My closet has been driving me crazy for a long time.  My clothes have been cramped for too long.  It was finally time to get some more organizing baskets from IKEA and some bins for the upper shelves to store some of my misc items, hats, swimsuits, and ski stuff.  I finally organized my scarves too.  With the extra baskets I was able to move some of Mike's clothes out of the large cabinet so I could have more room for some of my clothes.  Not only was I able to organize all of Mike's clothes so they weren't sitting on the wire shelves, but I was able to Now I can finally feel good about going into my closet.

I have loved running with the Sunrise Striders.  Twice a week I get up while it is dark and put on my warm weather gear and head to meet the group in downtown Colorado Springs.  Since it is still dark when we start running most of us use our headlamps.  Mike got me the greatest headlamp to use on my runs.  Most weeks we do a tempo run on one day and a track workout on the other day. Sometimes we mix in hill repeats in place of one of the speed workouts.  Some days I am super tired from my early morning run but most times I am energized.  There is something so great about running with people who are fast and driven.  It has been the best thing for me to be part of such a great group.

For almost a year we have been looking for a bench for our entryway.  Every bench we saw was always too long.  Today I found the perfect bench.  The best part was that it wasn't all that expensive which meant I could get a few decorative pillows!  

I LOVE taking naps on Sunday and Mike loves to take pictures of me when I am sleeping.  Usually he will grab photos of me in the car sleeping but he got me napping on this beautiful Sunday.  There is nothing better than those Sunday naps!

The girls agreed to do a no candy valentine this year for their classmates.  We found a great idea from Pinterest using glow sticks.  They were relatively easy to put together and the girls had fun helping out.  We all giggled every time we accidentally popped one of the sticks as we were putting them through the note.  

In preparation for our upcoming cruise we decided that we really needed to get Abby into private swim lessons so that she could finally break that barrier and learn to truly swim on her own.  I went ahead and put Emma in lessons too so that she could get to the point where she could join the stroke clinic.  I have been SO impressed with their lessons.  They have done remarkably well and have really learned some great safety techniques.  Next class Emma should be moving onto her strokes and Abby just needs to finish her Independence section before she learns her strokes.  

The kids were all watching clips from Big Hero 6 that we had just bought on Apple TV earlier that day and I just had one of those moments where I felt like the luckiest mom in the world.  I just love my kids.  

Both Andrew and Peter have done remarkably well in school this year.  Peter has managed to pull straight A's awarding him the Principal's Honor Roll for quarters 1 and 2.  Andrew has also done really well pulling in mostly A's and placing him in with a GPA between 3.5-3.99 awarding him Honorable Mention for quarters 1 and 2.  I am so proud of both of them for all their hard work.  

It is no fun being sick.  This week both Abby and I have been sick at home.  Poor Abby has had a fever for 3 days so today I decided it would be fun to change things up a bit and let her have a grand old time having a bubble bath in my big bathtub.  She loved every minute of it.  It was all worth seeing those smiles while she forgot about being sick for just a little bit.

I was thrilled to see Mike up on Saturday morning prepping the guest bathroom to be painted.  When we moved into our house there were lots of holes in the walls that needed repair.  When we had the painters try and paint over the patched up areas the paint didn't quite match.  After several attempts to match the paint we knew that we would just need to paint over certain areas.  This one wall in the guest bathroom has been on my mind since we moved in.  I was so grateful it was finally going to be painted.  What was even better was the fact that Mike gave Andrew a great tutorial on how to paint walls.  Andrew helped Mike to finish the wall and I didn't have to lift a finger.  That is something to be grateful for.

With all the weather reports saying that we were going to get around 18 inches of snow over the weekend we were prepared for a couple of days of not going anywhere.  On Saturday morning the snow was pretty light and we were all a little skeptical that we were going to get any real accumulation that would stick to the ground.  That afternoon the REAL storm blew in with thick snow that piled on super fast.  It continued to snow through the night and by Sunday morning we had accumulated about 10 inches of snow.  Needless to say, church was canceled.  The kids were happy to go out and play in the snow even though the temperatures were pretty cold.  I managed to go out for only 10 minutes before I wanted to get warm.  The kids had fun throwing snowballs, jumping on the snowy trampoline, building snow forts, and being pulled by Andrew in Peter's super awesome tube sled.  The kids even got an extra day of playing in the snow when school got canceled on Monday.  The boys shoveled the driveway and the walkway which was great.  It was a long weekend of bad weather but a lot of fun outdoors in the snow.  

Peter was at a friend's birthday party and got injured playing dodgeball.  He and another boy collided as they both ran for the ball.  Unfortunately for Peter his glasses cut his eye lid.  When I went to pick him up from the party I knew that he would need stitches.  The cut wasn't all that deep but it was big enough to need something other than a bandaid.  Mike gathered all the supplies he would need and prepped Peter's eye for a couple of stitches.  Peter was super nervous and was not at all happy about having to get stitches.  Once he realized that the lidocaine actually did numb up his eye he started to calm down a bit.  Luckily Mike had his loops with him since he had just done surgery at the Air Force Academy the day before.  I love having a facial plastic surgeon in the house.  Not only did he do a much better job than any ER doc would have done, but we didn't have to wait the ridiculous amount of time we would have waited in the ER for a procedure that took less than 10 minutes.   

I got to join Mike on a weekend getaway to Palm Desert in CA for an ultrasound course that he was participating in.  Grandpa Al and Grandma Lorene came to watch the kids while we were gone.  We stayed at the JW Marriott and had the most glorious weekend.  The conference was only in the afternoons on Saturday and Sunday so there was plenty of time to be together.  The hotel was AMAZING!  The lobby was incredible and the hotel grounds were beautiful.  The weather was in the upper 80's the entire time we were there.  We spent some of our time playing mini golf at the hotel and the rest of the time we laid by the pool.  On Saturday and Monday morning we ran 2 miles up the road to a wonderful breakfast place called Si Bon and then leisurely walked back to the hotel holding hands and talking.  While Mike was at his course I got to spend some time at the spa getting a massage and enjoyed the scented infused saunas and the hot tub.  I spent a good couple of hours there. For Valentines dinner we ate at the Rockwood Grill restaurant at the hotel and had a very yummy 5 course meal.  We ate outside right next to the water and could even see Venus up in the sky.  It was a perfect night.  On the last day after checking out we headed over to the spa so we could spend the last few hours over there.  I don't remember the last time I have ever been so relaxed.  It was the most wonderful weekend away with my sweet husband!

It was the most gorgeous day outside and unseasonably warm for this time of year.  We grabbed lunch and headed to Garden of the Gods for a picnic and a little hike.  We headed south of Balanced Rock and found ourselves in the coolest part of the park.  Not only was the view of Pike's Peak spectacular but there were tons of cool rock formations that we were able to climb on and walk along.  We were actually able to walk pretty far down the rock plateau.  This section of the park, known as the Toad and Toadstool rocks, was so neat.  We loved being able to explore, climb up onto the rock ledges, climb in between big boulders, and enjoy the warm weather.  There was even a tunnel the kids were able to crawl through between the rocks.  Andrew barely fit and was able to squeeze his way through to the other side.  Thank goodness he didn't get stuck.  We also found the remains of some sort of support beams for something that was obviously man made and the kids enjoyed being goofy on top of those.  The last rock formation we saw was two leaning boulders. This was my favorite place because the light was so amazing.  

Re-enacting the Lion King.  Andrew was the perfect Rafiki.