I Like Being Outside

I just love this weather we've been having.  LOVE it!

One of our puppies is so tiny and needs fattening up.  I've been giving her a little meat and egg mixture and then bottle feeding her 3-4 times a day.

She's so cute... and yes, she eats on the counter... away from the other dogs and the dangerous babies :P

Last Tuesday my parents came up to help me organize all the kids clothes that I had everywhere.  Well, my mom helped me organize, my dad played with the kids.  It didn't take us too long but it was just one of those things I didn't really want to do by myself so I had asked my mom if she would come help and she of course said yes :)  Dad played outside with the kids for a while and then they came in and watched some Tom and Jerry movies.  Katy was apparently tired and just fell asleep, she's so crazy!

Wednesday morning I took Chase out to a consignment store to get him a bunch of new clothes.  Poor guy, all of his clothes were too small.  We were able to find everything we needed at the consignment store though and he won't need new clothes for a while, hopefully.
On the way home I happened to notice that the greenhouse was open so I decided to stop and "just look around a little".  Well I ended up getting a flat of pansies and a little plant for Chase and a ficus for our house :P  The pansies I planted that afternoon.  They look so cute and cheerful.

and the crocuses keep popping up in our grass.

I haven't updated about my running for a while.  It's going pretty well.  I still get up with Ricky every morning, at 4:30am, so I have plenty of time in the morning to workout.  I've been running 3 days a week and then doing the 30 Day Shred on the 4th day.  I'm up to running a 5k every time but I walk halfway through.  I just signed up for a 5k race in April so I've been working on eliminating that walk in the middle, I'm pretty sure I will be able to by then.  After that I have a 5 mile race in July to train for.  I decided to decorate the beam above my treadmill :)

Once in a while I will be able to go out and run on a Saturday but usually I'm chugging away on the treadmill, I'm so thankful that we have it!

Thursday my friend Ronda had said she wanted to go on a hike in the afternoon and I thought that sounded like a great idea.  It was a beautiful day in the 70's!  I took Dominic along with us and all of the kids had a blast!

There were lots of huge boulders and rocks for the kids to climb on and in and under... it was actually a much more rugged hike then what I was expecting, but a lot of fun.

Joanna was having sooo much fun.  She didn't complain once about being tired and was keeping up with all of the boys.

I had to keep Katy in the Ergo most of the time but she really wanted to be running around with all the other kids.

We got back to the vehicles and let the kids take their shoes and socks off to play in the creek a little before going.

It was a beautiful day and we had so much fun.  Patty said Dominic kept going on and on about how much fun he had :)
Friday night Ricky and I had a little date night and went out to eat together while Patty kept the kids.  We went to Texas Roadhouse and ate and ate and ate, and drank a little too :P  The food there was so good!  We didn't have room for dessert though.
Saturday we didn't do a whole lot.  Ricky planted his fire hydrant.

He's had this for a long time and finally decided to paint it and plant it... I guess he thinks we'll be here a while :P

Notice the date? (Dec 3, 1895!)

This morning we decided to go on a little hike and look for deer sheds.  We went to a place where Ricky was working this winter and had seen a ton of big bucks running around.  It was a beautiful day for a hike and a pretty nice patch of woods.

 I just love how much the kids love being outside :)

 On a log:

 Do we look related or what?:

 Taking a break on a manhole:

 We were close to Christy and Christian's house so we decided to stop in and surprise them but they ended up not being home and we didn't really have time to wait for them so we just went home.  Ricky had taken Chase and Joanna and Dominic fishing last weekend and so he smoked the fish tonight for dinner.

 It doesn't take long to smoke fish in there but they are so delicious!  I just love smoked trout.

 Have I ever shown you our bumper sticker?