my everday

here are a few photos from my everyday....

pancakes for breakfast, smoothies for afternoon snacks/lunch, going through cupboards while mom cooks dinner and playing at the park. sometimes when we go running in the morning, we stop at the park to play and we have the whole place to ourselves and it's awesome.

i know i haven't been the best at blogging regularly, i'll have these spurts of motivation and blog for a week and then be gone for a week. for right now, i've decided to take a break for a couple weeks. but don't worry, i'll be back! in the next two weeks we have family visiting, a trip to montana for a root canal (eek!) and i'm using all my spare time designing posters so i can finally open up my etsy shop. the poster design/production is taking more time than i'd like, nap time just isn't long enough some days! :) so for the next two weeks i'll be keeping myself busy and hopefully at the end i'll have started posting on esty and here, regularly! until then, have an awesome two weeks and enjoy your memorial day off with the one's you love!

mother's day

mother's day was so wonderful and i was completely spoiled! i came home late saturday night to a clean house and woke up the next morning to breakfast, all thanks to joey! i didn't have to lift a finger all day and then monday rolled around and i was still in this mother's day trance and i forgot i had to grocery shop and feed my family so joey made dinner for us again!

i loved mother's day but at the same time, all day i felt like i should be spoiling milly. without her, i wouldn't have this amazing opportunity to be a mom. without her, i wouldn't get to feel this amazing abundance of love everyday! without her, this holiday wouldn't be spent celebrating me! this crazy adventure called motherhood is something i get to experience everyday because of her. i'll admit, some days are better than others. sometimes i can't wait for bedtime only to put her to bed and then twenty minutes later wish we could hang out. somedays i think someone else could be doing a better job than i but then i realize no one could love this little girl more than i do. i have milly to thank for my biggest dream coming true! love you little miss!

Built on the Rock

my time as assistant stage manager for built on the rock is coming to a close. this is the production that the youth of my church are putting on and it's all happening this weekend! i'm so grateful to have had the opportunity to not only work with the youth, but also get to know people i go to church with every sunday and never took the time to introduce myself or say hello. what a blessing this opportunity has been for me. it's taken up a lot of time away from family and it's been really stressful at times but it's also been sooo very worth it. i look forward to having my nights back but i'm also very grateful to have been able to be a part of this wonderful production.

^ this is during saturday's dress rehearsal at the church,

the actual performance will be at skyline high school, see below for details.

The youth of the Redmond Washington Stake of 

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints presents

BUILT ON THE ROCK: A BOOK OF MORMON JOURNEY

A production that showcases the talents of our local youth and presents our testimony of the Savior, Jesus Christ

Showtimes

Friday, May 9th at 7:00pm

Saturday, May 10th at 11:00* am, 4:00pm, and 7:00 pm

* Special Children's Matinee - Characters from the show will interact with children after the 11:00 am performance!

Skyline High School

1122 228th Ave SE, Sammamish 98075

Approximately 500 tickets per show will be available at the door beginning one hour before curtain. If tickets run out, guests who are waiting in line will be issued tickets for the next available show.

easter weekend

the dickson clan (minus my oldest brother) came out to visit for the long easter weekend and milly participated in her first easter egg hunt soooooo....picture overload is below...

^ we headed downtown and rode the great wheel...

^ then we rode on a carousel, which milly always gets a little antsy about half way through and i end up just holding her as we go round and round....

 ^ walking with grandma and grandpa before the big hunt

 ^ finding eggs

 ^ checking out her eggs, she was more into taking them out of the bag than putting them in...

 ^ "should i eat this, can i eat this? ah, whatever, i'll eat it"

 ^ easter basket!

 ^ dickson family photo after church - dad, mom, me, cameron, milly, skylar

 ^ at the dog park with uncle skylar before he and my parents had to catch a plane back to kalispell

 ^ uncle cameron stayed a couple extra days to hang out and i thought of the perfect activity! a hike! little did i know that there'd be so much snow and my little honda wouldn't be able to make it to the starting point...

maybe next time!

