Mommy's Helpers

This week the kids have had a blast helping me out with some kitchen tasks. Harbin was at practice with Scott one day and Ella was napping so my older girls helped to make instant oatmeal packets. I drew out pictures of how many scoops of oats, cinnamon and brown sugar went into each bag and they were able to pretty much package them all up without help. There was a little bit of mess at the end, but it was worth it. They were able to do 50 instant oatmeal packets while I fixed dinner!! It's kind of like making dinner and 3 weeks worth of breakfast at the same time! One morning we also attempted a new idea to put pancake mix in an old ketchup bottle and make "Pancake Pictures". They had a blast creating their own ideas and making their own pancakes. This has been a huge hit in our house and it was so simple!

We also made Pumpkin Muffins with canned pumpkin, chocolate cake mix and chocolate chips, but I failed to take pictures of this process. It wasn't as "kid-friendly" since it became difficult to stir after a short bit. Enjoy the pics of Mommy's Little Helpers! The mom.

Atomic Man

Scott didn't compete in as many triathlons this year because he was overseas for much of the "Tri" season. However, he signed up early for the Atomic Man trialthlon and we were so proud to watch him complete it with two of his brothers. The Atomic Man is a half "Ironman" triathlon and consisted of a 1.2 mile swim, a 56 mile bike ride, and a 13.1 mile run (that's a half marathon!). This was Scott's first attempt at a race this long and he did amazing! We drove up on Satuday to Oak Ridge, TN which is where the race was being held (hence the Atomic Man name). We sort of previewed parts of the race course (would have been a lot of driving to see ALL of it) and then we all went to the spaghetti dinner and got the race details. We headed for some last minute errands and then back to the hotel to try to get some sleep. Scott's dad drove him and his brothers over to the set up area early that morning and Melissa, Cricket, Adam, Skylar, Sarah and all the little ones headed over to the race course for the start. Sadly the parking seemed like the longest hike we've ever made and should have been a race in and of itself- haha, I say sadly because it was under a mile yet it wore me OUT (lots of hills, lots of little ones). The weather was just perfect for the race. The water was probably a little chilly for the boys at first, but the day all-in-all was just beautiful. This was the longest race Scott's ever done and there was definitely a lot of waiting from the spectator side. The bike alone took long enough for us to head back to the hotel, check out, grab lunch and come on back. The girls had a fun time running around and playing and eating oreos. Harbin played hard too as you can see from the pic where he fell asleep with the gatorade the race director gave him- haha! Overall Scott finished in 6 hours, 34 minutes, and 55 seconds. He had planned to stay with his brothers so they could all finish together, but the bike really separated them out and they all ended up finishing (YEA!) but at different times. We were all so very proud of him. He raced so well for so long and I thought I would award him by losing the car keys and spending the next hour searching for them only to find them in the girls backpack, hidden in a little pocket- ugh. We're so proud of daddy! The mom.