Dance Recital 2014

Alyvia's dance recital was the weekend of June 6th and 7th.  It was her second recital and she is now an old pro at it ;)  She still is doing ballet and tap.  Her first dance was tap this year and I LOVED her costume!  Her class danced to "I Wanna Be a Radio City Rockette"-and they sang along to it, adorable!

Ready for rehearsal!

I just LOVE the costume...the little girl wearing it too!

Livi and her friends, Makaya and Morgan

 A little back story....my brother's girlfriend, Lindsey, danced at Kim's for many years through high school.  That's the reason we picked Kim's.  Lindsey came back and danced for fun this year and she was part of the opening number!  Livi loved that Aunt Lindsey danced with her!

Her second dance was "A Spoonful of Sugar" from Mary Poppins.  It was so cute with their big pink spoons and Livi did awesome with her ballet!

On rehearsal night, Mamaw and Grandma Annetta happened to be at the Civic Center and stopped to see Livi!

Saturday night was the actual recital and Livi was super excited for her family to come and watch her perform :)

Dancing Girls-Livi and Lindsey

Uncle Shane and Livi

Flowers from Nana and Papa

Nana, Papa and Livi

Our oldest baby girl <3

She did such a good job and I love watching her perform!  By the time the end of May rolls around, we are feeling done with 9 months of dance.  BUT, I have so much fun at the recital.  It's exciting to dress up and perform on such a big stage-it's so fun that Livi loves to do this!  We are taking the summer off, but we'll be back in the fall!

Take Me Out to the Ball Game!

A couple of Sundays ago, Livi and I volunteered for the Peoria Marathon.  We were assigned an intersection and were supposed to direct traffic...which was kind of silly because there was a police officer there doing it. But we cheered the runners on instead!

Then we met Daddy, Colson and Kendall at Dozer Park for Cowser Family Fun!  I'm not sure how much of the game we watched, but the kids had fun eating snacks and meeting a few Disney princesses :)

It was a lot of fun and I hope we get to go to more baseball games this summer!

Last Days of School

Colson's last day of school/Mother's Day Out was May 15th.  I'm so proud of how far he came this year!

He was so nervous at the beginning of the year and by the end of the year he looked forward to school!  He made friends and did so well!  I'm so glad we did this for Colson, I think he will do so much better in pre-school next year.

Alyvia's last day of school was May 30th.  She had a fabulous first grade year!  Her teacher, Mr. Melick, was great and she is ready for 2nd grade!

I am super excited for us to be home together this summer!  It's the first summer where I'm working only part time and I feel like I get to spend so much more quality time with them.  Livi is already listing off all the things we should do!  Here we go!

Mother's Day 2014

Kendall woke up bright and early to wish me a happy mother's day!  So we came downstairs and had some juice together at 6:20.

The other kids didn't take long to join us :)  We met my parents at Le Peep for breakfast and it was delicious as usual!

Kendall was Aunt Anne's girl this morning!
She kept yelling "AAAEEE" (very loudly)

Silly Colson-my crazy guy!

My beautiful Livi girl

My cutie Kendall, happy girl!

 After lunch we went to Alan's sister's house to celebrate with his family.  The kids all played together and we had a great afternoon there.  We got to come home and stay home all evening-ahhhh, relaxing.  Well, kind of...Alan mowed the yard and we had some cleaning to do inside.  But it was nice to not have to go anywhere else.  And I got to spend the whole day with these 3 babes....

Oh how I love them so <3  My Livi is so kind hearted, my Cole makes me laugh every day and my Kendall completes our family in the sweetest way.  They are our everything!

Happy 2nd Birthday!

Our nephew turned 2 this month!  We celebrated at my brother and SIL's house and it was perfect!  The weather was beautiful and the kids played outside the whole time.  My brother grilled burgers and hotdogs and we had yummy cookie monster cupcakes-nom, nom, nom :)

Happy birthday buddy, we love you!!!

1/2 Marathon Madness!

On April 26th I completed my very first half marathon-ahhh!!  It was a goal of mine to complete a half before I turn 35 and I am proud to say I did it!  It might not have been pretty, but it's now done :)  My SIL Anne ran it with me.  She originally got me started running and I ran my very first 5K with her too!  We drove to Champaign Friday evening to pick up our packets and we stayed in a hotel over night before the big race.

Saturday morning we were up and early, ready to go!

The start line :)

 We started in waves, the race started at 7 a.m. but we didn't cross the start line for about 20 minutes after.

Mile 2

 It was cool in the morning, but there was NO cloud cover and the sun was warm!  I felt really good up until about miles 8-10...they were rough.  I felt nauseous and was really sloooooow.  Bless Anne, she would run ahead and then make sure I was still coming-I kept telling her to go ahead and go and she kept telling me "I am running with you"  Thank goodness she did!  We finished in 2 hours and 26 minutes!!!  My goal was under 2:30 and I NEVER thought I would actually make it!

My mom brought Alyvia to watch Anne and I finish and to run in the kids fun run.  Unfortunately, the kids run didn't start until 2:30, so we had over 4 hours to wait :(  The hours were dragging and poor Livi just wanted to run, it took roughly forever!

Livi and I heading for the finish line!

Funny story...when Anne and I went to packet pick up, I wasn't registered-what?!  I went back and found my e-mails and I had signed myself up as Cowser Kathryn....instead of Kathryn Cowser.  Way to go genius :)  

For my first half marathon, I'm proud of myself.  I'm so happy that Anne ran it with me and my mom and Livi were there to see us finish!  I'm super proud of Alyvia too for finishing her first race-she did awesome!