Go! St.Louis and class party

This morning was the girls' Go! St. Louis race. They keep track of all of their mile runs throughout the year, and this race is their final mile to get to 26. It was perfect running weather, and the girls were very excited for the run.

I was happy that their school's organizers handed out plastic leis so it was easy to spot them running.

As nerve wracking as it is to have your kids removed from you, and led into a huge crowd, it does feel a little easier to know they are holding onto a rope together. I kept reminding them not to let go of the rope, and I'm sure it was rather annoying.

Here they are ready to start running!

They're off! Kara was absolutely determined to beat Kiersten this year. That was the true "race" for her. She asked if she came in first place if I'd give her $1000. I said yes, and then Kiersten asked if she came in first place if I would get her an ice cream cone. I said yes to that as well.

I was very excited for Kiersten when I saw her come around the corner with some of the big kids, and some kids from other schools that had started a few waves before our school. She was pouring sweat, and pumping her little arms. My heart did drop a little for Kara, because I knew how much she wanted to beat Kiersten. Kiersten had even started the race a few people behind Kara, so I'd hoped that would make a difference, but I have to be happy for Kiersten for doing so well. She came in just under 9 minutes, which isn't quite as fast as last year, but still impressive to me.

Kara finished in about 10 1/2 minutes. That is actually really good for her compared to her times at school. And last year, she came in closer to 13 minutes. So I was very excited for her, but I could see her immediately looking around for Kiersten when she finished to see if she'd beaten her there. On the walk back to the car, she kept saying, "Kiersten shouldn't get an ice cream cone because she wasn't the first to finish". I got them both some ice cream anyway, since they had done their best. She is trying to keep her sour grapes in check, so I appreciate that.

They both wore their medals proudly. Kara did ask why she'd gotten a medal if she didn't finish first. I told her that it was because she had done her best to run a mile, and that is something to be proud of. Her response was, "well, I guess we are celebrating mediocrity". And I am pretty sure that is a quote Ben has said a few times. But she still wore it, and seems to feel proud.

Kiersten just had to get a picture with the tulips. I love how genuinely happy it made her to see them. Kara's comment was, "hmm, I'm surprised they weren't destroyed by the hail storm."

After the run, we had to rush to get Kiersten to softball practice. She was about a half hour late, but still got in a good amount of practicing. She did stay a few minutes after practice to work on her swing. I just love this picture of the girls being adorable.

She loves playing. She has really enjoyed it so far.  

I got to help out with Kiersten's spring party at school last week. It's always fun to see the kids at school.

I had them make these cute flower pots. I saw an Easter version of this, but changed it to be more spring, since it isn't really supposed to be an Easter party.

As usual, they turned out even cuter than I imagined. The kids had cute and creative ideas.

I also made a fun garden bowling game out of left over soda bottles. I wish I would have taken a picture of the bottles. Kara helped me make them, and they turned out so cute. We did a bunny, a mouse, a grasshopper, a ladybug, and bee, and a blue bird.

I'm sure you get the idea.  

One of the moms made these adorable carrots with goldfish crackers.

We also had bunny juice boxes and string cheese butterflies. The kids ended up decorating their butterfly wings, so that was fun too.

One of the kids' Grandma made the most fun name tags. I was so surprised when she dropped them off to me. They were so adorable. Now I will feel bad the next time I'm in charge of name tags and I just write their names on a sticker.

Easter 2015

On Easter morning, Ben made all of us girls breakfast in bed. Afterward, as we were all getting dressed, Kiersten looked out the window and noticed that the Easter Bunny had visited!

Kiersten has been impatiently waiting to wear her pretty new dress. It's super sparkly in person.

I told Evie to do her best pose, and apparently, that's a teapot.

At least I have one kid that will just stand there normally and smile for a picture. I loved her dress this year. Last year she wanted to go as non-fancy and non-girly as possible. So I was surprised this year that she chose such a frilly dress, and also wanted to wear a hat. She even wore lacy socks. So I guess I'm done pretending to know what she likes, lol.

About ready to hunt!

I love this one, because it makes Evie look like more of a competitor than she actually is. She really ends up picking up whatever the others pass by.

Luckily for her, they pass by plenty of eggs.

I was really happy that some of our tulips bloomed just in time for Easter. Next year, Easter will be even earlier, so I doubt we'll have any flowers.

Poor Kara's basket is always hidden really well. So she's always last to find hers. She was kind enough to spot mine for me behind that air conditioner though.

Kiersten was so helpful to tell Evie exactly where her basket was hiding.

