!

Yep, that's right! I am now officially training for my next half marathon! And I'm so excited! I love having a goal that I'm running towards! And to make it even more fun...I have friends that I am going to be training with!

My friend Misty came up to me at church last Wednesday night and said she was ready to run her first half marathon!!! I am so excited for her! I told her I would help her in any way. I've already got a training schedule planned for her! I told her we started on Saturday...with 6 miles! She was a little nervous but ready!

So Saturday morning I ran with Misty and two of my other friends, Mindy and Kaysha! It was fun having 4 of us running! We started out a little slow because I wanted to make sure I didn't scare Misty off by running too fast! I wanted her to feel good at the end of the run and like she could have kept going. She needed that boost of confidence because she was nervous that she wouldn't be able to run 6 miles.

The first 3 miles flew by! We were having so much fun running and talking! Talking to each other really helped the miles go by! At the 3 mile mark Mindy dropped water for us. So we stopped for a quick water stop....and Mindy had a surprise. She had ice cold rags for us! They felt soooo good because it was hot and humid that morning!

We started running again and we started to pick up the pace. I kept asking Misty how she was doing and she said great! She was feeling good!

I planned to run a 10K that morning for Jill and Jen's Birthday Bash Virtual Race. So around mile 5.5 I told the girls what I was planning to do. I gave them the option to stop at 6 miles...or run .2 more with me. Guess what they chose? Yep! They ran the .2 with me!

I was so happy for Misty! She did GREAT with her first training run! And to top it all off...it was her birthday too!

After the run we all headed to Chick Fil A to eat some breakfast to celebrate Misty's birthday! Chicken has never tasted so good!!! Don't judge...I totally deserved those Chicken Minis and Hashbrowns!!!

The rest of the day I did some cleaning, some laundry, and then Andy's family came over to celebrate Sawyer's birthday. We went to eat at the Mexican restaurant (his choice) and he told me before we got there that he wanted them to sing to him. But when they came out he totally freaked out! This is the picture I got of him while they were singing...hiding and crying! Poor thing!!!

It took me a while to calm him down and get a decent picture!

He was back to all smiles by the time we got home and he saw presents and cake!!!

And Cullen joined in on the fun too! He had a blast playing and running through the tissue paper!!!

It was a super fun day filled with celebrating several birthdays!!! I loved it!!!

QOTD: What are you training for right now? Birthday singing at restaurants...love it or hate it?