Kara and I have started running together.... Well, now that she's pregnant we can run together, otherwise we start together and I watch her zoom past me:) She has decided that my friends and I aren't crazy after all for getting up and running at 5 AM, we are just practical and good time managers:) In the last year we have run one marathon and two half marathons "together". I love my sis!

The kids had an Open House and Grandparents day at school a few weeks ago. Here is Ethan in front of the grandparent pictures they made. Can you find his grandparents?

Here is Morgan in front of the picture of what she wants to be when she grows up.

For Easter we went to the coast with Kevin's parents who were visiting for Grandparents day. We had a great time and didn't want to leave!

Easter Egg hunt time!

At the Apple Store getting Kevin's phone replaced... They sure know how to keep the kiddos entertained!

Brooklyn is constantly taking my phone and snapping pictures, here is one of our friends we "won" at the carnival. (Or paid $5 so we were guaranteed to have happy kiddos!)

Look what we can do with her hair now! Look back at our blog a year ago and you will see how far it has come!

Where does the time go??

It's a cliche I know, but really time just seems to go faster and faster the older the kids get. We are doing well though, someday I'll write a reflective post on all the growing I feel I've been able to do this year. I remember my friend telling me when I turned 35 that "35 is going to be a great year for you." And I really feel like it has been. I've had to humbly go through some tough growing as a mom, friend and wife, but it has been good. I feel like having our younger two turn four has been so great. I describe it as if I am coming out of a 4 year fog. I don't think I ever realized how overwhelmed I really have been most of the last four years. So life has been good just enjoying the kids, growing spiritually and just doing life.

This picture was taken back in January. Ethan had no confidence in his derby car for Cadets and he ended up getting 3rd place in speed! He did awesome and was pretty proud of himself. Who knew derby cars were such a big deal!

Just a night out for dinner with our own little Fancy Nancy. This one has become quite the fashionista. And, now that her hair is long enough to do fun things with she always has a plan for what I should do. I'm not sure how we are going to get ready for school on time 5 days a week next year! Thank goodness for school polos that's all I'll say!

And here is the Audrey, the other Fancy Nancy. These two have so much fun together still. It's so great to watch.

A few weeks ago we had Friday and Monday off of school so we took advantage and found a great new place to hike in the Livermore hills. We had a great time and drug the kids up some big hills. Once we got to the top and saw the view Ethan said, "Wow, this is totally worth it!" That's the love of hiking and nature we are trying to instill in our kids. 

While we still need rain so desperately we sure enjoyed this beautiful warm sunny day for hiking. We have had enough moisture to turn the hills green, they were beautiful. For our family and friends far away pray for rain for us. We are dry!!

No February is complete without our annual festival. This time we hung out my sister and brother in law and their kids most of the time at the carnival. Ethan is old enough now to just run around with his friends. It was a little unnerving sending him off with his buddies, but the night we go is $1 ride night so there are a lot of familiar faces there taking advantage of the same deal. He had a blast with his independence.

These were taken on the big Ferris wheel. Believe it or not Brooklyn really did scream and cry the whole first rotation. Thankfully she got over her fear and had a good time.

We all got to do the run again this year as well. All the kiddos did the one mile so Kevin, Eric and I trotted along with them. Kevin and I did the 8K and Eric and Kara graciously watched our kids. It's always a fun morning of running.

Ethan got 2nd place again in the 8 and under boys. He was 24 seconds short of first place!

Hudson did great and ran it in a little over 10 minutes.

Morgan surprised us all and got 2nd in 8 and under girls! Annika finished soon after Morgan.

These two ran with me and finished in a little over 12 minutes.

And finally the parade. Our group of kiddos just gets bigger and bigger every year!

I think I'm all caught up for awhile anyways!

