an evening with Belle...

Last Thursday, we took Taylor on a "date" to see one of the local highschool's productions of Beauty and the Beast. The girl playing Belle goes to our church, so we were excited to go and see her perform and to take Taylor to her first musical. We watched the disney version the weekend before so she was pretty excited and did really well throughout the whole show. We bought her her own seat but she sat on our laps the whole time and she danced during the faster songs and loved clapping after each song and scene. We had so much fun together!

these two pics were actually taken by Taylor! For a while, she'd just take pics of the floor and you could see her little toes in the bottom of the picture, but she's gotten quite good at taking pics of people (and Maddie and her stuffed animals and such)...

she just looks so tall and grown up to me in this picture...this was during the intermission we all had to go and get the jitters out of ourselves!

so we brought a flower for her to give to 'Belle' after the show and Taylor was SO excited about getting to give this flower to Belle...she carried it around with her everywhere...

right before the second half of the show...

yay! after the show we got to see Belle (Amy)! She did so good...Taylor has been talking about 'Belle' and giving her a flower since then. I love high school musicals! It's so fun to see such young people do an amazing job! and it was SO funny (the boy playing the clock!!! oh my goodness!)

when we got back into the car after the show, we gave Taylor her own flowers...she was so excited! We had such a great time with her!

B I R T H D A Y !

Saturday (April 11th) was my birthday. It was a really fun birthday-and full of great deals too! There was a really fun 5k at a park near downtown. The best part was that it was only $3 per person to run it (a lot of them are around 20 bucks!). We had good intentions to prepare for it and start running more consistently (I've been averaging 1 run per week and hadn't ran 3 miles since our last 5k last October)...but, we still didn't do much practicing before hand. Tom ran it with me though (I've been wanting him to for so long b/c he's such a good runner) so he helped me do better and I got my best clocked time yet (which is still pretty slow-but I was excited about it still). Our friends (Dan and Rachelle) came and Dan ran while Rachelle took pics and watched all our kiddos (and worked her arms really good ;-) After the run, we went to breakfast together, then took the kids to a community easter egg hunt, came home, put the kids to bed for naps, then I got to go to the mall (alone!!!) and shop for a couple hours. I found some great deals-that's one thing I like about my birthday being in April is that it's a great time of year for sales!

Tom took the kids to our other friends' home (thanks again Sarah for watching them for us!!!) and then picked me up at the mall and we went to dinner at the Texas Roadhouse; we had a 25 dollar gift certificate we won at an apartment social so we only paid $3.24 for our dinner (plus a tip) and it was so good and so fun! I had never been there before, but now I highly recommend it! Tom told the server it was my birthday and asked if they could do anything for it and she looked at me and said slightly apologetically, but matter of factly "we make you sit in a saddle!". It was pretty funny! Too bad we forgot our camera, right?! ;-)

After dinner, we picked up the kids and came home...Tom had gotten me a donut for my birthday cake...I told him he didn't need to get me a big cake and his birthday is just a couple weeks after mine so we'll have a big cake for him and that's more then enough! It was just a great birthday; I felt so grateful to have my sweet little family with me to help celebrate it and to have such a sweet husband for doing so much to make me feel loved and special. He got me a fun frisbee and a couple books for my birthday (and he told me to buy myself some clothes--always a nice thing to tell your wife!), but the best gift was a homemade card and a 2 page letter that he wrote Friday night. I am so blessed to have him! Anyway, here are some pics...a little out of order, but oh well. before the race...it was snowing all morning! I was wearing lots of layers: 1 short sleeve t, 1 long sleeve t, and a sweatshirt and then jogging capris and gray sweats over them...I had thought I'd strip an outer layer, but it was so chilly I kept everything on...after about 2 miles I thought it'd be nice to not be wearing so many clothes though!!! Oh well, it was better then my last 5k when my pants kept sinking down and every minute I had to reach down and pull them back up!!! ;-)

Tom and I running together...it was a handicap race where everyone starts at different times based on their age, gender, height and weight so I started about 3 min. before Tom and Tom spent the first mile and a half catching up to me...it was so nice to be able to finish together and tell each other we thought we might puke before the race was over!!! ;-)

this was me waving to Taylor...

this is our friend Dan finishing the race...Rachelle took this picture and I think it is awesome! We're all going to run another 5k in June together (even Rachelle this time) I'm excited! It's definately more fun with friends.

here's all of us after the race...

and now we skip to later that night after dinner! max is getting a bite of my birthday donut!

and there's the afore-mentioned donut! ;-) after eating at Texas Roadhouse a quarter of this donut of was than enough!!!

after the easter egg hunt in Old Colorado City...Taylor won a "prize" in one of her eggs so we had to walk to this new age psychic store to go get it. I love quaint, little towns this!

We ran into Sarah and her girls at the easter egg hunt...it was cold! The morning (during the 5k)was actually the warmest part of the day even though it was snowing...it just kept getting colder and colder as the day went on. The next day, Easter, we woke to even more snow!

It's official!

Max is finally, officially crawling! He made his first few crawls a few days ago (at exactly 12 and a half months) and has advanced his skill quickly and now can crawl from room to room! We are proud of his accomplishment and feel like VERY lucky parents in the fact that it has taken him so long!!! He doesn't seem at all interested in standing or walking yet, so we'll see how long he takes to figure that one out! ;-)

Just have the CARE neccesities!

