Addie's 4th Birthday

Well, I don't know if you can say it was just her day, more like her whole weekend. Boy, did we celebrate. Saturday we had her friend birthday party. We went to Build-a-Bear store. They did a fantastic job with the girls. Addie invited 4 friends. The store employee who led our party sat all the girls down first to learn names and do some fun activities. Then it was off to pick their animal they were going to make. I had a price point for the kids and they did an excellent job directing the kids to stay with in. They showed them the ones they could choose from. After all animals were picked and named (Addie named hers Addie :) ) they led the girls to the area where they could pick an outfit for their animal. Let me tell you this was a big decision. It was so neat because all 5 girls picked a different outfit. Next they led the girls to pick out a heart to stuff inside their animal. It was so cute because the party leader had the girls doing different things to the hearts to get them ready to put inside. See the video. Somethings were rub it on your forehead so your animal is super smart.... Then she had all the girls take an additional heart to make a birthday wish for Addie to stuff inside her bear. Addie thought it was pretty neat. Then it was time to stuff. The girls one by one had to push the pedal to blow all the stuffing into their animal. Once it was stuffed and stitched up they need to brush and blow out their new friend. Once that was done the outfits could be put on. Once all were dressed and ready for the party she brought the girls over to the bench area where she led the whole store of employees and shoppers in singing happy birthday to Addie. She was a little embarrassed at the time, but sang and talked about it later that night. We then headed out to the mall area where we had claimed a table. We ate her"fancy" Dora cake from this fabulous bakery I found that does all allergy free cakes. It was actually really good. The cake was the thing Addie will tell you was her favorite part. Once cake was eaten it was time to open presents. She had a blast. I would highly recommend a Build-a-Bear party especially at the 4 year old age. I saw two of her friends today, both of which were carrying around their new stuffed animal. Needless to say she was pretty tuckered out by the end of the day. She slept in her in her new Hello Kitty sleeping bag with her Addie bear.

Then comes her actual birthday. We got up and opened her family birthday presents. Then it was off to McDonald's to play in the play area. We just cheat and bring our own food. Once had our fill we went to the 101 Market to do the Halloween activities and pick out pumpkins. She got to pick her favorite meal for supper (Chicken Wings) and then we lit up the other half of her cake with candles, since we couldn't use candles at the mall and by her request we sang Happy Birthday. She had a blast and we had a blast seeing her smile oh so big. Great weekend.

Kellen's new saying.....

Fall Time Fun

The kids are loving their new swing set and we often have the neighborhood girls over too. Here are some pictures of the kids playing.

Barney Live

Kirk went out of town with some buddies for the weekend, so the kids and decided to do something fun. We headed to Target Center to see Barney put on a Birthday Bash show. Addie was dancing in the aisle and Kellen was in ahhh! One of Addie's very best friends was also there, so we sat with them for the second half. Here are some pictures of our fun day.

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My races this year

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So many of you know I like to run and this year I was able to participate in 3 different races. The first was a 5 mile run in Maine. It was during their Potato Blossom Festival, so part of the race was through a potato field, which was in full bloom. Very fun race, but also a challenging one because of all the hills. I felt pretty good in that run and finished in a time I was happy with. The next one I did was one for Lung Cancer, The Breath of Hope 5K. I ran this one with a bunch of my girlfriends and was able to run in honor of my grandpa Hammond. His name even appears on the shirt I recieved. I finished this in my best 5K time. I came in number 18 out of the 297 people who ran and did it. I then ran the women run the cities 10 mile run. I did so great training for it this summer, but when school started my training pretty much stopped. From the end of August up until the race at the end of September the most I ran was 5 miles at a time and the number of times I ran a week was probably 3. Needless to say I was nervous. I ran it with a friend from work and we did great. We were neck and neck with the 8 minute pacer runners for the majority of the race. The last 3 miles probably we slipped back right between the 8 and 9 minute pacers. My goal was to #1 run the whole thing and #2 run it in 1 hour and 30 minutes. Well I accomplished both. Ran it all and came it at 1 hour 24 minutes. Thanks dad for getting me into running. Your thought are always in my head when I run......I always remember to push through it and save some "umph" for the end.

Kellen

Kellen loves music. We have a little Handy Mandy tool set that plays the theme song that he just loves. He claps every time music comes on. Now he has started turning around in circles. I will have to get that a video to show you.

New Playset

We have been talking about getting the kids a playset for awhile and while at the State Fair we of course stopped at the Rainbow site. Addie loves to try out the fun swing sets. Anyways we ended up buying one. I ended up having to work late that night, so wasn't able to see their reaction, which I was heart broken about. My amazing hubby got it on video for me to see. Thought I would share it with all of you too. I apologize for the coverage.....I get a little sick when I watch :) Love you Kirk.