Our new family toy….

I realized today that I didn’t tell you about our new toy. For Jacob’s birthday we decided to get a new basketball hoop. It’s so fun to have. With four kids, three of which are boys, we know that it will get a lot of use in the next few years. I have to admit, even I have enjoyed it some and Ben has really enjoyed it. Here are some pictures that we took the first night that we had it. As you can tell…all of the kids were getting into it.

Who knew Sarah could dunk huh?

Zac the Muscle Man!!

The other day Zac put on these matching boxer briefs and tank top. We thought it was so funny. He looked like a gymnast to us. He thought it was pretty cool that we thought it was so funny so he had no problem posing for us!!

This one is my favorite. Isn’t he such a stud?

My first official run!!

So today I did something that I never thought I would ever be able to do....I ran a race!! Bloomsday is a race here in Spokane that is the biggest timed road race in the US if not the world. It is a total of 7.46 miles (12K) and that's a really long way to run. I was pretty sure that I would walk at least half of it but guess what? I RAN the whole way!!! Now my run was pretty slow but I still ran it. My sister-in-law Crystal came over and ran it with me. She a tough chick and pushed me, I mean encouraged me the whole way. We don't know our official time but we think we did it in about 1 hour and 20 min, maybe 30 min. They will post the results tomorrow probably. I am very very sore tonight but so excited that I did it. I will be running more and maybe I will work my way up to a half marathon. Here's a few pics of us before the race. I will let you know the official time when I find out. I just had to tell you all about my experience.

Sarah's new dress made by Grandma

Awhile ago Grandma made Sarah a really super cute dress. Our weather has not been real nice around these parts so today was the first day that she actually wore it. It is so beautiful and fits her perfectly. Thought I would share some pictures. She was being very silly and didn't want to stop, smile and look at the camera all at once so this is the best that I've got.

New look

As you can clearly see, I've decided to play around with the look of my blog. Plus it was time to update the picture. You will notice that Dash, the rock eating dog, is not in the new picture but we do still have him, we just didn't have our family picture taken with him this year.

I would love to know what you all think the new look. Please, please leave me some comments and let me know. Stuff like the text color, title text color and all of the kind of stuff....can you read it well? I will be waiting to see what you all think :)

Their first dance

A couple of days ago I was watching Kimberly's kids. Since they have moved up here the kids have been together a lot and get along really good. I've been so happy with how they have become such good friends. You really never know, just because parents are friends doesn't always mean the the kids will follow. But in our case, they all get along great! So, on with my story about the other day. Sarah and Andrew are a year apart in age, both of them the youngest kids in the family. Now I feel the need to explain something....Sarah has three older brothers, as you all know, and she can hold her own. She's a little tough sometimes (most of the time) and when she can get away with it likes to be a bit bossy. Andrew has one older sister and we all know that girls can be a little "mothering" or that they like to be the leader. So needless to say he's probably been the one who's told what to do most of the time. Sarah has picked up on that totally! She likes to lead Andrew around, takes his toys, can be very pushy with him and sometimes not so nice either (I'm working on that part). I was sitting in my living room talking to Andrew when Sarah comes up to him, grabs him by the hand, leads him to a place more "roomy" and turns to face him. I wish that I could have heard what he was thinking. It probably went something like this "Uh-oh what's she doing now? Where is she taking me and why did she turn to look at me?" There was no music in the back ground but she started twirling around him and trying to dance with him. It was so cute! He was quite a good sport, although he didn't really look super happy about it. I will have to teach her at some point that the boys are supposed to lead and the girls follow.

The other thing she likes to do is hug him from behind. Can't you just see the love that he has for her?

I finally got a smile out of him. I'm pretty sure that it's because she wasn't touching him at this point.
Just so you all know, Andrew really does like Sarah. He talks about her and plays with her lots. I just didn't want you all to think that this stuff happens all of the time and I wanted to end this post on a good note.

Jacob's first "friend" party

Saturday was a good day for Jacob! He got to have his first real FRIEND birthday party. We let him invite 8 little boys....5 from his class, 2 neighbor boys and 1 from kindergarten. On Saturday morning I was a little bummed out because we had only heard from 2 little boys that they were coming. I knew Jacob would have fun no matter how many were coming, plus Kyle (from kindergarten) was coming and that was very exciting!! I was still just a little bummed that not more were coming. The party started at 2:00 and at about 1:15 I got a call from one of the moms who had forgot to call me to RSVP and was still wondering if it was okay for her son to come. "OF COURSE" I said, "he can totally still come". Something about that one last boy made me feel way better. It was kinda of nice only having 4 kids 'cause they got to play the Wii and I didn't have be so planned and organized. Here's the group of them....are they so cute? From left to right we have Garret (our neighbor), Ryan (a classmate), Jacob and then Kyle (the friend from kindergarten).

If you can't tell from the pictures, Jacob wanted a Star Wars party. It was a hit and all the boys had really cool goody bags (first time I have done those), yummy cake, Capri Sun and they had lots of time to play. Looking back at it all I think I'm glad that there were only 3 boys that came. It let me ease into the party scene a little :)







So, that's the end of Jacob's birthday. He ended up having 3 parties total....what a spoiled kid! It was so fun though. Now I've got just a little over a month to plan the next one....Sarah turns 2 in June!