Mom's Birthday

My mom celebrated her 60th birthday on April 24 so after the Run Through Redlands we had a little party for her.

Jeff came over while we were all running and started some tri-tip in his smoker.

Jacob and Isaac wanted to pick out the kind of cake I made and when they saw a pink cake they knew it was for Oma because 'Pink is for girls and Oma is a girl.' I made a Neapolitan cake, minus the vanilla layer because I didn't figure we needed a cake quite that big. Instead I did a chocolate layer and a strawberry layer with vanilla frosting in between and then frosted the whole thing with strawberry frosting. 

  

After cake and gifts we played with water balloons.

Ambush!

See the green balloon heading toward Jen's rear??

Klutz!!

Happy birthday, Mom! We had a fun day celebrating with you!

Run Through Redlands

Earlier this year I was super pumped to train for the Run Through Redlands half marathon. I was ready to conquer this thing! I started training in January and was up to running 8.5 miles of the hilly course and feeling pretty good about the whole thing. Then I got the stomach flu and couldn't get back into the swing of things for a while. Every time I ran I just felt awful. I kept going back and forth as to whether I would be able to do the half. Then I got a really bad cold. Boo! That pretty much closed the case and I realized I wouldn't have enough time to train for the half, so then I got pumped about training hard for the 10K and beating my time from last year. But then I got sick again. I just never got the chance to really do much running so I signed up for the 10K with very low expectations. Good thing I didn't expect much because I did it 2 minutes slower than last year. Oh well. There's always next year!

These are my boot camp friends who all (except me, of course) ran the half marathon. Siw is next to me and she ran it pushing her two girls in the stroller. Amazing!

And these two lovely ladies, Katy and Sara, ran the half pregnant. So, so proud of them!
                                        

 I am also super proud of Alan who ran the 5k at an 8:40/min pace while pushing the boys in the stroller!! He would have run it even faster if he hadn't had to weave through all the walkers in the beginning of the race. I saw him flying down the hill and around the corner where the 5k and 10k races met up and I knew there was NO WAY I would ever catch up to him!!

 Way to go, runners! Everyone did an excellent job!

New slide!

Alan built a slide for the boys last week.

 Washing it down before the test slide.

Isaac wasn't so sure about the whole thing. Not sure why since he loves slides at the park!

Oh, he was super mad!

He still won't go down it, but maybe someday......At least Jacob is enjoying it!

'I Spy' Walk

Last week (or maybe longer) the boys and I went on an 'I spy' walk. I made up a picture list of things to look for while we walked/biked around the block.


 One of the things on the l list was purple flowers - found 'em!

Isaac did NOT want me to take his picture with the stick and rock that he found (I believe the rock is inside the blue Easter egg)!

An American flag was also on the list.

We will definitely do this again! We all had a lot of fun even though we didn't find everything on the list (green car, squirrel, acorn).

Charity Run

I am super excited to be participating in a charity run for the Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation next month.
I have joined Maddie's Team for Miracles.
If you go to this webpage, you can read all about my friend Maddie who was diagnosed with cancer last year and after several rounds of chemo and lots and lots of prayer is now considered cancer free. Truly a miracle!

If you are interested in donating and supporting the efforts of the Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation, you can do so on my donation page.
Thank you!

Easter

We had a very nice Easter - gorgeous weather, good food, fun company!

After lunch we did the egg hunt and the boys had a ton of fun hunting all over Boppa and Oma's backyard looking for Easter eggs.

Doesn't Jacob look guilty??





Since my mom filled a ton of eggs, I told the big boys to gather some eggs too.
Here's Mike with his pretty pink 'basket' (sand pail). Can you just see how much he loved that I took this picture?

My mom put balloons in a few of the eggs and those were the hit of the party!
Jeff blew this one up huge and Isaac was afraid of it or mad because Jeff wouldn't give it to him or something like that


Another humongous balloon

This laughter was because that huge balloon popped right over my head! No love. No love.

Then, just as I predicted, Jeff decided to fill the balloons with water. I think water is involved at every Easter party.

Isaac was enthralled with how funny the balloon felt all filled with water.

SPLAT!!

A little fun with calle lillies


SPLAT!!

More fun with balloons. I'm tellin' ya, these things provided tons of entertainment!

And just a little angst - 'Its too high!!'




Isaac really could have used a nap that day. Can you tell by the grumpy faces?

It was Jeff's birthday the weekend before, but he was in Mammoth so we didn't get to celebrate until Easter.
He recently got a smoker so we got him a book all about using a smoker. Lickin' his chops!

I used his new saw to cut the cake. Oh, just kidding! I didn't really.

My dad played his trombone in the Easter service so we busted it out for a little musical fun.

Isaac was not all that impressed by Jacob's trombone skills.


Then this guy showed up on the patio and caused a ruckus! It had a long, long tail and couldn't run fast so Jeff caught it and used it to terrorize us all (my mom).


Hope you all had a blessed Easter!