Happy Birthday Brooke

And just like that our sweet girl is 3 years old. Its hard to describe in words how much I love this girl. We enjoy her so much. She changed all my ideas of how much I enjoy being a mother, I just had no idea I could enjoy all of these stages like I have enjoyed them with her. She is kind, hilarious, funny, sweet, loyal, and her own person. We feel so blessed to have her in our family and can't imagine a life without her. She talks all.day.long and wants to cuddle constantly. She helps me with everything and loves to color and play with her babies and play doctor. Brooke loves the phone/ipad - she's pretty obsessed. She also loves Daniel Tiger and Nemo. But most of all Brooke loves her big sister, Camilla. They are the very best of  friends. 

For her birthday she wanted to swing on the swing, go and get a birthday cake with a rainbow - just like Camilla's (luckily Costco makes plenty :), and have lasagna and french fries for dinner. Aaron would agree, whatever Brookey wants, Brookey gets. I simply cannot say no to this girl. She asks for them so sweetly. 

I let the kids each pick out a present for her. Camilla put so much thought into it and loved what she picked out for her. Carson thought about it for about 10 seconds and picked out the first thing he saw - well Brooke loved both gifts. 

Happy birthday to our beautiful brown eyed girl. I so wish I could freeze time and keep you just like this forever. 

Ragnar

So a few months ago our friends decided to put together a team for Ragnar this year in Austin. Somehow Aaron convinced me to do it. (You read that right, Aaron had to convince me to do a running race. Not because I didn't think it would be fun I just wasn't sure about leaving our kids, running on trails, and cost, etc.) But I am so glad we decided to do it! Training through the summer wasn't super fun and very hot. We would come home from runs and jump straight into the pool but weather ended up being gorgeous for the race so we really lucked out. This is a trail Ragnar so that means we camp out instead of drive around in a bus and start and end all of our runs at the same spot. 

My sister took on our 3 oldest kiddos. She was a gem and threw a small birthday party for Brookey. They loved their cupcakes. 

Spencer came with us. He was a trooper as it got super cold at night, we slept in a tent and he pretty much had no schedule (which meant there was a lot of nursing). This was after our first legs. Aaron ran 8 first and I ran 3 miles first. He rocked it, he was nervous about that run but he did awesome. Then we had the most amazing gyros for dinner. We still talk about those. :)

It was a rough night. We didn't get much sleep and poor spencer was so cold. We finally had to sandwich him between us and keep a big fleece blanket over everyone's heads to trap in the warmth to keep him warm and let him get some sleep. Our middle of the night legs were 5 miles for Aaron and 8 for me. This run was my absolute favorite. It was a gorgeous night, I just loved being out there running in the dark, seeing the stars and the trail was fabulous. 

We were up early so we decided to take Spencer down by the fire to keep him warm until our early morning legs. 

Aaron head out for his 3 miler!! He did it, 15 miles, he's amazing. Then passed off to me for my sunrise 5 mile run. It was the toughest run for sure but it was still beautiful and fun. 

Spencer was a big hit with everyone at the fire. Poor guy was so worn out though and fell asleep in Aaron's arms. 

Here is our team. We sure had a blast together. Our team name was Hopdizzle fo shizzle. Because well we all love Hopdoddy's. :) Everyone did great and I hope we all come back next year. I haven't run a race with Jamie and Jeana since Boston 2014! 

My favorite team. 

This is my favorite picture from the race. We are cheering Jeana in from her first leg. This is just how I remember the race, everyone having fun, gorgeous sun and lots of running. 

After all the packing...and packing... finally it was time to head home. We stopped on the way to eat dinner at Hopdoddy's of course where I had a burger with all the toppings, large fries and a Nutella milkshake. I was famished. 

Such a fun experience, can't wait to do it again! 

Updates

This boy, he would swim in 60 degree weather I think. Aaron was working in the yard and the kids insisted they wanted to go for a swim. 

This is about as far as Millie got. 

Birthday Party games. 

We are enjoying making new friends. 

One day I made this delicious salad for lunch. Brooke told me we would share...she lied. She only had eyes for her big bowl of Pirate's Booty. :) Love this girl and she can have whatever she wants. 

Crazy morning hair. We get so happy every day when this girl wakes up. 

And Pokemon, Pokemon, Pokemon. Carson is still obsessed and all consumed with Pokemon.  

I love him. 

