Christmas hubub

Hi all I know it has been a while. I have just as you all have been in the middle of the Christmas craziness. It was all great and totally fun!!! I am always amazed at how fast it comes and goes. I can hardly believe that a whole year has passed. I hope I can at least get a couple of things done this year that I keep thinking I will get to. Brandon is already starting to plan our next diet-exercise regime. I am thankful but dreading the whole thing. Marathon training begins and eating healthy. I hope I will see results and have the stamina to make it through. It makes me tired just thinking about it. Life is good and I am learning to enjoy things more and stress a little less ( like my knew slippers cozy) I get to teach gospel essentials with Brandon for my new calling. I am learning a lot and getting a little more confident each time I teach. I am most thankful for the way I have been able to feel the spirit more and the chance to bear my testimony. This is a short post and if you haven't seen our Christmas card lately it is still in the making. I vow to get it out tommorow. But until that miracle happens, I am thankful for the inspiring people in my life and the oportunity to be a wife and mother. Talk to you soon and I will let you know how the new years resolutions are going.

New Eyes

Hi all- tonight I am writing with new eyes. I just had Lasik surgery on Saturday. It has been an adjustment but I am told it will get better and better. My eyes are tired and I am scared to death to touch around my eyes. The procedure was pretty scary and I am glad to be on the road to recovery. I really can see pretty well but my eyes are traumatized and they don't feel good. They feel as if I haven't slept for 3 days and my contacts have been in the entire time and desperately need to come out. I will let you know if they ever start feeling good. I assume they will since I haven't met anyone who advised me not to do it. Anyhow, besides that we just returned home from Disneyland and it was fun. My kids are anticipating Halloween and I will send pictures of them as soon as we have them. I can't write long because my eyes are exhausted. So I will say goodbye and write when I am feeling better.

My Fourth!

On Saturday Sept. 20th I ran my fourth marathon. I am writing about it because I find it interesting that it really isn't getting any easier. I beat my best time by only a couple of minutes. This is after lots of training and the belief that I was going to blow my Ogden time out of the water. Running still is a mystery to me. When I am running in a long race I really do doubt my sanity. I definetely don't do it for anybody else. I think for most people my running is not that interesting anymore. My first marthon was a big deal but the oohs and ahhs are no more. I am now just the crazy person who keeps running marathons. What am I trying to prove? I have asked myself that question and decided I am going to do it till I get bored with it. I want to do it when I don't have little kids and see if I can improve. I want to stay in shape and I want to have a fitness goal to help keep me in shape. Brandon without fail before each marathon asks the question, "Are we really going to run for 4 + hours tommorrow?" He is never really that excited about the day of. I am very impressed that he just finished his eighth. He wants to run 50 by the time he is 50. Not quite as impressive as Dean Karnasas who ran 50 Marathons in 50 days. But impressive enough to me that I have the same goal. On another note, I want to thank all those who have helped me train by taking care of my kids. I couldn't have done it without you. I know you don't all understand my craziness but you still support me and that brings a tear to my eye. And to Katie Lila, I will wait until your fifty and hopefully realize my dream of running a marathon with my sister who hates running but for some reason has taken it up. I know that she is going to learn to love it one step at a time. She is awesome! And, unlike me, she is getting skinnier and skinnier with her running. I am glad it works for one Corrigan girl. Heather my sis is running her first in two weeks. She is going to do great and I will ooh and ahh! Yeah Heath! You are great.

Abby Returns

I picked Abby up today at the airport. Flight was on time and everything good but they lost her bag! 10 year olds don't do well with this! She has surprises for everyone and her favorite blanket in her bag. I hope it comes tomorrow or things are not going to be happy for Abby. It is so good to have her back. She is so great! I really missed her. I am still tired from my week. I hope I can get my energy back tomorrow. My mom will be home tomorrow. Don't try and call her till tommorrow evening or saturday. I will send Hawaii pics as soon as I have them. TTFN

I added a slide show!

Check out the slide show! I can't believe I actually did it and it was relatively easy. At least you can look at those pics and I can update them every so often. I also changed the lookof my blog because it was to hard to read.

Craziness unfolds!

