a couple events

david rode in a century!

i ran a 10k!

brothers

since moving we have gotten into a really great daily routine.  i think my favorite times, though, is when i am busy completing a chore or getting dinner prepped, and the boys are on their own, playing.  there are still plenty of squabbles and squawks, and plenty of threats on my end ("figure it out, or i'm taking it away!"), but there have been way more constructive, buy playtimes than ever!  the boys have really become great little buddies, great friends.

at library reading time this month's theme has been heroes--not just super heroes, but doctors, firefighters, army guys, garbage truck drivers, etc.  last week reading time was about being a hero is being a good friend.  after reading time they have a little craft for the kids to do.    this "friend" craft was gluing a heart between two friends.  pace immediately said, "i'm going to draw me and max!"  he said he was going to color blue jeans on them, and the color of the shirts they were wearing that day.  not really sure why he picked yellow for max's hair and eyes...

a few random things

sometimes david has fun at work

and sometimes he makes cookies at home with the boys

and then there were rainbows!!

the boys and i were running errands one lucky day (we don't usually have a car these days, since daddy commutes...our usual mode of transportation is the jogger!)--we went to the church bookstore and picked up a few things.  we initially went to get a new childrens hymn book since we lost ours at church, and we ended up finding a few other things the boys thought were really cool--ctr rings and mini scriptures!  pace has written his name all over his, and max did pretty good, too, writing m's, a's, and x's in no order all over the first page!  so proud of our growing boys!  since getting his own scriptures, pace will often tell me he's "just going to read my book of mormon now".  

pace and i made a fruit tart one night--he loved putting the blueberries, raspberries, and grapes all over the tart!

11 year anniversary

i forgot to add Facebook posts about our big 11 year anniversary!!  we ended up reading a bunch of letters to each other in bed that night.  this will definitely become a tradition.--why haven't we done it sooner?!

we'll have to use this for a belated anniversary dinner!

one week of dinners

i posted our dinners for one week on Facebook, just do document what eating (mostly) plant-based is like.

big springs 8k

 i got an email last wednesday about a trail run on saturday.  i have never run on trails before, in the mountains...i normally just do paved trails.  but it was only an 8k, so i thought no sweat!  i can do this!  i signed up and we loaded the boys up early saturday morning, and i hit the trails!  

i took this walking up to the starting line.  it was a beautiful morning for a run--nice and cool, beautiful scenery.  

david warned me that this would be the longest 5 miles of my life.  thanks, husband, but it was pretty easy!!...i met my goal of walking only when it was a 100% grade (...ha ha)  i even placed 3rd in my age group!  i was originally in 4th place, but the person who was in 3rd ended up being a male mistakenly placed in the female category.  they were about to move me over to the male category, too, when they saw my name, but i set them straight.  i would have to say the last mile of a half marathon is the longest mile of my life, but this whole run i felt very comfortable and great.  

david kept the boys entertained by making them hike around the trails until they got too tired to meet me at the finish line.  they were eating doughnuts and watching a show on david's phone when i walked up to the jeep.  you can see a little bit of pace's "aventure soup-case" behind him--he packs this thing full of whatever he thinks we might need on any given adventure.  he is very thoughtful and puts lots of consideration into what he wants to pack.  he happened to pack a medal for me.  so sweet!

we instituted a new coombs family birthday tradition: the birthday penny ride.  you pick a number between 10-20, flip a penny that number of times, and heads is turn right, tails turn left, and you go for a drive and see where you end up.  my birthday was the first birthday we did it, and it was really, really fun!  we packed a cooler with my ice cream birthday cake and drove through farmlands, got on i-15, and ended up at the top of a hill on a trail on the other side of spanish fork.  we watched the sunset and pace pulled out his rolling "aventure soup-case".  we lost the photos from that night, but i can still picture him proudly opening the suitcase with things he packed.  he pulled out some silverware in case we needed it to eat, his owl nightlight in case it got dark, some stuffed animals for protection, and a few other things.

back to routine

we're finally back to our routine.  we still have some boxes to unload, but all the essentials are out, and it's more important to me that we get into our daily schedule.  the boys do better and i do better with a schedule.  we read our "foundations" (scriptures), exercise (there's a trail and the park just down and around the corner we run to and around and then play at the park--pace is starting to ride his bike with me on mondays!), clean (i figure i better cash in on their current excitement to help clean and do chores--they fight over who gets to mop or sweep or scrub the toilet or the tub!), do workbook and reading time.  we also made mondays our experiment day, wednesdays our library day (the library is about a 20-25 minute jog to town, and they have an awesome reading time with a craft afterwards), and fridays our project day. 

