A few updates

I know... I have been a VERY bad blogger lately. And I don't really have much to say. Here are a few snippets of updates from the McDowell's.

1. The boys are BUSY right now (therefore, mom and dad are busy)! Reid is currently juggling soccer, baseball, spring hockey, and boy scouts. Ryan is playing soccer on Sunday's. Ross, well he's BUSY in his own kind of way.. and it might be the most exhausting of everything. Ryan is doing VERY well in soccer. He's had two games and he has played hard in both games and scored goals in both. There has been absolutely no hesitance, shyness, or whining. Of course we are over the moon excited that he has decided to do SOMETHING. He's really come a long way the last couple of months.

2. Russ and I are still trying to be as active as we can. Russ is back to his bootcamp workouts at our gym on Mon, Wed and Fri mornings. Last weekend he ran a 2 hour orienteering race. Results HERE. He got 2nd place out of 22 people. Of course he was slightly disappointed because he had a plan to go for one more checkpoint (20 points) and that would have put him in first place but he decided to play it safe and get back to the finish. There were penalties if you didn't finish in 2 hours. But still... a fantastic finish!!

3. I am FINALLY getting over the stiffness from my Rock the Parkway half that I already wrote about. Just in time... I am pacing another half marathon THIS Saturday. This one should be a relatively easy pace (2:25) if the weather cooperates... current forecast calls for the 30s (NOT FAIR!) I was sure hoping my winter running gear was put up for good, or at least for the season. Then I have my Lincoln half marathon in two weeks (May 1) and then Russ and I are doing an 8 hour orienteering race on May 7th and my mom & I are going to walk the Mother's Day 5K on May 8th. That will complete my spring events and I'm going to take it easy for a month before getting into full training mode in June for the Chicago marathon in October!

4. We stopped weighing in at work for the time being but for anyone that cares or follows along I have not turned into a blimp just yet. My weight has held pretty steady around 165 but my running has helped me with some more muscle tone. I am officially in a pair of size 10 slacks today that I haven't worn since (MUCH) before Ross was born. Maybe there is hope that I can get back in my wardrobe after all! 10 more pounds (for now)!

5. The weather here has been FABULOUS the last week or two. The boys have played outside for hours and exhausted themselves. We usually come in for dinner and showers and Ross is ready for bed shortly after and Ryan is usually not far behind. He has fallen asleep on a couple of nights before we've even made it to 8:00 bedtime. I'm SOO ready for summer!

And of course... what everyone really wants... pictures of the boys (all taken with my phone - I need to get my camera back out):

Ross was eating some dry cereal out of a ziploc bag before Ryan's soccer game... of course he crushed the cereal into small pieces and them dumped the whole bag out! He's an animal I tell you, a complete mess...

Speaking of eating, have I mentioned that he does it nonstop? He is definitely happiest when he has some kind of food. Here he is trying a plum... and he liked it:

Ross is learning real quick that as the third boy in the family he's going to get taken along to many sporting events. And Reid is learning as the oldest that he has to help out :) This was right before going to Reid's soccer game and we had Reid put some sunscreen on Ross' face. It is not unusual at this time for us to go from a soccer game in the sun and then bundle up and head to a hockey game at the rink... preparation has been the key! Oh, that and the cooler that I bought that we are stocking all the time with drinks & snacks.

Ryan and his friend Andrew waiting for their game to begin...

And just to have a decent picture of Reid, here he is on the day they took spring pictures at school. I wasn't going to buy any but then they turned out really cute so I had to buy a few.