DYI

When we put the trampoline in two summers ago we moved the rickety old swing set that'd been left by the prior owners to a different place in the yard where it continues to see lots of use. 

One of the swings broke off irreparably (to me anyway) but we recently used the space to add a baby swing for Blane. All in all, it's been a great item considering it was really just left behind junk.

Over the winter, however, the swinging and pounding apparently caused one of the legs to dig far enough into the ground to cut a big hole in one of the sprinkler lines, which I discovered in the form of a big fountain when I turned on the system for the summer. 

Honestly, I'm pretty intimidated by this kind of home repair (most kinds actually) but for some reason I decided to try and tackle this one myself. And it is successfully fixed thanks to a few youtube videos, $8 and a trip to the hardware store on the corner, and the help of my oldest son!

Fixing stuff

 A few nights ago Bs excersaucer stopped playing music.  I began working on dinner not thinking anything of it.  A few minutes later I noticed the big guys had gotten out Brian's tool box and found some batteries and were fixing the excersaucer!  

Sometimes its hard having a big gap in age with our kids, but mostly its just really fun and the big guys are helpful.

The beginning stages of crawling

 Blane has just figured out that if he moves his body, he can move around and get things.  Its not perfect, but he scooches and launches forward to get items he sees.  Unfortunately he wants my phone the most and so getting photos is tough but here are a few from yesterday.

Jack o lantern

Ads lost another tooth.  He's now missing three right in the front, one on top and two bottom.  He looks like a jack o lantern.

Few more from Colfax

 This was such a fun route.  It started and ended in City Park with the 2nd mile running through the zoo.  This guy was up bright and early cheering all the runners on.

 I'd like to think I was running so fast causing this photo to be blury, but I think I am just a terrible photographer.  We did run through 1 fire station at about mile 8 or 9.  All the firefighters were giving high fives.

 Miles 8-10ish were along east Colfax.  Its always entertaining when you're on Colfax.  There were a few spectators smoking right along the course which was really disgusting.

And we finished!  That was my only goal after not running for over 2 years.

Colfax Half

Kari ran a half marathon on Sunday. It started and ended in City Park so the boys and I walked over to try and see her and cheer her on for the finish. But she was too fast (or maybe we were a little slow getting out of the house) and we missed her running. We did find her afterwords though to congratulate her. 

Randoms this week

 You can never start too early with occupational therapy.

 Blane was worn out after picking up my race packet for the Colfax half marathon.  We thought the right angle days were over, but apparently we were wrong.

Waiting to pick up brother number 3.

climbing

On the last session of their climbing class they got to go on the big wall.

Mt. Whitney

 A friend of a friend climbed Mt Whitney in honor of babies who have died.  They left this beautiful flag at the top with all the babies names.  Sweet Elsie is up there now too.

Mothers Day

 Mothers day has turned into a very bittersweet day for our family, but the sweet part was definitely Chef Bob's dinner, put on by my three "chefs".  Even Blane got a hat and participated by sitting in his excersaucer and "helping" the big guys cook.

 The menu was about what you would expect.  My two favorite parts were "broken chips" and cookie dough ice cream (because we don't have any and they didn't seem to have a clue how they would get it.

Brian was leaving to have dinner with Baba, but the boys insisted that we each sit on opposite ends of the candlelit table and order.  Brian got tea and fruit.  I got veggies.  These guys continue to amaze me with their creativity.

seven months old

2nd Grade Performance

Performing isn't something that comes naturally in our family so we (Kari and I) were especially impressed with LT's confidence in this part of his recent school performance. I was out of town and Blane had a little meltdown during this act but luckily the mom of LT's dance partner captured this video and shared it with us.

Goodbye sweet Betsy

 I feel so lucky that both Landon and I had Betsy as our teacher.  She's truly one of a kind.  Unfortunately due to many health problems, she is retiring this year.  We had planned a huge party (invited all her past students kind of big party) and then another health problem arose and she was forced to retire even earlier than the end of the year.  With just a few days notice, I and a friend, were able to pull off a pretty nice smaller retirement party.  We will still do a huge party upon her return and her health. 

 None of the pictures turned out well, but as I asked a friend to take a few more, more and more kids jumped in the photo. 

And before long, nearly all the kids were in the photo!

Casa Bonita

For the second year in a row a friend and old colleague of mine somehow talked Casa Bonita into letting him cliff dive for an evening as a fundraiser for his kid's school.  So, of course, we were there to cheer him on. The big boys and I (Kari and Blane opted out) had a lovely night of bad food, watching cliff diving, and playing on poorly maintained skee-ball machines.