::mothers' day::

"She broke the bread into two fragments and gave them to her children, who ate with eagerness.  

'She hath kept none for herself,' grumbled the sergeant.

'Because she is not hungry,' said a soldier.

'No,' said the sergeant. 'Because she is a mother.'"

~Victor Hugo

I had such a sweet mothers' day :)  The morning was a bit of a rush.  I really wanted to go to church and hear the kids sing.  The talks were an added bonus-they were so great.  One boy told a story about a man who ordered flowers to be delivered to his mom, and on his way out of the shop, he saw a girl who couldn't afford flowers for her mom.  So he gave her some.  Then he took her to give them to her mom.  The girl led him to the cemetery.  Them man cancelled the delivery and took his mom the flowers in person.  What a story!

After church, we headed down to our usual mothers day brunch at the Grand America Hotel.

Here's our group.  It's a little different than in years past.  No cousins, and we've added Gloria.  We like the Gloria addition, but we missed the cousins (we missed them last year too).

We were in the Grand Ballroom.  It was just beautiful in there!  We ate (a lot) and listened to the live band.  They were pretty good :)

Afterwards we walked around the courtyard.  There may have been a few shenanigans going on with the little boys and the fountains.  Porter might have dipped his head in the water (and Bubb of course followed suit).  I'm kinda sad I didn't get a picture of it, but we didn't think it was all that cute at the time.

Then after we got home, Matt and the kids had some gifties for ME!!  They had been so excited all day long.  They were kinda sad that we didn't do it in the morning, but with 9:00 church, we just didn't have time.  So I finally got to see all the cute little things they made me at school (which I absolutely adore).

(look at Port's silhouette!  Ahh I just love it!  He picked me some flowers out of our flowerbeds too :) & Chloe's sweet notes ;)  )

It almost goes without saying how much I love being a mother.  I am thankful every day for my sweet babies.  Even on the roughest of days when they've been fighting with each other all day, tearing up the house, haven't been listening, etc, I'm thankful to be their mother.  I love them more than the most beautiful of words can possibly describe.  I want them to know above all else, that their mother (and father) loves them forever, for always, no matter what.

::our six-year-old-boy::

Port turned 6!

(almost 2 weeks ago, now.)

We always let the kids pick where to go to dinner, and usually it's McDonald's.  This birthday was no different.  Port picked McD's, but, we ate it at the park, which was way fun.  It's nice to have a birthday in May-when the weather has a chance of being warm enough to do something outdoors :)

They ate and played and it was lovely.

Then we went back home to sing to him and blow out candles and have cake...

He liked being sung to :)

...we were excited to give him our gift...

...a big bike!!

It's an 18 incher.  It's red with yellow wheels and flames on the sides.  

He loves it.

The next day we had a friends party for him.  It was, of course, Mario themed.

His invitation...

We had the whole thing outside in the backyard because 10 little boys in the house=no bueno.

We played a few party games...

Pin the mustache on Mario...

Princess Peach Tiara Toss...

Yoshi's Egg Race...

(They were supposed to get from one end of the yard to the other with their egg on the spoon and one hand in their pocket without dropping it-if you dropped it or touched it, you had to start over.  Port might have cheated. :)  )

He opened some fun presents...

They had some treats...

And beat a piñata to finish off the party...

Look at this boy!

He's six!  I feel like that sounds a lot older than 5 don't you?  I get a little frustrated with his manners (i.e. burping at the dinner table and such) and sometimes he'll throw a fit when he doesn't get his way, and Matt will say, "Honey, he's FIVE!!"  That's so fitting to his personality too-being 5.  Well, he's not 5 anymore!  He's 6!!  Time to straighten up, Buddy!  Just kidding!  He's such a fun kid.  He's silly, crazy, happy, excited, difficult, gross, lovey, tenderhearted, soft-spoken, cuddly, and lots more Porter-ish things.  He still loves his mummah (blue blanket), and sleeps with it every night.  He's still very into Mario, and gets SO super excited when he talks about it-he talks louder and faster.  He likes to play outside, ride his bike, play catch, hit the baseball, kick the soccer ball, run, climb and do the monkey bars.  He loves to build with blocks.  His all time favorite food is chicken Fettuccine Alfredo.  His baby sister adores him.  She thinks he's the funniest thing in the whole world.  His older sister kinda goes back and forth-sometimes he's totally annoying to her, and sometimes he's pretty great.  His brother thinks the sun rises and sets in Porter. They fight, of course, but Bubba couldn't survive a day without Port!  His measure of time during the day is how long we have before we have to go pick Porter up from the bus stop.  He's happiest when Porter's home.  He gets horribly jealous when Port has friends over.  I really feel like Bubba thinks (whether he knows it or not) that Porter exists just so he has somebody to play with :)

We sure love him.  

Happy birthday, Port-Port!!

::over the weekend::

The kids got their hair cut.  Which usually ins't that big of a deal, but this time CHLOE GOT HER HAIR CUT!!  Isn't' it cute??

