Donut Cake

Some friends of ours are getting married this weekend!  Very exciting times-- it's funny, last Summer I mentioned to Daniel that we hadn't been invited to a wedding in a very long time.  Different stage of  life I guess, I had attended dozens of baby showers over the last year and zero wedding showers. No lie, within a month after I made that statement, Daniel was asked to be IN THREE weddings!  I love weddings though, they are such a sweet time to reminisce on our wedding day, and such a joyous occasion to see friends in love make that commitment for life, and it will be even sweeter when we get invited to even more baby showers out of it. (Ha!)

I was asked by the bride to make a cake for the rehearsal dinner, the groom is a a fellow law enforcement officer and it seemed only fitting to make a giant donut cake.  With sprinkles of course, because the best kind of donuts always have sprinkles.  The cake is a vanilla pound cake with buttercream frosting and the donut "glaze" is pink by her request.

How'd I do?  It definitely looks like the kind of donut I'd want to take a big bite of!  Congratulations Kyle and Courtney!! We couldn't be happier for you guys!  

Ice Cream for Lunch

Tuesday was "Free Cone Day" at Ben & Jerry's, or at the Kroh house, also known as annual ice cream for lunch day.  This year being the 3rd annual... Here's year 1 and year 2.  Really fun to see how much these guys have grown just through photos of eating ice cream, and the mess they make!

Leeland had chocolate in a cone and Hayden had strawberry in a cup, it was perfect ice cream weather and time well spent with friends. 

Our Chicken Coop

This is a long overdue post with photos of our FINALLY finished chicken coop.  We got our chicks in February in anticipation of getting our coop done within 4 weeks or so and moving them into it.  However, North Carolina had other plans, and the wild weather just would NOT let up in March.  Add to the wild weather, a husband's rotating schedule, day to day life and two small children and we didn't finish the coop until today.

.... But I guess I should be a little more honest, I wish that I could blame all of the time delay on the weather, but there were also other issues, like we had no idea what we were getting into and we had no idea what we were doing. Haha! But seriously.

Here's the shed that we started with-- rusty, old, and it had broken doors.  Oh, and it was also FULL of junk left from the previous owners, and surrounded on the outsides by junk from the previous owners.

And here's the transformation into chicken coop-- Leeland chose blue as the color.  If it were up to just me, we would have went with a teal or a lavender, but as we were standing there in the paint section looking at the millions of options, there was a little voice being not so quiet, shouting "BLUE! BLUE! BLUE!"

As much as I would love to let the ladies free range all day everyday, I just don't feel like it's safe for them.  Our yard isn't fenced, all of our neighbors have dogs (some who have been known to walk through our yard randomly) and I want to keep my girls safe, so we opted for a large fenced run.  I hope to do some supervised ranging in the yard, but not without me present.

 A premature photo before all of our bedding is down.  Roosting bar on the left and their water and feed in the back.  We also put linoleum down on the floor in hopes of making it an ease to clean.  You can also see that there is a window in the back covered with poultry netting to hopefully offer a little fresh air/breeze from front to back.  Though the shed was already wired with electricity, so theres also the option to add in a fan or a heat lamp if we ever should need it.

The only thing we have left to do is the nesting boxes.  The girls haven't even begun to even think about laying yet, so we still have a little bit of time on that, and I haven't completely decided what kind of nesting boxes I want to put in yet.

 
The girls are still just getting settled in and figuring out where I moved all of their stuff to, but they seem to LOVE their new space!

Soccer Mom

Leeland's very 1st soccer game was today!!  I think it's safe to say that 4 year olds playing soccer is one of the most comical things that I have ever seen.  I knew it would be interesting last week when at practice all of the children were completely distracted by 3 vultures flying overhead.  No I mean, one kid noticed the birds overhead, pointed them out and then every kid stopped what they were doing to turn and stare. Poor coach!  (HAHA!) To add to the lack of concentration, Leeland has the cutest little twinkle toes, where he takes like 5 steps for every 1 kick, and every time he's kicked the ball into the goal, he's followed up with a little victory jig.

It's all really funny, and there's probably only 2 kids on the whole team who have any idea what they are doing (they have older siblings who play), but at the end of the day, Leeland absolutely LOVES playing so far and that's all that matters.  He leaves practices and games with a big grin on his face, feeling so accomplished and proud, and we couldn't be more proud of him!

This is Leeland and his cousin Hopelyn, they're on the same team and she's also 4.  So fun to watch them!

Coach teaching him to throw the ball in.... He threw it in, the opposite direction of their goal. 

Leeland and his cousin playing "Ring Around the Rosie" in the middle of the game!

Go #4, Go!!!

Half Training Week 6

After lots of searching online, I think I'm battling tendinitis.  Not that you should ever rely on the internet for a diagnosis, but that's where symptom searching has led me.  Picked up a foam roller and tennis balls to do some exercises to strengthen and stretch that tendon.  Shooting for doing them twice a day, if not at least once a day, and always after work outs.  I'm a very determined lady..... I WILL conquer my half!!! 

Also, it was recently brought to my attention that I could be over training-- most marathon training schedules are only running 4 days a week, and follow an every other day pattern.  That's more rest than I would like to take, but over training could be a cause of my tendinitis, so I'm going to give this a go so that I can keep pain free until may. 

Monday March 31: rest

Tuesday April 1: ran 4 miles outside

Wednesday April 2: rest

Thursday April 3: ran 2.5 miles on the treadmill, 1.5 on the elliptical 

Friday April 4: rest

Saturday April 5: ran 8.3 miles outside (woo hoo!)

Sunday April 6: intended to do abs, but let's just say I will never go on another long run without sunblock. (Ouch!)

And last but certainly not least..... not sure what sparked it, but I hopped on the scale at the gym this week-- I had been dreading weighing and measurements bc I didn't do so hot over the holidays, and bc of all this rest.... BUT, I'm down another 5 pounds!!!! Also down 1.5 inches in my thigh, down .5 inch in my waist, and down 1 inch in my hips. Yay!!! (((Insert happy dance here)))