yogurt.

No words...just cuteness!

south dakota day 3

We went to a place near Deadwood called Trout Haven. You stand out on this little bridge and a guy hands the kids a pole with a line, hook, and bait all ready to go. They drop their line in the water and they are fishing away. Parker caught the first one and he was so excited. Here he is trying to hold it so Grandma can take a picture. He's excited, but not real sure about the slimy, squirmy fish.
Spencer holding his prize catch. The boys each caught a couple and their cousins each caught one. The guy that works there put them all in a bucket then we followed him over and watched him clean and gut the fish. The kids thought it was kind of cool...gross, but cool:)

And the fish came home with us packed on ice. So now we have 6 fish in our freezer ready to be eaten.

south dakota day 1

We went to South Dakota at the end of June to see family and go to Cory's cousin's wedding. Here are my cute kids after the ceremony. This was at the end when we were heading back to Grandma and Grandpa's house. Cory with no tie, boys untucked shirts and Mataya ate her weight in candy....nice! Walking to the ceremony. We had to walk a little ways and cars were driving past to go and park and we were walking along the edge of the road and poor Spencer rolled right into a ditch. He just disappeared into some trees and shrubs. It was cute and funny. This was were the wedding took place. It was really pretty and it started raining a little, but nothing too serious. Little goofballs! Mataya loved sitting on the table tasting all the goodies. She could've been a part of the wedding party, her outfit matched everything.

breakfast.

I wanted to post this picture because I'm a little weird, I guess. This was right after I ran my half-marathon and we all went out for breakfast at Denny's where I took down the Lumberjack Breakfast.....not the Grand Slam....that's for little girls! I run so I can pig out...it's a good trade off.

Speaking of being a pig. Check out this awesome race that I want to do! Parker is totally on board for the kid race....go figure:)

summer fun.

My sweet little girl playing in the backyard. She has a new found love of shoes and always has to have a pair on plus she also loves to play in the dirt and any water she can find. She's got the best of both worlds! Enjoying some fireworks. Spencer is always putting together costumes and outfits of various sorts. He's got a great imagination. I love this little spaz!
"Oooh, aaaah!" Childhood memories and sparklers go hand in hand.
Mataya had a bath at the end of the night and Spencer wanted to hold her before she went to bed. She looks huge!

freedom half-marathon.

In March I decided I wanted to run a half-marathon. My sister-in-law MaryAnn had started running a few months before and we decided we were going to do it. So 14 weeks of training led up to this and I couldn't have done it without my awesome husband being so supportive and encouraging me along the way. It's been tough, but so worth it! Here are a few snapshots that Cory took from the race.Here we are at mile 6. The race up until this point was awesome. It started up in Immigration Canyon and was downhill, shady, and beautiful! But right after this it was uphill and really hard, but for every uphill there was a downhill.
Spencer ran up and grabbed my hand and ran with me as long as he could. It was so cute!

The sprint to the finish line. I finished in the time that I wanted and I was so happy!

My face matches my shirt...lol! It was the perfect day for a race. We started up in the canyon freezing and ended with a warm, beautiful day.

We had a great peanut gallery waiting for us at the finish line.

The two rock stars! Right about now I was wishing I was drinking a diet rock star. I secretly wanted to wear my medal to church the next day to show it off, but I decided not to:)

What a great way to finish! And what an awesome family I have:)

back home.

We got back yesterday from a trip to South Dakota for a wedding and to see family. It was a very fun time. We did TONS of great stuff that I took several hundred pictures of that I will hopefully post as soon as I can. We are in the middle of a complete backyard makeover that is nearing completion so we've been busy with that. We are getting concrete work done tomorrow that we are most excited about!

We stayed the night in Casper, WY two nights ago and woke up Wed. morning to head home and Spencer said his tummy hurt. I wasn't too concerned because he didn't get a lot of sleep and I just thought he was tired and worn out. We are on our way and we stopped at a Subway about 1 hour from home and we are having lunch and Parker gets up to go to the bathroom. A few minutes later we hear banging on the door and a crying, panicked Parker is locked in there and he's desperately trying to get out. It was a crappy door knob and lock and they didn't even have a key for the door. Cory was fully prepared to body check the door, when Parker got it open and he was a little shaken. The manager came over to console him and we walked out of there with 3 big sugar cookies for all the drama! I guess being 6 and getting locked in a bathroom is a big deal. Maybe he was afraid we would leave him or something, I don't know. I also learned on this trip that it is a VERY big deal if you break a Kit Kat for your 4 year old. Because he CAN do it by himself and he was deeply hurt and mad that I did it for him and it took him a while to get over it.

So we are nearing the end of our trip and Spencer throws up.....nice! We pull over and I clean him up the best I can and we make our way home.

Well, it's nice to be home! Laundry, cleaning and doing nothing are on the agenda.....oh and I'm running a half-marathon on Saturday...so I guess that's a little more than doing nothing.