Friday, May 28, 2010

My Baby is Graduating...from Kindergarten!

Connor graduated from kindergarten today…and although I’ve been to a lot of graduations up until now with 3 boys graduating from both 6th grade and high school and 2 boys graduating from preschool and now from kindergarten…this was probably the graduation that made me the saddest! Why? Because my baby is now on the verge of going to school full time…and he’s no longer much of a baby! I feel like he’s just about to take his first big step into the real world and I don’t know if I’m ready for it!

The graduation march with Connor in the lead

Connor has made me incredibly proud this year when I look back on all that he has accomplished. I can vividly remember as he was being tested at his pre-kindergarten assessment and he barely knew about a 1/3 of the alphabet. When his teacher pointed to most of the letters in the alphabet, he would just shrug his shoulders and say “I have no idea what it is!”...and I just sat in the background cringing and thinking that I was an awful mom for not teaching him more! Then just this past week he finished reading almost the highest level of reading books that he could read in kindergarten and he reads almost as good as Hayden, who will be in 4th grade next year!

Connor with his teacher, Ms. Littlewood

Connor has learned a lot this year and has grown up so much and he has loved his sweet teacher Ms. Littlewood! I’m proud of him for all that he has accomplished, but I’m definitely going to miss having my “half day” buddy! Congratulations Connor...but remember, you’re still my baby no matter how big or old you get!

Thursday, May 27, 2010

"Busy" is Our Middle Name!

The boys and I have kept really busy these last few weeks and I’m finally finding time to sit down and share some of it. Not only have we been busy, these past few weeks have been filled with lots of exciting stuff like animals, make believe, cowbells, magnets, buses, sack lunches...and running! To say that it has been anything less than an adventure would not do it justice...and in looking back it was an adventure that none of us would have passed up and it was definitely a lot of fun! So what is that we did that included all of those things? Well it wasn’t just one thing but a whole lot of things that made these past couple of weeks so great and I’ll start by sharing a little about each adventure!

We started off our adventures with the kid’s year end field trips. Hayden got to go to the Gateway Discovery center for his field trip and then a week later, Connor got to go to Hogle Zoo for his field trip...which explains the animals, make believe and magnets part of our adventures!

Both field trips were down in Salt Lake and I volunteered to help with each one of them. The boys were both thrilled to be able to ride a bus to their field trip and even though Hayden’s bus was an hour late getting to the school, I was lucky enough to get to ride with him…which quite honestly, was probably one part of the adventure I could have done without! On the other hand, Connor got to ride the bus for his very first time ever and he got to do it all by himself...with a few teachers along for the ride! Needless to say, they both loved it and would have, if necessary, counted that as their adventure and been happy without doing the rest!

I had never been to the Gateway Discover center and I was just as excited as Hayden was to see it for the first time. I had to chaperone 2 other boys besides Hayden and they were probably the ones that the teacher considered the hardest to handle, but we had a great time and I didn’t have one bit of trouble with any of them. At times it was hard to keep track of all of them because the place was crawling with 3rd graders, but once they had spent a few minutes at each attraction, they were ready to move on to the next one and I just tried to stay right behind them. However, at a few of the attractions, the kids were having so much fun that I had to urge them to move along so that they would be able to see everything there was to see in the 2 short hours that we were going to be there. There were a lot of fun things to see and do and I was truly impressed with the place. I was just glad that it was an indoor activity because it just so happened to be raining and 52 degrees outside and would have been miserable if we would have had to be outside.

The 3 kids I had to chaperone - Hayden, Wyatt and Ryan

I took this picture from inside because I didn't want to stand out in the pouring rain

One of Hayden's best friends, Emily Vogel

Me and Hayden

A week later, I went with Connor to the zoo. Fortunately, a week’s time in Utah is enough time for the weather to go from winter-like conditions to summer-like conditions and we were able to spend the day at the zoo with sunshine and 82 degree weather. It was a perfect day to be outside! Connor had been to the zoo several times before so it wasn’t new to him, but we still had fun seeing all of the animals…especially the new baby elephant! That was probably my favorite, but I don’t think that Connor really had any favorites. He just loved it all! The only downfall to our trip at the zoo was all of the walking we had to do...which included a lot of uphills and downhills…and I was still recovering from running my marathon only a few days earlier and I still had blisters on my feet and sore quads from running downhill at the race! I survived though and had a great day with Connor! Did I mention that the only kid I had to chaperone was Connor? That made the day even more perfect...that and being able to hang out with our best friends Carmen and Austin Harrison.

