Ava's beautiful drawing

Ava drew this for me tonight when she got home from school!  Completely new art style for her! I love it! 

Hidden surprise cake and happy 2nd bday Graycie!

Sydney and I baked a birthday for our family to celebrate Graycie's bday!  She is 2!  We put some "hidden surprises" of twix and Milky Way bars inside!  The kids loved our special cake! 

13 weeks!

And her teeth are as sharp as ever! Not loving this phase because of all of the bites but I know this wan't last forever!  She is 12 pounds.  Up from 8 pounds 3 weeks ago!

Parkour boy

He does his moves all over the house.  Spider-Man going up the Hallway molding, obstacle courses at the playground and on the couch!  Today was the first day of his fall parkour class he takes with Jack and he loves it!  He started a month ago and I have never seen him his fire shine so bright with any other sport! Today he did 2 flips in the foam pit all on his own.  I am so proud of him and love what this does for his confidence!

Sleepy Syd

She would sleep everyday if I let her!  Today she fell asleep while she was waiting for her nails to dry!

The devastating windstorm

The dreadful tree!

We just completed our yard from a massive renovation about 1 month ago. Mother Nature had different plans for us.... She unleashed her fury and the neighbor's 100 year old cottonwood tree shed it's upper layer on half of our yard.  

Unfortunately home insurance does not reimburse for landscaping plants... Just structures.  Half of our fence got knocked out but the cost of that is below our ridiculously high deductible.  Even worse, the tree that we want cut down and removed does not even belong to us.  As I pray that it will be taken care of by our neighbors, steve and I will begin to pick up the pieces of our once beautiful yard.  Maybe this is opportunity to change something around and make it more beautiful? 

The eve before the first day of school 2015

This year feels different than the rest.  I feel like Luke and Ava are ready for school this year.  Ava is feeling nothing but excitement!  She was placed in a class with a great teacher and 3 of her friends.... Pea, Kaitlin, and Sammy! I can tell that Luke has some anxiety, he is finding diversions to obsess about rather than think about school.  He kept talking about the PSP he wants for Christmas and was somehow magically thinking he would get after Parkour today.  It struck me as odd when he started crying about it and then I could tell at that very moment, his tears had nothing to do with the PSP and everything to do with going to school.  He is excited to start to school but it is a change and that always causes anxiety in Luke.  Poor buddy!  I just scooped him up and snuggled with him on the chair as we talked about how to manage his thoughts and the fact that he will miss me.  I reassured him that he is not alone alone and all kids feel that way and are nervous.  He has Amy to visit if needed for support and he can even call me if he wants to. He got the teacher he wanted, mr. Walters and he is excited about that! He is acquaintances with 2 kids in his class. 

I know it is going to hard to say goodbye as we walk them to school tomorrow but my intuition tells me that they are ready for this stepping stone... This new layer of independence. And Sydney is ready to  have some time to find herself as an individual and not just Ava's sister. She has never truly had alone time with me and I feel that it will be just what she needs to turn a new corner.