I really love him. 

Fun Weekend

We had a super busy weekend this weekend. We started off with long runs for me and Aaron (getting so close to our Ragnar Race). Then we were off to Millie's soccer game, she's awesome and scored at least 3 goals. Then as soon as we got home we needed to keep working on our yard. We are cleaning out a bed on the side of our house that we have neglected the past year. Aaron took the kids to Home Depot (they're the best helpers). 

After some yard work it was time to work on Carson's science fair project. He is doing a project on why the moon has craters. He made a moon like substance and threw pebbles in it to see how the moon surface feels like. 

Millie was there every step of the way. 

They had a lot of fun. Aaron was in charge of helping with this project and they worked really hard on it. 

After we finished up the flower bed it was time to shower and get ready for our movie. The kids have been waiting for Finding Dory to get to the dollar theater for months. They were so thrilled to go to the movies. It was Spencer's first movie and he was great. 

All settled in for the show. 

After the movie we went out to dinner and then drove all the way out to Bahama Bucks for snowcones. Yummy! It was a pretty exciting day for our kids. 

Carson did a great job explaining his science project. We are so proud of this boy. This project was completed completely by him and well, Camilla, actually she may have done more of it than him. :) 

And we're finally reading Harry Potter. Oh man I have been waiting and waiting for this day. I sure hope they love it as much as I do. 

Fall Break Week 2 - Arkansas

We decided to make the trip out to Arkansas to visit for the second week of fall break. Aaron came with us and worked from there and I was so happy to have him with us. The drive out took a long time, lots and lots of stops. :) 

Sometimes you just have to stop at Taco Bueno at 10:30 PM for quesadillas and get the wiggles out. 

Love this bum. 

Heading out - everyone awake for the last stretch. 

We spent a lot of the weekend watching General Conference. Well trying to watch and entertain kiddos. We also met up with cousins for soccer and breakfast and then lunch and then again for dinner. 

This one is becoming a thumb sucker - maybe, hopefully. 

Aaron's parents got there on Sunday and the kids were so happy to see them. On Monday they took all the kids with them to eat lunch at the park with all their cousins who were at school. Then we had a big FHE with everyone that night. 

On Tuesday I took the kids to the Children's museum in Little Rock. It was a good time. 

Then we met Aaron at lunch for Purple Cow. 

Then we head out. We were very tired and Aaron was feeling sick so we decided to drive to Dallas and spend the night with my parents. 

Well soon after we head out Camilla lost her first tooth!! 

She was pretty thrilled with herself. Luckily the tooth fairy knows where my parents live. 

We had a fun day with my parents, we went out to lunch and the park and had dinner with Cory and his kids before we finally drove back to Austin. it was good to be home. It took awhile to get everything unpacked, cleaned and settled again. Friday night friends came over for dinner. On Saturday we closed off our fall break with a Stake service project cleaning up an elementary school and then a birthday party Saturday night. Phew, it was a good two weeks but man it wore me out. :) 

Fall Break Week 1

We have had such a fabulous fall break. The weather cooled down just in time for us to really be able to spend a lot of time outside. I hate starting school in July but man I love having 2 weeks off in October. I wanted to spend our first week of fall break doing fun stuff around Austin that would normally be crowded when the kids are out of school. 

One thing we had first on our list was a lunch date with Dad. We get to do fun things like meet Aaron for lunch now! Its the best. I packed a picnic lunch and we met at a park by Aaron's office. It was seriously one of those moments that was perfect. 

They had this great creek running through the park. 

Just watching the ducks. 

Spencer's first time on a swing. 

He loved it! 

Millie insisted on wearing this hat. Love her. 

I wonder if when people see me roll up with four kids they think "well we can kiss the swings goodbye." :)

The girls have been helping me with cooking and baking. They always cook like this. :) 

Its still very warm here. Warm enough to jump on the trampoline with the water hose. 

We also did a Costco run, not sure why exactly but my kids love Costco more than just about anything.  

Being a sweet big sister. 

We had this awesome ward activity at this amazing house in our ward. It was seriously unreal. They had this great fire pit for s'mores. 

The kids did a little fishing. 

They had this awesome rock climbing wall over their pool. Carson was obsessed. 

And just because I love these 2. 

And simply cannot get enough of this adorable boy and his smile...and his laugh...and his belly. 

Then we were off to Arkansas for week 2!