230,000

230,000- a big number but what does that have to do with the Whiting's?  230,000 could be the number of times I had to yell at Thatcher this weekend to stay away from the tree.  230,000 could be the number of Mt. Dew's Mike will drink in one year.  230,000 could be the number of times Thatcher says mama in a week- he has to say it in three's so it adds up in a hurry.  230,000 could be the hours I spend shopping online in one month.  230,000 is actually the approximate amount of steps that I took running my 115 miles in November.  Can you believe that I logged that many miles in November?  I really wanted to have an over 100 mileage month sometime this year and I had been in the middle of reaching that goal in April when I got sidelined by my stress fracture.  There are days it seems like all I do is run and then there are days I feel like I haven't ran enough.  I just hope that all this hard work pays off for me this weekend.

This weekend we put our anorexic Christmas Tree and Thatcher is just in awe of the lights and the decorations.  He constantly wants to touch it and plug in the lights.  I think everyone we bought presents for will have ripped gifts this year and Thatcher keeps falling into them, touching them, wanting to open them.

We also put up some lights outside which we haven't done in years but for some reason we did this year.  Thatcher just loves to be outside and doing whatever he can to help Daddy with the task at hand.  He is such a little Mike.   

Mike made deer jerky this weekend and Thatcher loved it!  I was surprised because that kid never eats protein.  If I have ground hamburger in something he will find it and spit it out.  Thatcher is becoming more and more independent every day.  He is getting really good at using a fork and wants to do everything himself.  The bad thing is we praised him so much in the beginning to get him to do it that now he wants a standing ovation every time he uses his fork or picks up his toys.