35

For my 35th birthday I decided to host a yoga on the beach event with some of my mom friends. I hired babysitters to watch the kids at a nearby playground while the beach moms did yoga from a video off my laptop. The yoga started off a little tricky with clingy children, quick sand areas, & sun glare. Sam was especially reluctant to go with the babysitters and chose to dangle from me while in the downward dog position than play on an actual playground. Go figure.
Today was a great reminder of the many blessings I have in my life. The line of minivans that followed me to the beach, the kids, the sand in every crevice, & the crazy tan lines from a built in sports bra tank is my definition of 35. It's going to be a great year!

We had the beach to ourselves for most of the morning. 

Laura & Maisie are basking in the sun and Molly is being shy. 

Ross volunteered to be buried. 

I can picture myself longing for these moments in the future. 

Simple things

It is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all. -Laura Ingalls Wilder

Preschool Graduate & Dam to Dam

She did it, Laura graduated from preschool and is off to kindergarten! During the spring sing graduation, I was that parent that had to wipe away tears. Laura looked so grown up and confident. I swear, it feels like we just brought her home from the hospital. Seeing her singing and looking for us with her big smile made me really feel like a proud mom. I told Eric that he's in charge of the first day of kindergarten drop off, I don't want to have to dig into her backpack on the first day to smuggle Kleenex from her school supplies. 

Now that Laura is finished with preschool, there's room for Sam to go in the fall. We just received the official letter that told us Sam will be at my school. Yea!

I've been on summer break for a week now. Last weekend Eric's parents visited and Aunt Liz, Grandpa, & I ran in the Dam to Dam race. We had a wet and windy wait for the buses to pick us up to take us to the Saylorville Dam. While waiting in the giant line before dawn, it reminded me a lot of Black Friday shopping. Totally stupid, yet I do it every year. When will I ever learn?

Everyone finished the race with better times than the previous year. At the end of the race, we met up with the rest of the fam without any problems. Grandma packed some pretty fun Frozen coloring pages and Sam and Laura sat in the middle street of the most crowded part of the post race area and colored their brains out. That's a good busy bag, Grandma!

Post race we took an "ice bath" in Saylorville Lake while taking the pontoon for a cruise. My lips were blue when I got out but I will say I had minimal soreness the next day.  

The rest of the pictures will speak for themselves. 

Hooray for summer break!

F is for Farm

We spent the weekend in Long Grove celebrating Mother's Day with G.G. and Zach's fifth birthday. Saturday was a perfect spring day and the adventures within the farm and wilderness landscape made for a delightful day.

Sam starts preschool in the fall so I decided to create an alphabet book of the farm to connect the letters of the alphabet to G.G. & Papa's house. You know me, always teaching. ;-)

Here's a preview:
A is for acorn
B is for barn
C is for cows
D is for dogs
E is for elevator
F is for farm
G is for G.G.
H is for hay
I is for ice skates
J is for jeep
K is for kayak
L is for log house
M is for mushrooms
N is for necklace
O is for outside
P is for Papa
Q is for quilt
R is for rocking chair
S is for sand box
T is for tractor
U is for umbrella
V is for vegetables
W is for wood
X is for eXtra fun
Y is for yard
Z is for zip line

While putting together the first draft of the book, it became so crystal clear why the kids cheer the minute they see the Long Grove cemetery (that's their landmark to knowing we're almost there). I can tell you that I know for sure- there is no place like home.

Spring Break

How awesome is it to be on spring break when the weather has been so gorgeous!! I know it's not going to last long, but we've been enjoying it.

Laura & Sam have found our local Casey's sells donuts, soft serve ice-cream, & slushies. We've been taking bike rides there almost daily during spring break to get a treat. It's over 2 miles to get there and back plus there is a giant hill on the way home. The kids always take GREAT naps after those adventures so everyone wins. 

Spring weather always puts me in the mood to paint. I decided to paint horizontal stripes in Sam's room. I love how the stripes turned out! I'm totally in the mood to do some more projects before I head back to work. I haven't shared this with Eric yet, but I'm sure he'll be thrilled to hear it. ;-)

The neighbors have asked that we take care of their guinea pigs (at their house) while they're on vacation. Laura and Sam are all about it. Yesterday they were "shown the ropes" and as we were leaving Laura told the owner that her house was really messy. Like Laura's never seen a messy house before?! I wanted to crawl into the guinea pigs' cage.

I told the kids I would break out the swimming pool after their naps today. I better get the pool out of the basement and find the hose. Can you tell we're eager for summer?

Paperwork

Laura's kindergarten registration is on Thursday night. The registration form is 8 pages long AND I still need to get her birth certificate from our safety deposit box and call the doctor for her immunization records. Is she going to kindergarten or leaving the country? Sheesh!

This week Laura brought home a heart she made at preschool. She said she only needed help with two words. That's my favorite kind of paperwork.

Gingerbread

True confession: I don't like to bake cookies. I think it's messy and at the end of the day I always eat way more cookies than I'm planning to which leaves me feeling bloating and bad. With the busyness of December and my said feeling about baking, I never got around to making Christmas cookies. Thinking of the dozens and dozens of holiday cookies we made growing up, the metal tins we'd store them in, and keeping them in the walkout freezer (the porch); I couldn't help but think I was robbing my poor children of Christmas memories. Laura just wrapped up a unit in gingerbread in preschool so I decided on January 10th (better late than never, right) to make gingerbread cookies with the kids. It was messy but the kids were eager to help and taste! I had already put away my Christmas cookie cutters with the rest of the Christmas decorations so we used stars and hearts cutters instead. Laura and Sam used toothpicks and their imaginations to turn the hearts and stars into people. They may have eaten their weight in cookie dough too, but we were making memories. 

The things the kids said while we were making cookies were so much more delicious than the actual cookies themselves.

Sam: Oppees, not again! (when a cookie would fall apart).

Laura: Be careful, Mommy! She's fragile.

Sam: Can I eat this?    Me: No    Sam: Can I just lick it?


And to think, I almost didn't make Christmas cookies this year.