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This is Jonas and his best-friend and sometimes-Siamese twin Ivan.

What is also great about this photo (besides just the photo itself) is that Jonas and Ivan's teacher took it.  I think that is great because it shows that she (Mrs. Reich) enjoys their silliness.  I mean, not all the time.  But she is just the perfect teacher to put up with these two boys.  Not that they are bad . . . they just like to have fun during class time.

We've been blessed with great teachers.  I can't believe the 2014-2015 school year is coming to an end . . .

Happy Mothers' Day

 Ben and his beautiful mother on our wedding day.

Baby me and my mother in 1979 at Hawaii.

We've been beyond blessed with our mothers and mothers-in-law.  Truly.  We love you Mom (and Dixie) and Mom (and Diana).

Bike bumps video part 2

We went to the bike jumps/bumps last Friday (the kids were out of school).  I told them I would make another video.  It's not nearly as great as the first one, but whatevs.  I can't post the video here, so here is the link:

https://youtu.be/9gGevlFUKig

GOTR 2015

So I really wasn't planning on doing GOTR this year.  I just had a lot going on and didn't think I could do one more thing.  Which, I thought, would mean our elementary school wouldn't be able to do GOTR (you see, there are 2-3 of us on the PAC and so I have experience and knowledge that not many parents step-up to volunteer for things like this . . . unfortunately).  I'd done GOTR for the past 3 years and felt like a break would be good before Emmy was finally in 3rd grade and could officially do it.

Well. . .  fortunately for our school we had 2 staff members agree to do it.  Then I got a call from our district gal asking if I would be willing to do it once a week.  Sure, sure.  I'm glad to do it, it just adds to our already crazy lives.  Also, doing it once a week was a little hard for me.  I just felt I was missing 1/2 of it . . . because I was!  But it worked out just fine.

The 5K race was on May 2nd up in Junction - as always.  We had a decent turn-out for our girls.  I didn't see too many of them finish, but I know each girl did and I hope they had fun!  It ended up that I didn't run with any of the girls from school - a lot of them had a mom to run with.  Or they were in front to go fast - and I couldn't since I had a stroller.  So I was just with my very own two girls.

And it was great.

Emmy ran/walked it with me pushing Lucy.  We ran for 5 minutes, then walked 5, ran 5, etc.  We finished at 40 minutes, which I thought was pretty good for a little girl that did no training.  :)  I can't wait until she is in 3rd grade!  It will be so fun to do with her - if I can keep up with her by then.  :)

 I think this shows most of our girls that showed up for the race!

 Post-race.  She really is too cute and has such long legs - where on earth did she get those?!  What a cutie.

 Even though Lucy didn't do any running, she wanted all the post-race snacks.  Of course.  :)

"Baby" Emmy.  Emmy wanted to be pushed.  Lucy wanted to push.  Isn't it great when life works out like that?

We finished up our "girls day" by . . . going shopping of course!  Ha, this is something we like never ever do.  But I had a bunch of Old Navy reward money and so we had a fun time there.  The girls got some adorable shoes, among a few other things.  We finished it up with some delicious frozen yogurt.  My flavor (a new fav?):  sea salt caramel pretzel.  YUM.

Anyways, we were all happy and had a fun day!  Go Girl Power!  :)

Boys' First Backyard Camp-out of the Season

I Can't Believe April is Over . . .

Miles' 5th-grade Field Day

So the 5th graders from all the elementary schools in the district (6 schools) compete at Field day in 4 events.  I'm not sure how, exactly, those 4 events are picked.  Maybe the kids decide which ones they want to do?  I think so.

I do know, however (at least for Northside), that if you didn't finish the 1-mile practice run at your school in 12 minutes or less, you weren't eligible.  Miles did and so one of his events was the 1-mile race.  He also did the foxtail throw, the 200 meter, and something else I can't remember.

I was there to help from 9-12.  I had little baby Wren with me.  While she was pretty great, it still made things a little bit more challenging.  Lucy was at a friends and gymnastics, so that was fun for her.

I really wanted to be there to watch Miles run the 1-mile race.  I was lucky it was to be in the morning.  The Northside students (my kids' school) get to walk there, do all their field-day activities in the hot-hot sun, and then walk back (a little over 1-mile each way).  I think Miles will be good and tired this evening!

Anyways, back to the race.  Luckily it was the only event going on at the time.  After that, all events are happening and since I was helping out at the "foxtail throw," it would have been challenging for me to watch Miles.

Miles did awesome.  I wish, in some ways, that meant he was super fast and placed in the top third.  But that's not what his awesome meant.  It meant he finished, stayed strong, and never walked.  When the gun shot, the boys were off . . . and Miles was dead-last.  He was last for the first 2 laps, I am pretty sure.  But then a few boys started walking and Miles just continued with his good, steady pace.  He "sprinted" the last 1/2 lap and came in looking good and happy.  :)  I'm not sure what place he was, but he wasn't last.  His time was 8:36.  I was very proud of him.

His next event was the foxtail throw (they throw some thingy and they try to get it to land in a marked circle as close to a pole as possible).  That's where I was and so it was fun seeing him and his classmates.  After that, I was just helping there and Miles was wherever.  By 11 he had already eaten most of everything I had packed for him (they are there until 2 and then walk back to school).  I think he was having a good time.  If I didn't have Wren, it would have been a lot of fun to just stay the whole day.

A few pics:

 Ready, set, bang!  (There were a couple of fast boys out there!)

 Miles' sprinting to the end!  Go, Miles, go!

 All done.  Awesome!

