May Favorites

Some of my favorite Project Life and Instagram photos for May:

 

I took the boys over to Franklin Park, which has one of the nicer newer playgrounds in town. It's way over off of 21st and Tieton, so it's a bit of a drive. Too bad it's not a little closer.

 

Coco Bear loving Kyle's Thomas tracks and train shed.

Selfies to use as filler in my Project Life.

Twins! Kyle has started wearing 4T shirts, which is the smallest size you can get graphic tees for Minecraft and Pokémon and he was super excited to be able to match with his brother.

The necklace I got for Mother's Day was on an endless rotation this month. Love!

I kind of wish this was a video, but you can still see that the boys are having a great time together. The trampoline had a bunch of seedling things on it that fell from the trees and when the boys jumped, the little seeds slapped up and down and sounded like a maraca.

Tyler quizzing Kyle with his old preschool Brain Quest cards.

Peonies!

Kyle showing me the rocket ship he folded out of play money. An obvious replica of Tyler's origami rocket.

Tyler found a huge frog at school the day after we had a giant rainstorm. The poor guy was probably flushed right out of his house.

Now that the weather has warmed up nicely, after dinner walks have become a nightly thing.

Running laps at the Franklin Park track for Tyler's Fitness for Kids Marathon. The finale is next weekend and then school gets out on June 11th.

 

I'm in the process of doing STS and I just finished the first mesocycle: muscle endurance. I was easily able to lift heavier weights than the last time I did the program, but it is an endurance workout so you don't want to go too heavy with the weights. Now I'll enjoy an active recovery week (running and yoga maybe?) and then start the hypertrophy mesocycle after that.

May books.

Some of my favorite outfits of the month.

 

Plus one last minute addition: Rick got a  new car. He traded in the Honda for a 2015 Subaru WRX STI. The boys love it and I don't know how to drive it, so yeah.

50 Miles

As part of the physical fitness program in the West Valley school district, elementary students are required to run during lunch recess on Wednesdays and they have the option of running on Mondays. It's referred to as Mileage Club. The students have an electronic badge they wear that keeps track of the laps as they pass the orbiter. At the beginning of the year they get a necklace and are rewarded with different charms (usually in the shape of a foot) at every 5 mile increment. At 50 miles you get the 50 mile club t-shirt and I think there are similar prizes at the 75 and 100 mile mark.

 

The most miles Tyler has ever ran during Mileage Club was last year when he reached the 35 mile club. This year though he made a promise to himself that he would make it to 50 mile club and get that t-shirt already. With it being his last year of elementary school it was essentially a now or never situation.

I'm beyond proud to say that yesterday he ran on the optional Monday and finally passed the 50 mile mark. He's now has 51 miles and with 4 more opportunities to run before mileage club is over for the year, he might even make it to 60 miles.

The P.E teacher had already awarded him with his t-shirt at an assembly last week and he was even able to get into the picture of the 50 milers for the yearbook, although at the time he was only at 45 miles. Thank you Mrs. Braun!
  

Way to go Tyler!!

Mother's Day 2015

It's the weekend and that means the boys are more interested in spending the day away playing hamster ball than really doing anything with me. I mean if we're going to be honest about it. That's fine, I just get more free time to relax and get some reading done.

 

I was able to pull them outside for a few minutes for pictures, but then they were off again.

Rick got me some flowers from Gasperetti's. So pretty!

In school Tyler made a modern day style coupon book that was in the shape and theme of a cell phone app store. There were 9 apps I could choose from including things like "not fighting with Kyle", "making breakfast by himself" and "cleaning his room". And then there was a letter on the last page.

Also the boys gave me a few necklaces and I choose this one to wear today.

 

Instead of the normal Mother's Day breakfast the boys make, this year it was dinner. We had cedar smoked salmon with a pineapple habanero sauce on top, along with green beans, couscous and bread. Yum! That's my kind of meal!

 

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy 33rd!

Monday was Rick's birthday and he actually took the day off from work. Tyler still had school though, so we put off the celebration until after 4:00.

 

After getting Tyler from school we stopped at Starbucks on the way home. Although Rick had earned a free birthday drink on his card, he decided to save it and instead took advantage of the Frappuccino Happy Hour that was going on.

 

Then we headed back to the house to open presents.

The first time I wished this guy a happy birthday, he was turning 19 years old and now 15 years later I'm wishing him a happy 33rd. (!?!) I almost don't believe it except for the fact that Max is also approaching his 15th birthday, so yes, I guess that much time really has gone by.

The main event of the day however was the cutting of the cake.

Our tried and true favorite carrot cake recipe from King Arthur's Whole Grain Baking cookbook. Yes please!

April Favorites

Here we go: my favorite Instagram and Project Life pictures for April.

 

Both Tyler and Kyle did the Easter coloring contest this year for Wray's grocery store. Sadly neither won, although Tyler does have a history of winning.

Tyler put two birthday gift cards together and bought this Minecraft Lego set from Toys R Us.

Arrrrrr! Hands off my coffee cake!

And just to break up the pirate eye. This face.

April 2nd was World Autism Awareness Day and Tyler and I were wearing blue for the cause.

 

Story time. I love how Tyler is trying to read a book to himself while I read out loud to him. Not really. I made him put it away. What I really love is how the cat always sits front and center when I read. 

♥ Carmelita ♥

 

Also this month I got a new phone. A Samsung galaxy S6 and the front facing camera has a nice high resolution. Yay! Here's to better Project Life pictures because I use the camera on my phone almost exclusively. Plus it's voice activated, so all you have to say is cheese, capture, shoot, or smile and it takes the picture without having to press any buttons.

It's also National Poetry Month and the library has a cute creation station set up in the window of the children's section with all kinds of words to use to make small poems.

 

Here's what we left in the window: The cat comes to story time. Not so much a poem as a true statement.

In the grocery store Tyler was trying to teach Kyle how to do a pirate eye. "Nope! You closed both eyes!".

The boys playing with Kyle's power wheels truck.

 

And my favorite outfits for April....or what turns out to be the only three I took pictures of this month.



Easter Festivities

When I went to the parent/teacher conference (the last of Tyler's elementary years..gah!) right before spring break, Mrs. James was telling me about the other girl in her class that shares the same birthday as Tyler and how her parents decided to change her name to Lily at the last minute because she was born so close to Easter. I honestly have no memory of that Easter, but when I looked it up on the calendar I saw that it had been on the 27th that year...two days before Tyler was born. And as the years have passed, Easter has bounced around, but has never landed on his birthday. Until Tyler turns 38 in 2043, when Easter and his birthday will fall on the same day. Luckily I won't have to worry about planning birthday parties anymore by then.

 

This year Easter landed one week after Tyler's birthday, which was also the last day of spring break before heading back to school. I thought we'd have all kinds of time to dye eggs, but somehow it got put off until the night before.

 

I bought two different egg dying kits this year. A traditional kit with color tablets that you dissolve in water and another kit that had liquid paint and mini rollers, which I thought would work better for Kyle. Turns out traditional is the way to go. The liquid paint and roller situation was super messy and the paint stayed wet and tacky on the eggs. Kyle actually preferred the traditional method, so I'll just stick with that kit in the future.

Early morning delivery from the Easter bunny.

Then an egg hunt in the afternoon.

My absolute favorite plant in our backyard is the King Arthur when it's in full bloom in the spring, so of course I had everyone gather in front of it for pictures.
 

 

For dinner we had ham with the usual sides and I made some carrot cake cupcakes for dessert. The ones with buttered popcorn jelly beans on top were mine...obviously. Yum!