Here is a video I  have been meaning to upload since Christmas. Our Brooklyn is quite a performer! (and Hudson is the heavy breather in the background:)

Christmas Break Fun

We have been back at "normal life" for 5 days now. Back to lunches, early mornings, homework and early bedtimes. We all thoroughly enjoyed Christmas break this year. We weren't too busy, we enjoyed some old traditions and may have started a new one or two. We mostly just enjoyed hanging out, sleeping in and not having to worry about school (Kevin) for the first time since last May.  Here are some of the more interesting highlights of our two weeks off.

The Nutcracker tradition continues. This year it was me and my younger three and Kara and her older two and Jan Kara's mother in law. Unfortunately my mom came down with the stomach flu the night before. We missed her but had a great time with Jan and I know she did as well.

Hudson was the lone boy and as you can see didn't want to cooperate with any pictures;)

This year we took the kids to Union Square in San Fransisco two days before Christmas to enjoy the lights and window decorations. We had planned on possibly ice skating, however it was so busy that all the sessions were sold out. We had to adjust our expectations and had lots of conversations about "choosing joy", but in the end we had a fun day with new memories and maybe some new traditions.

We had lunch at the Cheesecake Factory up on the top of Macy's. By the time we were seated it was 1:30...let's just say the food was amazing by that point!

The view into Union Square. There was another family of six watching us take these pictures. We shared with them the common bond of being questioned about the number of kids we have. Yes they are ALL ours!

This sums our crew up pretty well...We didn't make quiet kids. I love that Morgan is just trying to figure out how to make her fingers look like Ethan's....very true to our Morgan.

Posing by the bottom 1/12 of the HUGE tree in Union Square.

Since ice skating didn't work out in SF we promised we would head to a local outdoor rink first thing Christmas Eve morning. We more or less had the place to ourselves. Our good friends happened to be there so it was fun to see them and have some extra hands to help with putting on skates! Ethan was totally independent this year. Morgan gained more confidence and the other two....well let's just say my back got quite a workout!

Quick story about the hat: Kevin put Brooklyn's pink hat on before we stopped at Costco. The kids especially Ethan wanted to be assured that daddy would NOT wear that hat into Costco....you guessed it, Kevin confidently wore his pink beanie into Costco and actually got a compliment:) He then wore it skating too. It was pretty funny to see how embarassed Ethan was. It's only the beginning son! 

Our "snow pile". Don't laugh our cold weather family!

Hudson and his bud Talen. These two are very much like brothers....best of friends one moment, enemies the next. Thankfully the friend times are out weighing the enemy times now days.

We did manage to get out of town for a couple nights. Over New Years we rented a cabin from a friend of my parents. We invited some friends along and had a great couple days. Our goal was to find some snow....we had to drive all the way into Yosemite and found some at the summit...thankfully. We would have had some bummed out kiddos otherwise.

The crew on the last morning....Schenk girls in all their bedhead glory!

We were able to find a little hill to sled down and the kids loved it. It was perfect for them. Not too steep for their little legs to climb up. All the kids did great, Hudson and Ethan especially LOVED the time sledding. As we were playing in this meadow of snow I told Kevin, "Wow, this is actually fun!" He asked me what I expected and I told him that I expected to be dealing with whiny, cold kids all day and therefore NOT having fun. Thankfully all the snow gear we were able to borrow kept everyone warm and dry!

Lunch time break. Poor Trey got snow down his boots so he was not having fun:(

Since we payed the $20 to get into Yosemite we figured we may as well continue on into the Valley Floor and show the kids some of the landmarks there. Here is El Capitan. It has been several years since I had been there, it was great to see again. I think we need to head there this summer for a day of hiking!

More sledding pictures.

Emmry looks happy here, but she had a hard time too. One of the first runs down she and Morgan tipped and she did a face plant on the hill....road rash and bloody nose and all:(

And a few moments for us to have fun too!

We were so thankful for two weeks of break and truly enjoyed just hanging out most of the time. We were blessed to be able to celebrate our Savior's birth through various church services and advent traditions at home.  A few fun things got us out of the house and enjoying time together as a family. Here's to 2015!