How pathetic is it that I am just now posting my Easter pictures??

Better late than never. I swear that is my motto.

Easter started out this year with package from Grandma Lund. Here is Fisher talking on the phone to her while looking at his Scooby Doo book as Cooper does his thing, shadowing his big brother.

Cooper loved playing with the Easter eggs. I remember taking this picture and being excited that I got one of Cooper standing. He now walks 95% of the time so this is now old school.

One day we had some friends over and made sugar cookies. Fisher is a sprinkle (or "sparkle" as he likes to call them) kind of guy.

Easter weekend Grandma & grandpa Church came to town. It is always fun when they visit.

Both boys have so much fun with G&G. It is always nice to get a break from Mom.

Later, Grandma, Mom & Fisher decorated Easter eggs although in reality Fisher did everything while we just made sure no disasters occurred.

Sometimes Fisher would grow a little anxious and would want to pull his eggs out like two seconds after he put them in the dye. We tried to encourage him to keep them in longer, but in the end we let him do his thing and have lots of fun in the process. He is growing up so fast.

The almost final product. They were missing their smiley face stickers that Fisher plastered all over them.

The product of a hard day's work.

The Easter Bunny came to visit.

Easter morning. We grabbed Cooper from his crib and Fisher came into our bedroom to go through his Easter basket. Here Cooper is giving a cheesy grin.

Candy!

And cars!

And a vibrating teether!

After baskets, Fisher took Grandma & Grandpa on an indoor Easter egg hunt. A lot of them actually.

Cooper played with the eggs that weren't found.

After that we took Fisher on an egg hunt outside in the yard with the eggs he dyed.

Surprise!

Cooper tagged along with Grandpa.

And Fisher was disappointed when it was all over.

But at least he has a spiderman tattoo. That makes everything better.

We spent a great couple of days listening to General Conference.

Fisher spent a lot of time building things.

Cooper spent a lot of time eating things.

I wish I would have posted this in a more timely matter but at least I beat Memorial Day! It was a great Easter. Thanks, as always, to G & G Church for making the drive down to Louisville!

Cooper Walks!

This video is from around a week ago but I wanted to show one of Cooper's first official walks. He now spends a lot of time walking although he spends a good amount of time crawling too.

Happy Anniversary!

Eight years ago was one of the happiest days of my life- I married my sweet husband, Todd. We were young when we were married so we have had a chance to grow up together which has only made us stronger. I love him with my whole heart. He is my best friend and a loving husband and father. He would do anything for me and the boys and I would like to think he thinks the same of me, because I would for them as well.

Todd is dependable and hardworking. He is passionate about the things he loves. (IE., Utah Jazz, fly fishing, golf) He supports me in the things I love and humors me with all my quirks. (IE., Reading and all that entails...Twilight, a monthly book budget, book signings, parties with crazed 20-40 somethings, book club and let's not forget my obsession with Clorox Wipes!) I think we make a wonderful team. We've had our ups and downs but I can say that the downs are very seldom these days. (I know by saying this I have now jinxed us :)

Together, we have brought two beautiful little boys exploding with personality into this world. It amazes me. We have survived 3 degrees with a 4th on its way in a year, 3 apartments and one happy little starter home. Two totalled cars, five cars owned (never more than two at once and the latest, our Odyssey minivan. Who would've thought one day we would own a minivan!?) It has been a fun adventure in the first eight years and I cannot wait to see what awaits us! Just think, by the time we have been married NINE years, we will actually be done being students! I can't even begin to imagine what that feels like, but I like the sound of it and am anxious to give it a try.

I love you Todd. Happy Anniversary!

Thanks Kara!

My cousin-in-law nominated me for the Beautiful Blogger award. As part of this award I am supposed to post 7 things about me. Some of them you probably already know but that's okay.

1. I am a book worm. (Duh) I *heart* books. I love to read them, I really love to buy them and one day I hope to have my own personal room for a library. Some girls have their craft rooms...I want Beast's library on Beauty & the Beast. Hey- a girl can dream.

2. I have a horrible habit of interrupting. I hate this quality about myself and always tell myself to shut up in my head as I am doing it. One day I will overcome this horrible problem I have.

3. I love beautiful scenery. It would devastate me to ever lose my sight. Simple things like clouds, mountains and flowers make my heart happy.

4. I have very eclectic taste in music. On my Favorites play list you will find music from 30 Seconds to Mars, Britney, Deftones, Nate Dawg & Warren G, Bon Jovi, Tool, Andrea Bocelli, Weezer, Muse, Ben Harper, Dashboard Confessional, Enrique, Garth Brooks....the list goes on. I would also be devastated to lose my hearing...except when my kids are screaming and crying at the same time. For that I might make a temporary exception. :)

5. I am not a huge fan of pets. If we ever do have one the boys will have to take care of it and it would have to be an outside one (if we ever had a dog, for example.) I would probably make an exception for another Blue & Gold Macaw but that is about it.

6. When Todd and I were first married we loved to watch scary movies. I can't stand watching them now. I have become a scary movie wimp.

7. Todd and I will be celebrating our 8th wedding anniversary on Sunday. Crazy!

I will be nominating others so be watching your comments.

June 30th is not that far away!

I have a new post done today with pics of the boys below but this was just too wonderful to wait until tomorrow. A collage of all the trailers by a fan: Ugghhh!!! It is cut off on the side and can't figure out how to make smaller.