Connor has a bit of an attitude!

Connor with his teacher Ms. Littlewood

Our best friends, Carmen and Austin
(and the little boy she had to chaperone, Trace Johnson)

Help! The kids are going "ape"!

Me and my buddy

At the elephant cage...can you see the baby elephant under his mom?

In between the field trips, I ran in the Ogden marathon for the second year in a row. I finished my marathon last year in 4:08 and I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to beat that time this year. So rather than bust my butt and come out disappointed, I decided to do something different this year...I chose to run the race with one of my best friend’s, Jodee. She had only ever run one other marathon, which was the Top of Utah marathon in the fall and she wanted to beat her time if possible. When I told her that I wanted to run with her, she was excited, but I also forewarned her that I was going to push her a little and that didn’t seem to scare her. So when the starting gun went off, we set out with frozen feet and hands (we had been sitting around for an hour at the starting line in 35 degree weather waiting for the race to start) and high hopes!

Right from the start of the race, I really pushed the pace and we kept it up for the first 8 miles...and then Jodee broke it to me that she wasn’t sure if she would be able to keep it up! I told her that we’d slow down and go her pace for a while, but only if we could go my pace when we reached mile 17, which was all downhill from there, and that’s exactly what we did...until we got to mile 23 and then we were both dead! Jodee encouraged (or insisted) that I go on ahead and she promised that she wouldn’t be far behind me. I fought her for a while, but I finally gave in and went on by myself. Even though I may have been pushing her, she had been pushing me too and we had kept each other going. We finished the race within 3 minutes of each other and although I didn’t better my time (I finished it in 4:26), I wasn’t disappointed with myself because I’d actually done better than I thought I would and best of all, Jodee finished 40 minutes faster than she did in her first marathon and was thrilled! We made a great team! My only repercussion to the race was the aforementioned blisters and sore quads, but what would a race be without those? No pain, no gain, right?

Hayden took this photo

Me and Jodee - we finished 3 minutes apart but ran together most of the way

My favorite little buddies

An hour after we finished our race, our kids ran the KidsK that started from the park and ended coming through the same Finish line that we had just passed through. Hayden went on ahead with Jodee’s daughter Audrey and her cousin and Connor just ran by himself...trying to keep up with Hayden! I tried to keep up with both of them, but soon decided that the blisters on my feet were bigger and more sore than I had realized and I had a hard time keeping up. I was glad when I realized that they were going to double back on the course that they had just run, so I just waited for the boys to return so that I could take pictures of them and then run through the Finish line with them. The kids all received a “medal” for finishing but it was actually a cowbell…which explains the running and the cowbell part of our adventure! It was a fun day for all of us! Even Rod was a good sport and just hung around and supported all of us! He’s an amazing husband and dad and we sure do love him!

Hayden running with his buddies

Connor ran alone, but he did great!

The finishers!

Aren't they cute?

The winners...and our greatest supporter, Rod

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Happy 27th Patrick!

We know that we can't be with you today, but in my mind, the next best thing to being there is pictures and video...so that's what we're sending you! It's not much but at least you know that we're thinking of you! Happy Birthday! We love you!

Thursday, May 20, 2010

IS IT DONE YET?

Believe it or not, I’m actually going to break down and do the one thing that I’ve wanted to do for a while…post the pictures of my finished kitchen! The funny thing is, the kitchen has actually been done for a full month now, but I just barely took a “final” picture...and I probably took 100 or more “before” and “during” pictures! Doesn’t that sound a little backwards? You’d think that I’d want to have a ton of the “after” pictures because it’s so amazing! In fact, almost every time I sit in my kitchen, I just look around and feel like I’m in a model home...because it seems too nice to be my very own kitchen...but it is!

