Progress

This middle guy wakes me up in the most creative ways, this weekend he found this mask and wanted to "nicely" scare me awake to play with him.

 My mom was able to enjoy playing Grandma for the weekend and the kids filled her time with board games.  Saturday afternoon was a game of Life.  It was funny to hear them talk about having babies and asking the rest of us if we were paid when we had babies.  They also wanted to know if we made as much money as they did on their pay days.

Kaden is learning how to write his name.  While Hyrum works on his homework, Kaden practices writing his name.  He is getting to the point where he doesn't always want to trace but instead write it on his own.  He is much better with upper case than lower case, but I am grateful for the progress he has made since the start of the year!

Color Me Rad

This last weekend I took the boys up to Austin to my brother's house for the 5k Color Me Rad Color Run.  I ended up seeing a lot of people I knew from here in San Antonio.  The pictures below are in random order.

My friend Allen and me.  He would run ahead and then wait at each color station while I cheered Hyrum along.

Hyrum was having a hard day during the run, he had stayed up way too late playing with his cousins the night before and was complaining that he was going to die and that his feet would fall off the e-n-t-i-r-e way.  Allen told him that when he made it to the end that he would carry him across the finish line, enter exhibit A, above.

When the color run was finished, Hyrum thought it was the coolest, most difficult thing he had ever done in his entire life.

Robbie & April pushed Kaden and Maya in the stroller.

April & me at the end.  I look smurfed thanks to me promising Hyrum that if he would stop complaining he could color me up as much as he wanted.  I ended up with a left eye full of blue and a right eye full of green.  But, we survived and I learned a lesson that I can encourage a whiney kid for 3.1 miles and still have a smile on my face and enjoy myself.

This pretty much sums up the look of death I was given during the run!

After the race, all chalked up and ready to go home.

Within minutes of loading up in the car all the kids were sound asleep!

Pre race with our clean white shirts.  Quinten and Tristan stayed behind with Grandma.  They were sure surprised to see us so dirty when we got home.

Noah vs Hyrum, who was the most colorful?

1. Looking back, I think I still would have signed Hyrum up to do this run.  He needs to know that he can do hard things and that everything in life isn't perfect while we are progressing through it, but in the end there can still be a smile and we can have made fun memories along the way.

Warm December

December has been extremely warm this year.  We have been enjoying playing at the school park many afternoons and having a change of scenery from out cozy little house.  I am grateful to not have to wear coats and jackets here.  It actually got cold here this morning and though I am enjoying being able to wear long sleeves, I miss the bright sunshine!

Kayaking Boerne Lake

I decided last Wednesday that it had been too long since I had taken the boys out to do something fun.  Lately my adventures have been happening when they are at their Dad's house....  So, while Hyrum was at school I loaded up the kayaks so that when he got off the bus he would be surprised and we would be ready to take off.  The afternoon couldn't have gone smoother and we had a lot of fun!  We were out on the water at sunset and TinTin fell asleep as we drove home at 5:45 and didn't want up until the following morning.  Best idea I have had in a long time.

This was Kaden & Quinten's first time out in the kayaks.  I have taken Hyrum a few times by himself.

Quinten after all his begging to go kayaking was not his fearless self and was actually scared being out there.  I don't think it helped that Hyrum told him and Kaden about sharks and piranas on the drive out there.

Hyrum & Kaden figured out how to go out together.  Hyrum with a full length paddle and Kaden with a half paddle.

The smiles and images from this day are forever engrained in my memory.  The boys were so appreciative and said thank you so much.  They knew that I was taking time away from studying for finals to make this fun afternoon possible!