A party for Everett

On Saturday, Everett was celebrating his second birthday in Tacoma. It turned out that Max's was going to be gone all day at a conference. So we decided to take another day trip to Tacoma and have some good cousin time. We decided to leave after an early lunch so we spent the beautiful crisp morning playing in the yard and on all the logs from the trees that are being cut down. 

This Miles is a cheeseball, I wasn't even pointing my camera at him but he went over, leaned on the log, and started saying "Cheeeese!"

But really, did I just blink and he grew into a big boy?

Watching his wild big brother!

"Choo Choo"

After an early lunch, we headed up to Tacoma. The boys slept for a chunk of it and I was able to listen to an audio book. It was an enjoyable drive.

We got there a couple hours before the party so we could have extra cousin time. My boys love their cousins so much. And it blows Charlie's mind that they have their very own playground in their yard.

Gwenevere is starting piano lessons soon so she showed me some of her skills and piano books.

Everett was having a "Chugga Chugga two two!": birthday party, so there were trains all around. Gwenevere and Elizabeth designed this cool photo booth!

I had so much fun being an aunty too. I love playing with those little nieces and nephew.

These boys were cracking me up, they kept taking turns pointing to the bike and saying bike! It's like they got more excited each time it was their turn to point it out!

It was then time to frost the train cake. The kids gathered around waiting for Elizabeth to offer them a little drop of frosting.

It makes me happy that these sweet boys have each other!

Then there was some playdough time in the yard

Gwenevere made Charlie a play dough nose. They both thought this was hilarious.

Shortly after the party began, there were sloppy joes to be eaten! So naturally we had to take photos of the sloppy faces!

And Everett opened all his train related gifts, Miles was pretty excited about Everett's new toys :)

The above photo reminded me of the photo below that was taken one year ago. 

And to top the sloppy Joe faces, everyone had frosting and sprinkle faces!

We hung out for awhile after the party as well. 

When it was bedtime I put the boys in their jammies, brushed their teeth, and started the drive home. They mostly slept but then had random out bursts of crying. We got home safe and sound and the boys transferred nicely to their beds. I was so glad we went up even if it was such a short trip. I love that my kids have so much fun with their cousins! And it was so fun to celebrate with Everett!

3rd Annual Triathlon

We participated in the Tualatin Stake Women's Triathlon again this year. I was pretty excited since it would be my first time, neither pregnant nor nursing. I decided I wanted to be a little more competitive against myself, with fewer brakes between events. The last couple of years we have been coming in right at the end of the event and I thought it would feel good to finish the run when other's were just starting to run. My mom, Elizabeth, and I all got there a little early and we were up to swim only 10 minutes after the event started.  

I'm not the greatest swimmer,but I really enjoy it. I actually think this event is my favorite, especially since it's in a pool and I can take the time to rest if needed. I would stress out if it was in a lake. 

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We changed and took a quick helmet selfie before heading out on our bikes. It was about 10 miles, we got a little separated from at some traffic lights. 

There was a volunteer photographer documenting the event, these photos are from Mike Juliana Photography

I survived the biking (my least favorite event) We ended up starting our run at different times. My goal was to at least run 1.5 miles out of the 3.2 miles. I wanted to make it at least half way, and my legs were already jello from swimming and biking. I turned on my music loud and just ran, nice and slow, and I ended up running the whole 3 miles. This was the first time, during this triathlon that I was able to run the whole time. I like running, but since having kids, I haven't made time to run much. I felt like this was a major victory.

And I made it to the finish line/

 That's my mom hugging Bonnie Peterson, who was my sunbeam teacher when I was 4 years old

Apparently my mom got all the photos! Haha!

When we got in, James and Max and the kids met us for lunch at the finish line. After lunch we let our boys play on the playground for a little bit then went home. We showered and tried to nap, which I'm not that great at but resting felt nice. 

In the evening my green Grandma took us all out to dinner to celebrate My dad, Max's, and my birthday!

Max's Birthday

We tried to make Max feel extra special on his birthday! Not everything went according to plan but all in all Max felt loved, and that is what mattered. A week or two earlier, the receptionist at Max's work asked me to stall him on his birthday. Hopefully getting him to go into work about an hour late. I did what I could and tried to not be obvious at all. Luckily Max was meeting with a tree cutter in the morning and he came late and I didn't start breakfast until it was time for him to leave for work.

