Mother's Day Flowers

We love going to our local library. I started taking Caleb to their weekly storytime when he was just a few years old. We have made crafts, seen puppet shows, kids concerts, won a prize in their paper-airplane making competition, watched snow white ballet, magic shows and even sat in a helicopter that landed there at the library! Caleb and Abby were working with Carl Saturday, so the rest of us headed off to the library.

First, they picked out their flower "pot"

 

Then they chose

their decorations

picked out a flower

and planted it for their Mommy :)

Tiger Trot 5k

Abby and I ran the Tiger Trot 5k in Loveland yesterday afternoon. She had told me about it a week ago and wanted to run together. I told her she would need to train. So we did. Twice. And I kept having to tell her to Slow Down, and Pace Herself.


The starting line! There were a lot of die-hard runners running with their kids. The guy beside me in the yellow shirt just ran the Boston Marathon and had already ran 8 miles on his lunch break! We had the option to compete separately or combine our times as parent/child, which is what we did.
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Carl brought the other kids along to cheer for us and take pictures :) I don't have my official time back yet, but I know I beat my race time from my first 5k :) And I know that Abby beat me!  3.1 miles later, here is Abby crossing the finish and me coming along in the background. She did AWESOME! It was fun running a race with my favorite 9 yr. old over Mother's Day weekend!


and finally, a little motivation...

 and my favorite...

Easter

I love this time of year when we celebrate the Resurrection.  I love Spring with all the new life and colors bursting. 

Abby and Ella in their Easter dresses

Easter Sunday ( I think Ella is squinting because my top is so bright :)

Our Anniversa-tree.  The last few years on our anniversary we have gotten a tree for our yard.  Here we are on our 15th anniversary standing beside the tree we got for our 13th anniversary!  I'm hoping someday our yard looks like a forest :)

Anniversary 5K

Carl and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary last week. Our kids went to Indy for the weekend, so we had the whole weekend to celebrate. We ran our first 5K on Saturday! I placed 238th out of 584 runners. Although I wasn't 1st place I was able to run the entire time (hooray!) which was a 1st for me. It was an awesome experience and I'm sure it won't be our last race:)

We started the day off with these YUM! (sarcasm)

And the sky looked liked this! We did get wet but the sun was out by the end of the race :)

Special thanks to all my sponsors! I was able to meet our fundraising goal and earned a T-shirt!

And before I forget here is Isaac with his stitches. He smashed his finger in the garage. But he's all better now and almost all his stitches have dissolved.

And another one Abby took, because she thought he was cute sitting in a pile of dirty laundry playing the harmonica!

More Catching Up

Spring Break 2011. The kids were so happy to get a break from school. Although the weather did not cooperate and we even had snow! We spent most of our Spring Break inside.
Making messes.

And memories.

We spent one day at the Creation Museum. The kids (and me)

absolutely loved it!

No, Caleb is not standing on his tiptoes. That's how tall he is!

We saw Noah's Ark

and dinosaurs

and even a Zonkey!

Have I mentioned how much I love Craig and his List? The kids have been saving their Christmas $ for a trampoline. The week of their Spring Break I found this one on craigslist. They have barely left it alone to eat and sleep. The first morning the girls were out there jumping before breakfast and you can see the frost on it! brrrr!

So much fun!

Um...yeah, that's me. I like it too :)

Last week Caleb turned 11.
Here he's blowing out his candles on the cake Grammy made him.

And opening his gifts from Grandpa & Grandma.

He is quiet but not shy. He is like a walking encyclopedia with random facts about other countries, history, or animals. He loves Bible stories.

He loves to hunt, loves to snowboard, and loves his friends. He is loyal and honest and friendly. He is laid back and easy-going. He eats more than our whole family combined!

He usually does not like to be the center of attention. He loves math. And of course he loves video games. I am so thankful that God blessed us with Caleb, and for the priveledge to be his Mom!