Paige, Paige, Paige etc.

Paige doesn't mind wearing bows in her hair. But she does insist that I take a picture. every. single. time. Happy to oblige Paige.

My Mom

Memorial Day!

We spent a lot of our Memorial Day exhausting ourselves with physical exertion (a morning run, two bike rides, walking to and from a parade and lots of yardwork) but we had a lot of fun doing it! Here are some pictures from the calmer moments of our day :)

Ruby and Owen



Family picture




Getting ready for the parade




Enjoying the parade




Visiting the fire station before heading home



Graduation Day!

Owen's last day of preschool is today! His school had a graduation program earlier in the week and we were treated to some songs from the kids. I did get videos of all the songs but the camera work is a bit shaky since I was trying to hold the camera still, keep it away from Paige, and cry at the same time...We're super proud of Owen and we're so glad he loved preschool as much as he did. He spent some time last night lamenting his last day and wailing, "preeeschooool." I think that sadness will turn into excitement once we get closer to kindergarten though...at least for him...I'll be crying that day too...

The proud preschool graduate!

There were pictures of each child holding a sign of what they wanted to be when they grew up.

Owen could see us in the audience so it was like he was singing the songs just for us:)

Paige got dressed up for the occasion too!

We've Been Eating...


Meatball Subs: These didn't really seem noteworthy enough to put on the blog even though they were really tasty but while we were eating Owen said, "Can I have another one? Because this is sooo good, even better than pizza! Well...it's on the top of my list...they both are." That sounds like a recipe we should keep...right? I halved the recipe and we still had enough for meatball subs for two days and to eat with pasta later in the week.

Meatball subs!

  Apple-Pecan Dessert Squares: This was a dessert I made for Pat to bring to work. The overall opinion was that they were very good but a little too sweet. A small piece was enough!

Apple Pecan Dessert Squares


Enchiladas: I did not make these but don't they look good? They actually look like crazy breadsticks. As I said before, they weren't very well-received by anyone but me so we won't be getting them again but I'm still glad we tried them.




Half Marathon Day!

We woke up the kids super early today and dragged them downtown so they could sit for two hours in the sun and wait for me to finish a half marathon...I mean...the kids were super excited to wake up this morning because they got to watch me run a half marathon!! There's probably a little bit of truth in both of those choices but really training and getting to run today was an amazing experience and the kids were amazing and Pat is amazing for letting me take the time to do it.  (Sidenote: I appear in every picture in this post. This does not happen very often in a multiple picture post!)




This is at 5 am! There was definitely some excitement in the air (and some cereal...)



Waiting in the stadium for race time!





Almost time!

  
 

Finished!





Me and Sarah!





Partaking in post-race snacks. A small reward for doing a great job waiting and cheering!



The Market

Paige and I had some rare time alone to spend together when Owen went on a field trip with his preschool so we headed to the West Side Market. We had so much fun wandering/getting lost and looking at everything they had. It took a few laps around the place for Paige to get comfortable but once she did she strolled around like a pro while we narrowed down our options. We ended up going home with an apple fritter (yum!), some enchiladas (I was the only one that ended up liking them!), and some purple peruvian mashed potatoes (we still haven't tried those...). 



This photograph took an immense amount of control on Paige's part because we had just bought a giant apple fritter and I made her pose before we ate it :)



See? Like a pro.



So casual.




Eating more apple fritter on the way home!



Mother's Day!

My family blessed me with a super fantastic Mother's Day yesterday! There were a lot of fun surprises but my favorite was the card that Owen, Paige and Pat made for me (see below).

Chicken and Spinach Burritos!

I was given some vouchers for free yogurt in exchange for doing a super easy kid yogurt sampling party and for some reason I redeemed a good number of them at the same time... Anyway, I needed something creative to do with my yogurt surplus and found this burrito recipe on the container. They turned out to be really tasty although they were more well-received the first day we had them as opposed to the leftovers the next day. I halved the recipe because I figured we didn't need eight burritos but it still made six and I didn't put in as much cheese as it suggested (what's with the exorbitant amounts of cheese in recipes?!). I would also argue that it doesn't need the chicken because it has black beans in it. 

Bike Aboard!

It's been in our plans for a long time to take our bikes on the train, get dropped off and bike back. We've known for awhile that Owen can bike at least 6 miles so we decided to give it a try over the weekend. I knew as soon as we finished that I want to do it again! I talked up Owen's endurance in the last post and he did not disappoint. We never had to stop at his request or slow down so he could keep up! We also got to see a couple bald eagles and what I think was a heron (maybe Pat can confirm that...).  

Aboard the train!

Paige loved the train ride

We stopped for a snack and to let Paige run around

Paige saw this bike and said, "Is this mine? Where's mine?"

Bike Riding!

Going on bike rides is one of my favorite thing to do with the kids. Owen has amazing endurance so we can go pretty far and Paige loves shouting at us to go faster!  

Zoo

There is no shortage of posts about us going to the zoo because we go fairly often but it still always seems like a picture-worthy event. You can blame Paige and Owen for being cute and holding hands which is what started the picture-taking in the first place!



See! Holding hands!




Group shot! I never remember to do these!




I'm still documenting these moments...




Paige tried out the wings in the gift shop