Ask and you shall receive...

Near the top of Emily Grace's birthday wish list was a new robe. It's not really the time of year to find robes for kids in stores, and I wasn't inspired by much online (too expensive, not quite what I was looking for, etc.), so I decided to MAKE her a robe instead.

Her one request is that the robe be nice and LONG with lots growing room. This one is just shy of touching the floor and has bit thick cuffs that can be let out as her arms grow.


As it turned out, the robe pattern I found also included directions for pajamas, so I made matching pajama bottoms


I decided I wanted to give her a full pajama set, without having to mess with making a matching fleece top, so I got the "brilliant" (if I do say so myself! LOL) idea to buy a shirt in a coordinating color, then I cut out an owl with my Cricut, and made a bleach design. I think it turned out pretty cute, and Emily LOVED it

Geocaching!

More adventures in geocaching!

We recently met up at the park with two friends from Connor's Kindergarten class, and introduced them to geocaching as well (I love sucking people into my hobbies!)


One of my friends has been trying to get into geocaching, but hasn't had much luck on her own. While our daughters were at dance last week, three of us moms (plus Jared and Connor) ran an errand, and decided to check for any nearby caches. Pretty die-hard to be out in the RAIN looking! LOL


On the way home from dance, we stopped to check this cache out, and I realized after the fact that it was Em's very first time geocaching! Glad I'd taken a picture (even though kids were being GOOFY!)


I'd been told this would be a fun cache to find by three different families, so we finally made a point to drive out and find it after running some errands. Connor and Dan wanted to be dropped off at home first, so only Emily and Jared and I were out hunting. Definitely shouldn't have been in shorts and flip-flops for this one, but we survived with minimal scratches!


We have yet to find anything exciting/interesting inside a cache yet, but it's fun searching them out anyway! I'd love to find a "travel bug" at some point. We'll keep searching!

Super Hero Dance

The community Inclusion Program event we attended last Friday was the Super Hero Dance. The kids had a GREAT time! Jared was very hesitant about attending, but entertained himself with the sandwiches, chips, and cookies, and visiting with Uncle Kyle and Grandpa Dan. Connor and Emily were dancing their hearts out!

Connor dressed up at Batman, Jared refused to put on a costume (but happened to have already been wearing a t-shirt with Super Heroes on it), and I whipped Emily up a costume using fabric scraps, safety pins, and curling ribbon, while sitting at Connor's Hip Hop class immediately before the dance. Not bad, eh?



Super Emily!


My kids with "The Hulk" in front of the giant sign


What a fun night!

Trying to make an extra buck (or five)

Over the weekend, Dan and the boys helped our neighbors, Jason and Michelle, stack some wood.  Michelle told the boys she'd pay them $5 for their help.  My guys came home for dinner, and we went back over for S'mores later in the evening as a family.  Jason called the boys over to him and gave them each $5.  The boys said "thank you" and then Connor walked over to Michelle and whispered in her ear, reminding her about the $5 SHE said she'd pay him.  *grin* 

It was worth a try, right??  hahahaha!

Little Helper

Connor and I were at our friend's house on Friday, and after watching Jon dig the trench for awhile, he asked if he could help.  I wish I could have captured the look of pure joy on Connor's face when Jon told him yes!




He dug for quite some time, and only stopped because I told him it was time to go.  And by that point, the other kids had decided they were missing out on something fun and the line to "help" had grown significantly!  LOL!

Clams!

This child is totally in her element, situated on the couch with a big bowl of clams (with more for the taking in the kitchen!).  Thank you Gram and Grandpa Dan!

Rainbow Bright and Connor

Connor recently drew this picture of he and I. 


I'm not at all sure what's up with my rainbow hair and red (horns?), but I think I'm rockin' the look, don't you??  I love kid artwork!

Charlie

I love this little dog SOOOOO much more than I ever imagined possible. I never saw myself as a small dog person, but as it turns out, I am!!! Charlie is such a good, sweet, loyal little dog, and we're so lucky to have him. Isn't he adorable?


And so you know, he'd just tossed a ball at me, and was sitting somewhat patiently waiting for me to throw it for him. *grin* This picture is one of the first decent ones I've gotten of him (usually he runs over to me while I'm trying to take his picture, and all I get is blurry dog, or a close-up of his nose or something. LOL!)

Moose Alert

We got the warning about the killer moose on the loose a tad too late. It trampled Connor and attempted to smother him!


The moose was actually a birthday gift for our one-year-old friend, Madisen, and at a recent play-date at their house, Connor took an instant like to it (not surprising, since he'd been asking for one for a good month prior to Madisen getting one! LOL) and had all sorts of fun snuggling, wrestling, and climbing around on it. Thankfully Madisen was totally fine with sharing for the afternoon!

Pink Purse

At our most recent Bunko gathering, two of us showed up with pink purses. The owner of the purse on the left dubbed them the "Pink Purses of Power." (say that 10 times fast...)


Mine is the purse on the right, and I get compliments on it EVERY SINGLE TIME I go somewhere. There is no brand label anywhere to be found in or on the purse, though multiple people have asked me to double check because they want to try and order one. It was a total impulse buy at a holiday festival last October, and is the first real purse I've ever purchased myself (the other two purses I had were both hand-me-downs from friends!). Dan makes fun of me for having it. I tell people it's because I'm a girly-girl at heart. I don't know how to do hair or make-up, I have zero fashion sense, etc, so instead, I have a pink blingy purse. *grin* And don't forget, it's half of the Pink Purses of Power! Can your purse beat that??

The Color Run Seattle 2012

Lots of you spent Mother's Day dressed nicely, sitting in church, or enjoying a nice brunch...

