Soup Bowls

After seeing a cooking show at a friend's house where home-made soup was served to the gal's family in bread bowls, I couldn't resist buying some for my own family! Here is home-made Bacon Cheddar Potato soup (super easy crockpot recipe!) served in bread bowls. Huge hit with the kids!

Crayon Art

I recently saw a Pinterest project involving crayons, a canvas, and a hair dryer; all items I happened to have in my own already! I immediately got to work creating my own. It's weird art, but I had a lot of fun making it.


My hands were a little messy after I finished with my "painting", and lots of splatters had overshot the plastic mat I'd set up, but they were so small they wiped right up off the hard floor without any problems. The crayons melted under the hair dryer in a surprisingly fast amount of time, and once you have the melted wax on your canvas, you can use the force of the air to move it around, blend it with nearby colors, make swirly effects, etc. I would do this again!

Who Knew?!?!

Connor bought himself a thing of Altoid mints with his own money at Jared's last swim meet. I can't stand Altoids and so have never bought a package myself. I don't know if they all come with this crazy message, or if there are other messages you can find??? Either way, we had a good laugh!

Birthdays

My parents took us out to dinner for my birthday the first weekend in May, and gave Dan and I each gifts for our birthdays. The kids got a kick out of the size of Dan's gift

Looks like a normal gift in this photo:


Now look at it:


It was actually a very nice gift, just came in a very small size! :)

In honor of Cinco de Mayo, there were these cardboard cut-outs set up in the entry area of the restaurant we went to

Gram's house

We stopped by to see Dan's mom the first weekend in May and the kids were having fun playing "Sumo" (where you stand in a circle and attempt to push the other person out before they can push you out).




Surprisingly enough, Connor was able to get Emily and Jared out of the circle far more often than they got him out!

When we were hanging out on the back deck watching the kids playing around, I was admiring the view


The kids ended up spending the night, and I admired the view again the following morning!

Madisen Grace

This little sweetie was due VERY near my birthday, and I'd hoped she'd end up sharing a birthday with me, but she ended up being born April 26th instead. I babysat her for awhile a few weeks ago and she snuggled right in and took a nap in my arms. I miss "baby" snuggles!



We recently celebrated her 2nd birthday (a bit late due to her brother cutting open his head and almost needing stitches just before her previously scheduled birthday party) and her Grammie made this awesome cake for her rainbow themed birthday


Madi is my little buddy, and always comes running to give me huge hugs and kisses when I see her. She finally started saying my name about two months ago ("yay-ya" or "ee-uh", or some similar variation of those as she works on perfecting it! LOL), so now adds in hollering my name as she runs towards me. Warms my heart immensely every time. LOVE this little girl!

Magnolia Tree

We have a Magnolia tree in the back yard, which has finally really started blossoming, just in time for us to be trying to move. I could be tempted to try digging it up and taking it with us somehow. It's still at a fairly do-able size, I think. :)


Absolutely beautiful.

The Color Run 2013

Emily and I got to spend Mother's Day/Em's 11th birthday with some wonderful friends in Seattle doing The Color Run. One of Em's besties, Rylie, came with us this year (huge thanks to Ry's mom for not minding the expense, and not minding us having her daughter for half the day on Mother's Day!) as a way to make the day even more special for Emily. Talk about a BLAST!!

Here are some before/after photos:

One of my besties, Stephanie, and me


Em and Ry


The birthday girl by herself


The "before" picture of Emily was taken moments before we started singing Happy Birthday to Emily at the start line for the race, with LOTS of other races joining in singing to her. :)



Emily and Rylie after the first color station (orange)


Emily getting more colorful by rolling around in what was on the ground


I was taking a picture of the girls in the blue when another runner stopped and offered to take my picture as well. :)


Poor Rylie got blue in her mouth!


One of the color tosses at the finish line


Hot pink fishnet gloves no longer hot pink!


An announcement was made at the finish line for people celebrating birthdays that day to come up on stage so Emily and Rylie got to go up and dance around while the crowd shouted "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!"


The Unicorn Successs Club with the Runicorn (We are pretty convinced the Runicorn came about because of US, by the way. There was NO Runicorn at any of The Color Run events prior to Seattle last year that we have seen or heard about, but after NUMEROUS comments by Color Run staff last year about our "costumes", the Runicorn started showing up at races later in the year, and LOTS of other teams started showing up wearing unicorn horns).


Fun group shots


Unicorn Success Club team members are generous with their color. LOL!


Colorful hair!


Brooke and I showing off the clean skin under our Color Run arm bands (which held our IDs, money, and cell phones)


Can't wait for September when I do it again in another town! And then scramble to clean off and head to a wedding. ha! Thank you Cindy, Stephanie, Emily, Rylie, Brooke, Kaitlyn, and Tamy for making this year so much fun! LOVED the drive home, especially, as we waved at other vehicles on the road, and experienced looks anywhere from scorn, fear, humor, etc. TOO FUNNY!!!

Silly Girl

In honor of my soon-to-be 11 year-old (two more days!), I'm sharing this hilarious picture I came across while cleaning out some drawers in the never-ending attempt to purge and pack the house...

Little stinker was supposed to be napping, and came wandering out saying something about there being a problem. haha!


She's somewhere right in the vicinity of two years old in that photo. What a goof!

Swim Meet

Jared had a swim meet over the weekend. It was a little different than the other meets we've been in, because it was only a one-day meet, so a lot of Jared's regular events weren't an option. He swam the 25yd freestyle, the 50yd freestyle, the 100yd freestyle, and the 50yd breast stroke. He was also told last minute he was filling as the freestyler in the 200yd Medley Relay in the age 12 and under relay event. One of the older kids was a no-show and Jared was the next fastest 12 and under boy from his team at the meet. The relay took 4th place out of 9 teams, which is pretty awesome, especially considering Jared is only 8. :)

You can see him in the center of the picture wearing dark goggles and black swim suit standing next to a kid in blue, who was in Jared's relay, and towers over him!


Thank goodness for the iPad, because it kept Connor entertained for the entire four hours we were at the meet


Jared had a pretty good meet. He placed 6th out of 20 in the 25yd free (got a personal best time, too), 21st out of 31 for the 100yd free, 12th out of 27 for the 50yd free, 6th out of 23 in the 50yd breast, and the relay he participated in got 4th, so he came out with three ribbons from five events. Not bad!

His next meet is in June, and falls the same weekend Emily and Connor have their dance recital (ballet for Emily, hip hop for Connor), so he will only be participating on Sunday (50m breast and 100m free). Connor will be in that meet as well doing the 50m breast. He's not ready for the 100m events (and now that we're in long course season, there aren't any 25's for him).

Swimming with the fishes

The kids and I went up to Dan's office building and helped him move his stuff into his new office. Once we were done and heading back out, I decided to have some fun posing the kids through the fish tank.


Dan pointed out that someone in the office made a list of the fish (at the time it was made, there were two of each type of fish in the tank) and their names. LOL