a long catch-up post

Gosh, it's been a long time since I've updated my blog.  The hard drive on our computer crashed and had to be sent out to be repaired so I didn't have access to my pictures for a while so this will be a long post as I catch you all up on our latest activities.

Starting with the most recent... James started tiny tot soccer tonight.  He was super excited and has been talking about it all week.  But when we got there we let Haden head over to the play structure and then James didn't want to play soccer - he only wanted to go to the playground.  I guess I'm not surprised since Haden had a hard time with organized sports when he was 3 also.  I have my fingers crossed that it goes better next week.

1st week: he preferred watching from the sideline

This past weekend I accomplished my goal of running a half marathon.  I've been training for this since the beginning of the year and am proud to say I did it!  The course had rolling hills throughout and the temp/weather was cold and windy but I survived and am happy with my finish time of 1:58.  My very optimistic goal was 2hrs so I was very happy to finish under 2 (including one potty break).  I was a bit bummed that I didn't have any family there to see me finish but it was just too early and cold to drag the kids there.  My next big thing will be doing a 20k Dam-to-Dam run with a couple of friends on 6/1/13.  I'm so proud of my buddies Shonelle and Kristyn who just became runners last summer.  They've been training so hard and have become addicted to running so it's awesome to have close friends whom I can talk "running" with.  My local running store offers free group runs each week and I've been waiting for the weather to warm up so I can join in on those runs.  I've run with the "group" twice now and have enjoyed meeting some new runners.  For those of you who know me well, this is a big step for me as it's extremely hard for me to step out of my shell and meet new people.  I've found that the time passes much more quickly and the run is much more enjoyable when you have someone to chat with. 

the post-race glow!

So, last fall we decided to put both boys into the same bedroom for sleeping and use the other room as a toy room.  We were hoping it would help bedtime go more smoothly, but that never happened.  The other problem was when Haden wanted to play alone and didn't really have a space where he could do that and shut his brother out.  So, about a month ago I decided to separate the rooms again.  James was ready to move out of the toddler bed so I was excited to decorate his "big boy" room.  It seemed like a good time to do something different for Haden to so this is what we ended  up with:

Haden's room: Pirate themed

James's room: space themed

Back in March, Haden entered a bookmark contest.  The contest was to celebrate Women's History Month and he had to draw something relating to a historical woman.  I didn't think they had covered any historical women yet in Kindergarten so we did some research together on Amelia Earhart.  He found her story fascinating.  Anyways, he submitted the colored bookmark and he won the K-2 age division.  They blew up his bookmark for the award ceremony.  I'm told they will be making copies of the bookmarks and distributing them around the Iowa City area this summer.

I'm going to include some Easter photos since I didn't get a chance to include those yet:

Who's happy about dessert??