Emily and I? We spent Mother's Day in Seattle doing The Color Run!! Based on this blog post, my friend Brooke suggested we call our team Unicorn Success Club, which led to the making of shirts and unicorn horns. Our team of 8 ROCKED our shirts and horns.

Emily and I got up at 5:15am in order to be totally ready by 5:45am when our ride was scheduled to pick us up. We made the rounds to gather up the rest of our team members and arrived in Seattle around 7:15am, at which point we slathered up with sunscreen, got into our shirts and horns, and headed out onto the streets of Seattle to make the 7:45am bus to the starting area. Did we care that people walked a little faster past us on the streets, or avoided eye contact? No! Did we care that people stared/laughed/pointed? No! Because Unicorn Succes Club members are awesome like that... *grin*

Waiting for the bus, we got our first several rounds of compliments, and came across some fellow Color Run racers, who very kindly took our photo for us



As Stephanie said, "Yes, we are that awesome!"

Can't be a unicorn without showing off your hooves, right?



One last group photo before making our way to the starting line and joining the crowd

Look at all the people! (and there was tons of people back behind us as well!).  We heard at one point there were 7,036 people in attendance.

Just before the green color zone at the 3K mark, there was this sign. We still don't know what it meant, but we thought it was funny!




Just past the green color zone, we found this officer helping block off a side street and she agreed to pose with us (by the way, it was not us that got her uniform dirty! She was like that already!)

Just past the orange color zone at the 4K mark!

(plucked this picture off the photography order page, hence the watermark... But it's us crossing the finish line, arms linked and skipping/galloping)


At the finish line (the 5K mark) was the color finale, where each runner opened and threw their bag of color.


This picture was posted on The Color Run Facebook, and it's a view from above all the action!

After the finale, we were significantly messier!



We kept laughing at our shadows with the horns sticking up! LOL!

More messy photos!








I still need to figure out cleaning our shoes!!!


See the smiley faces she drew in the dust on her lenses?

We ended up over by the Fuze stand, where they gave us free drinks and asked us to pose for a picture


Then we got to make spin art!

Em and I attempted to get our picture with the Space Needle behind us, but the sun is a bit bright!

Em's hair after we got home:


Can you see the blue/green ends, along with the BRIGHT pink top? In case you were wondering, it all washed out perfectly fine (much to her dismay; she was hoping the pink would last a few days!)

The color even went through her shoes AND her socks. Her right foot (left of the picture) was pink, and her left foot was yellow!

We had a FANTASTIC time, and are already making plans for next year!!!!

Happy 10th Birthday Emily Grace

Dear Emily,

It seems like just yesterday you were thrilled to be "one whole hand!" (age five), and now you're TWO full hands.  Where did the time go?

Sometimes I look at you and am just blown away by your grace, confidence, and maturity.  And then you'll do something like poke your brother in the back on your way past him in the hallway and I'm reminded that you're not quite grown up just yet!  *grin*  I see glimpes of the little girl you once were, and of the woman you're becoming, and I'm so proud of all of it.

The past year brought a lot of changes, including, but not limited to: your first time doing karaoke, learning to really swim (which, even though you hated, you gritted your teeth and mastered, earning your way into level 6 before I finally let you quit!), performing in the talent show, performing in your first piano recital, and getting to perform in a play.  I always thought you'd be more quiet and reserved like me, but as you get older, you take more and more after your daddy!  You will truly go far in life, and you'll have a great time doing it.

I enjoy seeing your love of dance and piano, I've enjoyed seeing you take a MUCH stronger interested in curling up with a good book, and I've loved seeing you strengthen friendships that began in Kindergarten, all the while welcoming new friendships as they come along.  You're a true friend to everyone who knows you.  You have a caring heart, a gentle spirit, and the world is a better place with you in it.

Happy 10th Birthday my sweet Emily Grace.  I look forward to seeing what age 10 brings you!  XOXO

Love, Mommy

Hair-do

I did this to Em's hair a few days ago, and it got TONS of compliments! 


I'd wanted to take the LONG ponytail and twist it up into a messy bun, but we ran out of time.  Maybe next time!

Geocaching

What can I say? I'm addicted! Last Wednesday, I was sitting in my car during Emily's ballet class, and I was puttering around on my phone when I had the *brilliant* idea to check my geocaching app to see if there were any caches nearby. There was one some 400ft away, so I dashed inside the studio, grabbed two other mom's from Em's class, and off we went on a hunt.

On Friday, the weather looked like it was going to be pretty decent, despite the prediction of rain, so Connor and I picked up his friend Cody and we set off on a geocaching adventure! This was the first cache we found. Turns out it was a "Travel Bug Hotel" cache, so we will have to go back and check on all the traveling "bugs" periodically to see if we can be helpful on any of their missions. There were tons of muggles (non-geocachers) out and about, and the boys and I were literally hiding behind the bushes as people would walk by, so as not to give away the location of the cache. The boys thought it was FANTASTIC!


The second cache we tried to find was a total bust. Recent entries into the "log book" showed a low rate of success, with a few people stating they finally found it about 60ft away. I'm determined to go back with a larger group and find it. The boys were pretty bummed we didn't find that one, so I took them to another one just down the road, which I'd already found with the dance moms, so we were guaranteed a successful attempt!

There were two more caches very nearby some errands I needed to run, so we headed out in that direction. This was our third find!

Goofy little gnome, which Connor was thrilled with (long story short, a couple years ago Dan's aunt thought Connor liked gnomes, so she bought him one, which he then became very attached to, and now he really DOES like gnomes...)


Our last find of the day!


At some point I want to get ahold of some little trinkets so the kids can have fun leaving stuff behind in the caches, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. We also have travel bugs to register for each of the kids, but we haven't gotten around to doing THAT yet either!