I didn't get as many hunting shots of Kiersten as the other two, because she somehow knew when I was about to get her picture, and would turn and pose. So I had to sneak up on her to get some action shots.

This handsome guy never has any trouble locating his basket. I can barely even remember what he looked like 80lbs ago!

They hauled in all of the eggs and baskets in about 20 minutes.

Sorting through quarters, candy, shopkins, and other fun things. Kara found $13.50, Kiersten found $15.50 (without the $5 egg that Kara had), and Evie had just under $10, I believe. Kara got mostly jelly beans in her eggs, and was a little jealous of some of the candy her sisters had.

We headed over to have dinner with some friends. It was a nice, relaxing, fun evening. We made the bunny strawberry shortcake again this year. It didn't look as cute as last year, but I think it tasted better. We made it the night before, so the strawberries and whipped cream had soaked into the cake, and it was very moist.

It was such a lovely day, a perfect Easter.

Spring stuff

We've been doing some fun stuff the past few weeks.

Kara was given these hand me down boots when she was about 4. By the time they made it to Evie, they were looking pretty rough. I was going to get rid of them, but decided to try a shoe makeover. If it didn't work out, I could still just throw them out.

I decided to spray paint them with glitter spray paint. Taping them off was actually the most difficult part. She doesn't care about the "brats" on the side, so I just painted right over the picture. You can't even notice the bumps there unless you're looking close up.

She is pretty happy with how they turned out. I let her wear them sooner than I should, so now I need to do some touchups where some glitter came off.

A pretty successful project, I have to say.

She wanted me to take a picture of the puzzle she put together the other day. She was very proud.

On April fool's day, I played a few pranks on the girls. I emptied their fruit snack packages, and filled them with goldfish crackers, and then put those in their lunches. I also put plastic spiders in their lunches as always. Maybe one of these years I'll learn a new trick. I also put their lunches in the wrong lunchboxes, but Kara saw Kiersten's in her backpack, and switched them. So they ended up with each other's lunch. Evie was the snack helper at school, so she wanted to play a prank as well. So we bought individual bags of fish crackers, and decorated them to look like cat food. I am sad I forgot to take a picture. They were cute. It was a hit, and the teacher said all the kids were acting like kitties the rest of the day. 

The past few years I've made meatballs for dinner to look like cupcakes or donuts, with mashed potatoes to look like frosting. So this year I made actual cupcakes, and tinted them green. I made a really lumpy looking cream cheese frosting, and gave them to the girls for dinner. They were very hesitant to bite into them. Evie kept asking why it was green.

Kara was trying to play along, and act like she believed it was a real cupcake, though she clearly didn't trust me, and thought it was something else. Even after the first bite or two, she was a little skeptical, but finally relieved to be eating an actual cupcake for dinner.

As soon as she saw Kara eating it, Evie was more than happy to dive into hers.

Kiersten had a busy night with girl scouts and softball practice, so hers was waiting for her when she got home. I think having the other girls expectantly watching her take that first bite, just made her wonder even more what she was about to eat. It was pretty funny. But now I don't know what I should do for next year.

I let Evie decorate the rest of the cupcakes for an egg coloring party we hosted the following day. We had about 15 kids over to color eggs together. She made all different designs and each one was supposed to be something like a princess crown, alien, duck face, etc. She used too many black jelly beans though, and most of those ended up picked off and sitting on the counter.

I was worried I'd done too many treats. We had all this, plus chocolates we made, and several friends brought goodies to share. But the kids wiped it all out pretty quickly. You just can't underestimate a room full of 3-9 year olds.

It was a fun bit of chaos, but the kids were actually really great. We didn't have any big messes, or issues. We had about 20 dying cups filled, and that could have gone so wrong, but I was relieved that it didn't.

My kids each had 5 eggs to dye, but none of them did all of their eggs. They wanted to run off to play with their friends. So Ben and Evie finished dying the rest later when he got home from work.

Yesterday was a the neighborhood egg hunt. Evie was really excited to see the Easter bunny again this year.

It was a little chilly, but a beautiful day.

Kiersten found her 12 eggs pretty fast.

I was sure Evie would have more than 12, but she did a good job, and stopped when she had 12. She's growing up so much lately.

Kara had no problem finding her eggs. She was a little disappointed that her sisters both found money eggs and she didn't.

Fun times.

After the hunt, we headed to Six Flags for a little bit, but it was so crowded, so we did not stay long. Kara was signed up for a glow egg hunt at the pool, but we forgot to go, so she was a little upset to miss that, but got over it pretty well. She's a good kid like that.