My baby girl

This girl is all big girl w/a little bit of baby. She got herself dressed yesterday in panties and silver sparkle belt then grabbed her "mimi" as she calls it. She is completely potty trained but still sucks her binky, drinks a bottle and sleeps in a crib. This week she decided she no longer needs to hold the hand rail when walking up or down the stairs (I can't watch because it is sooooo scary). I saw her do it holding a plate of food on our outside concrete steps a few days ago and she tripped a little and said "woah" then every step after that said "woah" again. She is a total crack up. She copies everything the big kids do. I always beg them not to do things when she's around. Tayson decided to walk down the slide to get off the tramp and now she tries to walk down instead of slide. I honestly can't watch. I'm sure she'll break something sooner than later. Although she is actually pretty coordinated (must get that from me). Man I love this girl and I can't imagine what my family would be like without her bringing up the rear.

Memorial Day

Warning: Picture Overload....

Since Todd was gone this year for Memorial Day I decided it wasn't a day for home improvement projects. Instead I wanted to enjoy my day off of work and play with the kids and have family over to hang out. Success. It was a fun filled day.

I spent a few hours filling up water balloons. Our backyard faucet didn't work so we ended up in the front yard filling up balloons. Which meant we had even more kids to play since the neighbor kids weren't going to miss out on this party.

We had a water balloon toss

I filled and filled balloons
(I even got a crazy sunburn from sitting like that for a few hours)

The kids played with bubble wands while I filled more balloons

The boys team

The girls team (with Trent)

Let the battle begin

When the balloons were gone the big kids were sent to the backyard so the younger kids could play in the water. Glen LOVED the hose!

Glen giving his dad a drink

Then Sophie and Josephine joined in the fun

Glen thought it would be fun to soak Sophie...and she didn't seem to mind it too much.

The big kids on the trampoline with the sprinkler underneath

Shadow kept running under the tramp to get a drink from the sprinkler then the kids would land on his head and he would run out again. It was HILARIOUS!

Then we kicked the big kids off again and let kids under 2 jump.

My mom helped the little kids stay on the side so they didn't get crushed by the big kids.

Then we bar-b-qued and had ice cream sundaes.
Roman loved the ice cream!

Trent captured what I did most of the evening .... the dishes.

Jeannie bathed the little ones.

Trent and Tayson cheesing it up for a quick self portrait

What a great day. The only thing that would have been better would have been Todd and all of our family here. We sure did miss Steve's family - I don't know how we'll make it through the rest of the summer without them!!!

Southfork & Self Portraits

To start off Memorial Day a few of the girls and I ran Southfork. We went up 4 miles and back down 4 miles. It was BEAutiful! The run was challenging but my hip didn't hurt so it was enjoyable for me. My average pace was 8:44 - which is fast for me especially with all that uphill.

Of course we took pictures at the top. Here are the 4 rockin' women I ran with. Oh how I love these girls. They inspire me so much and I couldn't ask for better company.

Then we tried to do a self-portrait....I'm obviously not the best at this.

Take 2...went better except that I totally cut off Traci's face.

Good times on the mountain.

Love It

This morning I was trying to get a picture of Luke &Todd. I kept telling Luke to smile then I took this while Todd was trying to make him smile. I love this picture of them. I can just see the love in Luke's eyes for his daddy. We sure do love the weekends since Todd is home!!

Luke: Student of the Year

One of my rights as a mom is that I can brag about my kids. I don't think it's prideful to be a proud parent (if you do .... you might want to stop reading now). My mom was always overly vocal about how wonderful her kids were and as embarrassing as it was growing up I know it helped me get through a lot of my awkward years with lots of self confidence. So I'm not going to hide how proud I am of my sweet Lukey.

Last week Luke's teacher called and told us he was receiving one of the "student of the year" awards. All year he has LOVED kindergarten. His start of the year test results were 187/210 and his end of year were 210/210 (the paper said the average for our school is 187 at the end of the year). But the thing that makes Luke a great student isn't just that he's a little smarty pants he is also eager to learn, willing to help, happy, funny and a good friend. His teacher told me if they need something picked up he was always the first to volunteer to do it even if he wasn't the one who got it out. Anytime I went to school functions with him kids were going out of their way to say hi to him and he would give me his sweet little smile back (like I don't know why they like me). One morning last week before school he and Tayson were being silly and I said "Luke you need to calm down before school" and he replied back "I don't act like this at school". I love that Luke loves to read. I will catch him picking up a book just to read and not for the mandatory 20 minutes a day. I love reading and it's something I hope to pass along to at least 1 of my kiddos.

We told Luke we were going to the assembly at school with Tayson and that since he went there he should come too. He didn't catch on to any funny stuff even when I made him put on a "church shirt" and I even made him fix his hair. When they called his name he didn't know what was going on and the look on his face was priceless. I wish I had a picture of it. I am so proud of Luke. We didn't tell Tayson about Luke and he was way excited when they called Luke's name. He even gave him a high-five. I hope he is always happy for Luke. Especially since school isn't something Tayson has a lot of love for.

Luke was the first name called. Here is his principle giving him his certificate.

2 kids from each grade

Luke w/his certificate

Luke and his teacher Mrs. H

This morning when I asked him if he was excited to be a first grader now he said "yes, and I will still be able to see my teacher" and then he listed all the places he would still see her at school. So cute. He said they will be friends forever.

Gemellus

My hip has been killing me so I went to see a massage therapist yesterday. It hurt like the dickens while he was doing deep tissue massage. I was honestly doing "labor breathing" while he was trying to help my muscle let go. Apparently my gemellus was all seized up and since you can't really stretch that muscle nothing I was doing was helping. This morning we ran 5 miles and it didn't hurt. No pain or pulling at all. My hip felt a little looser than normal and a bit tender (like a bruise) but that was all. I am so excited!

Field Day

Today I volunteered at Tayson & Luke's school for field day. I didn't get to see Luke since Kindergarten did a separate one but I did get to see Tayson for a few minutes. It was so fun. I was in charge of the younger grade sponge relay.

Tayson's Class

Go Tays Go!!

Tayson with a bunch of his buddies in class

A quick picture before he left for the next station

I got to see Ryan and his class too

I love that I was able to go and help out at school and show Tayson how much he means to me. I'm so glad I work for a company that allows me to be a mom too.