She told me probably about a week or so ago that she wanted to cut her hair.  I wanted to wait a bit to make sure she really wanted to cut it.  She kept holding her hair up and looking in the mirror and telling me she thought it'd be so cute short.  I agreed.  So we went to Cookie Cutters in Logan to get a little hair cut.  I love it on her!  She was excited to go to school this morning to show all her little friends.  So far, the two of them who have seen it want their hair cut just like it :)  Cute girls.

(How 'bout that pose?!!? She might like her hair cut too!)

We got our garden planted.  

Tomatoes, corn, peppers, cukes, strawberries (they came back from last year, peas, carrots, and radishes).

Avie!!!  Baby girls aren't possa play inna mud!!!

We played kickball in the backyard.  I kicked it over the fence and had to go knock on the neighbors door to get it back.  I made Chloe and Brianna come with me.  It felt a little like the sandlot.  There was even a VERY scary dog involved.

Then we cooked out-for the first time in 2 years.  We didn't cook out at all last summer (on a count of our yard being dead last summer (we killed it on purpose).  We had some neighbor kids join us...

(Chloe, Brianna, Porter, Bubb, & Alyssa)

Sunday was good too.  We were only about 10 minutes late for church (Matt loves that).  But we still got a bench, and we didn't miss sacrament.  The family in from of us probably loved handing us our stuff that kept rolling forward and hitting their feet (crayons, sippy cups, binkies, etc) over and over again.  I skipped Sunday school to come home and put a chicken in the oven.  I cooked a whole chicken (a first for me) and it turned out SO good! recipe here  We made brownies and ate the whole pan in one afternoon (which is not unusual for our family :) ).   Then we skyped with my mom and my Grampa and Aunt Karen for almost 2 hours!  It was way fun.  I love Skype! 

So that was our weekend.  How was yours??

::Ave's first piggy tails::

She's got a pretty good little head of hair...  so I thought I'd try some little piggy tails.  

We thought it looked pretty cute.  What do ya think??

:)

In other news...

We went to the dr. today with Matt.  After he got strep throat for the 6th time in about a year and a half, we thought we better talk about his tonsils (my dad called in his Rx over the weekend and said "So, when's he gettin' his tonsils out?").  Dr. Lish looked in his throat and said his tonsils are about double the size of a normal adult's tonsils and that having them out might be best for the recurring infections and for possible sleep apnea down the road.  Oh man!!  Not the news Matt wanted to hear!  He hasn't been in the best mood since.  He's trying to talk himself out of it...("it hasn't really been six times has it??"  "It's (strep) not that bad is it?")  Ultimately it's his decision, and I told him we could get a 3rd opinion if he wanted to, but he says he knows he probably should get them out.  If we're "lucky" it'll probably be a few days before Memorial Day weekend so he will only have to take a couple of days off work.  Poor Matt!  I hear it's rough on adults!  Chloe talks it up...she keeps telling him it's not so bad. She tells him how he gets to eat lots of ice-cream and popsicles, but somehow he's still not excited.

::run with yo' rad self::

So we all know I love to run.  And probably that I love to run races...but this one takes the cake!!

It was so fun!!

We got up at 5 to drive 2 hours to Orem to run for half an hour.  Crazy?  Yes.  Fun?  H-yes!!  

Here's a little background on the race...

I found it online a while back (probably 3 months ago), and it was the big one "The Color Run" which they do NOT have in Utah :(  But they do have in Denver.  I called Dad.  He lives in Colorado Springs.  I told him about it, and that we might like to come visit.  He said "well come on!!"  We decided we were going to make a little trip out of it.  We were all excited about it.  We were talking about staying in Denver, he was telling me (all while he was digging out his work schedule to make sure he was going to be home) how Gayle (his sig. other) was running in it with her kids and a bunch of friends, and it was going to be a big ol' fun group, and I was getting SO excited!!  Matt was already off the Friday before, so it was perfect!  Then, the wrench.  "Oh, I'm sorry, Darlin', I'm working that weekend."  Oh man!!  Like the kid on Christmas who didn't get his new bike!!  So sad!!

Then my good friend told me they have one in Utah-not "the Color Run," (which is a HUGE deal and only goes to major cities) but close.  Color Me Rad (still a national race, but not at as major of cities).  I got on ASAP and got registered and sent invites to everyone I thought might want to run it with me.  We had a pretty good team, and a way awesome name...

Say hello to team Witness the Fitness 

(WTF??-haha)

(our color packets to throw at the finish line)

 We got there pretty early.  So we had to wait a bit.  We played around, danced (they had music on).  It was so happy :)

The finish line...

(the color throw at the finish line)

(now just a big cloud of color)

How rad do we all look??  Fun isn't even the word!  It was awesome!  We're totally doing it again!  I already told Dad I was coming to Denver next year.  We were such a mess afterward, but it was totally worth it!  It came off pretty easily, and it even washed out of our clothes!  Chloe did awesome!  It's tough to run 3 miles when you're 8, so she did great!  She was way excited to have pink hair!