Weekend at the Cabin

For Memorial Day Weekend our fabulous friends Greg and Aubrie invited us up to their cabin. It was our first time up there and WOW it was amazing!

This is my kind of camping! With 5 master suites, a huge kitchen and a great balcony this place is nicer than my house!
Bryce and I out by one of the 3 ponds each stocked with fish!
One of the many fish that Bryce caught. This picture was taken right before the fish slipped out of Bryce's hands, fell on the ground, flopped around and hit my leg, which freaked me out. I was screaming like a little girl and ended up scaring the actual little girls!
This must have been taken before the fish hit my leg, Kendra is definitely not scared!Hailey where are the Oreo's?

Hmm, which one of these kids is dirtier than the other?

Me and my girls out on the deck.

Our guys.

Woo hoo look at those buns!

After the boys did their funny picture, we needed one too!

And the little girls funny picture!

Greg and Aubrie - thanks for the invite to your cabin we had a fabulous time. We are totally ready to do it again!

And Hailey - thanks for being sad when I left. I had fun with you too!

Cheesecake Factory

After the 5k and some shopping at Gateway with my mom we headed to the Cheesecake Factory to celebrate Cameron's and my birthdays!Me and my girlies, love you!
The boys! I will never forget that Cam's steak came medium, which is a cardinal sin to me and Cam! He ate it anyways, which I am sure gave his mouth a good workout, all that chewing! I watched him take his last bite and then the waitress took his plate. I looked over a little later and he was still chewing that last bite! Hilarious! Sorry Cam, we should have gone to Benihana, they understand Medium Rare!

Race for the Cure

On May 9 I ran in the Race for the Cure 5k to benefit breast cancer research. This was my first 5k and hopefully one of many, I had a great time! I believe we got up at the crack of dawn and rode the 6:30 trax train down to the Gateway. We checked out all the tents and picked up tons of giveaways (like pink capes). More than 18,000 people participated this year, which made for a very large crowd! I think it took us 5 minutes just to get to the start line once the race started. After joking about wanting to run by the water station, grab a cup and throw it on the ground, in true marathon style, I couldn't even figure out how I could get to the water station when I saw it, too many people! I finished in 43 minutes, including the 5 minutes to the start line and the fact that I had to walk the last quarter mile as we were all funneled into the Gateway!
All in all it was a great experience and I can't wait for my next 5k!

Pedicures

A couple of weeks ago Mom H set everything up to give the little girls pedicures. She got out her foot soaker/massager, filled it with warm water and let the girls soak in it. They loved it! Apparently the boys thought it looked like fun too because when the girls were done they each wanted a turn!

Next it was time for nail polish and even nail stickers! The girls ended up with cute purple toes and flower stickers. What fun!

Happy Birthday Easton and Addison!

A few weeks ago we celebrated Easton's and Addison's birthdays. I can't believe that Easton is 6 now and Addison is 3. Where does the time go?

We got Easton Chicago Bears sheets. He wanted to sleep in the jersey we got him for Christmas, so I figured we should get him something he could sleep in every night.Since Addison turned 3 we made her a book, "Addison's Alphabet Book." It was so fun to write and take the pictures for. We had a blast making it.


We love you Easton and Addy!

Happy Late Easter

We had a great Easter, which commenced with an Easter egg hunt at Mom and Dad H's house. Miraculously we managed to find a 15 minute window on Saturday when it wasn't raining.

This picture totally cracks me up. I asked Addy to slide closer to Bella and put her arm around her so I could take a photo of them. This is Bella rejecting my idea. In fact, I'm pretty sure she's thinking, "Don't touch me! Get your arm off me! In fact, will you just go back to sitting over there?"

Next we ate dinner, the kids got their Easter baskets and then it was time to decorate eggs!

