Happy Birthday Dustin and Tim!! And Easter Too!!

Whew! I am finally blogging about our busy weekend! We had 3 birthdays to celebrate, and Easter. We were partyin fools. My brother has a birthday on the 21st, and Dustin and Tim have their birthday on the 24th (yes, Dustin was born on Tim's birthday, he got the best present ever!) so we usually have a big family party to celebrate the 3 birthdays. This year, Tim made the best steaks ever, and we had an amazingly huge chocolate cake from Costco. My sister and her hubby drove down from Kennewick to celebrate with us and got to stay in our freshly painted guest room. It was fun to have everyone together and hang out and eat food.

(I told you the cake was huge!)

The next day was Easter, so we got to party some more! We colored eggs, cooked a ham and had a huge brunch with everybody, had an easter egg hunt and then opened Easter baskets. Dustin and Tim were so funny coloring the eggs. Tim was trying really hard to make his swirl eggs look pretty and Dustin just wanted to make a mess. After Tim gave up trying to get Dustin to make "pretty" eggs we all had a good time. Dustin had fun ploping as many eggs as he could into one color, and then he would move right on to the next color. He didn't really care about the end result, he just liked picking eggs up and dropping them.



The egg hunt was super fun. We hid plastic eggs all over the living room and Dustin picked up his little bucket and knew just what to do. Every time he saw an egg he'd run over and pick it up and yell, "egg!" And then he'd open it up and yell, "trrrreeeat!" He was so excited! I think he did that same thing for every egg.
The next day was Dustin and Tim's actual Birthday, and unfortunately, we spent the morning at the doctor's office because Dustin got an ear infection. Bummer! We kinda just took it easy for the day, and then we had some friends over in the evening for cake and ice cream yet again! Tim got a motorcycle helmet and a Wii for his presents and we bought Dustin his first tricycle for his present!

Happy Birthday to both my boys! I love you so much!

My First Race!!!!

I had a first this weekend that I wanted to put out to the blog world, and that is that I ran in my first, official, pay to run race! I did the 10k Clover Run over in Springfield to celebrate St. Patty's day. (Because nothing screams celebrate like paying to run in the rain) Of course, there was an 80% chance of precipitation that day, and this was one of those times they weren't lying. We were good for the first 5k, which was on a really fun wood chip trail, that would have been really awesome if it wasn't so muddy. But the last 5k was on a road and then things got pretty wet. Thankfully, I didn't have to run alone, because I ran the first 5k with Chelsea and Derek and then Chelsea kept me going the last 5k. (Which included a few rather steep hills) And when I say she kept me going, I mean that pretty literally. She was totally my cheerleader, I don't know if I would have made it without her. I didn't talk very much the last 5k, because I was huffing up a storm, and Chelsea was practically breathing normally and kept saying things like,
"You're doing great Jen"
"Just think about pumping your arms"
"We can catch that person up there, just lengthen your stride"
"Ok, this is where we pick up the pace"
"You can do it, just take little steps up this hill"
So great. I'm going to record her and play her on my ipod every time I run. I highly recommend her. Anyway, that's the farthest I have ever ran before, so thank you Chelsea.

On another note, yesterday after church, we all laid down to take a nap, and of course, Dustin woke up long before Tim or I were ready to wake up, so me, being the loving wife that I am, went downstairs and hung out with Dustin so Tim could sleep a while longer. After about 45 minutes or so, Dustin asked, "Where's Daddy?" I told him Dad was upstairs sleeping and to go up and get him. Dustin took off upstairs and I snuggled into the couch and started reading. I heard banging around upstairs and shortly after that I heard the baby wake up, and then I heard them all playing upstairs. I was totally enjoying my time to myself and thankful that Tim was keeping them upstairs for me. After about half an hour or so, Dustin comes back downstairs, so I go upstairs to see what Tim is up to. I can hear rustling coming from Liz' room, so I go inside and find complete havoc!!! Dustin had opened up the closet, opened our filing cabinets, pulled out the files, and tossed them all over the room and in the baby's crib!!!! I walk in to find the baby eating my patriarchal blessing, pictures torn, and paper everywhere!!! I pick up the baby, take what's left of my blessing away (does anyone know if there's been any studies about excessive paper consumption?) and go to find Tim....sound asleep in our bed!! He claims he never heard the banging of filing cabinets and the shredding of paper, or Dustin climbing in and out of the baby's crib, even though this all took place in the room right next door! Dustin came into get him, but he rolled over and went right back to sleep through the whole thing!!! Sigh, I would have taken a picture, but our camera has been dead for quite some time now. Please don't turn us in to social services!!! We watch our kids, I swear!