Mud Run, Parade and Mother's Day

A few weeks ago I participated in my first mud run - the Bavarian Battle in Leavenworth!  It was a 5K up in the mountains and included 15 obstacles.  We made it through the course laughing and cheering each other on and even got a few scrapes and bruises!  There were 6 of us total: me, my sister Christy and her boyfriend Cam, my sister Amanda, my future sister-in-law Amber and me niece Kelsee.  Afterwards we rewarded ourselves with burgers from Gustav's! 

Final obstacle - the mud and FREEZING water!

We finished!

Victory burgers!

That same weekend I also got to see my niece's last performance on the Eastmont Cheerleading squad at the Apple Blossom Parade - she did great!!!  And she made the paper with that gorgeous smile of hers!  It was also the kid's first time watching a parade and enjoying the food.  I enjoyed the food as well :-)

Watching the parade on Papa Greg's shoulders

Apple Blossom frisbee!

Great job Kelsee!

We love funnel cakes!

We also celebrated Mother's Day with my mom and Aaron's mom that weekend.  The festivities included yummy food, parks and spending quality time with two ladies that really go out of their way to be great moms and even better grandmas - love you Mom and Gwen!

Celebrating Mother's Day w/ Grandma Gwen and Papa Sparks at the park

Celebrating Mother's Day with Grandma Trish and her puppies!

The following weekend was my turn to enjoy Mother's Day and I truly did enjoy it!  Besides shopping for a couple of hours by myself and a fabulous homemade seafood paella dinner, I got to spend quality time with my kiddos and husband without the hustle and bustle of preparing for the following week.  It was perfect :-).  Aaron also helped me out with a few craft projects and Addison made me some pretty neat things from preschool.  These kids of mine are so special and they both know how to melt my heart - some say I'm a pushover when it comes to them, and well, I don't care :-).  I love you Addison and AJ...


My new favorite treat!  Moms need LOTS of coffee!



Easter recap and no more sleepless nights

It's been way too long since I've posted, so here's an update to catch everyone up!

Easter weekend we found ourselves back in Wenatchee for a weekend packed full of family visits!  We had an early Easter dinner at my sister's house Friday night, then Saturday we visited a local feed store that offered a pet zoo, horse rides and a mini Easter egg hunt.  On Sunday we went to church, followed by brunch at Aaron's parents house.  We all had a great weekend and even managed to meet up with friends and family for drinks late Saturday night.

The next BIG event in the Sparks household is AJ's new sleeping habits.  The week before Easter and including Easter weekend AJ was in a horrible habit of waking up for a few hours in the middle of the night to just "hang out."  This was wearing on us and so we finally decided to use the "crying out" method.  That same evening after we put him down and geared up for a long night, we heard a loud THUMP from AJ's room.  As we ran towards his room, he opened his door.  We were shocked, to say the least.  Our little man had jumped out of his crib.  We knew he jumped because Aaron put him back in to see what he would do and he literally hurled himself out of the crib, face-first.  We are so lucky he didn't hurt himself!!  We then took one side of his crib off and held him until he fell asleep, but then he found his way to our bedroom in the middle of the night.  The thought of him wandering around the house in the middle of the night is so scary!  The next morning I hit the internet hard googling ways to keep him in his room and together, Aaron and I decided to just lay his mattress on the ground and use door lever locks to make sure he stayed in his room - so now instead of a little crib that keeps him contained, he's got an entire bedroom!  The first night he banged on the door and cried for less than 10 minutes.  Fearing he fell asleep on the floor by the door, Aaron went to check in on him and found him in his bed, yes in his bed!  Since this story is already very long in length, I will sum it up to tell you it's been over a month since we moved him to the mattress and installed the door lever locks and he has willingly gone to bed EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, happy as a clam and has slept in to 6:15 at the earliest, and even 7:30 at times.  This from the little boy that woke me up around 4:45 nearly every day since he was born.  Let's just say we are VERY happy parents!!  Our life has changed!