baskets & egg hunts

Easter rivals Christmas in the amount of pictures I take. : ) Here's a few more from today...

Mason got these shorts and sandals in his basket from grandma and really, really wanted to wear them. I think he rocked camo and plaid... : )

on Friday a thief, on Sunday a king

We went to church on Saturday...

And hosted Easter dinner on Sunday.... Matt prepared the whole dinner! I work in one of the kids rooms at church and signed up for the 10:00 service. I thought I was being so smart - it was late enough for us to do our baskets and early enough to be home before everyone got here. What I didn't think about was the time needed to actually cook dinner... I was smarter than I thought! : ) Matt did a great job - it was delicious!

I love Easter. I'm sure I've said it before, and I'm sure I'll say it again. But I really do love everything about it. I love the church service, I love seeing kids all dressed up, I love that it means spring is here (or at least on it's way), I love dying eggs and hiding baskets, I love dinner with the family and deviled eggs. Seriously, I love it.

If you celebrate Easter, I hope you had a wonderful weekend. He is risen.

dying eggs

Easter {Saturday}

On Saturday we went to the zoo, planning to do their egg hunt. Even though they do one every half hour, it was insanely busy so we decided to skip it. The animals were definitely enjoying the sun - it was a perfect day to be at the zoo, no egg hunt needed!

We did tell Andrew that we'd do one when we got home though.

#ImPrettyRad

Week 2.

I did it! I ran 2 1/2 miles. On Easter. Yahoo. I also ran in the (unexpected) pouring rain one day and when it was dark enough for the street lights to come on another. In case you're keeping track, that means I'm not messing around!! : )

I like the accountability of reporting my weekly progress on here. You can expect 6 more weeks of rad posts like this...

valet parking helps

I had to take Mason to the Everett Children's clinic again (instead of Seattle Children's) for his thyroid checkup. This time I took advantage of the free valet parking! It was amazingly better than our last appointment where I parked on the complete opposite side of the hospital. Even though the valet parking made it much more enjoyable, it's still not nearly as fun as when we get to go to U Village... Anyway, Mason's appointment was great. He's healthy and he even got to skip the blood draw this time! His next appointment will be in July or August and after that he goes to only needing a checkup every 6 months!!

After the appointment we headed to a park. It was fun to use my real camera again....

skateboards

Instead of going home after work on Monday, we headed to a park. The forecast showed Monday to be the only nice day of the week, so I really didn't have a choice. There's a park by my office that has a skate park area - the boys love it.

Mason was doing his skateboard face, pretending the thing he was standing on was his board. : )

training: week one

I rocked week one! I was really nervous for Sunday, thinking it was my first long run day. Luckily when I rechecked, I noticed 'long run Sundays' start this week. It was just what I needed to not pout. I didn't feel ready to up my distance at all, so once again, I think I picked the perfect training plan. It knew I wasn't ready.

If you want to do the run with me or donate to the research to beat diabetes, please do so by going here. Thank you to those who have donated and/or plan to run with me!! I love it!

quick, there's sun!

Until the past few years, I can only remember the weather really bumming me out once before. It was my first year away for college and they had record amounts of snow and it stuck around well into April. I felt trapped and I hated it. Other than that, I usually like the seasons and don't even mind the dark, cold, rainy days of January for the most part. The last few years have been different though and I can't seem to wait for sun. I don't even need it to be warm - just sunny. And when the sun is out, we go outside to soak it up!

Mason needed a new helmet and chose this bad boy. We don't make him wear a helmet when he rides in the wagon - it was his choice. The wagon and the helmet were his choice.

Evidence of spring. Finally!

