Birthday Cleanse

My friend Laura has this great idea for her kids.  She told them that before their birthdays they need to choose X number of toys/things (X=number of years old you will be) and give them away.

I love this idea, it feels so freeing.  Picking out 38 items in my life and giving them away.

What to choose…what to pick…what to give?

What would you give away?

Through the lens

Just in case you need a little photographic inspiration, try out the Superhero Photo Challenge on Shutter Sisters.

I haven’t snapped mined off yet but I will show you when I do.

Fu%$*!& Bleachers

When your older brother’s baseball game gets a little slow…why not make it more exciting and careen into the metal bleachers?

Yeah, looks deep.

Five stitches later.

I so did not mean to trip you…sorry!

It’s ok, I didn’t cry!

My dad, just plain old crazy

With all the love in my heart, I ask myself…how can I not post this photo?

We’ll be FINE

This morning while Adam was getting dressed, PJ and I were hanging out on the bed and the following conversation took place.

PJ: Are you guys married?

Adam: Yes sweetie, we’ve been married for almost 14 years.

PJ: Wow, that’s a long time. You can die now.

Me: (laughing) Hopefully we’ll be around for a while.

PJ: It’s okay, I can walk to Hope’s house and CT and KP can go over to Sam’s house. You know, because Peter’s there (Peter is 4).

Third kid

This is a photo of KP on the last day of school, during the last song of the preschool concert.

If he was my first child, I would have been mortified. The entire concert he was a screwing around, haming it up, trying to make other kids laugh, singing falsetto and working some dramatic dance movements into all the songs.

I, of course, could not stop laughing. Adam kept telling me I was terrible and nudging me with his elbow to stop.

At the bitter end of it all, when the music stopped and the kids stopped signing, he droped to the ground (as shown above) and yells, “AMEN…AAAAMMMMEENNNNNN!”

And then we left for summer break.

Separated at birth

Seriously…who knew???

First Race

Triathlon season got kicked off this past Sunday in Buffalo. After the wicked storm passed on Saturday afternoon, the sun shone brightly and made for an amazing day.

This is my fourth year doing triathlons and this race was by far the best, not due to my race times (4th in my age group) or my efforts but because I got to share the day with friends. Some of those friends were doing triathlons for their first time and other experienced pros were gunning for whatever their bodies had in store for them that very day.

Here they are:

This is Courtney. I love Courtney, she plays so coy and then just busts it out of the park. She is an amazing marathon runner (Boston bound mind you), 1/2 iron competitor, friend and mother.

Say Hi to Nathan. This was Nathan’s first tri with two more cued up for the summer. Considering he hadn’t been in the lake for more than a total of 10 minutes the day before the race and he had some seriously locked up calf muscles he made his way through the race and finished strong with a smile on his face. Way to go Nate!

Meet Todd. He’s one of the girl’s in my running group but funny enough he won’t wear a skirt. He too was embarking on his virgin tri tour this past weekend and now he’s bit. His deck is stacked this summer with a marathon and olympic distance race and a 1/2 iron race while on vacation (yes, while on vacation). Excellent job T.

This is jMatt (or Fast Matt as I call him). I had to take a picture of him while he was standing still and suiting up becasue he is so unbelievably fast that my camera can’t ever catch a clear image of him. He is on his way to “take” many races this season as well as marching his way to Ironman Wisconsin in September. Catch him if you can. Nice work jMatt and good luck this season.

Thanks to all of you for making this day so great!

Job well done.

Is that how they do it in their house?

We have some painter’s over doing work on the exterior of our house. I have an open door policy with them, that if they need water or need to use the bathroom they can just help themselves right in.

As I was vacuuming, one of the guys came in to use the john. He walked by me and into the bathroom. I quickly came to realize he had no idea either HOW to use the pocket door or that there even WAS a pocket door to use.

I kept vacuuming.

We just nodded toward each other, eyes averted as he walked out.

Wow, that was REAL awkward.

The secret

Ever since CT started playing baseball he has wanted an aluminum bat. We told him if he had enough money he could buy one. That’s tricky since he spent all his birthday money already and has no source of income.

So he asked if he could get an allowance. I told him to go draw up a chart and decide what he thought would be a good set of chores and then we would go over it.

He came back with the following:

Brush Teeth

Make Bed

Go To School

Dirty Clothes in Hamper

Make Lunch

Clean Up Basement When Needed

Scoop Cat Poop

Secret

These suggestions looked pretty go to me, however, we did have to take out Go To School and I had no idea what Secret was. When I asked him he told me, anything you want me to do.

Ohhhh I feel like I’ve won the lottery. The poop is scrubbed off of the toilets by someone other than me!

What a fabulous idea…The Secret.