Bunko

It was my turn to host Bunko this month. It was one of those rare months that all of us were able to make it!

We had fun visiting, eating, trying new recipes, lots of catching up, yelling for Morty, and laughing! Love these ladies. They are wonderful, kind, loving, happy, willing to serve and FUN! I am so lucky and thankful to call each one of them a friend of mine!

p.s. I love these photos. John was our photographer. He just kept snapping photos. He didn't give us the "123...smile" or say "cheese" warnings...he just snapped away. I love how they turned out!

The actual birthday

Today is the day! Brody is officially 6 years old. We started his day(tradition) with doughnuts and the opening of his birthday gifts. He was up at the crack of dawn, ready to celebrate!

 

 He found his bedroom door loaded with fun treats and surprises.

He headed to school. He got to wear the birthday crown and be the line leader. He took 2 dozen plus 2 doughnuts to share with his friends and teachers.

After school, I picked up Brody and his pal, Sam. Brody wanted to go to McDonald's for lunch and so we did! They had fun playing in/on the new play structure.

His birthday evening was filled with two baseball games. One of his own and Carter Padres team had a game. He was thrilled to have a hot dog meal deal for his birthday dinner. He is always an easy guy to please...especially at the ball park.  After the ball games. we had cake and ice cream at home and celebrated Brody!

Happy 6th Birthday! We sure do love you!

S.I.X.

This is what S.I.X. looks like!

 We celebrated Brody's 6th Birthday(with his friends) the day before his actual birthday! Brody had taken a bath and was getting dressed. As soon as he was fully dressed, he turned to face John and I and looked at and asked, "Do I look like a 6 year old now?" Totally made us laugh out loud and then we told him he wouldn't look like a 6 year old until his actual birthday! I still can't believe that my baby is 6 years old.

Brody invited a few friends from his kindergarten class and we celebrated at BOUNCE U. They bounced and bounced. They jumped. They slid and they even bounced in the dark, with glow in the dark lights and a safety vest for the Birthday Boy. He is the crowd before they got wild.

 After and hour and a half of bouncing and sliding, we went into the party room to have cake and open presents.

The crowd goes wild and gets a little crazy!

Happy 6th Birthday to our sweet Brody!

Mother's Day 2013

This was not my favorite Mother's Day! I was running around the Friday before Mother's Day, checking things off of my to-do list, feeling just fine. I left Target about 1:45 pm and headed over to pick Tanner and Carter up from school. As I was driving, I began to feel warm and very tired. I barely made it home. I crawled right into bed and did not get out of bed until Sunday morning. I was knocked out with the flu. My boys were excited for me to come our to the kitchen on Mother's Day. When I finally made my way out there, this is was I found. John had carved out the letters to spell" Happy Mother's Day". What a fun fruit bowl. It looked too cute to eat.

I have been in desperate need of some new shirts. Instead of torturing John. By torturing, I mean having him go out and try to find what I like, I took care of it for him. I told him not to wrap any of it. I was happy to have new shirts. While I was sick in bed, he wrapped it all up so I had things to open on Mother's Day. There are no pictures of my Mother's day festivities due to the 24 hour flu :). Instead, I will show you my stash of cute,basic clothes :).

I hope all of the Mother's(my own Mom, Grandmas, Sisters, cousins, YW leaders, friends) had a wonderful Mother's Day. I am very thankful for each one of their influences in my own life.

Mother's Day in the kindergarten class

I was invited to Brody's kindergarten class, along with all of the other students and their Mother's. We enjoyed a Mother's Day program. We were greeted by our children and given a corsage to wear. There was also a little ALL ABOUT ME (according to Brody) purse. It was so cute. 

 The children sang a few songs. My favorite was the M-O-M, imagine M-O-M was her name-o, sung to the tune of B-I-N-G-O was his Name-o.

The children each took a turn sharing what they loved most about their Mom and presented us with a picture that they  had painted of us. Brody informed me that he had dropped some paint on my face. I am glad he clarified that one because I took a good long look in the mirror when I got home to see if I had a new mole/freckle pop up on my face that I wasn't aware of. 

What a treat it was to spend time with Brody, his classmates and the other Mothers. It was a delightful morning. I feel so blessed to be a Mom and to be a part of sweet days like this this!

Teacher Appreciation Week

We celebrated and appreciated our teachers this week. The PTA announced that our Teacher Appreciation Week would be Dr. Seuss themed. They thought it would be fun if we decorated our teachers door. I am the Room Mom for Garrett's classroom this year. I knew I needed some help/ideas...Pinterest to the rescue. This is what I came up with! I had taken individual photos of each child, wearing a Cat In the Hat, hat. Each child signed their name on a hat and I adhered their photo. I made a sign that read "Hats off to you! Thank you for all you do."

We did something fun for Mrs. De Cuir each day! The first day we decorated her door. On the 2nd day, we brought her a vase of flowers, red carnations...her favorite!

