Mother's Day

I had a fabulous Mother's Day weekend thanks to good company and fun activities.

On Saturday my sweet husband watched the kids almost the entire day while I played. The morning started with an early 5k race in Smithfield. It was fun to run in my old stomping ground and see some familiar faces. I even was able to run a personal best 22.07 min. and came in second overall female out of 199. Hooray!

Thanks for the picture Ky!

Then I rushed home to get the kiddos ready and go to Riley's last soccer game. Good thing the earlier race was only a 5k because I didn't have time for a real shower. Just the wipe down. Maybe too much information?

After the game it was off to Salt Lake. I took my Mom with me and dropped her off at her Mom's (Gma Smith) and then headed to meet my friend Abby for my debut Sushi taste test at Happy Sumo. The Verdict...YUMMY! The Mango Mama and Rock 'n Roll are delish! Seriously, I want more.

Then we made a quick trip to the new Deseret Book across from Temple Square (fancy shmancy)and I purchased this book that I've been wanted to get for our F.H.E's. It is a wonderful book to help your kids learn the scripture stories. So far, so good!

I linked the picture if you want more info.

After we said our goodbye's I met back up with Mom and Gma for a tour of Ikea. Wow. I had heard the store was huge but really...ridiculous! We didn't even make it through the whole store before closing time. Crazy! We even sacrificed dinner so we would have enough time to gander but oh well.

We finally ended up eating dinner around 9 p.m. at the Olive Garden.

Maybe a little too much to drink? Still sporting the after race glow.

Ahhh, aren't they cute? Grandma mighta had a little too much to drink as well for when she tried to pass Mom a breadstick she asked if she would like to share her BED. Hahaha, things are so much funnier late at night.

I ended up dropping Mom off around midnight then made my way 2 blocks to my own bed. Thank goodness we live so close or I mighta bunked up with her. The next morning the kiddos surprised me by taking me outside (with my eyes closed) and showed me my newly detailed van. Brandt must have noticed how filthy it was. It was a WONDERFUL gift. We're working very hard to keep it that way but the rain and mud isn't helping.

Church was nice because I got to have an hour off of Primary (thanks to the YW and Priesthood) and go to Relief Society where we had a wonderful lesson and snacked on eclairs and cream puffs. So nice! Especially the cream puff part. I lucked out and one of the trays was sat next to me after everyone indulged...so I indulged 4 more. YUM! Good thing I raced the day before eh? The next ward council I suggested to the Bishop that we make this a monthly thing but he didn't agree. Although I also asked if we could hold sacrament meeting outside so he was probably getting sick of me. ;)

I am a proud Mama to have married such a wonderful man and created such beautiful children. They do require many sacrifices on my part but that's probably why I love them so much. The harder you work at something the bigger the reward. They are my life!

HAPPY belated MOTHER's DAY TO ALL YOU MAMA's!!!

Look Who's 6!!!

What?....6? What happened to 4 and 5?

My little girl has to use two hands to show her age now....she couldn't be more thrilled!

Parties

To start off Riley's birthday sha-bang Grandma Cindy and Great Grandma Smith took the girls to see How to Train a Dragon. They said it was super cute. Then Gma Great gave Riley a big girl watch (with hands) as a gift and Riley tells everyone that if they need to now the time to just ask her. Most of the time it's a guess but we're working on it.

Then we did a little celebrating on Sunday with the Baldwin family since we all gather together for dinner.

Riley did Sammie's hair for the occasion. :)

Riley takes after her mama and prefers birthday brownies to cake.

*F*R*I*E*N*D*S*

She happened to have school off the day of her birthday so we invited a bunch of her girlfriends over for a party.

Decorating/eating cupcakes.

We played pin the lips on the frog (totally Riley's idea which turned into who could kiss the frog and turn him into a prince), had a cake walk, a marshmallow/straw relay race,and another relay race than involved dressing in big clothes and doing a cartwheel or somersault at the finish line....I thought I was going to kill over from laughing.

Here's Sammie trying to get dressed. She just dropped her drawers so we were all laughing at her.

Then trying to run in the clothes. HaHaHa...

Birthday Roast

I let Riley pick her favorite foods for her birthday meal and so her menu was as follows.