BEFOREAFTER
BEFOREAFTER
BEFORE
AFTER

BEFOREAFTERAs weird as it may sound, I think the real reason for my lack of taking “after” pictures is because I don’t feel like it’s really completely done. The kitchen itself is done, the cupboards are in, the countertops are on, the appliances are hooked up and working (most of the time) and the tile backsplash is complete, but my shelves and walls aren’t completely decorated and my window is lacking a finished curtain. I guess I won’t feel like it’s “done” until all of those things are finished, but since that may not be for some time, I’m going to post these picture anyway. When (or if) I ever get it completely “done”, I’ll post those pictures too, but for now, I’m sure these will do!

BEFORE
AFTER

BEFORE
AFTER

Isn’t it amazing?

Sunday, May 9, 2010

QUEEN FOR A DAY!

Today was Mother’s Day...and what a wonderful Mother’s Day it was! It wasn’t because I was showered with gifts, because I wasn’t (although I did get a few), and it’s not because I was showered with praise and recognition, although I did receive a little of that, it was mostly because my family was all together (minus Patrick) and I felt truly loved! Rod also treated me like a queen and although I found myself trying to help with dinner and things around the house, Rod told me to sit and relax and just enjoy my day and he would take care of dinner...and he did!

Look at mom's flowers that we just planted!

These are the other flowers Rod gave me!

So what did we have for dinner? Well yesterday, as I was planting my flowers in my flower pots, which was my gift from Rod like it is every year (I’m easy huh?), Rod asked me what I wanted for dinner today. As much as I love to eat, I honestly couldn’t think of anything that sounded that wonderful, so I told him that I didn’t know and for that matter, didn’t really care either. He then nonchalantly asked me if I would like prime rib and lobster…and knowing that he was probably just joking, I told him that sounded great! So guess what we had for dinner? Prime rib and lobster with corn on the cob, baked potatoes and homemade cornbread! See why I said I felt like a queen?

Prime rib and lobster fit for a queen!

My boys all showed me just how much they loved me too. This morning as I sat in my bed typing in my journal, Connor came into my room with a shoebox in hand and a huge smile on his face. He was coming to deliver my Mother’s Day gift that he’d been working on for over a week now. It was the cutest gift ever! It had a messily hand folded boat taped to one end (just last night he asked me if I liked boats or flowers and then before I could answer he told me that boats were easier to make...so I picked boats), it had a square piece of purple paper taped to the side (he also asked me last night what my favorite color was...and it’s purple!), it had a full piece of paper taped to the other end with the words “Mom Happy Mothrs Day” written on it, and it had a decorated paper sack taped to the top of the box that contained part of my Mothers Day present. Inside the sack was a cute picture of Connor inside a handmade popsicle frame with magnets on the back to hang on my fridge! Of course, my new fridge is stainless steel, so magnets only stick on the sides, but I figured I would find a good place to hang it! Inside the box was a picture that he’d drawn of him and I and I was holding a flower. It was all so cute...and so “Connor”! I am so blessed!

Happy Mother's Day...do you want to see what it is?

Isn't this the cutest little fridge magnet...and boy too?

Not 10 minutes later, Hayden appeared in my doorway with a card in hand. It was my Mother’s Day gift from him and as he handed it to me, he apologized because it had gotten a little bent and wrinkled in the bottom of his backpack (and what wouldn’t?) but I didn’t care. Inside the card was written Mom, I love you because… and he’d added “your awesome and always help me. You are so awesome. Love Hayden.” Isn’t that so sweet? But that wasn’t all! Taped to the back of the card was a cute little notepad that had a copy of a picture the he’d made for me on every page. I can’t wait to use it! All I can say is that I LOVE BEING A MOM!Has anyone said "Happy Mother's Day!" yet?

As for my older boys, Jon joined us for dinner and brought with him some beautiful flowers that were just for me! Chris didn’t come until later because he had to take Jenny (his girlfriend) to the airport because she was headed home to Texas for the summer. When Chris showed up, we were just cleaning up dinner but we had saved plenty of food for him. He gave me a really sweet Mother’s Day card and between that and the flowers that Jon had given me, I really felt truly loved by all of my boys. I was sad that I didn’t get to hear from Patrick, but I’m sure it was because of the time difference between here and Korea.

The flowers that Jon gave me and the card that Chris gave me

I feel truly loved by all of my boys!

Anyway, I just want to wish a Happy Mother’s Day to all of the other MOM’s in my life! I hope your day was just as nice as mine was!