Daddy's Little Helper

We've outgrown the lawn mower popper that Andrew (and every other child who has been at our house) has pushed around since he's turned one. So, Andrew has decided to go straight for the real thing when it comes to mowing the lawn - he now helps Daddy. I think this is only going to be fun until it becomes his chore and then, he will be so over mowing the lawn.

And yes, he wears this shirt frequently. Ever since we kept Palmer for Jen and Brandon, Andrew LOVES all dogs and dog related apparel - not necessarily a good thiing since we only have about 3 things total that have a dog on it....cars and baseball will do, but dogs are definitely a favorite.

Same tree, New year

Andrew is definitely bigger this year and he's slowly becoming more daring. Newest daring trick - climbing higher in the tree in our front yard. It's not too terribly high - I can still get my hand on him to keep him from falling out of the tree, but its alot higher than last year. I'm dreading to find out what his next daring feat will be.

9 minute and 46 second mile

Trace Ann and I ran a 5k today at Claude Moore park. Since we are training to be able to finish the Army 10 miler in October, my original plan was to run this race as fast as I could. Then came the rain. For the last two days it has been pouring buckets of rain and this 5k was a trail run through Claude Moore Park. We had lots of puddles to run through and mud to worry about slipping on, so I thought our time was going to be bad, bad, bad. Imagine my surprise when we come down the stretch and the time clock reads 29 minutes!?!?! We crossed the finish line at a little over 30 minutes. Of course, we both looked like we had run through a sprinkler filled with mud and my shoes were completely soaked and DIRTY! But I'm so impressed that we ran that race so fast - my best time up to now has been 31 minutes and that was over a year ago. This running thing will always be a challenge for me, but I'm getting faster and stronger so my times are getting better and that's all I can hope for.

And as a side note, I'm also impressed that I managed to keep myself in line around a Redskins player. Former Redskin Eddie Mason was a special guest at the race (he ran it and then cheered everyone on as they crossed the finish line). And I managed not to make an idiot of myself acting that an insane Redskins fan..thank goodness for small miracles!

Update - check out my disgusting shoes - after this picture these shoes went right into the wash along with all my other clothes from this run.

Andrew's preferred mode of transportation

Colin has been talking about putting the car seat in the Corvette and driving Andrew around for months. It takes a little work because we have to disconnect the airbag fuse, but we both know Andrew will completely go nuts because he loves cars so much. So, today after his Curiousity Zone class, Andrew and Colin washed the corvette, put in the car seat and took out the top since it was so nice. Andrew was totally wild with excitement and I think Colin was excited too - they were gone for over an hour (and made us late for Ashley's birthday party!) I think this is going to be Andrew's preferred mode of transportation this summer.

Creativity is back

I've been in a creative funk for a month. And it's not for lack of projects - I've got a million projects that I want to do or I've started and just cannot managed to get myself motivated to complete - might have had something to do with tax season just ending in the middle of April and it's always insane in my house around that time of year?

Anyways, the creative urge struck again finally and I made a cute little craft storage box for my friend Carolyn's little girl Emma. She turned 3 at the end of February and we missed the birthday celebration because we were away in Florida. Check it out