 ^ we ended up going to snoqualmie falls instead....

*hope everyone had as good of a weekend as we did!

justin's visit

it's always fun when family comes and we can play tourist in our own town

^ saturday we went to the car show and i did the best photo bomb ever...

^we also went into seattle to see the troll...

^ ...and kerry park

^ of course we went to chipotle while justin and hailey were here!

^ playing at the park...

^ snoqualmie falls

^ impromptu picnic...milly means business when it comes to eating bananas!

21 days without sugar!

after easter and after all our family had left, when we had our place back to ourselves i wanted to do a 21 day sugar cleanse and joey was totally on board. him being the competitive one, he thought there should be some sort of prize if we could actually make it 21 days and we added running to the challenge. we're using the word 'cleanse' very loosely here! we haven't cut out all sugar, we still eat fruits and have lemonade on occasion but we have cut out the obvious sweets and processed sugar. we were letting way too much sugar in the door and i hated that i wasn't being as strict with myself with what i indulged in. we would get the worst cravings after dinner and just eat whatever was in the house, make brownies, have ice cream splits and sundaes. it was getting pretty bad! se we decided to cut out all the candy and cookies, ice cream and chocolate. today we are on day eight and i'm still having cravings! i'm proud that i've been able to say no for the past eight days, which i know isn't a very long and i'm hoping this 'cleanse' will help me stay focused about eating healthy. we're both hoping to be a little choosier about the sweets we do have, to indulge only when it's really worth it and not because a twix or snickers sounds really good at the moment and is laying around the house. ;)

the official 'rules' of the cleanse are as follow: no sweets (candy, baked good, ice cream, soda, donuts, etc.) and we each have to run a total of 14 miles that we've split up over the 21 days. if one of us doesn't run their miles the other person will get a cash prize to spend as selfishly as they want. if we both succeed and don't eat sugar and run our miles, we'll treat ourselves out to dinner, somewhere new...no chipotle, haha!

*the picture above is from milly's brithday...i thought it appropriate for this post :)

falling in the tulips....

remember what i said in my last post? about not wearing toms to muddy tulip fields? well this is why....

^ oh this is a cute picture....wait, what's that in the background?

^ just me trying desperately not to fall....but maybe i'm just doing the dougie....

these pictures were sent in a group text to the family and my MIL's text back was 

something along the lines of "who's the nut in the background?"

i couldn't stop laughing...but seriously, don't wear toms to see the tulips!

photo's were taken without permission from justin.... ;)

tulips

while justin and his girlfriend hailey were here, we headed up north to see the tulips. this was our first time and we've lived here for five years! it was so worth it, we always heard the lines were crazy and you'll end up waiting in your car for hours for a parking spot but that wasn't the case for us. we went on a drizzly day and planned our driving time around nap time so it worked out perfect! we didn't have to wait in any lines or fight any crowds. can't wait to go again next year!

 ^ they have the exact same expression in this picture...love it!

 ^ milly loved the tulips! plus, check out that molar saying hi in the back!

 ^ here's some advice, don't wear your glittery toms to the muddy tulip festival...bad choice. 

justin and hailey were taking a photo and in the background you

can see me flailing about trying not to slip and fall.....i should try to find that photo....

water baby

awhile back, we had some really warm weather, like crazy warm weather. so when we went on our early evening family walk through the town center, we (i) decided milly should experience her first fountian/splashpad....

^ here she is, being cautious, checking it out...

^... and then "oh hey, a friend"

^ and then she was kinda like "puhhh-leeeease"

 (i can't get over that face!!!)

^ "let me show you how to do this!"

 ^ and then she got crazy into it. 

the water was a bit cold and i made sure we had extra blankets and jackets before i let her go totally crazy so she wouldn't freeze on the way home. 

i would say this little girls a water baby and it makes me so excited for hot summer days!

the last of our family left tuesday and i have sooo so many pictures from their visit and the holiday weekend. 

so look forward to more posts in the next couple days, including our trip to the tulip fields and how we spent our easter weekend with family!