Bloom

Have you all heard of Bloom?  I love it.  It's a blog for young mothers that is comforting during the hard times and inspirational during the good.  Today you can check me out there!

Mad Hatter's Tea Party

We've been faithfully attending story-time at the library all winter long.  Last Friday was the last story-time of the season and it was so cute.  They had a Mad Hatter's Tea Party.  Everyone wore hats and we read about hats, did a Mexican hat dance and had a real tea party.... with real herbal tea, YUCK.  Russ and I thought it was gross, but Tuck actually drank his.  We definitely had fun pouring it and adding cream and sugar.

 They had little cookies and sandwiches that we thoroughly enjoyed while practicing our manners and polite words.  It was super cute!



Seeing what Russ sees.

I gave Russ the iphone the other day for pictures while I did some dishes.

Then behind my back I kept hearing a "snap, snap, snap, snap, snap"

(really, these are three of about 50)

Hooray for pictures of my behind while doing housework!  Ugh

Then he went on to some less interesting household finds (only a few pics of these)

Then onto the most interesting subject!

Hahahahaha!

More Glasses Pictures

I just know all you grandparents have been hankerin' for these:

Doesn't he look so studious?

Coke Bottle Cutie

Here's the new glasses!

HAHA!

But isn't that box-mask Ben crafted amazing? Lol

Anyway, here's the real thing!

I know I'm his mom and everything, but doesn't he look handsome?  There's more pictures to come, they just refused to upload this evening.  But he is just sooo cute in them and they must help because he's been a happy boy today. 

Can you tell how they magnify his eyes?  Probably not, but oh boy, that boy sure had trouble seeing before... they're pretty intense lenses.  And he's been so big about it all.  He just wears them and has hardly complained, though I'm sure they are super hard to get used to. 

Yay for Russel!

What a week!

Last Saturday the emergency responders hosted a chili cook-off event.  It was a great free family day.

We tasted chili and unfortunately could've gotten tipsy if we kept tasting chili #3, ate free cookies and cornbread,

and most importantly got to explore firetrucks and ambulances!

 Tuesday took us to Hope and Anchorage.  Ben went to work for a couple of hours at the 16 student school in Hope.  In the meantime, we found some cool cut-outs and an off-season sandbox to kill time at because NOTHING was open yet... I'm not exaggerating.  Hope is a small town!

After Hope, we went up to Anchorage to take Russ to a pediatric opthalmologist.  He's had one eye that is turning in.  We discovered that he's pretty severely far-sighted and has some mild eye crossing.

All this means he will be getting glasses in two days!

 Thursday afternoon, we took off for Homer.  Ben had to work out there on Friday, so we all got to stay in a hotel Thursday night (no pool this time).  The boys and I went to the Alaska Islands and Oceans visitors center, climbed rocks, went for a walk and poked sticks into mud.  Then we picked up Daddy and had lunch by the beach.  Then I plopped my sleepy boys in the stroller and went for a short run.  Homer was beautiful! 

While on our Homer trip we spotted:

1 Moose

38 Eagles

38!

Then Saturday I did the mail-route (did I tell you I'm a substitute mail-lady?) and pink cheeks.

And lovely Sunday was Mother's Day.  I got a mini herb garden at church, then my family gave me a planter box to put them all in when I got home!  So awesome!

All the while, we've been watching this cutie-pie full time

Busy, busy, busy! Phew

Mount Marathon

So ya know, I'm running this crazy race on the 4th of July up Mount Marathon

(which I'd never even been up before).

Until yesterday that is!

My friends Melissa and Jack took me halfway up yesterday afternoon.  The view was awesome.

This is from 1/4 of the way up.

 We could see our house!

 

When we got halfway up Jack and Melissa wanted to show me the best way down

 (the way we will go during the race),

which was extra exciting because of all the snow.

We had to slide down the mountain on frozen bums using our feet and hands as rutters!

It was terrifying and sooo fun.

Jack may or may not have saved me three times that afternoon.

It is crazy to think I will be getting myself ready to run fullspeed down this mountain.

I feel tougher already.

Pink Cheeks!

It's a triathalon!
I was able to take part in the 20th annual Polar Bear Pink Cheeks Triathalon on Saturday.
It was sooo fun.
I didn't do the whole thing, I was on a team.
No big deal, except for me it was a big deal because I SWAM.
I hadn't swam laps in 5 1/2 years before a month ago, so ya know...
but I did my 900 yds (half mile) in 22:41.
That's great to me, considering it's about half the time it took me when I first started "training"!
Still waiting to find out our team's results.