An April Run for Olivia

Our first 5k of the season! This one was to benefit a baby girl who lost her mom in a freak house explosion a couple of months ago in a neighboring town. You could tell that the whole community was affected by this tragedy by the sheer amount of people that showed up to run. There were a sea of runners! The race itself was challenging and fun. Practically the entire first half of the run was uphill! But I love a challenge! Here's a pic of us right before the race started.

I did well. Coming in at just under 30 minutes. Will had to push the stroller so he took a little longer, about 36 minutes. I don't envy him one bit having to push that stroller uphill. He's such a stud! After our race was finished, the boys had races, too! Coleman competed in the 3-5 yr old race running 400 meters! He was so excited and did a great job. Not really a focused runner but that will come with age. ;) Here he is lined up at the starting line.

And running his little heart out.

Cooper ran, too. The 0-2 yr old race was 100 meters and I guess you could say that he was a bit unfocused, also. He kept trying to turn around and race back to the starting line. This video was taken just as Will turned him back around in the right direction.

They both got blue ribbons and cookies when they finished. Coleman was so proud! I'm not sure that Cooper really knew what was going on but he loved being outside all morning.

Here are a few more pics from this morning.




I even got to see Connie (one of my college roommates) since she came up with her kids to run, too! It's always great to see her!


What a fun way to spend a sunny Saturday morning! Next one is in 2 weeks!

A sad occasion.

This week started off on a somber note. I attended a funeral Monday morning for a little six-yr-old girl. She was the grand-daughter to a dear neighbor and I wanted to show my support. It was heart-wrenching and left me with a knot in my throat as I tried to keep it together. Upon returning home, I was emotional and grateful for my own blessings. I have to say, though, that there was an underlying note of joy among her family. They talked about how they knew that she is in heaven running and jumping as she never had before and how blessed their family was to have her for those six short years. It is so great to know that our Heavenly Father has told us that we can reunite with our families after death. What a great comfort that is to her family and to anyone who loses a loved one. It was a beautiful service.

So, be sure to give thanks and recognize what a beautiful blessing it is to have healthy children. Let them know how much you love and appreciate them.

Easter weekend.

What a fun Easter weekend we had! The picture above is us in our Easter best. The weekend started out Saturday with our neighborhood's 2nd annual Easter Egg Hunt and potluck brunch. Coleman and Cooper had a great time finding Easter eggs and we had fun visiting with the neighbors. Here's some video of the boys hunting for Easter eggs around the playground at the park behind our house.



And a pic of mom, Will and the boys eating brunch afterwards.


Easter morning, Coleman and Cooper woke up and found their Easter baskets. Here's Coleman with his.

He was so excited that the Easter bunny remembered that his favorite color was blue and just gave him blue eggs. He had fun searching through all the treasures in his basket. Cooper, on the other hand, found his basket and just started throwing everything in it against the wall. I can't say that I was surprised at all, though. He pretty much chucks everything within his reach.

Later, we packed up and drove to Roy for church with Chad, Yulia and the boys. After church we went to their house and had Easter dinner and the boys had an Easter egg hunt in the front yard.

They found all the eggs in no time flat and ran inside to check out the treats inside.

All in all, it was a great holiday weekend and we are all now officially in sugar detox for the next few days!

We're pregnant!

Ha Ha! April Fool's! It's been a fun April 1st at our house today. I started out really excited to prank Will, so I taped down the sprayer at the sink. Unfortunately, it took him a lot longer to wake up and come downstairs than I expected and I was cooking breakfast so I ended up spraying myself not only once but TWICE! I was soaking wet and about the give up on pranking Will but I stuck with it. (Yes, I'm a total airhead but I'm persistant!) I asked him to rinse off a spatula for me and I had my prank, finally! He was mad at first but cooled off pretty quickly. Although after pranking myself a couple times before that I think that I may be best off leaving the pranks to the pros...

We had a special April Fools meal tonight. For dinner we had a meatloaf cake, which was meatloaf baked in cake pans and iced with mashed potatoes. And for dessert, Coleman and I made "grilled cheese" sandwiches made with toasted pound cake and orange icing and "mashed potatoes and gravy" which was actually ice cream with caramel sauce. So essentially we had dessert for dinner and dinner for dessert. Coleman was tickled. Here are a couple of pics.