Easter and Spring 2013

Easter Egg Hunting 

Spring Concert 2013

Fall Fun

Family Hike

Pumpkin Carving

Boo at the Zoo

Kitchen, Color Run and More...

Depsite the lack of blogging, lots has been happening in our lives lately!  I am nearing the end of my over-1-year-long kitchen up-do project.  My dad came over a couple weekends ago and put up the rest of the tile.  Now I have to grout it and it will officially be done.  And, truthfully, it makes the rest of my house look pretty shabby, so we may be looking at up-doing a couple other rooms in the house!  :)

The kids have been enjoying the really nice weather by playing in the sand and riding bikes.  Carter loves finding lizards in the sand! 

On October 6 my sister and I and some friends ran in the Color Run in Lawrence.  It was a blast!! This race was the funnest, not-boring-est race I've ever done!  It was also a real confidence booster as I finished in 24 minutes!  (Only 3 minutes behind my speedy sister!!)  I'm pretty sure it was not a full 3.1 miles, but it sure was worth the drive to Lawrence!!

(Jamie, Brandi, me, Erica)

(me & Tiff)

Living Life

Blogging has obviously slowed down some.  We are just living life.  And loving life.  Carter so far has not once begged to stay home from school, but is enjoying his days off.  Gemma is getting louder and louder and finding her voice as well as her words.  She adores her brother, "Ky", as she calls him, and follows him everywhere trying to do just as he does.  

I am gearing up for some much needed fall cleaning and hopefully purging.  We have accumulated too much stuff over time and it's time we pare down.  Plus the weather's nicer so that makes it a little easier.  :)

Halloween will soon be here - I should start working on the kids' costumes.  I think they should be Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf, but since I showed him a picture on Pintrest of Fred and Wilma Flinstone, that's Carter's pick.  Either way, a couple of bath towels should make for some fairly easy costumes.  

Color Run

I have registered for the Color Run in Lawrence coming up in October.  Looks like it will be a blast!  There are tons of videos on youtube.com or you can check out their website thecolorrun.com.

You should join us... :)

Tissues, Please

Pass the tissues, please.  Carter's first day of Kindergarten is tomorrow.  *sigh* When did he get old enough to go to Kindergarten?  Someone asked me over the weekend: I bet the last five years went fast, huh?  You parents know how fast it goes...  It's NUTS!!  Just the other day... my little boy really was a little boy.  And although he still loves to snuggle with me as an excuse to stay up later, he's growing up. I know that kids aren't supposed to stay little forever, but man, it's tough.

I have every intention of being "that mother" while taking pictures of him at school.  Just pray that I can at least hold it together until I get in the car...  :)

Breakfast Love

My husband is a huge fan of breakfast.  Me - not so much.  I think the major reason is because I don't get up early enough to make and enjoy breakfast without feeling stressed or behind.  I'm more likely to bring breakfast with me to work.

In an effort to show the hubby a little love, I decided to do some make-ahead breakfast sandwiches.  He works out in the heat all day - he totally deserves some substance in the morning.  You can find a ton of ideas on pintrest.  Trust me.  I took lots of those ideas and threw them together.  Here's what I came up with:

Ingredients:

English muffins

Eggs

Breakfast Sausage

Cheese

To start, I laid out a big piece of waxed paper and threw down the roll of breakfast sausage.  I put cold water on my hands and spread it out.  Then I used my biscuit cutter and cut out 12 sausage patties. (Carter had one, Gemma had one and I had one.  I only had 9 English muffins...) I covered my jelly roll pan with foil, then my silicone baking sheet and then laid out the sausage patties

Next I took 6 or 8 eggs, and mixed them up with S & P and a splash of water and poured those into muffin tins.  I put the eggs and sausages in the oven at 375 degrees for about 25 minutes.  

Now, the easy part - assembly!  Sliced English muffins, layer a slice of cheese, a sausage patty, and egg.  I wrapped them up in plastic wrap and popped them in the freezer.  Easy peasy.  

And yes, watching my hubby eat one this morning was totally worth the 20 minutes of effort!!  

Carter is 5!

Why does time seem to go by so fast?  Don't get me wrong, I'm not a super-mom who cherishes every minute of the day, like I should.  There are nights that I am praying bedtime will hurry up and be here.  But over all, time slips away before you even realize that you should be trying to hang on.  

Carter turned 5 one week ago.  I'm so proud of him and I love that he still loves to snuggle with me occasionally, and I do realize that this will not last forever.  Here are some highlights:

 These are hog "targets" for his cross-bow