Wife.Mother.Runner: February 2014

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Daddy's Home!

Daddy's been traveling over the last 3 weeks - during one of his weeks away, he spent some time in the Netherlands.... and brought back a few gifts for the kids:

jayden was so excited to get a new Holland football jersey! replacing the one that's at least 2 sizes too small but he wears it at least once a week.

close your eyes.....

no peeking!

surprise!

.... enjoying the last few days of February - I bought these sprinkles but now that I look at them from a distance, it looks like little ants on a cake :)

sassy Jilly got her hair cut and some (temporary) red spray ... she picked the red because she said the color matched her dress

my little MJ model

now, we're just playing with the camera

silly sisters

jillian came up with this pose all by herself and Helen's photo bomb

9 & over State Champs -- all their medals and the trophy!

Graham participated in a Spelling Bee at school today - he made it through 3 rounds but on the 4th round he misspelled CHIEFS. he started out CH....... then paused - I knew he was contemplating IE or EI.... then he finished the word CH......EIFS.

So many of the kids were nervous when the got up to spell their word - I would have been nervous too! We are so proud of him. I felt like I knew every word as they went through the list this morning - Graham has been working very hard on the list of words over the last 2 weeks.... and so have mom and dad :) 84/500 kids were chosen from the 4th and 5th grade classes to compete in the spelling bee.

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Valentine's Week

I know this post is almost a week late..... but manning the crew by myself for 2 weeks has left me ---- well, a little behind!

We had to travel to the kid's swim meet on Valentine's Day --- so we decided to celebrate a little each day!

Ross was in Amsterdam last week for work - he texted me this picture and said "what would you like for Valentine's Day?" --- he sure does know the way to my heart --- running gear! :) definitely not chocolate for me!

yes, I'm going to admit it now - -- I bought these cookies to bake for Jillian's Valentine's Day party at school. They even came pre-stamped with designs on them! It was the last package at the store, buried in the preformed chocolate chip cookies - I KNEW it was meant for me! .... and the heart tissue paper? yep, that's what I wrapped the kid's shoe boxes in and cut a hole in the top for the cards! no fancy boxes this year!!

... each of them signed their Valentine's cards on one of the snow days we had a few weeks ago

yum! I baked some fresh bread .....

.... trying to make up for these store-bought cookies!

and baked some brownies @ 11pm one night for Jayden's class party

my attempt at a homemade heart-shaped pizza --- I think I better work on that for next year --- but Jayden requested this pizza - guess he remembered when we made these last year :)

found this little girl staring at a picture of her daddy last Sunday --- she missed him so much!

A special flower delivery from my Valentine :)

The Boss is FOUR

On Sunday, Jillian proudly declares at her birthday dinner "I'm the Boss now because I'm FOUR!" I think we all knew that she was the boss before she turned four :)

I probably said it about 1,000 times on Sunday - "Jillian, I can't believe you're FOUR already!"

a little sleepy - but ready for her birthday breakfast bar

the happy birthday girl listening to her family sing Happy Birthday!

you can see the excitement in her face --- she's been waiting a long time for it to be HER birthday

..... and the Dutch version of Happy Birthday

big brother photo bomb!

her swimming friend, Blake, came by with a special birthday gift

what do you do when Walmart calls late on Saturday night to tell you that they accidentally used the last My Little Pony kit on another cake? you go to the toy section and buy another My Little Pony!!