So I guess I have a minute that nobody is bugging me so Yay! I am touched today by service. My friend Shannon Fowler and her entire family helped me out of a very sticky situation last night and I really don't think I know how to thank or repay them. I was having a really bad day! It was the kind of day that when you wake up in the morning you allready don't have enough time. I have been trying to get this mid-week activity together for a month and it has been looming over me in the back of my brain through everything else that I have done. I just really have not had the time to do it. But just like any other scheduled event the day of the class came. And that was yesterday. I woke up and started designing and cutting paper. I only did the bare minimum. I had a shower, but skipped hair and make-up. I fed the kids toast for breakfast and put lunch off till my stomach grumbled and I couldn't ignore it anymore. But inevitably evening started to approach and at about 5:30 I stopped looked at my house, my kids, my hair, and my project and had a nervous break down! I was never going to make it. I was at least 4 hours away from having my project ready and my house was a wreck. I panicked and called Shannon and said,"I have to cancel I cannot do it." She was down the hill with her entire family no doubt having a nice dinner and propably wasn't thrilled to get the call from a friend near a psychotic break. She was so nice and offered to come get the kids but I knew that even with the kids gone I would not be able to pull it together. I told her please call and tell a few people that it is cancelled. I hung up the phone but then realized I didn't have phone numbers for the people that were coming from 30 minutes away. I called her back still bearly coherent. I have to have it! I can't cancel. I hung up and started bringing stuff upstairs so I could leave my basement mess behind me and in a crazed stressed fog I hear the doorbell ring. Shannon and her whole family, including her husband, Doug, are standing at the door. It is like the calvary had been called in. A little bit later Wendy Nagy showed up and took Megan and Emma to her house. Shannon, Doug, Maddy, and Jaqlynn stayed and helped, cleaned, cut paper, made dinner, put the kids to bed etc. for several hours. I still tear up when I think about their generosity. They are all wonderfull people who helped me out of an impossible situation. I still finished the day bone tired, stinky, and make-up free. But I had a smile on my face because they really did make the impossible happen. I am so thankful for good friends in my life! Thank you for helping me out of a situation that really did seem hopeless. I stand ready to serve and help another out of a sticky situation. I also learned that we are all only human and the only way we can become anything more is with the help of others. My prayers were answered in a way that even I could not see. I also learned that I need to be more realistic. It took 6 extra people to do what I had to get done. Hello Lori you are not superwoman. I hope we can all learn from my crazy day and plan ahead, realize our limits and pray when you can't think of anything else to do!

Wow a couple of people read my blog!

Two people posted a comment on my last entry. So that was really exciting. I can't believe that anything I have to say would catch your interest. I am glad, however, for the opportunity to stay in touch with people so I am sitting down to write yet another entry.
So I survived my 3rd marathon. Park City Utah on August 23rd. It was a great experience. I felt like I really had the energy to make it through. We were running Park City as a training run for the Logan marathon and it really was a good idea to go into it feeling like I really didn't care about the time! I was less stressed and I enjoyed it more. It was a very difficult, hilly marathon and if you ever run it just go and enjoy the beauty and plan on it being really really long. I wish everyone could experience the feeling of finishing a marathon. It is really something to conquer that distance. We are running the Swiss Days 10k this weekend in Midway UT. This will be my third time to run this run. It is one of my favorite because afterward we get to browse the booths and eat a delicious giant scone.
Abby is leaving for Hawaii in less than two days. I feel a little blue that I will not be there for her first Hawaii adventure. I do feel like it is a special opportunity to spend special time with her grandparents, uncle Jeff, aunt Michelle and cousin Gabe. I can't wait to hear of all her exciting adventures. Megan is still cutting four teeth! When will it end? What is it about this age (15 months) I feel like I can't take her another minute and then she does something absolutely adorable. She has started dancing in the car to certain songs. She really does have some great moves. She also dances to the Psych theme song when it comes on. I just wish she would sit for at least five minutes for Sesame Street, stop yelling in high pitches when something isn't just perfect, and take an afternoon nap. I don't think #3 is in the cards. She seems bound and determined to stay up with the rest of us until 7-8ish. At least she takes a morning nap pretty regularly. Well nothing to0 exciting. I tried to get help with the pictures and still can't figure it out! I will keep trying. I will end with a quote from Abby. She was talking to her Aunt Katie Lila and said, "I think Grandma waits to take you to Hawaii until you are old enough to like coconut. I used to hate coconut but have decide that I like it now so it shows I am old enough to go to Hawaii!" My other kids don't like it. Caleb will probably never like it! Good luck Caleb, looks like he may never go to Hawaii. Well that is all for now!
-Lori

School is In!

