Selfie Stick

Mom got dad a selfie stick and they went right to work testing it out.  Such a funny little tool but actually takes fun pictures!

Summertime clothes

Summer time is here!  I love this little warm up outfit on Beck and now that the weather is nice he can finally wear it!  What a cute boy you are Beck!

Rease turns 8!

I can't believe I have a child this old!  Where have the past 8 years gone?  Rease my sweet oldest daughter is growing up and we loved celebrating her birthday!  It's the year for a friend birthday party so we got busy planning what kind of party she wanted.  Turns out, she wanted everything to be rainbow themed - so that's what we did!  

We had a bunch of her friends from school and the neighborhood over for games and cake and ice cream.  My wonderful friend Melissa came over to help me out with the houseful of 20 kids that came!  We played the balloon game, baby food hot potato (the kids' favorite), 3 legged races and wheelbarrow races.  The kids had a great time and it was easy and fun for me to plan it!

 Present time with so many kids is always a process.  But of course the birthday girl got lots of great gifts and had a blast opening everything.  I captured her reaction when she opened this favorite gift of hers - a kendama.  She has been wanting one for months and was super excited to get it!

Then it was cake time.  

Making a wish and hoping it comes true!

 This is the inside of the cake - rainbow just like she requested!

 The last gift she got that night was from me and Josh.  We waited to give it to her until he got home from work.  She has been needing a new bike and I found this darling cruiser with a basket and bell on it - she loved it!  Can't wait for all those summer days to come to ride all over the neighborhood!

Overall the party was a huge success.  And Rease continues to grow up and get more beautiful every day!

My favorite things about Rease at age 8:

1. Rease is my biggest helper around the house.  She loves to help feed, change and play with Baby Beck.  She has gotten into the routine of getting Beck up in the morning and getting his bottle for him so I can have a few more minutes of sleep.  She is so sweet to help me out!  She also has become really good at doing her chores around the house and it helps me out so much to have kids old enough to clean up!  

2. Rease is really really smart.  Her teacher at school is always telling us how impressed he is with Rease and how well she is able to catch onto new things.  Her favorite is math and she has a mind for getting it.  She learned all her addition, subtraction and multiplication and is working on her division to pass off before the end of the year.  Mr. Woolf said that no one else in the class has passed off multiplication and only a few have done both addition and subtraction!  What a smarty pants she is.  I hope she continues to love to learn!

3. Rease is the best oldest sibling.  While there are fights between the kids, of course, Rease is really such a great friend to each of her brothers and sister.  She is willing to help, comfort, love, boss, and just be a friend to each of them at separate times and I really love her for that.  Her and Rhen especially have a bond between them and do everything together.  They're friends with each other's friends and mostly they are best friends to each other.  Many nights they lay awake at night talking, reading, telling stories, laughing, joking or just being silly.  That's just the way it ought to be for sisters.

8 year old stats from Dr. Erickson:
Weight: 79.37 lbs - 94%
Height: 55.04 inches - 97%
BMI:18.4 - 85%

We love you Rease!  Happy Birthday!

Rhen's parent day

Today was Parent day at school for Rhen.  We got to spend two hours there and see all the types of things they have been learning all year.  We went to different stations around the room and did activities at each one.  I had so much fun being there and seeing how much this girl has learned this year.  It was also a day to introduce the kindergartners to the lunchroom and get them all prepared to eat at school next year.  So we got to eat with our cute kiddos in the lunchroom! So proud of her and so happy I get to be her mom!

Mowing the Lawn

The girls have loved helping Josh in the yard this year.  He taught Rhen how to mow the lawn and she thinks she is so grown up to be able to do it by herself.  She's such a good helper!

Rhen's May Book

Rhen has done some really cute things at school this year.  Mostly though she has been learning to write and I love reading her stuff.  This cute May journal was too darling to get rid of.  I love it!

The girls

Josh was out of town this week and I put the boys to be early so the girls and I could have a fun girl's night.  We made a tent and turned on a cute movie.  Popcorn and treats topped it off and we had a fun night together!  Us girls are getting out numbered in our house so we gotta stick together!  I love these two - they are such good helpers to me and such good friends to each other.  I love being their mama!

