Summer has arrived!

School is finally out for the summer - yippie! I'm glad that even a simple day at home is fun for the kids. The sun is cooperating which makes playing outside that much more fun.

A little swinging action:

We picked the first strawberries of the season from our garden:

Our peonys are also in bloom:

Carly climbs this tree in our front yard every chance she gets:

With the help of Abigail's gymnast friend, Abigail has gotten really good at cartwheels and headstands this year. Of course if one person is doing them everyone else wants to give it a try:

Dance Recital

Carly has been anticipating her year-end dance recital for months. Not so much out of excitement for performing, but excitement that she will no longer have to go to dance class every week. It’s not that she hated dancing, but she had a hard time not being able to play outside with friends on Thursday afternoons. Saturday was the big day.

Thank goodness she’s had two friends in class with her or she never would have wanted to go to class.

Justin was in charge of videotaping Carly’s performance; due to technical difficulties he missed most of the performance. Thankfully, I videotaped their dance at the rehearsal the previous evening.

Finale

Maybe Carly will pick up dancing again after she’s had a little break… but for now she’s looking forward to a summer filled with outdoor fun.

Teacher for a Day

Abigail was one of two students in her class to reach 300% of their AR (Accelerated Reader) goal this year. As their reward they were able to be “Teacher for a Day” last Thursday. Abigail was so excited for this day that she said she couldn’t sleep for days before it.

As part of their day they had to be to school early to get the classroom ready.

Here’s Abigail changing the date on the whiteboard

They greeted the students as they arrived at school

Abigail thought it was pretty awesome that she got to sit at the teacher’s desk several times throughout the day

They performed all the tasks that their regular teachers do including giving the students their spelling tests, teaching math, etc… Abigail also had 20 minutes that she was able to teach her class any concept she wanted to. We ended up coming up with a lesson about coordinates with a fun game to test whether the students learned the concept. It was new to most of the kids and Abigail said she was asked lots of questions, but she enjoyed every minute of her special day.

Today is her last day of school and this morning she was recognized in the school assembly for earning academic honors.

She had a great school year and enjoyed being in the 2^nd/3^rd grade split class with two wonderful teachers and she’s VERY excited that she will be able to keep her same teachers next year for third grade.

2 Months Old

Katie is now 2 months old. She's gotten so much bigger in the last few weeks. Her cheeks have filled out once again and her scrawny little legs have been chubbified.

She had a visit with our pediatrician last week and here are her stats:

Weight: 12 lbs. 3.6 oz. (84th percentile)

Height: 24 inches (95th percentile)

Here's a little more about Katie these days:

• I still swaddle her at night

• likes to be held as she sleeps (during the day) and it's getting more difficult to lay her down without waking her up

• her favorite place to fall asleep is burying her face in my forearm

• Does great in the car, in fact she likes her car seat so much that when she's asleep I have the best luck setting her in her car seat without her waking up

• takes a binkie and a bottle (yeah!)

• prefers her bottles nice and warm (room temperature tends to be too cold)

• Is starting to smile more often, no laughing yet but I'm sure it will be soon

• is starting to outgrow clothing (so sad)

• doesn't mind tummy time (surprising because she rarely gets any)

• very strong, she's doing great holding up her head and has started putting weight on her legs

• typically wakes up just once during the night (around 4 or 5am), then goes back to sleep after eating - she's always been such an awesome sleeper

• still sleeping in our room (if the binkie game is necessary she'll occasionally sleep in our bed, she pops it out of her mouth, we pop it back in... repeat until she falls asleep)

• has grown long beautiful eyelashes

• gives her daddy a hard time, I think she senses his fear

• Is beginning to develop a nice little bald spot on the back of her head, although her hair is still the longest at the nape of her neck

• her eyes are still blue

• Has started cooing... so sweet!

• is always perfectly content when I'm vacuuming or blow drying my hair

And just a fun picture from yesterday morning

Future Dentist Perhaps

A few weeks ago Carly lost her other front tooth. This was not an act of nature... Carly was determined to lose that tooth. She asked me to pull it out, which I am happy to do, but when I tried it wasn't quite ready. Less than five minutes later Carly hollered from the bathroom that she'd pulled it out.

The following week she wiggled another tooth loose. Again I tried to pull it out and told her it wasn’t quite ready. A few minutes later she came into my room and told me she thought it was ready now. It was and came out very easily.

With her most recent tooth loss, Carly wrote a little note for the tooth fairy and politely asked for a $5 bill. The tooth fairy didn’t pull through for her, but when she’s coming to our house every week can you blame her?

Carly doesn’t have any teeth loose at this moment, but I don't think that makes much difference. I predict she'll have another tooth out in the next month or so.

Perfect Summer Hairstyle

Jason isn't too fond of getting his hair cut and he usually doesn't like getting it combed either. He was long overdue for a trim so I told Justin to just buzz it. He did and I like it.

