The Color Run

I've been running for a few years now. Never once has Luke ever wanted to run with me...until I told him about this "race". It is The Color Run.

It's pretty much a 5K of a chalk fight so he said "okay!"

I signed up as the team captain and we ended up having 21 people on our team. Best part? our team name, New Kids on the Chalk!

Sadly, the day came and I chose not to do it because I ran another race that I got a free entry for and a chance to win an awesome prize...but I didn't win and was sad in the end that I didn't run with Luke.

Anyway, back to the race. Holly ran in my place and once I was done with my disappointing race, that I might add wasn't even a full 5K, I met up with the group for a little fun.

Love this picture of Luke and Holly.

 The Veigels in the sea of chalked up people

 Look at that blue head.

 Cousins

 Luke ran this race in his Chacos and even brought his chalk bag to fill up with chalk at the stations. What a smart man.

 Luckily I had changed out of my running shoes and into flip flops, but then this is what happened. A muddy, chalky mess.

Luke said that he loved it and would do these kinds of races again. He still thinks I'm crazy for running just for the sake of running.

And finally the Veigel group.

*picture stollen from Tiffany.

Next year, I'm so there. And with Oliver too.

Neighbors Night Out

I have said it many times before and I won't stop saying it, but our neighbor hood rocks! It has quickly grown into such a fun neighborhood with all the younger couples that have moved in and all the kids everywhere that just get along. A while back we started hosting BBQ's at each other homes and it has just taken off and we love it.

This month, Corey and Lisa hosted and they went above and beyond to make it super awesome. Lisa had access to this awesome blow up projector and so we watched "Puss in Boots" out on their front lawn. See I told you our people rock.

 Everyone pitched in and our concession stand was perfect. Complete with hot wassail...because it is officially fall now! Woo!

 And the lovely and talented Melissa making us all freshly fried doughnuts. Luke ended up getting sick from eating so many of them. I had to stop at 2.

Of course there was some preparation involved...

But the preparation made it perfect!

Melissa.Camila.Kim.Lisa.Jamie.Julie

A huge thank you to Cory and Lisa who made this possible. It was a great turnout. Can't wait to do it again. We're thinking a Just Dance tournament...?



Ode to Oliver

Oliver turned 4 and I can't believe it. Seriously, I have shed a tear or two because he is just growing up so fast.

Here are a couple of things about him that we love and maybe a couple of things that we don't love but I will still tell you about.

* Oliver Loves Hot Chocolate in the mornings. He always asks to watch cartoons and for his hot chocolate which is Milk and Nesquick first thing in the morning.

*Learning his colors is not his strong suit. He struggles and struggles no matter what we try. He does know green because that's the color of his room, Hulk and his favorite blanket.

* Oliver has been sleeping with the same green blanket since he was little. There is a soft side and a not so soft side to the blanket and he will let you know if you put it on him wrong with the soft side not directly on him. He also rubs the soft side on his lips as a soothing mechanism.

* When we are having a tickle fight and he has no way to defend himself he manages to put his pointer finger in his mouth, cover it in spit and wipe it on you where ever he can touch you. Usually it's on my face and I let him go.

*He does not like to eat a lot of meat.

* He loves Mandarin oranges

*He loves taking bath/showers especially with his Super Hero's

* His best friends are his cousins. Mainly Andrew with Jack at a close second.

*He makes the funniest little facial expressions when he is trying to be silly.

* He teases people by calling the "hot dogs"

* He snores

* He is not so great at going to primary...in fact, he hates it.

* He is scared of spiders and although he likes to see other insects, he wont touch them. Must get that from me.

*He still has big fat feet that I love to squish and tickle

*He loves watching Netflix. Mainly the Fred movies, Super Hero Squad and now Power Rangers.

*He loves reading books and scriptures at night. His current favorite book is "Too many Toys".

*He says the sweetest prayers at night all in which he asks to be protected multiple amounts times, to play nice, and to nourish our bodies.

* After going poops, He yells as loud as he can "Wipe my bum please!" We need to get him to wipe his own butt soon.
*He LOVES Halloween. Recently when we drive in the car he says "Mom, let's talk about Halloween."
*He usually goes to bed about 9 PM and wakes up at 8. He has always been such a good sleeper.
* His favorite treats are the Life Savor candies that are strawberry apple flavor. He calls them the "white circles".
* He loves to wrestle with Luke. He could do that all night if we let him.
*If you were to ask him what his favorite food is, he'd say Noodles. Yep, Ramen Noodles. Great parent here.
*He loves camping
*He loves watching movies
*He can be one stubborn grumpy little turd, but on the flip side, he can also be the most loving, sweet and cuddly little boy around.
*At night after we tuck him in, we have a little ritual where we both say to each other "Guess what? You're. My. Favorite!" followed by "Sleep good" and "I love you."
*He loves going to pre-school and runs out every time so happy. We love Mrs. Eggett.
*He hates getting his nails cut which is unfortunate for him since nail growing is his super human power.
*Currently he loves Star Wars fruit snacks, Capri Suns and cheese for snacks
* The other day he said "Mom, guess what? When you get baptized, the Holy Ghost comes out." Luke and I were surprised by him when he told us that. We think he may think the Holy Ghost is a scary thing.

