Half Marathon, Full Man

When Lance told me his brother talked him into running a half marathon, I couldn't believe that he would actually go through with it. I still think he's crazy, but I sure am proud of him! With only five weeks of training behind him (normal is 12), he completed the American Fork Canyon Half Marathon in an impressive 1 hour and 37 minutes. Although it was difficult, it felt pretty awesome to get active again and achieve a goal, and Lance is finding that running can actually be quite addicting.  He and Stuart are already looking into running another Half before the season is over!  Way to go, Lance!

Waiting patiently for Daddy at the finish line.

He made it!!

Congratulatory hugs. I didn't realize it at the time, but you can tell from the picture that Lance is about to fall over. In retrospect, I guess handing over the kids after running 13.1 miles wasn't the best idea...

The Rees Family Runners! Lance and Stuart did the Half, and Jamie and Morgan ran the 5K.

Lance with some members of our ward who were also crazy enough to run 13.1 miles. Way to go!

Jonathan checking out Daddy's medal. Is this thing real?

In Lance's participant "goodie bag" he got a removable tattoo, which Andy now sports.

Andy showing off his muscles!

 In other news, it has now been two months since Jonathan started his helmet therapy. He had an appointment today, and in the hopes that we would be done with it, I took these "last" photos during breakfast. Turns out he'll still be wearing it at least another month, but the photos are definitely worth sharing. Such a cutie!

Mmm... raspberries!

Fun in the Sun

Time is running away with me! It seems like Memorial Day took forever to get here and now I can't believe it's already a few weeks gone. We had a good time at the annual Rees Family Reunion at the Ranch. The highlight of this year was the swimming pool.  Both boys loved it, but our Andy sure is a daredevil. It didn't take him long before he was going down the slide by himself and jumping off the diving board- with Daddy there to catch him, of course. You need your eyes on that boy every minute, because he decided to get one more jump in after he was all dry, towel and all, with no Daddy and no floaty (is that a word?). It's a good thing we were all close by! We had a wonderful time and the three-day weekend was definitely over too soon.

(For the life of me I cannot figure out how to turn this picture. Sorry.)

Andy's making a funny face, but Lance looks good :)

This week we decided to get a little pool of our own to splash in. Of course, since it's filled with hose water it was absolutely frigid. I put my swimsuit on, too, but there is no way you could talk me into sitting in it. Andy probably wouldn't care if it had ice chunks in it- he loves water! Jonathan enjoyed it, too, but I'm pretty sure his favorite part was eating the grass clippings off the lawn. 

Don't you love Jonathan's hair sticking out the top of his helmet? So cute!

Trying to share a popsicle.

Andy getting ready to plop in belly first. Brr!

Getting a break from the helmet and eating grass!

Here's to lots more fun in the sun as summer heats up!

Our Little Stunt Man

Jonathan has a new accessory.

And isn't he adorable??

I was afraid when I saw the sample helmets, because they sure looked ugly.  But now that he has it, he sure makes it look good. It makes his sweet little face look even chubbier!  He of course gets very hot and sweaty with his new gear on, so I bought him some cooler outfits for sleeping, such as the one in the picture. It makes him look like a human cannonball. A very cute human cannonball, that is. This helmet should help to correct his plagiocephaly (flat head) over the next few months. He wears it 23 hours a day, and it gets adjusted as he grows. Meanwhile, we are still doing physical therapy exercises to help resolve his torticollis- the tightening in his neck which caused him to spend so much time on his right, leading to the misshapen head. He's doing pretty well with it, and although we are sad and a little frustrated that it came to this, we are certainly glad that such things exist. We just have a very stubborn little boy! Hopefully we can channel that determination in the right direction as he gets older!

 

 Six months old and such a cutie! 

 Sitting up!

We also had the opportunity to be on the morning news. Good Things Utah did a segment on helmet therapy and we were asked if we wouldn't mind having Jonathan's head scan filmed. So we got our 15 seconds of fame! We show up about half-way through the clip:

All in all, we're grateful that we can get Jonathan's little beanie fixed in a relatively easy way, and glad to know he can still look good while doing it! I mean, how can you go wrong with a face like this, anyway?

It's RUFF being this cute!

Happy Easter!

We had a wonderful Easter this year! The weather was perfect- and it's a good thing Easter was this weekend instead of last weekend, because this is what we did the Saturday before:

Andy loved to watch the Daddy snowman and the Andy snowman get smaller everyday. It did not take long until they were gone!

Easter weekend we had a fun ward party with an Easter egg hunt, then Andy and Lance spent most of the day playing in the sunshine so I could work on these for the family dinner:

They were a lot of work, but I think they turned out well!

 It is so satisfying to see a project actually turn out right.

Sunday morning Andy had a little Easter egg hunt and then we discussed the Easter story with pictures from the Ensign. We had so much fun with food, family, candy, and sunshine, but we hope that amidst that all, Andy gleaned some of what we tried to teach over the weekend- that Easter is really about the resurrection of our Savior, and how grateful we are for his sacrifice so that we can be an eternal family and live with Him again someday.

 (Please ignore my two-tone hair and concentrate on those adorable boys.)

 Love those blue eyes!

 Happy Easter!

Staying In and Going Out

It's a lot harder to get out these days. That combined with the fact that we are trying to save our pennies meant we opted for a very simple Valentine's Day. I still wanted to make it special, and I wanted an excuse to try to make Schwartzwaelderkirschtorte all by myself. With the help of several emergency phone calls to Mom, my four-layer chocolate-cherry-marzipan masterpiece came out, well, a masterpiece! And although Andy "helped" me make it, I just realized that he didn't actually get to eat any. What he doesn't know won't hurt him, right?

 As an outing, last weekend we decided to head down toward our old stomping grounds. Lance has been very interested to see the progress on the burned-down Provo Tabernacle-turned-Provo-City-Center-Temple. They have excavated beneath the building and are supporting it with stilts as they begin expanding and developing the basement floors. It is going to be pretty awesome when it is done in a few years.

 As you can see, they have removed the conical roofs that top the corners. They are actually sitting just a short distance away, wrapped up to protect them from the elements. I mentioned that they looked like ice cream cones, and then the whole way home Andy talked about putting ice cream on the temple. You can tell what impressed him the most!

(Notice how Jonathan is looking tilted to the right? Apparently the muscles on the left side of his neck are very weak and the ones on the right are very tight, which leads him to prefer his right side and has resulted in a lopsided head.  We have been in physical therapy with him to strengthen his neck but he is quite stubborn. There is a chance he will end up with a helmet to help re-shape his head. We hope it doesn't come to that, but we'll see.  He's still the cutest baby ever.)

With two kiddos in tow, everything gets a little harder. But we manage to have our own fun amid the madness. We can't imagine life without our sweet boys!