Easter 2014

Our neighborhood photographer had an Easter Mini Photo Session that was so cute! She even had live bunnies and little chicks. Charlotte like all other live animals terrify her, so the bunnies had to go. We got some cute pictures even though Charlotte was distracted with getting the jelly beans out of the plastic eggs the entire time. :)

Cherry Creek Sprint Triathalon - CHECK!

 A little pre-race action with Holly aka my race training partner and inspiration to even do this!

  My fan club :) Yah for Lorraine coming to support me!

 Cutest fan ever!

 Before the open water swim.

And..... I finished. My conclusion, I could have been WAY more prepared. My goal was to finish under 2 hours which I finished in 1:49 minutes. My swim time was 18:49, bike time was 51:19 and run time was 34:15. My goal for the next sprint tri I do is to take at least 7 minutes off my bike time and 2 minutes off my run and of course not stop and walk twice like I did! I am happy I accomplished completing my first tri, next I want to compete with myself :) 

My Baby Sister Got Married!!!

Charlotte and I spent about 10 days in Idaho doing wedding prep for my sisters wedding that was on March 8. We had two bridal showers for her, one in Soda Springs, and one in Pocatello. I was in charge of games at both showers and decorations and food at one of them. Both showers were really fun and Sasha and Colton made a haul!!! I also got to go through the temple with Sasha which was a fun experience. I remember the night I received my endowments in 2009. It made it seem like it was yesterday. The Friday before the wedding was exhausting decorating the church. We decided to make a false ceiling out of 1500 balloons. Have you ever tried to hand tie 1500 balloons?! Your fingers will fall off after about 50 balloons. Thank goodness for the air compressor. Can you imagine blowing up all of those balloons. We had about 15 people helping decorate all day and 6 people were always designated to the balloons and it still took hours to finish. The final result was beautiful. There was a beautiful cupcake table and other pretty vignettes. 

On Saturday, Sasha and I woke up to do her hair at 4:30am which turned out beautiful. We then drove to the Idaho Falls Temple for Colton and Sasha's Sealing. We enjoyed a yummy bridal luncheon afterwards before heading back to Soda to put the following touches on the church for the reception. It was an exhausting but fun day. We sent Sasha and Colton off with sparklers and fireworks to go relaxing in Cancun while the rest of the family try to recover from an exhausting week of wedding stuff! (Totally worth it though) ;)

Toddler Busy Bag Exchange

I hosted a Busy Bag Exchange this week that turned out great! Charlotte is getting to the age where she can sit and play with something for a longer period of time than she used to. So I started looking up toddler activities on Pinterest, which then inspired me to host a Busy Bag Exchange. I sent an invite out to all my friends in the area that had at least one child under the age of 3 and we had 17 people sign up! It's similar to a cookie exchange except you make 17 of the same busy bag for everyone and walk away with 17 different busy bags. I created a Google document initially for people to sign up for one of the example I put on the list, or they could create their own. This was to avoid any duplicates. People came up with some great ideas! I would definitely recommend doing this to anyone, especially in the winter months. 

I made a felt color matching Popsicle busy bag. Thanks to my older sister who sewed all of the felt tops while I pinned.  

To try to make the process of distributing the bags less hectic, I put out baskets for all of the ladies to drop one of their bags into each basket. It seemed to work well.

Some of the other bags were: Cupcake Felt, Playdough Mat, Clothesline Busy Bag, Number Board, Letter Board, Paint Swatch Clothes Pin Match, Popsicle Stick Puzzle Pictures, Lacing Cards, Felt Fishing Game, Planter Bag, I spy bottle, Pool Noodle Stringing, Pasta Sort, Toilet Paper roll color match, Animal Sounds Match. 

Flaming Gorge

(May 2013)

My Parents bought a new boat, so we jumped on the opportunity to meet them in Flaming Gorge to test it out. One of the best camp trips to date! Charlotte loved sleeping on the boat and Tel LOVED spending money on lots of fishing gear that caught him zero fish! He did have luck with a good ole' hook and worm, though!

Charlotte Rae's Baby Blessing

(November 2012)

Tel gave Charlotte the best blessing. My sister, Maren's family and the Myers family were able to come be a part of our special day.

Kona, Hawaii

Me and Charlotte went to Hawaii for our first time! Yah! My parents had a planned trip to use their timeshare in Kona, and a few weeks before they went I heard they had a spare bedroom, so...........I decided to invite myself and Charlotte to go too! Because that is totally acceptable, right?!

We did a day bus tour around the entire Big Island. It was a great way to see all of the highlights. We saw the black sand beaches, nut factories, volcanoes, a chocolate factory, etc. And Charlotte was such a trooper! Six months is a pretty easy age to travel with. We also ended up with a full row on all of our flights to and from Hawaii. So pretty easy sailing there :)

Visiting Hilo for the day!

Thurston Lava Tube

How cute is she! I do have to mention that Charlotte had one of the most memorable diaper blowouts in her car seat. It took my mom, dad, and myself working to clean everything up, and we could have used a few other people ;) I guess traveling can plug a girl up. LOL!

Graffiti Run!

Never in my life have I ran an actual 5k race. So after Charlotte was born I decided that's what I was going to do! So I signed up for the funnest 5k around! For one they don't actually time the race and two, there is paint! Yep, I did the good ole' Graffiti Run with Lisa! And I had the biggest fan crew, Charlotte and Tel! (May 2013)

1 Month Old!!

Looks who's one month  old today!!!! (October 5, 2012)

Fall Family Photos!

My mom came back to Colorado for the second time since Charlotte was born when Charlotte was about three weeks old, because sometimes you just need you mom's help! So we decided to have my mom take a few family photos. (September 2012)