Fourteen years ago today...

...at the tender age of fifteen, I first held hands with the love of my life and future husband on the Santa Monica pier.  It was one of the most exhilarating nights of my life...  I will never forget sitting on the end of the pier, listening to the crashing waves and enveloped in the darkness of night as we confessed our mutual affection for one another.

I love you, Buzz!  One more year and I will have spent half of my life with you.  Nothing could make me happier.

Gulp!

You read it here first, folks.

I'm officially making it my goal committing to run (yes, actually RUN) the local 5K this fall.

I've been getting on the treadmill with some regularity of late and I'm actually starting to like it.  Who knew?  I'm terrible at running. I run about a 13 minute mile right now, but my husband assures me that I will get faster the more I do it.  I'm definitely running farther than I've ever been able to*.  Today I did a mile and a half before I stopped to walk.  Took me over 20 minutes, but still.

The major obstacle I'm facing at this point is finding shoes that work for me.  I have ridiculously high arches.  I thought that I was on to something with barefoot running, but after a week of feeling good sans shoes, my feet have been killing me... so much so that I didn't run at all last week.  Boo!  Buzz has a couple of days off this weekend, so I'm hoping to sneak away for a couple of hours to do some shopping minus the kids.  Wish me luck!

*I was actually on the cross country team in middle school.  It was a mistake, really.  I wanted to run track but showed up for the wrong practice because I didn't know the difference.  I was constantly stopping to walk and I finished last or next to last in every race except one.  I'm still not sure why they kept me.

Don't say...

...I never let them do anything messy fun!

The other day I threw caution to the wind and let the girls paint to their heart's content out on the front porch.

They liked it - a lot!

One of these days I'll have to go scrub all that paint off of the patio furniture and siding.

Celebration

We had a lovely day celebrating Easter with our cousins down the street.  After church and lunch, we staged an easter egg hunt.  We couldn't have asked for more beautiful weather!

I love this series of photos taken from Aunt T's camera...

We gave Sunny a few minutes head start on the other kids and made them sit on a bench until they were allowed to hunt:

Check out their faces!

And look how excited they were when we said that they could go...

(Click here to visit their Wild & Crazy Family!)

We moved inside to check the contents of thier eggs and nurse the bee sting that Sparkle got on her foot during the hunt.  Poor girl.  From her smile I'd say that candy proved to be the perfect remedy.

Super excited about the candy filled eggs...

We took many, many family photos in an attempt to get one where all five of us looked decent (thanks T&T!).  Here's my favorite, despite the fact that Sevvy isn't looking...

When Sevvy did look up, her face was nothing but sour.  I guess she's had enough of having her picture taken in the past couple of days.  Can't blame her, really.  :)

We rounded out the day by dyeing easter eggs and sharing a yummy dinner together.  So grateful that we could share this holiday with family.

Until next time!

From our family to yours...

Happy Easter!

Cousins!

(We love you!)

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!  In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead..."  1 Peter 1:3

Landmark

April 2, 2010 - the day when Sparkle was first moved to tears while watching a movie:  Where the Wild Things are.

I still remember my first:  The Last Unicorn.

Sympathy... empathy... things that you can encourage, but not force.  Looks like she's well on her way.  A proud moment for this Mama.

Photo of the day...