Our new (to us) van!

Our new van!


The back seats

The dash.

The DVD player (Kayleigh's favorite part after the doors you can open with a push of a button)


Erik and I sold our Pathfinder a couple of weeks ago, knowing that we wanted to get a new van. We didn't realize how long it would be before we had two vehicles again, and it's so nice to have our new car. We bought the van from a family who is over here in Florida from Italy. They are about to move back to Italy after being here for a year and working at the university. We got a great deal on the van, and picked it up from them today. While the kids napped (and after they woke up) I was outside cleaning up the inside of the van. I think Erik and Kayleigh might go out tonight to wash it. The van is a Kia Sedona, loaded with everything we could want, and then some. I'm ready to be a soccer mom now!

This is Brian's cheesy face that he was making at dinner

"The Golden Hour"

That's what Jenna called the 7:00 hour this evening. She called me earlier today and asked if I wanted to take the kids to a park to play and have their pictures taken. Jenna takes some pretty amazing pictures, so I jumped at the chance to let the kids have some outside time and take some of my own pictures, too. I figure it's a good idea to practice taking pictures with someone else who can give me some tips. The kids had a great time out there together, and believe me, we took a LOT of pictures!

Home made pizza outside

We were at Chili's last night and got to talking about making our own pizza. So, while grocery shopping today, I picked up the items needed for dinner tonight. Since it's getting darker later, Kayleigh and I made our pizzas (cheese for the kids and pepperoni for the adults) and after they cooked, we headed outside to eat. Erik is in the process of pressure-washing the house, so he also cleaned up our patio furniture. It was just the right temperature to be out, and there still aren't too many bugs out to bother us. In case you're wondering, Brian is shirtless because he was drinking out of my water bottle and soaked his shirt! I knew he would be messy at dinner, too, so I just let him keep the shirt off.
After dinner, Kayleigh pushed Brian on the swing for a little while, and then said she wanted to do a show for us. She played her air guitar and sang a song about her day. She's quite the entertainer!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Since we actually had somewhere to go today (Mother's Morning Out), I got my kids dressed in green and sprayed their hair. Yesterday, Kayleigh and I were playing "Beauty Salon", and I pretended to paint her hair yellow. Luckily, I was smart enough to tell her I was painting her hair that color and not some other outrageous color that she would have busted me on. Since I had to go out last night and buy cookies for Mother's Morning Out, I decided to buy some color hair spray, too, and got both kids this morning. I thought Brian looked like a rock star, and Kayleigh was her cute self. I didn't think to take pictures of them until they were in the car, which is why they are posed there. Enjoy!

Gate River Run

We went to Jacksonville this weekend to visit with Valerie's family and run another race. Erik did a 15K, while Valerie, Matt and I did a 5K. We asked Mom and Dad to come up as babysitters, and I think that's what Mom did for most of the weekend! Kayleigh wanted to come to the race, so we got her up early and Dad stayed with her while we ran. I forgot my watch, so I don't know my exact time, which is disappointing. I also think that if I had had it, I would have run a little faster since I could see along the way how I was doing. Valerie and Matt walked/ran it together. Kayleigh and I met them for the last .1 mile and ran in with them. (I'm not sure if they liked that or not, but we did it anyway!) After they finished, we went to the 15K finish line to see Erik come through. We made it with just a couple of minutes to spare, and Erik ran faster than he had predicted, coming in at 1:11.31 The Gate River run is HUGE in Jacksonville with 17,000 people running it. Erik said it was a good race, except for the on/off ramp that he had to go up. He said that was really hard and a lot of people ended up walking it.
We did some van shopping in the afternoon, but weren't able to find anything that matched what we wanted. Oh well. The search continues...We left after dinner Saturday night to drive home since we had to help out at church Sunday morning. So, it was a quick weekend, but well worth it.
To see pictures, you'll have to hop over to Valerie's blog. I forgot my camera. :(

Something new

Last night, we went to WalMart to return a video we got from Red Box. While I was waiting to return my movie, I saw a little section of 50% off merchandise. Not being able to pass anything that might be on sale, I walked over to have a look. They had little motorized cars! I looked at the sticker price, and then went over to Customer Service to see if that was the original or sale price. It was the sale price, so I went running outside to ask Erik if I could buy a car for Brian. Brian has been riding his friend, Jack's, ATV for the last couple of weeks, so I thought he would like one of his own. So, for $25 (plus tax), we got Brian this cute little Iron Man car!
After Brian got a turn riding on it, Kayleigh wanted one. She started running over Erik's foot, and when Brian saw that, he ran over to step on Erik's foot. It was pretty funny, and once again shows how much younger siblings look up to the older ones!
While we were out playing, our neighbors came outside. It's so cute to see them all running to greet each other, but especially cute when Brian and Kate go running toward each other. Kate only gave Brian and Kayleigh a quick greeting, though. Then she went running for the car and her turn to ride!

Make sure you turn the volume on for this video. Brian is making his cute happy noise!