Kite flying!

It was a chilly, windy evening last night, but the sun was out, so we thought it would be fun to fly Ben's new shark kite! I've never had an easier kite flying experience. It just went right up...no running or anything!

Ben examining the empty robin egg he found on the ground.

Ben turns three!

On Sunday we celebrated Memorial Day and Ben's birthday at Hubbard Valley Park. The whole Moser clan was there and we invited our good buddies and neighbors, the Hurrle's, to come too. Ben and Nate (their little guy in the red hat below) are five months apart in age and had lots of fun together. I took an insane amount of pictures (imagine that!), but a lot of them are of people other than Ben, so I decided to just focus on him for this post to make my narrowing down easier! :) It was a beautiful day and everyone had fun soaking up the sun, playing cornhole, flying kites, throwing rocks in the water, playing at the playground, squirting each other with water guns, etc...oh and EATING of course! We are looking forward to celebrating Ben's birthday, again, in July when we travel home to Missouri to visit my family!

I just LOVE being a mom and watching Ben grow. He makes me smile and fills my life with so much happiness. I hope and pray that he grows to love Jesus more every day and that His light shows in all he does! Happy Birthday, best buddy! I love you!

Oh...and for those of you in my family who actually want to look at more of the pictures I took, you can click here to view them. Hopefully you'll find a picture of yourself somewhere in there! :)

Getting ready for the big b-day!

Ninety-nine percent of my day on Saturday was spent slaving over the cake below (and the cookies) for Ben's third birthday party today. If you know me, you know that the last time I made or decorated a cake was exactly a year ago for Ben's second birthday! I'm no Betty Crocker....so, I will admit...I was kind of proud of myself for accomplishing Scooby! I wasn't so sure he would turn out because he was MUCH more complicated than my Elmo cake last year, but I think it actually looks like him. :)

Ben helping me cut out the "Scooby snacks" for his party!

More party pictures coming soon!

Tunnel time and fun with Daddy too!

Fun times in the fort we built out of blankets, the Pooh tent, and Ben's long green tunnel!

As you can tell, Ben has really been interested in anything related to Daddy's big race last Sunday. He wore Mike's bib and was running laps through the kitchen and family room last night. He kept saying, "On your mark...get set...go!" Good times! :)

My two favorite boys!

Growing up so fast...

During our family visit to Illinois earlier this month, my cousin Annetta (a very talented photographer) was able to catch some impromptu pictures of Ben outside during my cousin Hayley's wedding reception. We had planned to have an actual photo shoot for his three year pictures the day before, but the weather did not agree with us. She only spent about 10 minutes with him, but I thought the pictures turned out so cute, especially given the fact that he is pretty difficult to actually get to look at the camera and smile at the same time! Below is a storyboard of some of the pictures she took. We framed this for my mom and mother-in-law for Mother's Day.

He has grown up so much. I can hardly believe he'll be three this Sunday!

3 yrs......................................2 yrs

1 yr.........................................4 mths

By the way....if any of you live in the Bloomington/Normal, Illinois area and need a good photographer, I'm sure Annetta would love to talk to you. Her website is www.annettablairphotography.com. You can check out a lot of her work there. She's really great with kids and is very reasonably priced.

Cuteness...

Ben insisted on wearing Daddy's race medals during breakfast this morning.

My sweet little niece, Emma. Isn't she adorable? I just love how the bow is as big as her head.

He did it...13.1 miles!

Mike ran his first ever half-marathon this morning in Cleveland and he was awesome! :)

I was SO disappointed though...I forgot my darn camera. As I'm sure you can tell from this blog, I document everything with pictures and to not have any from this morning is REALLY bugging me.

Anyway, back to Mike....he ran a 7:52 pace the entire race and ended the 13.1 miles at 1:43:31. His goal was to run under 8:00 minute miles and end under 1:45...so he was happy! It was pouring down rain at the beginning of the race, but by the end the sun was out and shining bright. We made different stops along the route to cheer him on. Ben loved watching all of the runners and yelling for Daddy. There were around 3,100 half-marathon runners and 15,000 runners overall (between the 10k and full marathon). He placed 352...I think that is pretty great, especially for his first time doing this. He was very diligent about sticking to his training plan and he accomplished his goal! I am so proud of him. (Oh...and the winner of the marathon finished in 2:33:33....a 5:51 mile pace...for 26.2 miles...INSANE!)

In other news...we spent all day Saturday in Cleveland too (we had to pick up his race packet and bib downtown). We decided to find something fun to do with Ben, so we took him to the Children's Museum. It was not the most amazing museum I've been in, but Ben had fun and that's all that mattered. We went out to eat in "Little Italy" afterwards at a really good Italian restaurant...Mama Santa's (Mike had to carbo load :)). We finished off with some cannolis from Corbo's bakery...yum!