Our Little Corner of the World: Thanks slackers!

A big thanks to all of you who have blogs but haven't updated them in months, or years even. You make me feel better about my hit-and-miss blogging. To those of you who do keep your blogs updated, thanks for giving me something to read and for motivating me to try to be better. I won't give you a lot to read here because your eyes will be screaming by the time you reach the 71st picture only to hope that you're near the end and realize that there are 44 more to go. Just kidding. I don't think there's THAT many pictures on here. And yes, maybe I should have broken this blog up into events, but what's the fun in that?

July 4th-ish

Benson backing down our friends' driveway. Anytime he feels a decline, he crawls backwards. Side note: he's full on walking now. He was still crawling at this point though.

We had to make sure Zoe's hair was pulled back. Her hair would go up in a quick *poof* of flames should it come in contact with the sparklers.

Trip to Donner Lake

It was beautiful there, but the wind was awful. The water was too cold for swimming too. =(

For an almost-3-year-old, there's plenty of entertainment to be found in the sand.

Swimming? Who needs swimming?

I got dirt to play with!

The Miller Family - July 2012

Trip to San Francisco beach

Again, too cold for swimming, hence the bundled up little boy.

Grandma & Zoe

Daddy & Benson

Yay us!

Uncle Jared and Zoe playing soccer.

Color Run - August 2012

So there's a small desire inside of me to run a marathon. Having never really liked running I found that to be a conundrum. Solution? Start small: A 5k. My friend Alicia has been inviting me to do various 5ks with her, but for timing or other reasons it hasn't worked out. Until the Color Run came along. A totally fun 5k where you get covered in colored powder all throughout the run! We had a blast! My washing machine has never felt more used in its life.

Ah, all nice and clean to start out.

By the end, nice and rainbowy.

After the run is over, all the runners gather and at an appointed time, open and dispense a packet of color powdered they'd been given. More colors! Yay!

My fan club.

Before.

After.

Ryan's birthday!

A birthday is not complete without cake and candles! I made Ryan's cake just to his liking: covered in sour candies!

This picture makes me think that Benson could play a good scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz.

Trying to keep cool on a hot summer day.

The trampoline - a source of never-ending fun and faces.

Cabin weekend!

A few weeks after Ryan's birthday, we got away to my friend's cabin for a quiet weekend. It was a late birthday celebration and early anniversary weekend for us.

Loved the beautiful lake!

When Ryan said he could make a mean 'smore, this is not what I really had in mind.

Chocolate, gooey, and graham? Yes please!

One of our many quiet meals. Notice the lack of sippy cups and kids stuff. It was a nice break for us from the kids.

So this is what happens when Mommy tries to triple a recipe of Orange Julius and there's more Julius than there is blender. Whoops!

Really loving this contraption at Target, even though I feel like I'm driving an RV.

One of our birthday traditions for the kids is to take them to the grocery store on their birthday and pick out a piece of cake and then we all proceed to eat it then and there. Zoe's party was a couple days after her birthday so we stuck with tradition! My friend Shannon had the mermaid shirt made for her. Zoe loves Ariel/mermaids and loved her shirt as well.

Making a bead crown at a friend's princess party.

Fun at the Jelly Belly factory!

So I took a picture one night of Zoe's hair wet because it's so much longer than when it's dry. I posted the "dry" picture on here too, but it's all the way at the end. How that happened I don't know. Grrr....