Memorial Day at The Goat

The last time Caleb will wear the "infant" jacket.  Bah-bye.

My favorite face.

My favorite scary bear face.

Caleb says it all.

Finally, a fish for the bucket!

Important meeting at the front of the boat.

Something about the rocking and the sound of the motor. Zzzzzz.....

Only Jake would get away with re-organizing Grandpa's tackle box.

Prefers to play with the wax worms over fishing!

Cricut Expression

O.K., this is one of the many reasons I really wanted a Cricut Expression.  So, when I was throwing together a gift, I could just quickly do something like this...

(White tissue paper, twine, flower embellishment, and some 3M adhesive spray)

Viola, no gift bag from me!  You should see what's inside...I can't tell, it's a gift.  OK fine, it's a recycled salad dressing jar filled with blue and pink gummy worms.  The jar is decorated with cute, fun pink and blue stickers made from my new machine, using 3M colored contact paper.  I spray painted the lid silver and wrapped it with twine.  I should've taken a picture!  Live and learn.  I might need to buy stock in 3M.  Or maybe they should consider paying me to endorse their great products. 

Thank you Mom, for my birthday present!  I love it (and you).

All things Easter

I'm done with plastic Easter eggs.  I'm not sad to see them go.  They are for the kids, but I cannot not help myself to the candy that's inside those little contraptions.  Hands down, Reese's peanut butter eggs are my favorite.  Tonight while the kids were taking a bath, getting the chocolate out of their hair, I purged all the Easter candy and took all those two cent plastic eggs downstairs to a high shelf.  Bah-bye.

By far the highlight of this Easter was hearing Jake's interpretation of why we are celebrating.  He had many Jesus insights.  Some of them accurate, and some not...

"Mommy, after Jesus rose from the dead, did he die again?"  Me: "No, He's in heaven with God." Jake: "oh, so he's up at the cabin?"  Sounds like Grandpa Theology to me!

Spoiled by Aunt Kate

Telling Easter Bunny (AKA Aunt Kate) there are 2 more days til Easter and questioning why she is here.  Notice Caleb looking from above.

8 a.m. before church.  Enough said.

It probably has money in it.

They really do like each other.

Big Boy Haircut

Don't cry, Grandma and Memaw.  We had to do something risky this Spring Break.  In between cleaning up puke, forcing pedialyte, doing laundry, and pity parties...we made Jake look like a 5 year old.  His new haircut has apparently made him naughtier too.  Meanwhile, he keeps saying "it feels so good."

Chicago weekend

Prefers the bench.

Aunt Kimmy's roof

Aunt Kimmy's sweet tub!

Lincoln Park Zoo

Sweet boy!

Missing Caleb!

We spent the weekend in Chicago visiting Aunt Kimmy.  Definitely a good time!  Our highlight was visiting the Lincoln Park Zoo.  The best part, it's free!  We got lucky and had some great weather to walk around for almost 3 hours. 

I think Jake's highlight was Aunt Kimmy's big tub!  It was bubble heaven. 

We opted to leave Caleb home.  Memaw and Papa came up to stay with him.  Lucky for them, Caleb got sick...

We are currently all resting at home.  I was fortunate enough to get puked on as a welcome home gift.

Jake currently has not eaten since breakfast.  He says he's not hungry.  Do you know my children?  They are always hungry. 

We might be in for a long night....

Run the River Bank Run with YFC!

logo for our shirts!

Once again, Kate and I will be organizing a group of people to run the River Bank Run for Youth for Christ.  This helps us raise money for our ministry areas as we individually accomplish our fund-raising goals.  This is such a fun event to help us raise awareness and also challenge yourself physically to do something you otherwise may not consider.  Last year we had a group of almost 50 people!  We gave away lots of prizes, ate a free dinner, and also chartered a private bus to transport our group to Grand Rapids.  Oh, and did I mention the sweet t-shirts, bags, and water bottles?  There is an event for every fitness level - 5K run/walk, 10K, or 25K.  Challenge yourself, sign up today!  If you are interested, please leave me a comment - I'll get you all the information you need.  And, you can also join the Event Page on facebook.  It's a good way for me to keep you all up-to-date!

Kate and I are also considering ordering some other apparel, since the logo is so darn sweet!    Consider the apparel bragging rights that you are part of something so exciting.  We're also taking votes for the color of the shirt...white, navy, other suggestions?  Let me know if you are interested in any purchases.

Lastly, if you are interested in being a part of the internal planning of this event - we need you.  We're looking to increase our prize pool, increase sponsors, volunteers to pick up the race bags in Grand Rapids on packet pick-up day, and pasta dinner crew.

free stuff

If you spend any time with me, you know that I LOVE a good deal!  Well, did I ever score the ultimate free online deal a while back.  I filled out this little survey and got a package delivered to my door yesterday.  Who doesn't love free stuff delivered to your door?  We opened it up to find our official "sneeze catcher" package from Kleenex filled with a t-shirt, hat, tissue key-chain pouch, coloring book, and backpack.  The best part?  It was all in Spanish!  Yup, somehow we scored the Spanish version of all this exciting loot.  I laughed my head off.  Mostly because, I don't need any of this stuff.  But even better, we don't know what any of it says!  We really cashed in when Jake insisted on wearing the over-sized shirt and baseball hat.  He even requested to wear it to bed.