I love my milk

So I love my milk.  So what?

Spaghetti dinner

I love when these little ones start to eat everything on their own.  Doesn't he look like he just loves this spaghetti!  Cute little thing.

Memorial Day

I usually try and go down to my sister Sarah's grave sometime Memorial weekend.  This year we all decided to go.  It is always good to spend some time to remember and think about her and realize that we will see her someday soon.  I'm so glad we were able to go and that I could take my girls with me.

Cork Board

Josh always has such great idea.  I didn't know he was so creative when I married him, but that side has definitely come out over the years!  For my birthday this year he decided to make me a cork board.  Not just any cork board though, one that is made of actual corks.  He ordered a bag of 2300 corks and then got to work making the frame.  It's huge and he made it to fit perfectly on the wall next to the laundry room by our bedroom.

 He recruited the girls to help him.  After he stained the corks and cut them all in half, their job was to help glue them on.  

 It was a big job and they worked on it for a bunch of nights after the other kids had gone to bed.  

 It was a surprise for my birthday but he ended up telling me about it early when he ran out of corks and had to wait for more to be shipped.  A week later, he finished it.  It looks amazing!

 This is the final product.  Doesn't it look great?  It's a perfect fit for our house and I've been wanting a board to hang things up on.  Now I have it thanks to Josh!

 And the boys wanted to be in the picture too, so here is the photo bomb!

Thanks to my sweet hubby who always makes me feel special!

No more formula?

This is me celebrating that I just made my last bottle of formula for Beck.  Whole milk here we come!

Monster Math

Rease is in a group at school called Monster Math.  It's for students that are advanced for their age group on math.  She has really started to love math so has been excited to be in this group.  They had a competition recently and she said she didn't win but reached "champ level."  Not sure what that means but we are proud of her for what she does!  She is such a good student.  

Liev and Papa

We have such a great Papa and the kids love him!  I love these cute pictures of Papa and Liev having a fun time together!

Ogden Marathon 2015

I decided it was time for another marathon and this year we decided to try the Ogden Marathon.  I've heard it's a great course with lots of downhill so I was excited to try it.  It was a great spring to train too because we had such nice weather.  Saturday morning runs were awesome.  My goal this time was to get under 4 hours.  I've gotten pretty close another time but never under 4.  My training was right on track and I felt really great going in to the marathon.  Dad and Uncle Paul trained to run too so the three of us headed up to check in the day before the race.

I love the expo before the marathon.  I always get pumped up for the race and love seeing all the people around that are doing the same thing we are!

 We stayed at Paul's house that night and had a delicious pasta dinner.  We got to bed early because we had to be on the bus at 4:30 am.  With all the nice days we had during training, it was our bad luck that the day of the race called for rain.  I still had hope though that it would just sprinkle on us and would mostly be a nice day.  This is just before we loaded onto the buses.

 And up above Hunstville where the starting line was.  It was beautiful.  It was pretty chilly but during the 2 hours we had to wait, we were dry and warm huddled around the campfires.  Just before the race started we got a little snow flurry but it stopped just as quick as it started.

 As we were sitting there waiting for the race to start I listened to the announcer and wrote down a few facts about this marathon.  The race actually had a 5k, a half, a relay and a full marathon so it was a big day for the volunteers and those who put this race together.  People from 12 different countries were running in the marathon and there were over 1000 volunteers.  And one cool story was told of a handicapped boy racing in his 100th race that day.  At age 10 he started being pushed in a stroller/wheelchair during races and loved it so much they kept it up.  This race happened to be his 100th race.  Pretty cool.  

These are the notes I wrote down in a journal just before the race.  "There was snow then sunshine as we waited at the starting line this morning.  We are all crowded around fires to keep warm.  I feel nervous, excited and calm all at the same time.  I feel prepared though and know I will do my best.  My thoughts are on Josh and the kids and the support they've been during my training.  I'm grateful for my body and the good shape I've been able to be in and they legs are doing well.  I'm looking forward to the beautiful run and the good memories we'll make."

