My kids are growing up!

(My daughter insists on wearing the giant University of Wyoming bow everyday –whether it matches the outfit or not – she got it at my brother’s graduation last week.)

My daughter’s school recently hosted a free 10-week after school running program. It ended on Friday with a 5K fun run that I got to do with my daughter. It was the first time my girl had run 3.1 miles in one chunk and she was really feeling it (in the form of a side stitch) and wanted to give up a few times. But, she pushed through and was SO excited when she got to the finish line. It was a great lesson in the payoff of perseverance! 

Me – holding the calf – enjoying some ranch time with my kids, sister and niece last month.

If you are still coming by here to check things out – wow, I am super –impressed that you are still here after my month and a half blogging absence. Thanks!

During March and the first half of April my family was inundated with sickness – colds, allergies, pinkeye, flu – we had it all. Each of us caught the stomach flu twice during that time period. I have been busy cleaning! Thankfully none of our sickness were serious, just irritating and enough to keep us off of a regular routine. I pray for those of you who have a chronic illness! Being sick is hard.

In addition to that, I was feeling a little burned out and overwhelmed by media. My inbox was literally getting 300 messages a day from all kinds of blogs, magazines and Christians groups I follow. I was on media overload and was beginning to wonder if I really had anything worthwhile to say in the blogosphere or if I was just contributing to all the noise.

So, I felt like I needed to step back for awhile, spend some time with my kids (I was starting to feel like they were just seeing my back all day while I was hunched over the computer) and pray about my writing and social media involvement.

So, I did and now I’m back! Look forward to some regular blogging again!

The kids had lots of fun on Valentine’s Day. My daughter was pretty proud to show my son around her school party.

He is so proud that he can write his name! He writes it everywhere!

The last few weeks – really the whole month of February – has been filled with all kinds of little, unexpected things that have gotten our life and my writing off schedule. Here’s what we’ve been up to –

During the blizzard last week we didn’t get nearly as much snow as expected d, but my boy still enjoyed it! He and his sister had plenty of time to play too – they had 3 snow days off from school!

I found some shrinky dinks on clearance after Christmas and got them out last week – I had  no idea how much my kids would enjoy coloring and baking them!

For my kids, the highlight of the snow days was finding this lost puppy. The kids enjoyed playing with it for a few hours until the owner was found.

He never wants to take these new socks off! I didn’t know he was so easy to please!