Obsession

 There's no denying it...  Cole is obsessed with balls.

Oftentimes the more balls, the better.  They almost guarantee a smile on his face!

He throws, kicks, holds, and chases after them all the time.

Who knows what he'll end up doing in the future, but if this keeps up athletics is almost certainly part of the picture.

Good throw, buddy!  Keep 'em coming!

Fun in St. Louis

I recently downloaded some pictures off my phone and was pleased to find a few good ones of our outings in St. Louis.

Here's Laine at the science center standing under the arch that she and I built together.

And the kids always love climbing on the sheep at the botanical gardens.

All stacked up - I'm not sure Cole is quite as excited as the girls at this moment!

My First Half Marathon

Back in the fall my friend, Erika, asked me if I would join her in doing a half marathon. Neither of us had ever done one before, so we quickly agreed to do it only if we let ourselves walk some, if not most, of the 13.1 miles.

We mildly trained this winter and spring, and before we knew it the big day was upon us. Here we are in all our roll-out-of-bed glory. Excited and nervous at the same time.

The view from the starting line was impressive - 15,000 people packed in together watching the sun come up over the arch.

Moments after crossing the finish line my smile was much bigger, and more sincere. We made it! Our time was 2 hours, 19 minutes. That was much faster than we anticipated, so we were both very pleased with the result.

Wearing our participation medals - so thankful to have stayed together the whole time. I don't think I would have done nearly as well without Erika at my side. An exciting accomplishment for both of us!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! We had a nice sunny weekend, with friends and some down time mixed in. I didn't do a great job of getting a family picture this year - just shots of the little kids. Laine and Daddy left the house early to go to the sunrise service, so we met up with them later at church.

Mead was excited about her pretty blue dress, and Cole looked very handsome in his brown seersucker suit.

What a stud!

Hope everyone had a happy Easter as we celebrated the joy of our risen Savior!

Park play dates

Over spring break and Easter weekend we had the chance to meet up with friends several times.

First we went to Suson Park to play and check out their farm.

Laine and Ellie are best buds but rarely see each other anymore, so they were excited to hang out for the morning.

The following week we went to Blackburn Park and enjoyed a beautiful day.

Fun playground...

Picnic lunch with good friends...

And an exciting game of red light, green light (something Laine just learned at swim lessons). So glad for all the great places to play around St. Louis!

A surprise visit from the Easter bunny!

We woke up this morning to a fun surprise - the Easter Bunny came to our house late last night!

Outside our back door we noticed three buckets, along with this note which gave instructions on how many eggs to find and which colors for each child.

The hunt began immediately. No need to get out of pajamas - just put on rain boots to walk through the wet grass!

Cole caught on quickly and began looking everywhere for eggs. Mead was so excited about her purple eggs.

Laine ventured further out into the yard to find her yellow eggs. There was even one stuck in the log pile - the last one to be found!

Into the bucket it goes - such concentration.

Look what I found!

Back inside the girls began opening the eggs to check out the goodies inside.

What a fun Easter surprise and a great way to start the day. Thanks, Easter Bunny!

Laine loses a tooth!

Laine has been talking about losing a tooth for several years now. I'm not sure why she's been so aware of it or excited about it, but it's been on her radar for a long time. Well, it finally happened last week.

Above is her smile, looking very normal, and below is a shot of the hole created by losing one bottom tooth.


Laine was initially disturbed by the pain and shock of losing a tooth, but since then she has been so excited to tell everyone about it and check out her new smile in the mirror again and again. Such a big milestone - very exciting!