A random trip to the Zoo

A couple of weeks ago Fisher had pink eye for the first (maybe he had had it once before??) time and so I had to keep him home from school. He was so sad that I decided to take him to the zoo just the three of us away from other kids.

I call this one "dumb construction worker" (no offense, Roberto!) since this guy walked across the bridge three times over a very short period of time while I was trying to take pictures. I understand he was just doing his job but he was making it really difficult for me to get any pictures without his bright green vest. I don't have photo shop so I couldn't just edit him out.

Fisher playing with his spider men while watching the ducks/swans.

A little far out on the editing for what I normally do but I really dug this one.

Can you tell I can't choose between pictures?

The zoo was so slow that day. It was wonderful! We would go 15 minutes sometimes without seeing someone.

They have a dinosaur exhibit right now that Fisher was DYING to go see. It stinks since it costs $4 a person even for members but I figured it was worth it on this particular day. You could make it through the whole thing in about 5 minutes if you wanted to but we went back and forth for a good half hour to make sure we got our money's worth.

The little kids we saw coming out as we walked in were crying hysterically.

This might have had something to do with it.

"Mom! The dinosaurs are eating another dinosaur! I think I should throw a rock at it!" - Fisher

They moved and made noises. Fisher was not intimidated in the slightest. If anything he was putting up a good challenge as to who was the Alpha in this situation.
(I have been reading way too many books on werewolves lately.)

Who's the boss now?

I like to call this one:

"Hello Fisher. I will see you in your nightmares tonight."

Triceratops looking like he just ate someone wearing a hat.

T-Rex was pretty cool.

Later we walked all the way around the zoo.

Fisher got tired and so we sat.

And sat.

And played a little.

And pouted quited a bit.

Eventually we made it over to the Tiger.

He kept staring us down like he wanted to eat us. Since there wasn't a soul around to witness it he could have done the task guilt free.

Later Fisher spent some time conversing with the gorillas about his T-Rex toy.

They became tight.

Well...not this guy. He was too busy eating his pile of poo. Seriously. I couldn't help but watch, you know, kind of like a horrible car accident except that this one involved feces...

Thank goodness Fisher didn't see this. Let's just say he is easily influenced and I don't like where this would have led.

Talking Gorilla.

As we left the gorilla exhibit there was this crazed little squirrel...

Fisher felt it his duty to dart after it so you can imagine my horror when the squirrel got outside and lept off the side railing down into the bushes (which was a long ways down) and Fisher tried desperately to climb up it so that he too could make the leap...

The kid is borderline psychotic when it comes to chasing animals. It is about the only time he has a one track mind.

"Must catch animal."

All in all it was a successful, fun day with my boys. I was able to take a bunch of pictures of flowers that I have yet to post but I plan on doing.

The Coopster just slept and chilled in his stroller for 3.5 hours while we were there.

Oh...and tonight he officially started walking. He walked from the living room by the TV all the way into his bedroom.

We have a walker.

He doesn't seem old enough to be walking. Wasn't he just born?

I came, I ran (13.1 miles), I didn't exactly conquer...but I did finish!

My friend Julie and I (along with some other of our friends) ran the Kentucky Derby 1/2 marathon this morning.

We opted not to take the shuttle which means we would have had to been out the door by 5:30 am so Todd drove us to the starting location at 6:30 instead.

It was a rainy morning, perfect representation for Louisville spring weather.

Here are Julie and I at the start line about 30 minutes before the race. Unfortunately Todd dropped us off before we saw the line of 15,000 runners lined up behind it so that we could get a picture.

It took a good 15-20 minutes after the gun to get everyone through the start line. We were some of the very last to start since we were in line for the potty. Figured it was better to start late and not have our time affected than have to stop mid-race. The line was completely gone. It was somewhere around 2-25 minutes after the gun.

With that many runners it was only expected to see some fun running attire. This group was running for some cause. One of the Elvis characters was pushing a stroller up and down the lines with a boom box.

I had the best cheering section ever. Todd's parents came down which was even more special since today was their anniversary and they did not have to spend it watching me run. I love you guys! They surprised me somewhere around 8-9 miles coming out of Churchill Downs with posters and lots of encouragement. I was starting to get really tired at that point and hearing Todd's voice over the crowd did my heart good. For those of you who have been to events where loud cheering is acceptable (or not on occasion) you know how his voice stands out. It was great. They met me again right before the finish line. I was so grateful for their support.

Julie and I ran together until 10 miles, after that I still had her in my sights for pacing (Can I just say she ROCKED it today??) until about 11.5. After that I hit my wall and thought if I took another step I would die. It was so frustrating wanting to move faster and not having my body listen. That last mile and 1/2 ruined every chance of me keeping my pace, which up to that point we were sticking to fairly well. It didn't just ruin it, it shattered it into a thousand pieces. I felt a little discouraged when I was trying so hard to keep running and a man walking passed me :) I was worried that if I started walking I wouldn't be able to start back up, so I kept to my snail pace.
When the finish line was FINALLY in view my body miraculously started working again. Funny how that works.

The first thing Fisher asked me when he saw my medal was "Did you win?!?" Although my time wasn't what I was hoping for I am so proud of myself for following through with this race and finishing it. Maybe, when my legs aren't so sore, and my body is not so tired, I might just think about doing this again.

I wanted to put this picture up to remind me how chubby my cheeks are. Maybe by the next race they will have shrunk a little :)
And Julie- I was so proud of you today! You rocked it. You also kicked my butt. Thanks for pushing me and convincing me to do this race. It was definitely worth it.
I also have decided that marathon runners are insane.