Lincoln is 3! (almost)

Lincoln is turning 3 on Tuesday, so we celebrated today with a dinosaur-themed party.

We invited several kids from Lincoln's class at daycare, as well as our family and friends with kids. We kicked things off with some arts and crafts - we had two kiddie tables and our coffee table filled with fun stuff for kids to create with.

Of course, no party is complete without cake. I got an awesome Dinosaur cake from Judi's Bakery in North KC. They're a local bakery and did a great job (the volcano was pure frosting...yum!)

 

We cleaned up the crafts and used the two small tables for the kids to eat at. Lincoln loved the cake - as you can see it did not take long for his mouth to turn blue from the frosting.

Guy had fun at the party, too - Joni was kind enough to make sure he had some toys to play with and stayed fed while Scott and I were running around the party. If you look closely at this photo you can see a small dinosaur hiding...we hid some dinosaurs around the room for the kids to find and take home.

All in all, it was a great party.  We were a bit worried about how our house would handle 8 kids and 14 adults, but our family room was big enough to handle it - and  could have fit a few more.  I'm looking forward to many more fun birthday parties for the boys!

Guy's first tooth and a B-day weekend

This weekend, Guy's first tooth finally broke through. It was a tough battle complete with lots of drool, hand biting, and a little fussiness, but he hung in there. We will work on getting pictures of the new tooth soon.

The other big news of the weekend was my Mom's birthday and Lincoln's pre-birthday. Lincoln's birthday isn't until June 30th, but we let him join in the fun with a little pre-birthday party. It was great, and we've been enjoying Baskin Robins ice cream cake all week.

Guy's 5 month photos...

It's a running joke among people with multiple children that the second (or third, or fourth...) child gets the short shift when it comes to getting photos taken.  We've certainly been busy with our own activities and all of craziness that comes with having a preschooler and a baby, so it's hard to take the time to commemorate all of the little milestones that Guy has been hitting (rolling over, blowing spit bubbles...).  

Luckily our friend Stacey Schmitz is a wonderful photographer, and last week he spent some time capturing the cute things that Guy's been up to.

You can see Guy in all of his cute glory on Stacey's photo blog.  

BRAN and a visit with the grandparents

Last weekend, Scott did three days of BRAN (Bicycle Ride Across Nebraska) with his Dad. Since Scott was going to be out of town, it was an excellent opportunity for me to take the boys to visit my parents. On Wednesday night we met up with Mike, and Guy and Lincoln got to see Grandpa's tent. As Scott got ready to spend three days traveling nearly 200 miles and sleeping in a tent, the boys and I drove to Lincoln to sleep in a nice warm bed and visit...

...The Lincoln Children's Zoo! My mom and I had fun taking Lincoln and Guy to visit the zoo. Lincoln enjoyed seeing the animals (especially the snakes!), but his favorite part of the trip was riding on the train.  The weather was perfect for a zoo trip - not too cool and not too hot.

Even Guy got to ride on the train!  We couldn't get him to look at the camera because he was too busy watching the train conductor.

Grandma was very generous and let the boys pick out a souvenir from the gift shop.  Lincoln chose a snake (of course!), and Guy chose a very cute baseball cap with a frog on it (although grandma may have influenced his decision).

We came back to KC just in time for Everett's 2nd birthday party (although we forgot to take our camera!)   I'll finish with this photo of Lincoln and Guy playing together.  Lincoln was helping Guy drive his "car", and Guy loved it!

Bicycle Ride Across Nebraska (BRAN)

This week the annual Bicycle Ride Across Nebraska (BRAN) is happening, and my Dad is riding for the second year.  I think this year's BRAN covers 450 miles in 7 days.

Not to be left out of the fun, I'm riding too (but only for 3 of the 7 days).  I'm excited and a little nervous.  I've been doing a lot more running than biking lately, so hopefully I'm in good enough shape to survive the 80+ mile ride on day 2 of my journey.

To help stay in touch while I'm out, I setup a Twitter account where you can follow me if you wish.

The family that runs together stays together

This has been an action packed week for our family with the Corporate Challenge (KCCC) track meet, the Hospital Hill run, and the KCCC duathlon.

On Friday, I ran on two relay teams at the KCCC track meet. We won silver medals in both events. The two medals weighed almost as much as Lincoln, who, along with Linda and Guy, was cheering me on at the track.

On Saturday, Linda and Joni ran the Hospital HIll 5K. Me, Lincoln, Guy, and Tracy were there to cheer them on. It was a fun race that was really well organized. By the way, "hill" in the name refers to a mile long fairly steep hill running through midtown KC.

Before the race

During the race

After the race

The last event of the weekend was the KCCC duathlon (run-bike-run). I finished the duathlon this morning in 1 hour and 23 minutes - 13 minutes faster than last year. That improved time was mostly due to my new road bike, but I did run a bit faster too.