Over the weekend we had our Second Annual Girls' Weekend with my dad's side of the family. Last year we all went to Rocheport, but this year all the out-of-towners came to Kansas City and everyone stayed at my brother and sister-in-law's house. We managed to pack a crazy amount of fun into two days and nights. Our weekend included the City Market, pedicures, meals out, a play at the American Heartland Theater, shopping at the Plaza, and of course, plenty of plain old sitting around and chatting.Since I live so close, I came home late both nights to sleep in my own bed and check in with my family before leaving again in the morning. They made the most of my being gone most of the weekend by going plenty of restaurants where I refuse to go, but that they all like, such as Applebee's and Waffle House. Steve also took them to a Royals game, and I think they celebrated my not being there for that by consuming an extraordinary amount of junk!Like last year, all of the ladies were supposed to bring some sort of memento for everyone else to take home. A couple years ago my lovely friend Allison gave me some decorated magnetic clothespins, and I have been using them on my fridge ever since. I've often wished that I had more of them so I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to make some - I could make plenty to give away, but also keep some for myself! They ended up looking pretty cute and we liked them so much that Emma is making more for end-of-the-year teacher gifts.I am so happy that my family started this tradition and I am already looking forward to next year!

Some more random tidbits...

~ Emma and Allie both have had a little trouble, for pretty much their whole lives, growing their hair. Emma has worked her whole life to get long hair, and after more than seven years, with only three trim-type haircuts, this is where she has gotten.A couple weeks ago, out of nowhere, she started saying she wanted to cut it. She kept bringing it up, so we brought her in to Great Clips to get it done. I sort of thought she'd back out at the last minute, but nope.I thought it looked so cute afterward, and she seemed happy with it. Happy, at least, until later that night when we thought she was getting ready for bed. In reality, she was in her room, crying her poor little eyes out. After a lot of reassurance, she finally stopped crying and since then there have been no more tears over the loss of her hair.

~ This past weekend, on Mother's Day, I ran a 5k race - my first race in almost fifteen years. Last fall I spent a few weeks trying to get myself into running again, and at that time I was running around twelve-minute miles. I gave up on the running pretty quickly, and didn't do any sort of working out until January when I started trying to do some sort of exercise video just about every day. When I attempted to run again in March or so, I was amazed that - just because I was in much better shape - I was able to run ten-minute miles. I signed up for the 5k to give myself some motivation and, since I figured I'd keep getting a little faster, I made a personal goal for myself to finish the race in under 28 minutes, which means my mile split times would have had to be around 9:30. I am excited to say that my actual race time ended up being 25:58! There were 448 people in my age group (age 30-35) and I came in 18th, so I was feeling pretty darn proud of myself afterward. I really enjoyed the race, and now I am looking forward to running a 10k in July and then a half marathon in October.

~ Remember how my car A/C was broken? Well, last Wednesday they fixed it (again) and asked me to bring it by in a week so they could check on it. Unfortunately, it didn't even make it a week because by yesterday it wasn't working again. Wait though, it gets worse. Monday night our house A/C stopped working! Consequently, I had no way to escape yesterday's scorching heat. When we went to bed last night it was 90 degrees in our house - blech! Even though I would have liked to avoid these problems all together, they certainly make me appreciate the luxury of having a temperature-controlled environment! I only have to suffer through until A.B. May gets here on Saturday (and my van should be fixed this afternoon), but some people had to go their whole lives with no A/C. I definitely feel for them after these last few days! Yesterday the kids and I spent most of the afternoon at Chik-Fil-A, just to get a little relief from the heat, and I expect that again today we will make an effort to spend as little time as possible in our house.~ This morning we took the kids to a charity breakfast for the Strong City School Fund. When we heard about it, we thought it was a good cause and wanted to go, but didn't know if it would be very kid-friendly. I called the lady in charge and she said we could bring them if we wanted, but I sort of got the idea from her that my kids would likely be the only ones there. We decided to go anyway, hoping for the best. This morning as we walked into the Downtown Marriott, into a sea of adults dressed in business attire, I momentarily regretted my decision. With our three little kids in hand, I felt like we totally stood out. In the end though, the kids really pulled it off. I don't think they annoyed anyone too terribly, and the only two incidents involved Allie's spilling her wine glass of orange juice and then later peeing on her dress a little when Steve took her to the bathroom. All in all, not too bad!

Some random tidbits...

~ The Easter Bunny brought sunglasses for the kids, and they have been wearing them everywhere all week. The fact that sunglasses are usually just worn outside is totally lost on them. (The quality of that photo is so poor due to the very limited light that is available at the ungodly hour at which my children wake up.)

~ My driver's license expires tomorrow, so on Friday I was planning to go get a new one. It turns out that apparently you need your birth certificate for that, and when I opened our family's "identification documents" folder, I only found Steve's, Emma's, Noah's, and Allie's. Where the heck is my birth certificate? I wonder how much of a hassle it is to get a new one.

~ Is anyone else as excited as me about zucchini being in season? I am particularly obsessed with the zucchini-and-corn combo lately, as evidenced by our dinners this week. We've had zucchini, corn, and feta quesadillas, quinoa with corn and zucchini, and zucchini, corn, and goat cheese pizzas. Yum yum yum! What else can I make with corn and zucchini?

~ I've been getting my hair highlighted for years now, and I'm getting a little tired of it. It's expensive and it always takes so long. I'm considering coloring it myself, using the stuff in a box. Steve thinks that I will be sorry, but I think I really just am not that into hair color so even if it doesn't look great it won't be the end of the world. We will see.

~ Last August I paid something ridiculous like $800 to have the air conditioner in my van fixed. This spring, the first time I tried to turn it on, it didn't work. I took it back and they fixed it again (for free, thankfully). Now it isn't working - again. Come on, people! We are dropping it off again tomorrow, hopefully for the last time.

~ We made these little Easter treats for the kids' teachers and people in our family. They were the perfect project for the kids because they were able to do everything themselves except for tying on the ribbon at the end. I was kicking myself because I had just dropped off a bin of glass for recycling a couple days before we did this, so we ended up having to use canning jars. Other jars would have been better because they would have been plain on the outside, and also I wouldn't have been wasting my canning jars, but overall I think they ended up being pretty cute.
~ Tomorrow I will be 32 years old. So far my 30's have been pretty enjoyable so I am looking forward to another great year!