Parenthood Part II: A Father's Guide

What can I say? Cole is Cole; yet, I still love him...Enjoy!

Easter

Easter Sunday was nice and relaxing. Dinner was good all except the rolls. Well they tasted fine, but looked more like biscuits. One day I'll learn the finer art of using yeast. I've yet to be successful.

We had fun dying the eggs and Doms and Tessa's hands were colorful for several days.

The kids loved hunting for the eggs and eating the candy. We dumped it all in a bowl and left it on the counter. By the end of the day Tessa had figured out that she was tall enough to reach it by pulling the chair over and helped herself.

Please note that every one of the kids is yelling at Claire to stop getting in the candy!

Day Trip to DC

Cole's mom was here visiting on Easter Weekend so we took a day trip to DC. We left at 7:45am and made it to the parking garage without any traffic problems by 9:30am. The morning was foggy and cold but by midday it was beautiful and warm. We walked from one end of the capitol mall to the other stopping to see as many sites as we could. The kids did really really well even though they were hot and tired. Cole and I would take turns carrying them to give their feet a rest and Cole's mom would push the stroller. We had a great time seeing so many places that are a part of our Nation's history and will be back to see more.

National Archives Building . . . didn't go in but the sculptures on top were fascinating.

The Capitol.

The kids on the Capitol lawn with the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial in the background.

The Natural History Museum, which the kids kept calling the 'Night at the Museum' because of the movies. This was obviously the kids favorite part and it felt as though we kind of rushed through it, but it was so crowded. We'll definitely visit this one again in the future!

The Lincoln Memorial. As you can see it was very crowded so we took turns going up to see Lincoln so we wouldn't have to haul the little girls up the steps and then we sat around a while and let the kids play in the shade.

View of the Washington Monument from the Lincoln Memorial.

Lunch. Here we are eating a very expensive hot dog lunch in the park. I had packed and made lots of food to bring, but forgot one of the bags at home that had the sandwiches, so grandma bought us hot dogs from the vendors. They were very good.

The White House. This was our last stop as we walked back to the car. They were setting up for the Easter egg hunt the next morning so they had everything blocked off and we weren't able to get very close, but it was very pretty and all the cherry blossoms were in bloom.

Monument Ave 10K

Cole and I ran the Monument Ave 10k at the end of March with 37,000 other people (apparently it's 25th biggest 10k in the world). We got to run by tons of Civil War monuments, old colonial neighborhoods and listen to several great bands while we ran. The last half mile was run on the cobblestone street that makes it's way into downtown. It was a beautiful and very cold 35 degree morning. We ran with numb toes, wore gloves and Cole ran wearing his beanie too.

We got there very early so we could be at the front of our wave and not have to run with so many people for the first few minutes. Cole and I lined up and started together with no intention to run together at all.

Cole and his fabulously incredible competitive nature was gone before I even took a few steps. He ran the race much much faster than he trained for. He ended up averaging an exact 7 minute mile finishing the 6.2 mile race in 43:24!! Crazy fast! He had never done a race like this and wasn't even sure how fast to do it. He said his miles were all over the place and he ran the first mile in just 5 minutes and realized that he'd never be able to keep that pace for 6 miles, so he'd slow down a bit when we ran past a good band to give himself a little break.

He ended up waiting for me much longer than I had hoped. Due to a knee injury from back in February I ended up running, walking, and hobbling to the finish line. I ran the first 3 miles in a lot of pain and then decided I'd better walk or I'd be in bed for a few days if I didn't. I picked up my pace for the last mile and did a hobbling jog to the finish line. Even though I was frustrated with my knees during the race I kept laughing at myself wondering how funny I must have looked with my walking/jogging limp. (The photos from the race photo company truly show the grimace on my face!)

Surprisingly I still finished the race in 1 hr and 7 minutes, putting my mile time around 10 minutes and 40 secs, so I must have been walking really really fast to pull off that time!

It was a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to the next race!

Dear Leprechaun

As always the Leprechauns came and destroyed our house for St. Patrick's Day. They were nice enough to leave a trail of gold coins to a box of Lucky Charms and green milk for us to enjoy for breakfast.

The night before Macie wrote a note and she thought of it herself:

Too bad we couldn't find the little guys or Cole would have had a nice dinner that night!

And just to note, Dominic has never once tried any green milk . . . he refuses!

Basketball

Macie played basketball this winter. She was on the Wolverines team. She really had a great time and was very good at dribbling the ball and taking it down the court. She and Cole worked on basketball skills a lot this winter and he always makes things fun or a competition so she's able to do all sorts of crazy tricks.

Macie made two baskets this season and I even managed to get one of them on video! She told me that basketball is her favorite sport. We're excited to see what next year brings!

Tidbits of Our Days

Macie and I made her a new little church bag for her scriptures. She got to iron the fabric.

I caught Tessa feeding Claire chocolate chips one day. Clearly Claire was enjoying them.

I quickly discovered that I'm not a fan of this type of a blind.

The cutest and most handsome people in my life. I love, love, love them!!!

Our Winter Storms

Getting caught up on the blog. We got 2 snow storms on back to back weekends. Each time the skies dumped 12+ inches on us which is totally unheard of for this area. Church was cancelled 2 weeks in a row and Macie was out of school for 6 days.

The Aftermath. Everyone would peel off their wet clothes and then we'd do the naked dance (which was actually in our underware). Everyone would take a turn to choose which dance move to do. The kids thought it was hilarious. Then we'd feed them nuggets and hot cocoa and they'd cuddle on the couch to get warm.