And there you have it. I'm sure there are many more Oliver-ism that I just couldn't think of at the moment. We feel so lucky to have this little man in out lives.

Oliver's Birthday Party

Well, Oliver is officially a four year old. Crazy, right?

This year, it snuck up on me with all the other many things going on at this point, but we were able to pull it off and give him a fun little party...even if it was a week after.

Since Oliver is so obsessed with anything Superhero (which I secretly love), we threw him an Avengers party.

Now I'm not much of a Baker these days, so it was cake from a box and frosting from a can for O. Luckily I found these awesome Avengers cupcake liners and toppers at William Sonoma.

We threw in some Hulk Punch too.

We played a few superhero games like Throw-Thors-Hammer-in-the-loop-thing.

And a good old fashioned tug-a-war which was so funny to watch.

 Pin-the-shield-on-Captain-America

 My favorite was the pinata. The night before (because I procrastinate like that), My mom, sisters and I got together after our family dinner and transformed This Elvis Pinata...

Into this Loki pinata. Thanks to the great skills and minds of the women in my family, we were able to transform him in no time. Oliver loved it so much that he even kissed him on the lips when it was completed.

Now it wouldn't be an Avengers party without some violence, right? So the kids put on the Hulk hands and Hulk face to take their shot at beating Loki up. Again, so funny to watch them.

Presents were next and Oliver's cousins (Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles), were so generous. Just about everything he got was Superhero related and he LOVED it. Thank you all! Isn't it funny how much the other kids love this part? In the bottom right picture, all the cousins crowded in to see what he got. They would get closer and closer until you couldn't see Oliver anymore.

Next up: the singing of "Happy Birthday"...Baker style.

He was a little worried about this part because He did not want everyone to chant "take a bite!" afterwards or get cake smashed in his face.

So he blew out his candles and bolted out of there.

We had cake and ice cream and hung out around the fire.

And there you have it. Oliver's party was a success and our house is just about busting out the bricks with Superhero paraphernalia.

The Actual Birthday

Oliver turned 4 years old on September 12, 2012 and I never documented it.  As I was going through my small(er) camera, I found all the pictures from his actual day. I'll have to post this in the correct order (of date) on my blog, but just for the record, I forgot, so here's the post.

I decided to take the whole day off sot hat I could spend it with him. I took him to our favorite breakfast place in the morning. His request was chocolate waffles with whipped cream. Don't know where this came from, but they whipped it up for him even though it wasn't on the menu and they topped it with real whipped cream. I took a bite and it was fantastic. I may have to order this in the future.

After Breakfast we headed home and started to get ready for Oliver's first day of Preschool. How fun is it to go to the first day of school on your birthday?

We gathered all of Oliver's favorite things and bought treats so we could share this with his class.

We brought his Avenger's guys

Bird

Baby pictures

Family pictures

Strawberry/Apple Life Savors

and doughnuts.

The kids loved it.

When we got home we were surprised to find gifts that had been left for Oliver at our door and sweet birthday cards in the mail. Thank you to those that thought of Oliver on his special day.

Later that night he got to open his presents from Mom and Dad. He was so excited about this part. And I love that Luke always wraps our presents in blue prints. Really, I do.

He loved his new toys

We think Luke did too...

 

Olympics

I love that every 4 years I get to watch hours and hours of Olympic footage. Not just the games, but also the small segments that are ran all day long on the culture of the host of the games.  Love it! The last time we watched the summer Olympics was when Luke and I just bought our home. We didn't have any kids yet or even a dog. We watched Micheal Phelps win medal after medal, Kerry Walsh and Misty Mae-Treanor win the Gold in a palm sweating battle. We loved watching Sean Johnston and the rest of the US Gymnastics and just feeling such emotion as we watched footage of Olympians feeling complete glory and even complete defeat. The Olympics re-unite the world for some (hopefully) good clean fun and competition all for the love and passion of "the game". Even the commercials like Visa, GE, Nike and P&G (no T-Vo here) tend to make me a bit teary eyed on occasion. LOVE it! Like I said though, we don't have anything to record anything. Not even a VHS player to do it the old school way so, I stayed up night after night watching the games. Who knew watching Water Polo, BMX racing and kayaking could be so cool. Not me. I loved that it was in London. It looks like such a cool place that I hope to visit someday. Luke and I would laugh at some of the stories about the customs there and how quirky the British are. On the flip side, I also enjoy their learning about their very traditional customs.

Of course my favorite is always watching Misty Mae Treanor and Kerry Walsh Jennings play beach Volleyball. They are just the ultimate duo. I also loved watching the Women's indoor Volleyball along with Swimming, Diving, Running, Gymnastics both Men and Women's and all the many other events. It was all just so amazing. It would be a dream to be able to go down to Rio for the next summer games with Luke, but I guess I have a pretty good seat here on my own couch. 2016 summer games, you can't get here soon enough.

Summer Outdoor Retailer Expo

We love going to this but it's not very easy to get into unless you have some sort of connection. We had in years past, but sadly haven't found a way to get in for the last 2 years. This year when he heard that a vendor needed some extra hands to help for a day, we jumped all over that especially because we would be working with Prana, a company we really like.

And for our lunch break, we hit up the fabulous Chick-Fil-A.

It was work, but well worth it.