Bells and I decorated eggs together. Not sure if this picture was taken before or after she threw one of the eggs accross the table. Then when I grabbed the egg she fell off her chair. Must be before, that egg looks pretty intact!
Check out this adorable bunnycake Mom H made! The kids loved it.

Me and the girls hanging out. I love my nieces. I hope everyone had a great Easter.

April Dessert

I was assigned the task of bringing dessert to Sunday dinner. I made some yummy brownies and bought some ice cream to go on top. Yum-o! I thought it would be fun to have the kids decorate their own cookies, so we bought a kit at the store. We had a ball!

Everyone got a duck shaped cookie and a little cheese ball knife to spread frosting. Then the fun times began!

Whoa Tan, that's like an inch of frosting!Camden is shocked.

Hey, where did the frosting go?

When we ran out of yelow frosting I opened up the frosting to the brownies!

A very effective strategy to eat only frosting and no cookie!

Bryce's Birthday

So my cute hubby turned 28 last month and we're officially in that 6 week period of every year where is older that I am! It's sure a short period of time, I have to rub it in a little! Mama H always makes his favorite foods for his birthday. This year it was ham, twice baked potatoes and strawberry shortcake. Yum-o!

I love this picture of Bryce and Bella. She sure is a "cheeser!"
Bryce and Cam, check out that yummy dessert!Cute cousins all in their jammies.
Happy Birthday Baby, I love you so much.

PS. Thanks to everyone who came to our house for Bryce's party. We had a great time and feel very blessed to have such great friends. We need to do it again because I want to play Crud, as long as I don't have to go after Travis! As promised the video of Kendra and Hailey cleaning my floor! Thanks moms for letting Greg do it one more time so I could get it on video.

Paralympic Event

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to participate in a Paralympic experience put on by Hartford Life. I was very excited to attend this event. It was everything I hoped it would be and more.

The day started out with sled hockey. I was strapped into a sled complete with helmet, neck guard, and two ice picks/hockey sticks to propel on the ice and pass the puck. We were given a couple of minutes to practice before participating in a little friendly competition! During warm-up I have never laughed so hard in my life. I literally thought I was going to pee my pants when my co-worker Holly flipped her sled on it's side and couldn't get up. I don't think I stopped laughing until it happened to me and I was stuck! We lost our first game and won the second (no thanks to anything I did). I was truly amazed by the 3 actual sled hockey athletes that were there. What they do is amazing.

Next we headed inside for some Paralympic trivia and then out for some cross country skiing. Before this I had never cross country skied in my life. It was a good thing that my team's leader was a Paralympic cross country skiier! After a brief crash course in cross country skiing we took a tour of the lap we would be skiing as part of the relay. I thought it would just be a little loop, oh no it was a huge loop complete with an uphill section and a downhill section. I was totally winded after the "warm-up" lap and then told I was only going to get to use 1 pole for the real thing. All I can say is that I made it through my lap of the relay without collapsing and my team captain made up for my pathetic time! All in all it was an incredible day and a wonderful experience.

Cyclops Cat

Ever had a project that didn't turn out like the picture on the box? We've all been there right? Meet Cyclops Cat, affectionately referred to as CC. On one of my many trips to Michaels I picked up a "Cuddly Pom Kit" which makes one cuddly cat, or so I thought! I thought it would be fun for our neighbor Erin to do while she was over at our house. The kit says a "fun and easy project" ages 7 and up. Perfect, I thought, because Erin is 7, plus she loves cats. About the only "easy" think about the project was getting the box open. We quickly determined that regular Elmer's glue wasn't working, so we switched to instant adhesive gel, which is not suitable for children 7 and up! We did end up having a pretty good time putting it together. We were laughing so hard while trying not to glue our fingers together at the same time!
The end result, looks just like the box right? Oh, we got the name Cyslops Cat because the kit only came with one eye. Either that or we lost the other one, who knows! I have to admit: Fun, yes Easy, absolutely not! It doesn't advertise that it is cute, just cuddly, so I can agree with that!