I was ready to run.  Dad and Paul were a little slower than I was so they told me to go on ahead.  This is taken with the starting line just ahead.  As you can see, the weather was rolling in.  It held out just long enough for us not to get soaked while we waited at the starting line.  Just before mile 1 the rain started and continued throughout the whole race.  Luckily Paul had given us each a little poncho to put on.  I threw it on at the last second just in case.  I'm glad I had it.  By the halfway point I was so cold and soaked that I couldn't feel my legs or my hands.  Anything that was wet was cold.  I was grateful to have that small poncho just to keep at least my core from getting wet and cold.  My feet were soaked of course and I could feel blisters coming on.  Overall it was a miserable day for a run.  

At mile 23 just as we came out of the canyon I hit my wall.  Dang it.  I thought I could get away from having that this race but no luck.  I was pretty well on track to hit my 4 hour goal until then.  But at that point I figured it was more important to slow my pace a little bit and keep running instead of stopping to walk.  So that's what I did.  Those last 3 miles were a struggle but I made it without stopping and crossed the finish line at 4:02:03.  We had a great support group there to cheer us on even though they had to stand in the rain too!  Josh and the kids, Hayley, Caleb and their kids, Melissa and Izzy and Garrett were all there at the finish line.  No matter what it's always awesome to see people you know and love there cheering for you!

 I love this "tent" they made for the triplets to keep dry.

 I sat down for a leg massage and didn't want to get up!

 I got changed into dry clothes then we headed back toward the finish line to watch for Paul and Dad.  They came in around 4:45.  Dad looked like he had a little bit of the runner's lean and looked like he was just holding on.  We cheered as loud as we could for them and dad saw us and waved.  Then he tried to surge forward to the finish line and his momentum took him forward faster than his legs could  keep up.  Before we knew what happened, he was down and had fallen into one of the barriers.  I jumped over the fence and tried to help him up.  He had blood coming from a gash near his eye, from his hand and running down his leg.  It was just a few feet from the finish line so we walked across with him and then turned him over to the medics.

 The nice thing about hanging out in the medical tent is that it was warm and dry.  Dad ended up needing a couple stitches by his eye so we all hung out there with him until he was done.  

After resting and being there for a while, we all got a little energy back and felt much better and warmer.  

This is what I can say about the Ogden Marathon.  I'm glad this day is over and we all finished.  It was a terrible day to run and the rain was a real pain to run through.  But the course was beautiful and I would like to try it again on a sunny day!  And even though I didn't reach my goal (just 2 minutes over!) I am happy with the race I ran.  Next time - 3:59.

Rease

Rease has really learned a lot this year in 2nd grade and has become an excellent reader.  They have done a few book reports this year and also did this "Meet the Author" day.  I want to always remember her favorite things at this age and see how much they change over time!  

Sud babies

Don't you hate when your kids waste all your expensive shampoo and conditioner just to see how many bubbles they can make?  Yah me too.

Road trip to Reno

Josh's parents are on a mission in Reno Nevada.  We've been trying to think of when would be the best time to go see them and last minute decided to go over Mother's Day.  It was a quick trip but we were all excited to see them.

The kids all snuggled up and watching their movie on the way.  They look harmless but there were actually some crazy moments with all these little ones!

 Dinner stop at a pizza place - it was nice for everyone to get out and stretch and eat some good food.

 We surprised Josh's mom when we got there.  His dad knew we were coming but we kept it a secret from her.  It was so fun to knock on their door that night and have all the kids run up and give her big hugs and kisses!  She was so excited to see all of us!  We got there Saturday night and then spent all day Sunday (Mother's Day) with them.  We went to church and met all their ward members that love them so much.  I can tell they are great missionaries and have made a big difference in the short amount of time they've been here.  

 We stayed in a dumpy hotel/casino but at least we had a nice bed to sleep on.  It was cramped quarters with all 7 of us in there but we managed.

 Out to breakfast the day that we were leaving.  It was such a fun trip even though it was just a couple days.  So fun to be with them again and see all the people they love here in Reno!

We love you Elder and Sister Beutler!