Even though it was close to the boys' bedtime, we decided to head out for a quick geocache trip to take advantage of the rest of the beautiful sun break we got. We still love geocaching, but sometimes it is a little weird. This one was at the end of a road in a pretty nice neighborhood. We were looking around and when I looked over, around the fence, I saw this little abandoned (I hope...) shack. It was the weirdest thing to me because the people who live in that nice house have this on the other side of their fence. Weird.

cute bedtime

Mason is a great sleeper. He still gets his paci when he goes to bed and because of that, he loves bedtime! Every once in a while (maybe once a month) he doesn't go to sleep as easily as he normally does. On Friday we had one of those nights. It somehow ended with Andrew telling me he'd put him to bed. He thought he should tell him a story first, so he climbed in and made up a story for him. Then he told him goodnight and tucked him in. Cute.

red carpet premiere

We celebrated Easton & Owen's third birthday on Saturday with a red carpet premiere showing of Puss in Boots! : ) It was a fun party idea - the boys loved it. They got a packet of tickets when they got there - they were good for the movie, popcorn, candy, and a drink. The popcorn and drink came with free refills and when Andrew needed more, he asked me to find his ticket for him. He took it very seriously!

I know I say it every time, but three? Seriously? How are our babies turning three already?!

I should get paid for all this advertising

We went to MOD Pizza for the first time this weekend. If you haven't been, you should go! Not only are they delicious and inexpensive, but they only serve individual pizzas, so everyone gets exactly what they want.

random phone picts

I love my iphone but it's making me a bit lazy with picture taking. It takes great pictures outside, okay pictures with good indoor light, and bad pictures all other times (even with the flash). My first choice is to use my phone and if it takes a bad picture, I have to decide if it's worth finding my camera to take it again. And since I still don't have a flash for my SLR, I haven't used that camera in a long time. All this to say - I've been taking a lot less pictures lately and it's not cool. I need to reevaluate my camera situation and get back to photographing the radness that is my life. : )

A few random picts from my phone...

I love living close to an Old Spaghetti Factory. Not only do we never have to wait for a table, but we get the best seat in the house (on the train) fairly often.

Mason didn't skip a beat - he jumped right into the first puddle he saw. : ) And jumped, and jumped. Andrew has never really been a puddle jumper, so it was fun to see Mason jump right in.The last time I put a quarter in one of these rides, Mason got freaked out (we usually just play on them without paying to make them move). But today, he loved it!

Andrew thinks these rides are boring but really wishes they were fun, so we tried again. Still boring. : ) But it's a good picture of his new fireman rain boots. It's impossible to find rain boots that fit his feet. We hit up about 5 different places before finding these ones - and these aren't perfect but I'm done searching.

Mason has reached the stage of tower building!! I have a picture of Andrew doing this exact thing. So fun.

The end.

yum!

I just had this sandwich and it was delicious!! It's avocado salad w/pepper jack. I toasted french bread and used full fat cheese which I'm sure made it even yummier. : ) Thanks again, Pinterest!

Ingredients:

Chive Spread
1/4 cup Greek yogurt
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh chives
Salt and pepper, to taste

Avocado Salad
1 avocado, peeled, pitted and diced
1 tomato, cored and chopped
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded and diced
Squeeze of lime juice
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro (or basil)
Salt and pepper, to taste
4 slices whole grain bread or 4 small mulitgrain tortillas
1/4 cup alfalfa sprouts
2 to 4 slices lite pepper jack cheese

In a small bowl, mix the Greek yogurt and chives. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, gently toss together the avocado, tomato, cucumber, lime juice and basil or cilantro. Season with salt and pepper, and set aside.

Spread the chive-yogurt mixture on all four bread slices. Divide the sprouts between two slices of bread, and top with avocado salad and cheese. Cover with the remaining slices of bread. (If using tortillas, spread the chive-yogurt mixture on the tortillas, and top with cheese, avocado salad and sprouts. Roll, and eat.)

Makes 2 large sandwiches or 4 small wraps

no more tiny toilets!

He did it! He earned his Build-a-Bear for giving up his tiny toilet!

He picked this dog - a dark brown version of what Andrew has.

He was very excited (and hopefully proud of himself) when his dog was all fluffed and put together. He didn't quite get the concept of giving him a name and kept saying he wanted to name him Rock, which is Andrew's dog, so we tried to help him out a bit. Then it sounded like he said Rocket, so we went with it. The boys now have brother dogs named Rock and Rocket. : )