The foxtail throw.  The "tail" is flying out of the left side of the picture.  :)  It was a fun event, I think.  Though most boys, Miles included, did not make it inside the circle.  I would say maybe 10% of the boys actually got it in the circle.  :)

These are Miles' last days of elementary school . . . sniff, sniff.  (He's got 3 more weeks!)

Is it a wagon, a minivan, a hearse?

Nope, it's a Ford Flex and it's our new (used) car.

So this car has a story and I want to document it.  I'll try and not make it super long . . .

So I was in that fender-bender back in February.  There were some damages and so I filed a claim and the gal's insurance (the one behind me) agreed to cover it.  We dropped off our car on our way out for spring break.  We were given this rental car (all charges paid by the insurance claim . . . suh-weet):

I joked on facebook about this being my "birthday present."  Some people thought, and probably still think, Ben got that for my birthday.  HA.  It was a 2015 Chevy Tahoe with a price-tag of $47K.

Anyways, it was fun driving around, but we didn't fall in love with it and it wasn't too hard to part with (perhaps it was the price-tag).  But when we got back from our trip we had a message that said our car was considered a total loss and thus they did not repair it.  Instead we got our damaged car back (that is a whole other story) plus some cash.

So . . . we started looking at vehicles.  Our Honda Pilot was drive-able, but we also thought it could be a good time to look at something new.  I also realized how much I detested our 3-seats in the middle - thus making the boys (who sat in the very back) climb over the girls, etc.

The docs that Ben works for basically told him the car for our family right now is a . . . van.  I didn't really want one, but understood it could work for our family.  I started casually looking and even found something in Utah.  But I wasn't sold on the van idea.  It's just not . . . me . . . nor us.  Jonas probably would have disowned us if we bought a van.  (He just has the inner-sense of what is cool and what is not . . . as I will demonstrated later as well.)  Ben really didn't want one either.  So we were looking at a few options and then I came across the Ford Flex.  I loved it at first sight.  Seriously.  It's cool.  It's different.  I like that.

Well Ben thought it was just about the ugliest thing when I showed it to him.  He couldn't imagine he married someone who even thought such a car was even kind of cool (but he said it in a nice and loving way, of course).  He did tell me something along the lines of, "But if you want it, you can have it."  I said something along the lines of, "I don't want to get something you hate.  But I really do love that car!"

Ben agreed to check out the Flexes here in Mo'town.  He fell in love with the 2nd car he test-drove.  And we probably would have bought it if it didn't have over 90K miles on it.  So then I began an even more serious search and came across a Ford Flex in Littleton.  I got pictures, etc.  We sent Jim (Ben's dad) over to test drive it and Jim's report was positive enough to send Ben out to check it out - and basically buy it - a couple weekends ago.

So Ben and Miles left on a snowy Friday morning and risked their lives to buy our Ford Flex.  :)  Oh, when we showed Jonas what car we were looking at (before we had test drove any; Ben still hated them at this time), he was like, "Yes!  That's the car we have to buy!"  He's funny.  Miles has a hard time getting rid of things, so it was a little hard for him.  But I think being able to watch a movie on the drive home from Littleton sweetened the deal for him.  :)

It's a nice car and we all love it - Ben especially.  He said it was the most comfortable car drive he's ever had.

Welcome to the family, Ford Flex.   Whatever you are.

(Because of my angle, the car looks even longer than it is - especially the hood.  Whatevs, I still like it.)

Happy Anniversary

Well Ben and I have been married for 13 years now.  Crazy.  I don't even remember, nor can I fathom, what our life was like when it was just the 2 of us newlyweds.  Weird.

This might have been the lamest of anniversaries for us, but I don't say that in a complaining way.  It's just where our lives are right at the moment.  If our anniversary would have fallen on a different day (any day but a Monday!), we could have probably spruced things up a bit.

Ben worked all day.  From 3-5 I am busy with my school's Girls on the Run program.  Ben came and got the kids by around 4 at the school and took them home.  Then he got the boys to gymnastics.  They are there from 4:30-5:30.  He ate dinner with the little girls at 5 and then took Emmy, with Lucy, to soccer practice from 5:30-6:30.  I got the boys from gymnastics and we ate dinner.

Then everyone was home and we had FHE.  It consisted of looking at our wedding album.  That was fun and the kids enjoyed looking at the photos.  I did make an awesome FHE/anniversary dessert for us.  Homemade mint ice-cream with homemade brownie mixed in.  It was in honor of our Cold Stone wedding reception food.  :)  Ben loved the mint and brownie ice cream and so I made us some.  It was A-mazing.  YUM.

We were actually going to go to dinner with the family, but I really wanted to go to Colorado Boy and they aren't opened on Mondays.  And Mondays are too crazy anyways.

So dessert today and dinner tomorrow.

I don't think either one of us even thought of getting the other a gift.  Perhaps that is because we just got a new car and new hardwood floor.  Speaking of the floor, here are a couple of poor-lighting pictures of our new floor:

As you can see, we still have some trim that needs to be put up.

Anyways, we love our new floor.

But not as much as we love each other (cheese!), lame-anniversaries and all!

Mini Kicker

We signed Lucy up for a little soccer clinic called "Mini Kickers."  It's some "British" soccer camp thing.  She does it for like 6 weeks - on Tuesdays from 10:30-11:15.  Lucy's class is her and three other boys.  Awesome.

Coach George is from England.  Lucy asks him things like, "What language do you talk?"  "Why do you talk like that?"  "You said 'fav-it,'" (his version didn't quite sound like "favorite" . . .).  He's a good sport about it all.  :)  After her first class she told all her siblings that she's scared of Coach George.  But she's not - nor was.  Anyways, I got a few pictures:

Cute, cute.