Evolution of the Holla!

I have been such slacker on my blog lately.  I'm pretty sure that this happens to me every winter; a case of seasonal bloggy depression.  I've been working on a new header and came across a few of the files from my old blog headers.  It's crazy to see how my blog has evolved over the last four and a half years!

  

RAGBRAI XXXIX

I've been holding something back for a handful of months now that I have been super excited about!  I was nervous to blog about it because, although I was fully committed in spirit, I wasn't too sure how committed I would be to the training and I didn't want to look like a complete fool announcing something that I was too lazy to carry into fruition.  But now, since I already have my bike and am maybe shins (not quite knee) deep in training, I can start shouting out loud that I'm doing RAGBRAI in July! Yay! Seriously, I'm obsessively excited and regularly have to stifle yelps of glee when I think about it!

You are probably thinking, 'What the hell is Ragbrai?'  Technically, it stands for Registers Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa.  It's annual seven-day bike ride across the state of Iowa beginning on the western edge of the state where riders dip their back tire in the Missouri river, and finish a week later by dipping their front tire in the Mississippi river.  I'm nuts, right?!  We camp at night in eight different overnight towns.  It's kind of like a mini-olympics or something where each city bids to get an overnight stop along the route and there are usually concerts or beer gardens set up for the riders to enjoy at night.  The route is 454 miles long this year.

I'll be participating with the Pedaling for Parkinsons cycling group with one of my old bffers from highschool.  It's her third year riding so at least one of us will know what we are doing.  I couldn't be more hyped up about the challenge of the thing!  It's going to be a beast!

Halfway through my first 30 mile bike ride.

Happy FOURTH Birthday!

These four years have flown by.  I still feel like they are my babies until I see newborns.  Then, I realize how grown up my "babies" are.  Little things.  I'm have palpitations about them turning five.

Their birthday was so sweet.  They got big kid bikes and were so excited.  Of course, it poured down rain that morning and they were confined to trying them out in our living room and non-dining room.  Luckily, it cleared up a little after breakfast so we were able to take them to the park on their bikes. I can't believe they are old enough to be riding on bikes with training wheels.  If you haven't noticed, I'm in complete denial about this whole growing up thing.  Puke.

I forgot to take pictures since we had the video camera going - this was the only one I took from the night before.  Bad Momma.

After they rode around for a few hours, I quickly busted out two birthday cakes while the nuggets opened up a bunch of presents from Epi and Unca.  I felt bad about buying their cakes last year because I know it's not going to be too much longer before making their cakes will be totally uncool. I definitely wanted to indulge while I still can.  Wyatt asked for a Spiderman cake and Callie wanted a princess cake.

  

That evening we went to eat teppanyaki.  The kids have begged to go back ever since we took them for their birthday last year.  This year, they enjoyed it even more and they knew to expect lots of fire.  They were completely enthralled and so excited.  Even I still really enjoy watching them make food on the hibachi grill and it was my birthday dinner pick when I was younger for as far back as I can remember.  I love that they enjoy it as much as I did.

My precious babies, I am so privileged to watch you grow up and to be your momma.  I could not be more proud of your beautifully sweet souls.  (As I'm writing this, Wyatt is mooning Brent.)  Please, stop growing up so fast though.  Somehow, I'm already missing you more than my heart can stand!

We let them have a sleepover in the living room.  Needless to say, no one slept including momma and daddy.  They had so much fun though.

 

Cals and the Biebs

Birthday Eve!

On Sunday, we were in for it.  They had tons of ideas and wanted to do them all.  I can't believe how exhausted we all were at the end of the day.  Of course, they wanted another walrus waffle for breakfast and this time, Brent attempted to make them.

Hahaha!  Um... yeah.  I'm not sure this necessarily made it into the walrus ballpark.  I saw devil although I'm not too sure it would have rosy cheeks.  Maybe cat?  Another Brent masterpiece fo sho.  We left shortly after breakfast and headed off to Build-A-Bear.  Mindy was in desperate need of a new outfit and Wyatt made a Christmas clearance monster he named Quackie.  Quackie definitely sums it up (both monster and creator).

Then we hit up Chuck-E-Cheese. (Cringe. Itch.)  It took everything in me not to turn right around 30 seconds through the door.  Infested, sticky, nasty.  Holy hell.  But, Brent and I managed to grin and bear it and after a few hours and lord knows how many tokens later, we won enough tickets to buy a Tootsie Roll.  Swell.  But wow, did the kids have fun!  I totally remember running a muck at that joint when I was little.  You just had to let them do it.  You should hear the shrieks in this house when a Chuck-E-Cheese commercial comes on now.  I hope they forget about it.  I bet they don't.

They weren't through yet though.  They wanted tacos from Taco Bell.  Cool.  They love putting on their own sauce.  It's all about the saucy independence.  However, Taco Bell served to be just a warm up as they wanted to hit up the Melting Pot.  They had been talking about "cooking their own food" at the Melting Pot forever.  We obliged and it was so unbelievably cute.  They loved doing the dipping and the fork stabbing! and all of that fantastic cheesy, chocolatey, wonderfulness.  I would have to agree.  I love the Melting Pot and I definitely recommend the Bananas Foster White Chocolate fondue.  I would bathe in it.

About to blow out their birthday brownie bits.  Wyatt's mouth was full the whole time because he enjoyed it so much and used the stuffing technique because taking bites took too long.  Even even choked a couple times. Unfortunately, this was the only pic I had of their little birthday desserts so I apologize if you just lost your appetite.



Quackie and his dad.

He asked to hold a barf bucket on the way home because he thought he was going to puke from too much sugar.



Birthday Adam (or Eve Eve)

My nuggets are 4!!!!  I can't deal.  I keep flirting with the idea of having a third kid and naming it "Crutch".  I'm going to lose these babies at the same time and I only have a year left of wallowing in their baby hood before I'm a twitching mess when they head off to kindergarten. So. Sad.

But their birthday weekend was so fun.  We turned over full scheduling rights to them - anything they wanted to do, wherever they wanted to go.  They were also in charge of all meals.  This was breakfast on Saturday.  "Walrus waffles."  Props to me and Aunt Jemima for pulling that one off. 

Then we spent a good chunk of the morning flicking butterflies against the window.  We love butterflies. They are our mascot.  Butterflies always seem to flit around without a care in the world (while they chant in a very tiny voice, "I'm so happy! I'm so happy!")  When we see one, it always reminds us to try to relax and have fun. Our term "butterfly" is open to any little happy thing that is precious and makes you smile; not necessarily just butterflies.  Brent shoved a butterfly flicker in my stocking this year and the nuggets decided it was time to bust it out.

Callie spent most of the afternoon shopping for an "aqua outfit" and having lunch with my mom while Wyatt chilled with us and wanted to take the dogs to the dog wash with daddy and eat spicy chicken nuggets.  The schedule seemed easy enough, rounding out the day with peanut butter and jelly for dinner.  Little did we know, they were saving up the motherload for the next day!