Mother's Day

 My aunt has this great tradition, each year on Mother's Day she has photos taken with each of her children.  I've decided to adopt it for myself.  Partly because, as the mother, I am pretty much always the one behind the camera, rarely do I get photos of my children and I together, so I thought that it would be fun.  This year, however, Mother's Day was a little busy around this house and my would-be photographer was super sick so I put it off a week.  This Sunday before church Tyson took a few pictures for me and I love them!

 My sweet little Charlotte is such a joy, she laughs, plays, and keeps me on my toes.  I just couldn't image life without her and her spunky little personality.

 Lily has the sweetest disposition of any child that I have ever known.  She is happy, curious, and an active learner.  She amazes me every day!

Sunday also marked a big day for our little Lily.  She finally has long enough hair to make a ponytail!

I also had a fun little project last week.  I have been dying to make these tiered planters that I found on Pinterest a while back, but pots can be spendy!  Shopko had them on sale last week for 50% off which made the project totally doable, so I picked up the planters, painted them, and stacked them up.  I can't wait for all of the flowers to finish filling in.  I love the bright colors against our very bland colored home.

College of Western Idaho Graduation

On Saturday May 12th Tyson graduated from the College of Western Idaho with his associates degree.  We are so proud of him!  He has been going to school full time, even summers, for two and a half years now while working full time out at the prison.  I'm not sure how he has balanced it all and still managed to be such a great husband and father.

 Daddy and his proud little girls!

Tyson is getting to take this summer off from school, hooray!  He is enrolled at Boise State University for the fall where he will be studying social work and addiction studies.  He has great goals and plans for the future and we are really excited about where things are going!

Lily's 3rd Birthday

Our baby girl officially turned 3, I have a PRE-SCHOOLER!  I will keep calling her my baby, probably forever because she was my first baby.

For her birthday we gave her some garden tools AND her very own bed in the garden.  She loves to work with daddy and has enjoyed working with him with her own little tools.

When I took her grocery shopping and asked her to pick out a cake mix she went straight for the chocolate one.  When I got home I asked her what color she would like the frosting to be, she said brown.  She also picked out chocolate ice cream.  I don't know where she got this from, I like chocolate, but it is not a favorite for me.  But this girl just LOVES it!

For the first time she actually blew out her candles, or at least two of them, daddy got the last one.

We love our little Lily!  She is sweet, silly, and full of love and curiosity.  She loves to learn, sing, and dance. She enjoys playing with her friends and does her very best to run the nursery at church.

Lily's Birthday Party

This year for Lily's birthday we decided that she would get a little party with a few friends.  It was small and simple, but the girls all seemed to have a lot of fun.  It was cold this morning with some really gusty winds, but they died down this afternoon, allowing us to play outside.

Since Lily is my little gardening queen we potted flowers for each of the girls to take home and grow.

The wind kept the pinwheels going much of the time, which the girls loved.

 Tyson's graduation gift came a bit early and my surprise was ruined (darn that FedEx guy!) so I set it up this afternoon and I'm sure glad that I did, the girls loved swinging in the hammock.

 Snack table

 I just made a little cake since I also made cake pops.

 Cake is always good!

 And so are presents!  Lily worse that dress-up dress to bed tonight.  I'm wondering if I will ever be able to get it off of her. 

We had a great time, I can't believe how quickly my baby girl has grown up!  I swear that she was a tiny baby just the other day and now here she is, a kid, not even a toddler anymore!

Ice Cream

We had some great warm weather today, which set me in the mood for ice cream this evening.  What is better on a summer evening than enjoying your first ice cream cone of the season?

 

Goofy girls!

Lily has become slightly obsessed with watering lately.

Lake Lowell Marathon

Ha ha, Gotcha!  Ain't no way that I ran a marathon this morning!  I did however run the 10k at the Lake Lowell Marathon and it was awesome!  Cold, windy, but great!  I set out this morning with a goal of beating my last 10k time (62 minutes and someodd seconds, stupid timer being down!) and HOPEFULLY finishing the race in under an hour.  I wasn't sure that I could do it, but I know that I get pumped up with races, being around people, and frankly, I don't like people passing me.  So despite some mean hills on the back half of the race I finished those 6.2 miles in 56 minutes and 40 seconds!  I could hardly believe it!  Way to just shatter a goal, right!?!  I finished 5th overall for the ladies and 2nd in my age group, though you see here they gave me the first place ribbon since the woman that beat me in our age group won overall.  I'm thrilled!

 A couple of random thoughts; first, I ran into my next door neighbor at the race.  I had no idea that she had been training.  She also has 2 kids that are about my girls' ages, but I'm no good at making friends so we don't talk much.  It was fun to see her though, we talked a lot, and I might just have a running buddy now!  Second, I'm getting past my runner insecurities.  When I went to pick up my race packet I was, of course, asked what distance I would be doing.  I said "Just the 10k" right as the girl next to me said "the full marathon."  I felt like an impostor there for a minute.  Like I was some wimpy little runner trying to infiltrate this elite group of "real runners" and that bothered me.  It wasn't anything that anyone else said, just my own insecurites.  Then I got to thinking, I'm running 6.2 miles, there is nothing wimpy about that!  Most people I know would keel over at the thought of running that far!  I may not be a marathoner (yet), but dang it, I am a runner!  I'm no poser, I've earned it!

Oh, and remember how I was looking for ideas for something to do with my race bibs and such, well thanks to Pinterest, I found the perfect idea!  But you know me, I don't buy stuff, I make it!  So I went outside and cut myself a board from Tyson's pile of scrap wood, sanded it down, primed, painted, stuck on some vinyl, screwed in some hook and Voila!  I added hooks to the bottom for medals and such, if, you know, I even get the guts to sign up for a longer run.