On the 3rd day, we provided a sack lunch for her! Turkey sandwich, cookies, Sun Chips and a banana. She even had a Dr. Seuss themed water bottle.  We couldn't just give it to her in a brown bag. I decorated her lunch bag to carry on our theme. For the remaining days, we gave her a basket with some of her favorite treats: a new coffee mug, dark chocolate, protein bars and a gift card to Starbucks. On Friday, we gave her a gift card to her favorite restaurant. We sure hope she knew/knows how much we appreciate her! Garrett has loved being in her classroom this year.

The older boys wanted to let some of their teachers know how much they appreciated them. Between Tanner and Carter, they have 12 teachers. Yikes. I told them to pick a couple of their teachers and we made them cookies/gave them Bath & Body soap. This is what we came up with(Thank you Eighteen25 girls and another Pinterest find(the cookie tag)!

We had fun spoiling our teachers this week. We feel really blessed to live in such a great community, filled with awesome teachers. We have had wonderful teachers this year. Teachers who give their all to their jobs. Our boys are so lucky to spend time in their classrooms!

American River Parkway Half Marathon

I did it! I completed it! I am happy that it is over!

At the end of 2012, I knew I wanted to run a half marathon. I am not sure what in the world possessed me to think or convince myself that I wanted to do it. With lots of reassurance from friends who had already run this half and a running/training schedule from my trainer at Fitness MD, I knew I could do it. My training began back in January! I continued to cross train at the gym (weights, spin, cardio) Monday-Friday. The long runs were saved for either Friday mornings or Saturdays. I am so thankful that my friend Stephanie decided to run the half. She and I trained/ran most of our long runs together and I am so glad that we did. We were able to chat the whole time and it made all of those miles run-able.

By the time the morning of the race approached, I was ready. Ready to run and get it over with. I got into the car to go pick up Stephanie and Jessica and I found this cute little note on the dash from John. I was crying before I even backed out of the driveway!

After bag check ins and a potty stop, we were ready to run!

We lost Jessica in the first 30 sends. That is really code for "She is too speedy for us". So proud of her for breaking her PR. Woot - Woot!

My only goal for this run was to run the entire thing without stopping AND that is just what I did. Stephanie and I started the  race together. At about mile 3, we had a good pace going, there seemed to be plenty of shade and I was simply feeling good. I mentioned to Stephanie that we could continue our Saturday runs and keep adding mileage to them and then we would be ready to run a full marathon this fall. I am pretty sure Stephanie wanted to reach over and punch me :). I was serious...and remember I was feeling good at this point.

As we continued to run and as we hit the 6 mark mile mark, two things crossed my mind. One, I couldn't believe that it was only 6 miles that we had run. It felt like WAY more than that. Two, I wanted to know where my family was. John had mentioned that they would be at the half way mark to cheer us on. With no sight of my family, I plugged on. At one point in the race, there was a slight hill to climb that took us up to the freeway and back down. Most of the runners slowed down to a slow jog or a walk. I knew that if I was going to keep up with my running the entire race goal, I had to plow up that hill. So that is just what I did. I just pretended I was at the gym, running CRAZY incline sprints. As I made it to the top and traveled along the freeway for a bit, i got a burst of energy/adrenaline from the cars/drivers honking their horns and waving to all of the runners. Miles 8 and 9 were super hard for me. My feet felt like they were on fire and it was hot for this girl who is used to working out at 5 am and running in the wee hours of the morning. The sun was hot and I was tired. It was the hottest day of the year to date! No Bueno! At mile 10, I sent John a text (yes, while running)that read "hitting mile 10...this sucks"! At this point, I had no ides if my family was even there. I left John with a lot of things/boys/games to juggle that morning. I got a text right back that said "We are waiting for you at the finish line. Keep running. You can do it"! I got very emotional and even cried a little bit. Just knowing that they were waiting for me at the finish line was HUGE. It made me want to finish this crazy run that I had started. At this same time, the song Hall of Fame by the Script had come up on my play list . I don't think I had really ever listened to the words or maybe they were just so appropriate for me at that moment. The part about "walking straight through hell with smile" made me laugh out loud and helped me to simply carry on. The part where it says "Do it for your people. Do it for your pride. Never gonna know if you never even try" pushed me to that finish line. Whatever is was, it was exactly what I needed to hear. I replayed that song several more times until I crossed that finish line.

I texted John at mile 11 and that is all it said  was "mile 11". He replied saying "I am at the finish line and we are all ready to give you a hug. I ran on. I texted him at mile 12 and I could almost hear him cheering me on. I had never been so happy in my life as I was to lay my eyes on this number!

After I passed the 13 mile mark, I could see the finish line. It was lined with family and friends, cheering everyone on. I spotted my family. My little guys (Garrett and Brody) ran with me across the finish line! A HUGE happy moment...a HUGE check mark on the bucket list.

I am so thankful for my family and their support. Training/running to log my miles was not easy to do during baseball season. John made sure I was able to get it done. He picked up the slack and I am thankful.

 (We are missing Carter in these  photos. He had to be at warm ups prior to his baseball game that day)

I have no desire to run a full marathon anytime soon. I am not saying NEVER but as of right now...I have no desire to do so!