Chaos

Can you see my hope amid the chaos that is my life?

still need to work on trying to retrieve all my files, but it just might be possible now

Experiencing Technology Difficulties

This has been one of the most frustrating weeks and it’s all because of modern technology.

Several months ago my computer started running very slowly, its over 5 years old so I wasn’t surprised. I did my best to clean up the hard drive and bought a fancy external hard drive to back up all my files.

Things got worse. The external hard drive was faulty so the company replaced it. The virus software I purchased only made things slower. The replacement external hard drive continued to have problems. I found it frustrating that the company actual told me not to use the included software and instead manual drag and drop the files I want backed up. Why would I spend over $100 so I can do it all on my own anyhow.

Then my internet stopped working. In the process of fixing that, a main system file got "corrupted" and I had to restore the computer to original factory settings just to get it turned on.

The result is a computer without any of my programs installed (Photoshop, QuickBooks, Microsoft office) - internet still not working properly, loss of years of calendaring, even worse I may have even lost years of pictures and other important files... But I can’t find that out cause the external hard drive still has issues.

I’ve spent hours on the phone trying to get help:

Microsoft: for internet explorer that won’t work

Qwest: our ISP

Hp: the manufacture of the possessed pc AND the printer that won't reinstall because its "obsolete"

Norton: for the supposed virus/trojan that has recently taken over my already issue plagued pc

Western Digital: to get try to retrieve backed up files that I hope exist

But it’s all a vicious circle: everyone sending you to another company because they can’t fix their problem until all the other problems are addressed.

We knew we'd need a new computer soon, but this is a horrible way to go out. Several members of my family have raved about Mac computers for years. In fact my sisters Christmas card had each member of their family proudly holding an Apple product. I've been tempted to make the switch for years and this is the perfect opportunity. Hopefully tonight I’ll come home with a brand new computer and I’ll be able to post some of the fun things that have been going on amid our technology disaster – so stayed tuned.

Saturday

Do you know what happens when you neglect your yard for a year? Well, let me tell you, you get REALLY behind. Yesterday was gorgeous here (in fact Justin even cranked on the A/C for the first time this year). The sunshine gave us the perfect opportunity to spend the day outside trying to catch up (impossible!)

I took this picture last week - the sun finally broke through the rain clouds. Maybe, just maybe, we will have summer afterall.

Jason found a comfy spot on the neighbors grass and quietly laid there for over an hour. I asked him if I could take his picture. He was cool with it.

Less than 10 minutes after the above picture, I had to run back in for my camera to capture this:

He was out. And to our surprise he slept there for quite awhile.


When he woke up he moved into the garage...

and crashed


This too lasted at least a half hour and then, finally, he made it up to bed to finish his nap.

Jason wasn't the only one catching some zzz's outside. Katie napped in the shade while I attempted to weed part of the yard.

The girls also worked outside (washing the outdoor table/chairs and trimming the grass around the playset), but they spent most of the day playing with the neighborhood kids.

Lunch was served in the cabana.

Justin spent most of the day powerwashing. That really wasn't our plan, but once he got started he just couldn't stop. He cleaned off the driveway, sidewalk, and part of the fence. I should have taken before and after pictures cause it made a huge difference – it all looked so much cleaner… except for Justin. He was a MESS by the end of the day.

Abigail's Recent Achievements

Soccer

Soccer season is over! Saturday’s game was so fun to watch. The opposing team was definitely our best competition, but Abigail and her team played another great game and ended the season undefeated. We're excited to have our Saturdays back (that is until the girls start soccer again in the fall.)

Katie relaxing during the game

Piano Debut

Abigail had her first piano recital on Saturday evening. We are so proud of how much she has learned since starting lessons in January. She loves learning new songs and practices several times a day. She enjoys it so much that she wants to ask her teacher if she can take lessons throughout the summer. Here's a video clip of her performance:

Spelling Bee Finalist

Yesterday Abigail participated in her schools first annual spelling bee. Each class sent their top three spellers to the finals, there were 15 second-grade finalists. This was the first spelling bee I’ve ever seen. The set-up was quite intense and very official. The students had a time limit, had to specify capitalization and punctuation (I witnessed a third-grader get the shaft for not capitalizing “English”), and there was no correcting of yourself. If you made even the slightest stutter of the wrong letter you were out of the running. Abigail seemed to have a lot of fun with it and made it through several rounds – she was one of the last five standing. All the finalists received rootbeer floats afterward – Abigail takes hers without the bubbly. Way to go Abigail!

Blessing Day

Yesterday was a special day for our family as Justin blessed Katie at church. She wore the same dress & booties my Mom gave us when Abigail was blessed. All three girls have worn the same dress on their blessing day. My Mom also crocheted the beautiful white blanket Katie is laying on.

Katie slept peacefully through the blessing (always a huge relief).

I am so overwhelmed with gratitude and love for my little family and we are so blessed to have Katie in our family!