Thursday, April 20, 2017

Wedding and Easter

We had a wonderful weekend seeing family in Nebraska and I have lots of pictures to share.  We drove up Friday after school to be there for the aunt Amy's wedding on Saturday.  We spent the day hanging out with family and exploring "farm life".  Ha! We went to see and feed the cows and play on hay bales.
Here is a little action shot of Nora jumping on the hay bales.
Evan could have stayed there all day playing on the hay bales
Nora explored a little in cousin Aiden's room and found a few things to put on…..
We participated in the towns Easter egg hunt and probably doubled their participation since we had all the cousins there :)
Oh and Nora is still obsessed with wearing this pool cover up…...
Hannah collected an entire stack of pencils on the hunt….
In the late afternoon we got ready for the wedding.  The weather was just beautiful.  
Not very often that we are all dressed up.
This dress with cowboy boots is so darn cute.
Walking down to the ceremony.
We took some selfies while waiting for the ceremony to start.
This hair is something else….
This handsome little boy was more interested in catching a lizard than taking pictures
I can't believe we got three family pictures on this trip with everybody looking.  That is impressive.
This one is my favorite
I snuck one picture during the ceremony.  Congratulations Amy and Darren!
Pictures after the ceremony
We had lots of fun eating and dancing at the reception

 
Nora was quite the dancer for the night.  All three kids made it until 10pm before starting to show signs of tiredness.  Thankfully we made it back to the hotel before meltdowns.
Easter morning the kids woke up and saw that the Easter Bunny left them a basket at the hotel.  They had been worried that the Easter Bunny won't find them since we were not home.
Evan didn't want to bring his easter basket, so he brought his Halloween bucket instead.
Then the kids saw cousin Blaine hunt for easter eggs outside at the hotel and were really worried that he will get all the eggs and they tried to hurry up to get out there.  We had to convince them that maybe the easter bunny left eggs for them at aunt Amy's house…..which he did!
Lots of eggs at aunt Amy's house for them to hunt
We had Easter brunch with the family and then started our drive home.  We only made it half way to Wichita on Sunday, spent the night and then drove the rest of the way on Monday morning.  





Thursday, April 13, 2017

Half Marathon, Evan's Games and A Little Bit Of This And That

Kind of a random title for a Blog post, but I couldn't come up with anything better.

About three weeks prior to the Bentonville Half Marathon Scott showed me an email with a picture of the Finishers Hoodie they were going to give out.  I really liked it, so Scott said why don't you do it. 
I signed up that day…….just to get a cool medal and a hoodie!
I had still been running, just not very much.  I made up a three week training plan in my head and wet for it.
The race was awesome and a lot of fun.
Scott and the kids came out to watch me again at mile 7 and then at the Finish line.
Hannah and Evan were very proud of their signs.  They definitely put a smile on my face.
This was at the top of "The Hill" at mile 13.  Anybody that has ran this hill knows how tough it is to have it at mile 13.
Coming down the finish line
I finished in 1:40:18.  I was VERY happy with my results.  I beat my time from last year by almost 5 minutes.
It was a beautiful day and perfect running conditions.  Later that afternoon we went to the square, wearing the finishers hoodie of course, and had some ice cream.
I really wanted a picture with all three kids, but Evan was too busy.  
I do really like the picture of me and my girls though (the portraits feature on my new phone takes amazing pictures)
The race was on April Fools Day and Evan has been obsessed with April Fools now.  He is still playing jokes every day now.  He has asked me to google april fools joke a lot and we have tried many of them by now.  He must thinks its April Fools Month.  Oh and he called it "great wolf fools".  Apparently thats what he hears when we say april fools.  So funny.

Now on to Evan's games.  This little boy is so creative and always comes up with new things to make or play.  He has been wanting to build "Fast Lanes" games (arcade games).  Here is one of his creations.  It is one of those claw machines.  
You have to put money in on the side (he made a hole for it)
Then you get to use the kitchen tongs (you are not allowed to look inside) and grab something and try to pull it out the top without it falling back in.  He had filled the box with candy and small toys.

This is one of the many times we have played "birthday party"
Oh and it was a surprise party for me this time and he was taking my picture

He has also built a fishing game, a putt putt course in the house, a race course and a Leprechaun trap.  We should really buy stock in Scotch tape, because we go through a lot of it with all of Evan's "projects".

Now here is a little bit of this and that (gotta keep with my Blog post title)
Last week we decided we need to stock up our freezer again with some made from scratch waffles, muffins and tortillas.
I have made tortillas before a long time ago and now I remember why I haven't made them in a while…..its a lot of work and a little messy.  I don't think tortilla making will be in our near future again
They do taste pretty good though
Evan and Nora both had a dentist appointment last week.  Evan is a pro and does really well.  Nora did great for her first time.  She let the doctor check her teeth no problem, but didn't want to get them cleaned.
Hannah had a fun Girls Scout outing.  The troop decided to spend some of their hard earned cookie money on donations to the Children's Shelter and then go get a Build A Bear for themselves.

The girls had a fun afternoon of delivering donations to the shelter and building a bear.
These girls have been so much fun and I am so happy to be a part of tho little troop.
Hannah had testing week last week and at the end of the week the teacher asked me to bring in popsicles for the class to celebrate.  Of course the two little ones benefitted from that as well.
Evan started playing t-ball last week.  He has had one practice so far and really liked it.  He looks so stink in cute out there (this is the best picture we got).