• Spaghetti
• Broccoli with cheese
• Pink milk
• Rolls
• Bacon

I had the Rolls raising, the bacon thawed, and was going to start the spaghetti when Dad asked Riley if she wanted to go to the canyon. (Why wasn't I consulted first?) Well OF COURSE she wanted to go. My kids LOVE the mountains. So I packed up the usual campfire meal and off we went.

Tyler - Just happy to be outside hangin' with Pops. He was being so funny. As I was preparing his food he was doing this dance while singing/screaming "Hot Dooooooooooog". Oh the personality in this one.

Riley is 6 now so she "doesn't need anyone to cook her dog for her."

Sam doing some acrobatics while waiting for her hot-diggity-dog.

I was trying to snag a picture with the birthday girl but it didn't last very long until all my chillin's wanted in on the photo shoot.

Then Ty had to have his own picture taken after the group shot. He's my boy!

Opening gifts from Mom and Dad

When we got home from the canyon (around 9 p.m.) we had fresh rolls and let Riley open the gifts from our little family.

Summer clothes. Wow, is that enough polka dots for ya?

Coby Ipod. I found this one on a 50% off sale at Shopko. She feels all grown up with it.

Heeley's. I don't even know how to spell that. You know, the shoes with a wheel in the heel. My Sis-in-law found some for like 75% off online so we grabbed them and Riley had no idea they were coming. So fun! Thanks Cami!

Whew! We finally wrapped up the day about 10:00 p.m. and slept well. Luckily Riley didn't have to go to school the next day so we recuperated and finished off the day with the remainder of her birthday dinner. What a celebration!

Easter Re-cap

We celebrated Easter too! I'm just a slacker at getting my post done. I've been spending more time HERE on my fitness blog lately. Whoops! So to avoid a picture overload I've tried to just pick out pics to help describe our Easter weekend, but not every second of it.

Saturday Festivities

Because of the snow, Wellsville opted to hold it's Egg hunt (which is really a huge candy scramble) indoors at the fire station. They invited kids in by age group, threw candy all over the floor, and yelled "GO". Tyler easily caught on because he's always trying to get at the good stuff at home.

Riley ditched the basket and was going for the 2-hand scoop method. She came out nicely. I would have made her share but all kids fair well at this hunt. That's why we LOVE it.

Then we loaded up and headed to Paradise to spend the rest of the day at Gpa/Gma Baldwin's. This town is die-hard Easter fans and still held their hunt outside.

This was Ty's field of glory.

It was still fun but the kids were FROZEN when we got done. After we thawed out at Gpa's they had their hunt there where the egg's have quarter's inside. Ka-ching! There's enough grand kids around that we send them in to hunt according to age group as well.

Tyler cashing in with the 2 and under.

The girls lining up for the 3-6 yrs.

Sunday Festivities

Ahhhhh, having Easter morning on conference weekend was SO nice. (On that note, wasn't conference AMAZING?) Last year with all of Brandt's before/after church meetings we had to do some dancing to get the bunny here. This year was MUCH easier on her.

So excited for flip-flops!

New dresses...Riley and her poses. ;)

There were eggs EVERYWHERE. I love Sammie's hair and expression in this pic.

Tyler's idea of a successful hunt...steal the basket with the most eggs in it.

OR

Immediately start eating the goods from his basket.

To top off our morning Dad made his regular pancake feast with an Easter twist. Yum!

After stuffing our faces and taming some hair we went to Gpa Rick and Gma Cindy's. The girls got these cute basket-purses (in which Sam now takes her scriptures to church in) and Tyler got a SUPER superball... always happy with a ball in his hand.

And these next pics are to shock my crafty friends. I know, way simple but I was proud. I usually just buy my decorations but I have a hard time finding Easter one's that I like (not a huge pastel fan) so I took it upon myself to create these. The wreath cost me a total of like $5 and the vase a little less ( I waited until about 2 weeks from Easter to make them so I could buy the eggs at %50 off). This is why I should get more in touch with my inner-craftiness but it SO does not come naturally.

Should I be taking orders? KIDDING! But I was proud of myself. I'd probably still rather go run a few miles than break out the hot glue gun but it's a work in progress.

Whatcha Think?

Is this the right shade? Maybe something a little more subtle?

Sad thing...I was in the next room. Even more sad...Brandt was in the same room. I asked Brandt what Tyler was doing because he was being so quiet and when he turned around this is what he saw.

I'm not sure if he was more dismayed by the mess or by the fact that his son was wearing lipstick.

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