We had such a fun enrichment (church ladies) activity last night...we all had to bring our purses and they gave prizes for people that had the largest purse, the most stuff in their purses, the most random stuff in their purses and so on. We at a yummy dinner (which we didn't have to prepare ourselves! ;-) and ate lots of yummy cake. It was a really creative, fun, lively evening and I loved it!

I was asked to be in a skit with these other two awesome, hilarious ladies...we had lots of fun practicing and doing it together. It reminded me of my FFA days where we always had fun doing lots of goofy skits. It's nice to be able to still get a chance to do that again from time to time. Anyway, this clip is long! 7 1/2 minutes...and there's some not so impressive solos at the end of it (I'm only referring to mine!) but I thought I'd still put it up for the other ladies to be able to see and show their families if they want to...I'll still get a copy of it on a dvd for you!

Thanks Linda (the lady on the left), Terri (the lady on the right), DeeDee (the piano player) and Donna (the skit writer-she's under the table handing me stuff :-)! It was lots of fun!

and yet, another tag!!!

COUPLES TAG: I told my sista-in law Sarah, I would try to do this one (weeks ago) and since we haven't even met...I figured I shouldn't let her down (I'm expecting a comment at least Sarah!!! ;-)

1. What are your middle names? Thomas Marc and Melody Marsheesha...j/k I don't have one

2. How long have you been together? Since the end of May 2003

3. How long did you know each other before you started dating? Not long! about 6 months!

4. Who asked whom out? it was kind of mutual...I guess he officially asked me out though...

5. How old are you? Oh dear! I am 28...for another few days and Tom is 26 for a fewer more days.

6. Whose siblings do you see the most? we see more of his, but we're the only people on both sides of our families that live in Colorado, so we don't see anyone all too often...

7. Do you have any children together? Sure do! Taylor will be 3 in July and Maxwell just turned 1!

8. Pets? Yep! Maddie, a grand yellow Labrador who just turned 5 less than a month ago and whom we've had since she was 8 weeks old!

9. Which situation is the hardest on you as a couple? hmmmm....we don't have a lot of hard situations as a couple...mostly b/c he's such a super husband...it would probably have to be my pathetic mood swings! Poor him! well, he does like to throw wrappers on the floor next to our bed all the time!!! ;-)

10. Did you go to the same school? we both went to Utah State together

11. Are you from the same town? nope! he's from a teensy town in northern Utah and I grew up in the south (Georgia) and the grand state of Missour-a!!!

12. Who is the smartest? We each have our own things we're smarter in...but over all I think he's more smart and wise...

13. Who is the most sensitive? me.

14. Where do you eat out most as a couple? where ever we have coupons! ;-) Seriously! we still live like we're college kids! we also really love On the Border and Costa Vida.

15. Where is the farthest you have traveled as a couple? Georgia and northwest coast...

16. Who has the craziest exes? only one who I would say (was-hopefully he's worked through some issues) crazy...heaven help him!

17. Who has the worst temper? me, I can get frustrated easily, but Tom helps me to be more calm

18. Who does the cooking? mostly me...I enjoy cooking, but Tom is great at helping...he always cooks the salmon for me (I like to eat it, but not cook it!)

19. Who is more social? definitely me.

20. Who is the neat freak? probably more of me...it drives me crazy when our home isn't clean...our kids just don't seem to feel the same way! ;-) but, Tom is a very quick efficient cleaner and I'm more detail oriented.

21. Who is more stubborn? me....oh dear! why did I decide to answer this!?

22. Who hogs the bed? That would be Tom! ;-)

23. Who wakes up earlier? we usually get up at the same time unless one of us has something earlier...Tom has a really early breakfast meeting once a month and I have been going to a 5:30 a.m. spin class once a week

24. Where was your first date? subway and a park...we took forever to finish our sandwiches b/c we are really slow eaters when we're having a conversation....and we were having a NICE. long conversation!

25. Who has the bigger family? he does! there are 10 boys and 1 girl in his family!

26. Do you get flowers often? often enough...he knows I love flowers and he's very sweet...my favorite is when he just does it out of the blue

27. How do you spend the holidays? lately, we've been alternating going to every other one for Thanksgiving and then the others for Christmas and switching each year...but after a rough Christmas (yeah, I'm still dealing with it! :-), we'll probably reconsider our plans this year.

28. Who is more jealous? it used to be me, but now we have built even more trust in our marriage and so I would say neither of us are jealous...we just don't give each other reason to be and we trust each other. It's great!

29. How long did it take to get serious? not very long at all!

30. Who eats more? he does. I try to make sure of that...after we got married, I packed on quite a bit of extra weight...I kept feeling like his family probably went home after we got together and said, "so, do you think Mel is pregnant?" I wasn't! I've just recently lost that weight and hope to keep it that way!

31. Who does the laundry? me-I like doing laundry! actually doing it now...

32. Who is better with the computer? Tom--I think he's better at most everything! ;-) Seriously!

33. Who drives when you are together? he does most of the time, but I try to too, so I can keep up those safe driving skills!

I tag: Sarah R., Holli, Wendy, Misti and Alyssa!!!