UPDATE: I had this blog post sitting open for almost a week because I wasn't sure what to write (and I was just busy) I finally sat down and tried to make a nice special blog post, after completion and trying to post it, it disappeared! Bah, So frustrating! Anyway, I will now attempt to make a special blog post, but probably I will just jot down the events and call it good. Max is still an amazing and wonderful person even if his birthday blog post is lame :) 

We enjoyed a wonderful breakfast of puff pancakes. Miles ate about 3 times more than Charlie. It was enjoyable and we were able to get Max to leave for work about 45 minutes late!

When Max got to work he was suspicious when he saw that his office door was closed. They are often pranking each other so he thought maybe someone was hiding in his office and was going to jump out and scare him. He tried to get a co-worker to walk into his office first to prove that there was nothing going on. He couldn't get anyone to walk in so he eventually went in slowly and was covered with an avalanche of balloons. His coworkers filled his office with 300 balloons and saran wrapped his yoga ball to his office chair. His office was full of balloons and he was once again terrified that a coworker was hiding in the balloons about to scare him. It turns out that no one was there to scare him and they just were super excited to celebrate his birthday. Pretty great right? Max felt pretty special.

Shortly after Max got to work I had to go to a short eye appointment at Costco, which is just down the street from his work so I dropped the boys off with Max to check out the mass of balloons. My appointment was only about 5 minutes so then I did some shopping at Costco, then Max was still fine with the boys so I ran over to Winco to get the supplies for a pinata for Max. I did all this in less than an hour. I went back to check out the balloons, bring Max some treats, and pick up the boys. We then went home, on the short drive Charlie fell asleep, I thought this was weird since he didn't wake up that early and it was still before noon.

When I carried him to his bed he felt pretty warm. I took his temperature while he was sleeping and it turned out that he had a fever. While he slept, Miles and I ate lunch, then Miles went to bed. I decided to clean the house because we were planning on having a little get together with friends that evening.

When Charlie woke up he was still really warm, so we decided that we weren't going to go out to dinner, and we decided with our friend's that it would probably be better not to expose others to the sickness. Luckily Charlie didn't have any other symptoms besides not much of an appetite. So we then planned on a more quiet evening at home.

Since we weren't able to go out to eat, and Max wanted Chicken and Waffles for dinner, and I wasn't going to attempt to make them, I was able to call in our order and Max picked it up on his way home.
And it was good!

And this is what Charlie looked like, poor kid, he still ate a little waffle.

I don't know why but it really is amazing!

After dinner, Charlie was feeling better, or at least he was getting restless so we went outside. Max set up his new birthday Hammock. We decided he needs a hammock for every occasion. This one is a backpacking hammock that he can take camping and rafting. 

Charlie felt like running to the mailbox but he was ok with stopping by the wall and taking pictures. He's been working on his crazy faces.

The following photo is blurry but I love it. So I'm including it anyway. 

We did a little sidewalk chalk before going in. Miles tripped and fell and the sidewalk chalk saved him, No wounds or tears, just a smear of chalk.

And then the Grand Finale of the party. Max likes to have pie for his birthday, this year I tried a recipe for a salted caramel apple pie. I made the caramel from scratch, it took a couple tries, but came out so decadent. And I've never done a lattice crust before, but after this one, I wondered why I had never done it before. It is so easy and it looks amazing! SO then I had a little photo shoot with the pie. 

You then drizzle the homemade caramel on top and Wow! So good.

So if anyone wants a pie, I may or may not be looking for a reason to make another one!

Anyway, this post is about Max, not pie! We enjoyed our pie then put the kids to bed. It was a fun day even if it didn't go according to plan.
The point is, Max is amazing and deserves every bit of recognition and then a ton more. We love him and feel constant gratitude for his hard work and dedication to his family. Here's to the end of the 20s!

Kickball!

A couple weeks ago, our friend threw a Kickball party for her husband and another friend. She had been wanting to do this for a long time. We were excited to go, but I also had that nervous feeling that came when my third grade teacher announced that we were going to play kickball as if it was some sort of reward instead of the potential opportunity to make a fool of ourselves. Luckily I have a little more confidence in my kicking skills now so those knots in my stomach were somewhat eased. Anyway, it was a blast, between supervising our kids and Max playing in the game, I only got the chance to kick once, but I made it to first base, so that felt good :) And I took some blurry photos of other kickers :) 

Ok, so I brought my camera because I'm pretty sure a baseball diamond is a great place for photos of little boys. I didn't really take that many, and I just realized that Charlie doesn't make an appearance in these photos since he was running around like a maniac elsewhere.  

Both birthdays being celebrated were dental students so there were a lot of tooth related treats and a tooth pinata. And somehow, I didn't take any photos of those things But here is a photo of Miles flying

His pose at the end is my favorite..."Did you see that mom?" haha! Anyway, kickball is more fun as a grownup I think!