My Birthday+RC Car races+Chalk

For my birthday, Sterling surprised me with a teapot! I LOVE LOVE LOVE it! I have told Sterling several times that our kitchen is going to be BRIGHT with lots of BOLD BIG colors. (Eventually, when we own a home.) The rest of our house can have soothing tones overall and be a little more calm, but my kitchen I want yellow and red and turquoise and all the colors. (one sister called me once to show me a pinterest pic of a kitchen with a retro red stove. yes!) This tea pot brought all the bright happy colors and it is awesome! Sterling got me addicted to Celestial Bengal Spice Chai (which I guess is some sort of herbal tea) and if you haven't tried it, you should. It's delicious. Anyway, whenever I make some I realize I should've just made more for Sterling-so now we have a teapot and we can make it for everyone! It was the cutest gift and I love it so much! Love you Sterling!

Sterling got excited and had me open this the week before my birthday, on the day of our anniversary. So on my ACTUAL birthday a week later, he came home after a long day fairly late (730ish) and surprised me with a fitbit! I had NO idea. I didn't have a strong knowledge of what it did, but man, I have been enjoying it so much! It's fun to have my texts show up--I feel like I have my phone out during the day waaaay less. It's fun to track my steps and sleep and things, but mostly Sterling got it for training for the half marathon I'm running. I used it for a strength conditioning workout today and it was so fun! It records so much and Sterling knows how much I love to set goals and see where I'm at, and this has already been such a fun thing! Sterling definitely won in the gift giving department. He's good like that.

 On Saturday, after getting our van back (YAY FOR NOT HAVING A RENTAL ANYMORE!!!!!! THREE LONG WEEKS!!!), we headed to the park to let the kids ride their bikes. It backfired a bit because Molly was not a fan of riding hers in gravel/dirt and it felt hotter than Hades outside, but we still had fun. I have been to this park, but never when they were racing RC cars so that was fun to see. Sterling has taken Will twice to watch them now and Will loves it!

Russell sporting the race car hat that we kind of stole from my sister Kayli. She left it at our house and asked me to mail it back. I was mailing it along with a Schleich horse, ran into the post office, and the horse mysteriously disappeared between the van and the post office. So then I waited to mail the hat until we found the horse, which we never did. And thus, we ended up with this hat that I meant to bring BOTH times we have visited her since, and still forgotten. Sorry, Kate. I figured we might as well use it since we still have it! Plus, festive for the activity!

I was trying to catch a cool shot, but it turns out I'm not a very good judge of when an RC car will spin up a bunch of dirt, or crash, or hit another car, or fly against the railing. It was pretty exciting though.

I finally got new batteries for my camera remote--which I've been wanting to use. So Will tested it out for me.

The cutest baby alive. Poor kid skimmed his nose against the pavement at the pool the other day.

Will and his dragon.

I did the basic outline of the ballerina, she filled in all the rest!

On Sundays we don't usually play outside with chalk, because we do that all week long--but it was really nice to come outside on a beautiful day while Sterling grilled for dinner and watch the kids color. Sometimes they don't last very long, but we were pulling them away from their drawings to eat. I just really love that we live somewhere that they can go outside our front door and have some playing space. It feels so free and wonderful and warm and sunny and just feel-good. It was a good Sunday afternoon. :)