Does anyone else feel like when school starts you start back to school? I almost expect to have those back to school nightmares where you don't remember what class you have next and you don't know if an assignment is due. I am feeling a little crazy this week with three kids now staring school. At least Abby is self motivated and stays on top of her homework etc. I did feel better about my life after I visited my dear friend Beth Walburger's Web-site (Walburger.com). She is an amazing mother of not one but two babies that where born with medical problems that have kept her in and out of hospitals for the past two years! Not only that, she is the mother of 5 total kids. I am so inspired by her ability to see the joy in life and to just take one day at a time.She put this quote in one of her entries. "Heard a fabulous quote from Elder Ballard at church. Speaking to mothers of young children, he said "Enjoy the doing more, and the getting it done less." He reminded us to enjoy the moments. I decided I was going to live by that motto." Thanks Beth, if I could I would lift some of your burden for you.
On a totally different note we are finishing our backyard and that has been a little stressfull this past couple of weeks. Not only is it expensive and with each big delivery dump truck I see rumbling down the road I see my dream of a new mini-van getting further and further away. Brandon is not home every day to see the progress so I have to keep him posted and be the in-between girl. We haven't had many issues but I still feel an ulcer coming on. One of our main problems is where we live. Why is living in Suncrest so difficult. Why must the city as well as the homeowner's association have it out for us? You can't get a straight answer from anyone around here and it makes you feel pretty powerless. So we are going ahead with a project that we are a little uncertain about. On the positive side it is really exciting and beautiful! I will post a picture of the finished product as soon as I figure out how! Somebody wrote that I have to blog often or readers will lose interest. I decided that this is okay because I am really doing this for myself. Maybe I will write something down and actually remember it! Brandon, Caleb, Abby and I ran this really fun run last Friday. It was the Sandy City Moonlight Midnight run. I thought we were a little crazy going into it (Brandon and I ran an 18.5 training run that morning) so as you can imagine driving down the hill to run another 5k at midnite did not seem like fun at the time. It turned out to be really fun. Caleb ran with me and completed it in 34 minutes and Abby ran with Brandon and finished in 38 minutes. Suprisingly, there were actually a lot of kids who ran it.I think we are going to try and make it a tradition every year if we can keep the kids running. Two weeks ago I ran the Provo River 1/2 and actually made it in 1 hr 58 minutes. I feel like I am finally getting just a little bit faster. It was a fun race and I felt so encouraged that I made it in my goal time of 2 hrs. We are running the Park City Marathon this saturday. Brandon thought it would be fun to use the marathon as part of our training for the Top of Utah on September 19th. It seemed like a good idea a month ago. I hope I live to tell you about it. Run Lori Run. Julie Garbutt (I have read your blog), when are you free to teach me a few things about blogging? I guess that is all for now! Megan passses on a eskimo kiss that she is getting rather good at giving. She is a sweet little maniac.

The last weeks of summer!

So I started my blog back in July and this is the first time I have written since. So why, you may ask, haven't we heard from Lori? I really couldn't remember how to sign on to my blog and like always I haven't had time! Brandon always says that it is a falsehood that I don't have time. He says I don't have time for things I don't want to do. I protest! I really do want to scrapbook, blog, call my friends, etc. But my time is taken up with things like cleaning the toilet, doing the dishes, changing diapers and answering the hundredth question of the day. Abby, today, pulled a typical Abby she said, "Mom", and I answered curtly, "What Abby?" She answered, " I love you!" She is a little twerp. I know she decided on the I love you last minute. But what do you say to that? Of course you answer, "I love you too!" This saturday is the Provo River 1/2 Marathon. It is crazy that now a 1/2 marathon seems short. I ran a 16 miler last thursday and next weekend we have to run 18. We are training for th Top of Utah Marathon in Logan. I am excited and glad that I have a goal and it has kept my summer excersize on target. I just wish I had a better body to show for it. Brandon tells me I am not that careful with my eating so what do I expect? I don't know I guess I expect a miracle. I don't want to be a crazy person worrying about everything I eat. I know I would look better but is it worth it? Not yet! I will just go along being average me because I can't commit to another eating plan. Abby, Brandon and I have sworn off treats Monday-Friday. If you let Brandon he would bake something every night. He loves to bake! Thank you Brandon for at least coupling the love for baking with the love for running or we would both be larger than we would like.

I am no a quitter!

I think I have already messed up a couple of things. Aghhh! I can't figure out how to add a picture to a post. Help Me. The only reason I will continue is because Abby inspired me today while running. She said, "One thing about me mom is that I am not a quitter!" Thank you Abby for being my inspiration!

So new!

Okay so I am so new at this! It will take me a good amount of time to learn what I am doing and I am sure I will have to be taught by Abby the in's and out's of blogging. I have been holding back because of a comment my husband made a few years back. We were discussing the letters we wrote while he was on his mission. Needless to say apparently he didn't find mine very interesting. I am only encouraged and continuing in this endeavor because, hey, he is my husband. I must have done something right! He is in Chicago today and I just talked to him. He was suprised that I knew what Craigs List was and that I was researching something other than stamping or scrapbooking online. I am looking for an affordable double jogging stroller to use for the next couple of years. We have started running with the kids but Emma is still too little to run and we have little Megan. Abby (9) has caught the running bug and just completed her second 10k on the 4th of July. Caleb(8) ran his first official 5k. We had a huge group run the Freedom run in Provo this year. We were able to convince 20 family members and friends to run. I am happy to report there were no casualties.