during our runs max has started asking some really cute questions.  i think it's stemmed from all the letter quizzing i've been doing (what does a say?  what does m say? what does p say?, etc).  anyway, on our runs he'll just look around the trail and ask what things say: "mommy, what does green say?"  "what does tree say?"  "what does trashcan say?"  "what does orange say"  "what does yellow say?"  "what does bike say?"  it reminds me of the poems with illustrations my mom and i did when i was little, "blue is for ice, green is for frog, etc."  it'll be a good project on project day to write down these little "poems" and let max color or paint something to go along with it.

we've had two experiment days so far (we pick out from an experiment book from bishka), and pace has chosen food-related experiments.  the first was making a fruit slushy.  the boys loved this one, we set a timer every ten minutes to stir the juice sitting in salted ice, and worked on workbooks in between stirring.  this week we made meringues to learn about the protein "squiggles" spreading apart when you beat the egg whites.  the boys liked eating the "bubble nets".     

our first art project was making mono prints.  this was really cool for the boys, and they loved using the rollers.  i demonstrated scribbling in the paint with a q-tip, and let them experiment.  i was helping max when pace said, "look mommy, i wrote daddy!"  instead of scribbling or drawing, pace had written his name, and below that spelled out "dade", daddy!  i was so impressed!  we've never written anything other than his name, so to see him independently sound out and write a word was pretty cool!

we've also been enjoying the view before it disappears to the quickly sprouting houses.  last week we watched thunderstorms roll through the valley every afternoon.

happy 4th

we had a great time doing sparklers and fireworks with neighbors in the cul-de-sac behind us!  

traps for criminals

one saturday i was running errands and david was home with the boys.  he texted me to say everyone was happy and watching home alone.  my first thought was not concern that that movie would be too scary for the boys, but concern for me and my safety!  i knew pace would think the traps kevin set to catch the bad guys were the coolest idea, and i would be dealing with traps for a while.  and boy was i right.  here is a small sampling of pace's handiwork, trying to "catch the criminals":

bootcamp potty training

we do bootcamp potty training around here, 3 days tops and we're done.  day 1 is disaster day, we go right from diapers to underwear, and i spend the day setting a timer every 20 minutes, sitting on the potty chair amid screams and "i not like 'otty chair", and nearly waterboarding my child, making him drink a half a cup of fluid every time we sit down--oh, and don't forget mopping up all the puddles because max doesn't pee on the potty chair and instead pees wherever he's standing or playing.

by the end of day 2, something clicked in max's head, and he knew he didn't have to explode 4 cups of pee down his legs and make puddles in his sandals, but that he could hold his pee and sit in the appropriate place.  so we spend the next two days getting the timing down, and then we start working on number 2...

i thought for sure with max's sweet tooth it'd be no sweat to bribe him with cookies or treats to get him to pee in the right place, but he wasn't interested at all!  a high five and letting him flush the toilet was enough of a reward for him.  we had an accident or two figuring out timing, and one huge flood in church, but other than that, max is good to go!

some more shenanigans

 one day 10 huge military helicopters flew over, the boys were ecstatic watching them from the back of the house to the front.

water fights have been pretty popular with this 100 degree weather.  

max's favorite move is the luke skywalker freeze move.

the spanish fork river trail had its grand opening a couple weekends after we moved in.  they had a big trail run with stamps and prizes and a ribbon cutting--and a huge raffle at the end with a ton of give-aways.  we didn't win anything (to pace's BIG disappointment...i told him we're a working family, not a winning family), but pace really got into the raffle prize idea.  we've played raffle at home a few times.  we'll just gather toys from around the house, hand out numbers to the boys, and call out raffle winners.  they light up and love the raffle game!

pizza maker helper.  he's getting really great at sprinkling cheese all over.

pace is getting really great at biking--we definitely need to invest in a pedal bike for him before the summer is up!  i know it's hard to see, but pace is carrying his white "medic bag" on his bike in the picture next to the truck.  the medic bag is a little plush bag with plush toys i got from the dr. i was working for when i was pregnant with pace.  he stuffs it full of things he thinks he'll need on a ride.  the "soup-case" is for bigger adventures.

when the house next to us starting going in, the boys wanted to rush outside with their little construction trucks and help out.

our neighborhood is supposed to get a cluster box for all the houses, but since we're the first house in our neighborhood, we don't have a cluster box yet...so we get out our stagecoach once a week and pick up our mail from the post office.  we got a belated birthday game for max from bishka!  the crazy sandwich game--it's been a great quiet game at church.

one morning before church we found a green grasshopper climbing around our door.