Days before Kindergarten.

I cannot even believe that in less than 2 days I will officially have a kindergartener. Sniff sniff.  Miles starts school on Wednesday August 27th. It seems so early to me, summer is still here hanging around and we are out celebrating our last days together before he is a full time little student. Last week we spent our mornings at Lake Harriet beach (twice),

Lake Harriet

we played at the park with friends, ate lunch picnic style both times at Bread&Pickle, celebrated with cake and more friends

Let's celebrate with cake! A new tradition is born.

Having a picnic with our buddies.

, visited some old friends for the day at their home out in Grant, MN,

Jennifer helping the kids pick carrots. They LOVED it!

The kids LOVED picking veggies out of Jennifer's huge garden.

and just had lots of unscheduled time together.

Walking home from Lake Harriet, taking our sweet sweet time.

It was so fun to really enjoy the free time with both kids before we have a very scheduled start to a new chapter in our lives....school. Today I took the kids to the MN Zoo for probably our last weekday zoo trip, well for awhile anyway. I will miss these days together, but I also know it is time for a new beginning. And yes, I will cry when I drop him off for the first time, and maybe even the second.

So excited!

Visiting the Big Bugs exhibit one more last time before they are gone September 1st.

Checking on his favorite animal...the Komodo Dragon.

2 Wheels!!!!

New wheels! And yes, Evie got a pink (her favorite color) strider bike.

Miles is off of his training wheels!! This is a HUGE deal for our little buddy. He's been dinkering around on a beater garage sale bike (that seriously weighs like 50 pounds) with training wheels. His beloved training wheels. When we took his training wheels off the first time, he cried, hard. He was so not into it. So we put them back on and just let it be. Then the chain on his bike kept falling off while he was riding. It was time to get him a new bike. We took him to the bike store and let him pick out a new bike. We were surprised that his little 16" bike was too small and he needed a 20" bike. Wow! Our little boy is truly growing up on us. He was excited to try his new bike without training wheels. No tears now. We are so proud of him, and boy did it give him a confidence booster. Right before he starts kindergarten too.

I ran a half marathon!?!?!?!

Yes, yes I did!!! With 2 5k's under my belt from over a year ago, I decided it was time to kick it up a notch and sign up for a half marathon back in March. I found the shortest training program I could and focused on getting my weekly long runs in. I discovered that my friend (and neighbor) Jenny was the BEST running buddy ever during these long weekend runs. She's training for a marathon in June but decided to do the half with me. She ran the whole thing with me never leaving my side, even though I was a pretty sad case starting around mile 9. Mile 10 things got even harder and by mile 11 I was digging deep to get to that darn finish line. The course was super hilly for me, I have never run hills or farther than 11.5 miles ever, but I stuck it out and made it to the end in 2 hours and 26 minutes. Now I might have to try to do another one faster. But for now, I'm taking some time off and enjoying a week of rest and pizza, lots of pizza.

Post race smiles with our coffee cups.

And just like that he's 5!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MILES!!! What a great birthday week for our 5 year old. Miles got to celebrate his birthday 3 times this week and it ended with his big birthday party with all his little buddies. It was a great success and somehow all of the kids behaved and did so well. I cannot believe my baby boy is 5. FIVE!!! Where does the time go?!?

Happy birthday Miles!!

Cheeeeeeese!

  

Playing parachute games

Bowling

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Miles & his buddy Charley from school

Cake time!

Lots of fun in the gym with the parachute.

Making a dome for the kids to sit under - Miles said this was his favorite part.

Our little runner.

Miles ran his first official race! Our kids talk about running a lot. It's fun to see them pretending to run "marathons" around our basement, and how excited Miles was when we asked him if he wanted to sign up for a race. It was cold and windy, but we got him to the start line at the Lake Harriet Bandshell, and he did it. Tim got him his first pair of running shoes, and they came in the mail that week. He was so excited to try them out. He ran the whole .4 mile and was so proud to cross that finish line. Tim stayed with him the whole time (hey we are new with this?!?!) I had no idea what to expect, and it seemed strange to just send him off on his own. He is still my baby you know. I hope our kids grow up to be runners. I started running 2 years ago and it is so hard starting in your 30's but hey, you got to start somewhere right?

Easter

The Easter bunny came and brought all kinds of goodies for the kids. And thankfully no sugar treats...well besides a few tiny chocolate eggs. The kids enjoyed finding their Easter baskets stuffed with sidewalk chalk, gardening gloves and tools, new water bottles, and a fun shirt for Miles and sparkly gold shoes for Evie (she loves her shoes). We had fun watching them go through their baskets, and then we headed to Grandma & Grandpa Vedder's house for the annual egg hunt and large Easter lunch. It was fun for the kids to catch up with their cousins and play and play and play. We celebrated Miles' 5th birthday with them and the Despicable Me 2 cake he has been wanting for about 9 months (seriously, every single time we went to Target he would want to go see it and would declare that that was the cake he would have for his 5th birthday). He was spoiled with all kinds of fun birthday presents and got his very own Sonicare toothbrush for kids. He truly is growing up on us! Sniff sniff.

Finding time to read.

There is definitely not enough time in a day. I feel that way pretty much every single day being home with 2 young kids. Morning starts abruptly, kids are constantly requiring my attention and when Evie finally does decide to take a nap, I have a huge to do list that seems more important than some 'me' time, not to mention now that Miles is done napping he is usually up requiring more of my attention. And it's great and  I know what some day my kids will be able to do things for themselves and not want old mom around trying to get them fed, dressed or buckled into car seats. So I try to just go with it, and save my 'me' time for after they are tucked in sweetly in their beds. This is usually where Tim and I find some mindless thing to watch on TV or find a good movie off of Netflix, but lately I have been really getting into books. I have had the Goodreads app on my phone for years and usually it sits with a long 'books to read' list but this year I have been getting some books checked off that list, and it feels great. We live really close to our local public library and the kids and I visit weekly, I've been able to get some great books there lately and these have been my favorite recently:

All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood by Jennifer Senior
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty
Wonder by R.J. Palacio

And soon to be added to this list And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini

I usually have to really make reading a top priority when I have library books checked out because almost always they are due back with no renewals due to others waiting for them.

Now if only I could learn to read while running on the treadmill, though watching previous episodes of the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon will do just fine.

I posted 2 book lists that I have recently come across in the links I love section, I'm going to try to get more books read off these lists, especially some of the classics that I have never read before.

It's funny how once you have kids you have all these hobbies and things you want to do, yet when you were single and childless with all the time in the world (and had no clue about all this free time you time you actually had) you did nothing. That is how I feel anyway!