A Ketchup Post?

What to tell you all? The kids have had the week off for Easter. I've tried to make it a fun one.

We went to the park for a BBQ with my parents. We were going to hike, but the weather turned on us. Still it was a good time.

This picture doesn't do the mess that Clayton made of himself with a toasted marshmallow justice. He literally had half of a marshmallow hanging off of his face, which fell off right before I clicked this picture.
They must have had a good time because EVERYONE (excepting Bruce who was driving) fell asleep on the way home.

We had a big Easter party with both sides of the family. Here are a few Easter pics.

Clayton liked finding the "balls" and throwing them to see if they would bounce.

Here's Justice hunting.

Here are the beautiful girls in their new Easter clothes. Lydia (mine), Taylor (Bruce's cousin), and Erin (Lydia's cousin).

Here are the handsome boys. Back row: Mark (mine), Grant (Bruce's cousin), Ross (mine), Ethan (my kids' cousin). Front row: Clayton and Justice (mine).

Here's the whole group.

And here are my kids, acting like mine usually do.

Also this week, we went to the movies. I took the kids to the park again. I took Mark and a friend out for Mark's birthday. Yesterday we spent at the Science Center. Good times.

In other news, Bruce has acquired himself what I call "The Metal Money Pit." It's a 1951 Chrysler Windsor (I think). His plan is a long range project for him and the boys to work on. He's hoping to have it ready for when the kids go to the prom or something like that.

The home renovations continue to creep along. I'm still working to finish the kitchen that we started nearly two years ago. Here's me sanding the ceiling dry wall. Such a YUCKY job!

In the running world, I've managed to become a regular at our 5 a.m. running group again. I had a hurt hip a while back and had to take a couple of months off running. Once you get in the habit of sleeping like a normal person, it's hard to start getting up at 4:30 again. I'm really enjoying being back this time. I've finally found a couple of gals that run my pace. Before, I was always either killing myself trying to keep up with the "fast group" or chomping at the bit to go faster with the slower groups. It's really nice to have others at the right pace. Both of the other gals in our three pack are currently training for marathons. At any given time, you can find a majority of our running group training for some marathon or another. Nearly everyone does them, but not me. I am refusing point blank at this time in my life. Someday I probably will do a marathon or two. Right now it just doesn't fit in with my life. There is just too much time involved. I've been around MANY a folk in training for those, and I just don't want to right now. I do like going along for the ride though. I just get to quit at 13 miles on Saturdays instead of having to go on to 20. Thirteen is plenty good for me. A couple of weeks ago I had to get home for something or other, so I quit at 10 miles. I'm happy to say that 10 felt surprisingly like not that big of a deal. Maybe one of these days I'll do a half marathon at one of their big races. I'm getting ready for a bunch of smaller races. I'm planning a biathlon in May. I really like biathlons the best because I can do both biking and running decently well, so I can get a jump on those who are only really good at one or the other. I'm afraid to try just a bike race. The whole peloton thing scares me. Anyway enough of that. I'm just glad because after being hurt, I'm finally really starting to feel strong again.

Justice (who turned 4 in February) continues to amaze me with his powers of observation. I caught him with the new hunk of metal in our drive way, examining all of the places that say "Chrysler." He figured out on his own that it said "Chrysler" just like our van, even though they are totally different fonts. The old car is in cursive. However he remembered that I had told him that the word on the side of the van was "Chrysler" and when he found those same letters on the car, he knew it also said "Chrysler." The other day at the park he needed to use the bathroom, so I walked him over to the bathrooms. I was relieved to see that the doors only said "Men" and "Women" with no pictures to give away which was which. I figured I could take him into the women's room without a fight this time. However, he stopped at the men's room and told me he wanted to go into that one.

"How did you know that was the boy's bathroom?" I asked.

"It says 'M-E-N.' That means 'boys.'" he replied.

The next day I tested him by writing a few words on a piece of paper to see which ones he could recognize. When he got to "Men" he said "restroom." No, it's not reading yet, but it's very observant.

On another subject, it's funny when toddlers make up non-words to replace real words. Clayton's word for "cat" is "ah va-va." The word for "drink" is "weiss." His favorite real word to say is currently "echo." He got it from Justice and Mark playing Ben 10. Echo is a Ben 10 alien, I think.

Lately Clayton also likes to play a game called "oven surprise." This is where you open the oven and put in fun things for mom to find the next time she tries to bake something. Mom never remembers to check, so the kitchen fills with a funny smell and smoke, then we get to guess what we've melted this time. The latest victims have been a couple of markers, a spray bottle, and a sippy cup (not at the same time).

Alright, that's enough catsup for now.