I will never let my husband forget the time he commented about my muscle loss after giving birth to Sloan.  I was elated that I had made it to my pre-pregnancy weight and he informed me it was probably because I had “lost so much muscle”.  Thank you, love.  It’s been burned into my brain.  I really am on a mission to get in better shape, in all honesty.  And as much as I joke that “round is a shape” – now that I am no longer nursing Sloan I have no excuse to limit myself to strenuous exercise.  I do miss those extra 500 calories…

With that being said, I reached a personal best this week – I ran over 10 miles.  Something I haven’t done since getting pregnant.  I’ll never love running – but I am addicted to the way I feel afterwards.  Or maybe it’s the cookies that I eat afterwards that I am addicted to.  I will never know.  [PSST…Brownie Batter Oreos are OFF DA HOOK!] Tuesday Sloan had her 9 month appointment.  She has jumped from the 1st percentile in weight to the 7th.  She’s a whopping 15 and a half pounds!

We celebrated with milk and cookies after.  A bottle for Sloan and a Cutler’s sugar cookie for me.  It’s tradition – and tradition is important – even when you make health goals.  Also, she propped her bottle on top of that toy all by herself.  I was so impressed I had to document it.  Ingenuity at it’s finest…

That afternoon we met some friends at the new park that just opened at the end of our street.  Zach and I have deemed it the “Danger Park” because of the controversy it has stirred up in our neighborhood.  People are really hot and bothered about the rocks they placed in the play areas.  Sloan just got her swing on with her pal Parker.  The rocks didn’t bother her that much…

We actually have visited almost every evening this week.  Sloan, in an act of defiance, even sat upon the rock for quite some time.

Later in the week we drove down to Alder to help with the carpet tile installation and furniture placement.  The CEO of Alder has a connection with presidential hopeful Rand Paul and he and his campaign decided rather last minute to have an event at our building while visiting Utah.  We’re nowhere near done with the design of the space, but things are coming along [slowly] enough that we felt we were ready for the campaign visit.

I still am ga-ga over how the way finding turned out.  

The custom reception desk was also installed and all the corresponding furniture was placed.

It was fun to see all the door decals that had been installed over the week as well.
After we left Alder I convinced Sloan to stop at Madewell at Fashion Place with me on our way home.  So to Madewell we went – with a stop at Hot Dog on a Stick, for good measure.

Thursday Zach left for a golf trip with his friends.  Sloan caught her first cold [undoubtably from our doctor’s visit] and instead of staying in, just the two of us, we decided to have a sleep over at my parent’s house.  They are actually going through the process of selling their place – so our little slumber party might just be the last time I ever sleep in my childhood home.  It was nice to have my mom and dad distract Sloan from being sick.  She loves seeing them and sort of forgot that she wasn’t feeling well.  PS – This is her first bout with sickness in all of her nine months of life – breastfeeding really is magic.  If it wasn’t weird I would have nursed her until she was 12.

We loved hanging with my parents.  We played, ordered pizza, ate hot fudge sundaes, and my mom and I stayed up way too late going through old boxes of my belongings.  The next morning my mom ran errands with Sloan and I before we drove back home.

Meanwhile, the Rand Paul event at the Alder Headquarters seemed to be a hit.  It was fun to see my custom light fixture pop up in a few photos…

Sunday I had a baby shower for a friend down in South Jordan.  I’ve been friends with Stacey since my days at BJH and it was so great to catch up with some old friends and celebrate her and her baby girl.

Afterwards we had a healthy dinner at my parents.  We cooked some salmon given to use by one of Zach’s jet charter clients – fresh from Alaska.  We all had our first taste of Christmas Melon as well – Sloan was down wit it.

Someone got a little too excited and puked all over themselves – so she went the rest of the night in her birthday suit.  Jumping on the tramp in nothing but her diaper was a major highlight.
We’re glad to have Zach back.  Sloan gets the biggest heart eyes for him after her returns from being gone.  I’m glad to have him home again, too – but seeing her light up as he walked through the door was the highlight of his return for me.