Lunch Date

Last week I decided to take the little dudes to Steak N Shake for a Mommy date. Doesn't happen often, and was so much fun! Rich and Dex are off to FL this afternoon for a fun boys weekend and Clark and I are heading to Nashville to visit my good girlfriend Heather. I'm going to miss my little snuggle bug, but I know he's going to really enjoy having some great one-on-one grandparent time. And Clark is super pumped for his road trip!

They even got to share a shake :)

Lotso bath = epic fail

Dexter LOVES Lotso. And it's big love. While he doesn't discriminate he does prefer the smaller Lotso he's hugging below. He calls him "real Lotso" and real Lotso is never far from Dex. We dread the day something happens to this poor bear because Dexter really is a mess without him. He won't sleep unless Lotso is with him- we found this out after he got dunked in the bath and spent 30 minutes in the dryer. 30 minutes that Dex called out for him in his crib, and promptly rolled over and passed out the second they were reunited. If Dex eats, Lotso eats. If Dex poops, he informs us that "Lotso pooped his pants". I've never seen anything like it. When he gets hurt, do you think he calls out for Mom or Dad? Nope, it's Lotso. Grandma & Grandpa got Dex the exact same Lotso as a backup. But he knows the difference and still will only want "real Lotso" so we're thinking of trying to break the new one in slowly... We need a back up plan at this point, or we're going to be in trouble!

Anyway, Lotso gets dirty as you can imagine. Real dirty. Lotso needs baths just like the boys do. Usually I try to sneak a REAL quick wash cycle in when I think I can get away with it. But for some strange reason last week I thought Dex might be able to handle Lotso taking a washer bath since he's understanding so much more now. But it was a big fat fail of epic proportions.

The second Dexter realized Lotso was locked in the washer he freaked. He ran into the other room to grab big Lotso (pictured on the floor next to him) to help get real Lotso out of the wash.

He tried SO hard to get that door open...

And when it didn't work he was furious... and started beating the washer yelling "bad Lotso, bad!!!!"

And crying.so.hard. I felt so horrible for him. But of course had to capture his reaction with a few phone pics so Rich could understand just how bad he was freaking out. Poor little dude!

It was ALL smiles, snuggles and kisses once they were reunited. And I've learned a valuable lesson. Next time Lotso needs a bath... Dex can't know it!

Spring

Days like yesterday make me SO excited for Spring to come! It literally hit 80 outside (heaven!) and we got to let the boys run around outside which is their favorite thing to do. It was strange seeing their pasty little legs in shorts! Again, cell phone pictures...

Dex has gotten so big! He climbs all the equipment at the playground now, mainly all by himself and goes down the big slides too. When he woke up from his nap yesterday he just looked bigger to me. He must have grown in his sleep! He's got to stop doing that. He doesn't realize he's still my baby!

The boys had some buddies meet them in the park. Even Adam was there, so they were super excited. We played ball and blew bubbles, and they just ran around in the dirt. Perfect boy afternoon.

Dex has to be right in the action with the big boys

And he's speaking in full sentences already. This time it was "Hey Mommy, tree. I climb tree Mommy!" So cute :)

Clark's got quite the arm on him. And I had to snap this picture of his follow through...

Then the boys had a little stroller picnic. Edmamae is a current fave of theirs.

And what nice day wouldn't be complete without a walk by the fire house to visit the truck?

Cozy dude

So. It's been way too long since I've updated. Between the kiddos, spending every spare second on real estate stuff and marathon training and fundraising, I have had zero spare time. The blog has suffered. And taking cute pics of the kids has suffered too. My phone camera has seen considerably more action than my Nikon. So, right now I'm in the process of getting some of the cuter more recent pics of the kids off my phone to share. One of these days I'll have more time to post better pictures, but these will have to do for now. This is one of Dex in the Cozy Coupe. We had it stored away during the cold cold winter, but now that the weather is warming up a bit we busted it out. He's LOVING it.

Snow day = sledding fun!

Last night it started snowing and didn't stop until late afternoon today... almost 10 inches later we decided to take the boys sledding for the first time. And it was Rich's first time too!!!! Both boys had a blast- there were a lot of tears on the way home because these cold snow bunnies did NOT want to stop playing. We made sure to warm them up with hot chocolate by the fire when we got home :)

Dex looks like a starfish here. We had SO many layers on them!

He had his giant grin on his face each time he went down the hill

Until he face planted, but that didn't even stop him- he just wanted more.

Our boys first snowball fight... although it was more just throwing snow in each other's general direction-


Hi cutie!

And Rich's first sledding experience... This hill was for the adults only.

His sled went off the path and he got COVERED in snow

Me after the giant hill. We were going so fast Rich was afraid he's sled right onto Grand.

Clark was actually pulling Dex in the sled here... so cute!

Sledding together

Apparently we have more snow coming, so maybe we'll get to do this again over the weekend!

Here I Go Again!!!

I have officially signed up to run my next full marathon: the San Diego Rock N Roll Marathon on June 5th. I will be training through Team in Training again in honor of sweet little Aubrey Rae Deno. I know if you're friends with me on Facebook you're probably familiar with her story... but just in case. One of my friend's little girls was diagnosed with ALL last summer. She went into remission the day before we left for San Fran but is now fighting for her life because of complications from the chemo.

CLICK HERE if you want to follow her CaringBridge page. And her Dad Dustin is on the board at a charity that is in the running to be awarded $250,000 that will go towards Leukemia research.

CLICK HERE if you want to vote for his idea (you can vote once per day).

My two running partners and I decided that this time we wanted to be mentors for our team. While that makes our personal fundraising goals smaller we are responsible for ensuring our entire team reaches theirs. The only reason I was successful last time was the amazing and generous support of our friends and family, and I am asking you guys to help me once again. CLICK HERE to see my personal fundraising page, and I've also added it to a tile on the side of this blog. Thank you for your help, and I will keep you guys posted on my fundraising, running and above all sweet little Aubrey!

Snow Ice Cream

Yesterday was a snow day here in STL. We got enough to make the roads bad and shut down all the schools, so we decided to make the best of it. After the boys woke up from their naps we made some snow cream. YUM. I found a bunch of recipes online but we used: a big bowl of fresh snow (gathered real carefully :) sugar, milk, vanilla extract and some white chocolate chips. I wish we had regular ones, but these were good too... The boys had so much fun!

Here they are stirring up the snow, we used the dining room table since I was in the process of making chili in the kitchen and it was a mess :) OH, and these are cell phone pics... hence the terrible quality!

The finished product...

And eating it of course!

After some messy bites the boys decided drinking it was a faster snow cream delivery system. HA.