Sydney and her friends

Sydney loves to play with her friends everyday.  Sometimes I need to even ask her if she will play with me for the day!  Here she is with Elise, Addie, and her Bestie, Naomi! 

Just a warm spring day on the hammock!

Luke's 9th Birthday

In typical Mommy fashion we celebrated Luke quite a bit this week for his birthday.  In Luei of having a big bash, we took our wonderful friends, The Ostrander's to the family fun center in South Seattle.  We had a blast and ate one of Luke's favorite meals at BLue C Sushi.  

Then, on Good Friday, Luke had a few good friends from school... Quinn, Elijah and Will, come home with him to play video games, Lego's and boy things.  they are all really into this typing game called Nitro. 

Luke has really come into his own these last few months.  The social anxiety is minimal and not really talked about. He is making friends like crazy and enjoys school!  The only push back I get from him is regarding homework.  Hopefully someday he will think it is fun.  But I can't really complain!  I am so proud of him and how far he has come this year! 

Favorite thing to do: Video Games- battlefront.  boom beach and nitro type.  Minecraft too! 

Favorite Books: Diary of a wimpy kid

Favorite Sport: Parkour

Favorite technology: any computer and go pro

Favorite friends: Jack, Crew, Sam, Elijah and Quinn

Favorite food: fried rice

Favorite candy: Milky Way

Favorite place to sleep: Ava's bed 

Favorite stuffed friends: B's

Favorite subject in school: math, keyboarding and recess

Favorite Movie: Star Wars episode 7. 

Luke, the artist

When he puts his mind to it and settles his busy body... Luke is quite the artist!  I have been recording his "how to draw" videos of diary of a wimpy kid and uploading them to YouTube.  They are adorable videos! Luke wants to be famous, so maybe this is his chance 😉

Here is his BB8 drawing that I just love!

Banana!

I have always dreamed of having a hammock and it happened!  Costco had a camping hammock for only $30 so I indulged myself and bought it!  We have been getting hours of sunshine mixed in with the rain.  On Sunday, the girls and I decided to take it out and give it a try using our pergola as a support.  It worked and it was a lot of fun!  Daddy even gave it a try!

Reminiscing...

Tonight, Luke and I pulled out the old printed blog book from 2010-2012.  The last few years the books have served as more as a photo album than a collection of blog entries to read over.  But now since the kids are reading so much these days, it is all about the words.  The pictures are of course great too... to help lock in the memories.

I kept reading and reading with Luke tonight with all of the detailed memories.  It was such a great reminder to me to get back to writing about all of the small moments which of course end up being such big moments.  I had no idea until I looked back, how all of the little things they muttered as toddlers ended up being such great precursors of how their characters are even now... at the ages of almost, 9, 7 and 5 1/2.

Luke is still Goofy, quirky and funny as ever.  His latest "tic" of buzzing is hilarious.  He is so comfortable in his own skin talking and laughing about his oddities.  I couldn't be any more proud of him as I am today!  He is excelling at school, making so many friends and loves his teacher, Mr. Walters!  His relationship with Ava is just as strong as it was years ago and they are best buddies!  They play minecraft together all the time.  He is the master of all video games and does so well at Parkour.  He never seizes to amaze me and definitely delivers the unexpected from time to time. Luke is a little psychologist in the making as he likes to observe the way people react to situations and philosophize about it with me.  Maybe I groomed him this way, but he definitely "gets" human behavior more than the next kid!

Ava is as feminine as ever.  Happy to be with family and siblings.  She can keep herself busy always and loves to help out whoever needs a hand with anything, whether it be cleaning up, spelling words, and showing Sydney how to do something.  She loves to play her dress games on the kindle, loves Taylor Swift, unicorns and the color purple.  She is scared of natural disaster... especially the wind... but we are working through this with hypnotherapy and cranial sacral.  She respects animals and nature and sees "God's Grace" in all things.  She is maybe the most gentle person I know.  Everyone feels this and you can tell why everyone flocks to her.

Oh,my darling Sydney.  Still holding on to the title "baby" of the family.  She make life interesting for  us all.  She has th strongest will of all and hates to admit she may of made a mistake even though she knows, most things don't make me mad.  To her, it's not about my reaction, it's all about her own reaction to whatever she thinks she did wrong. Anyway... she will beat herself up enough for the both of us.  She hates to admit her love her love for her little boy friends and movie stars "Mr. Kit from Cinderella." She still climbs in bed every night to snuggle with me and won't wake up till her body has enough snugs in the morning.  The pretend worlds she plays in where she socializes with imaginary people, sharing pretend drinks, treats, laughs, attitude is so entertaining to watch.  We have captured this on video without her knowing of course.  She is still obsessed with shoes and still has trouble being comfortable in them... but loves to obsess about them.  Socks can be work but they have to be the right pair from target.  She won't wear any others.  She loves gymnastics, as does Ava. She loves to dance... and to watch big Girl music videos with her sister.  SHE LOVES her sister and is so proud of her!  Loves her brother when he is not teasing her!  She is an easy target.

I love my children, my Stevo and my amazing life!  I love how they can be such helpers these days whether it is Sydney helping me aerate the lawn, Ava helping me with chores, or Luke stepping up to be independent and set a good example for his sisters.  They still love to snuggle, prefer to play at our house, and have so much gratitude for their family and their lives.  I am so PROUD!  I love where we are in life!

My 39th

Elesha and I went to McMenamin's to celebrate my birthday.  We had a great time and she is the such an amazing friend and soul sista!

Sydney's new haircut

Sydney's friend Addie decided to give her a haircut when they were playing "family" last week. 

Mommy and Syd played "hairdresser" on Friday and I strategically fixed it without taking away too much length.  She finally got the bangs she always wanted :)

EMP museum

Today we decided to go to the EMP museum which is right next to the Space Needle.  The kids have always wanted to go in because the outside structure is so alluring with all of it's colors and it's funky shape.  Luke's favorite part was seeing the actual light sabers from Star Wars.  There was also an indie video game exhibit that was set up by Nintendo and a Hello Kitty exhibit.  What a fun day!  At night, Luke went over to Jack's to have his first "solo" sleepover.  So far so good :)

Ava and Fabio

Ava's friend Elyse, went to Costa Rica for a month and was so kind to offer her horse lesson to Ava while she was gone. Ava has visited the horses with her before and was so excited to have this amazing opportunity!  

What a great way to teach kids responsibility and improve their listening and focus skills!  Such a large beautiful animal and you MUST follow directions or you may be kicked! 

Carrying the poop away! 

Happy Halloween 2015

The kids had a great Halloween this year!  Luke was kylo ren from the new Stars movie, episode 7, coming out in December.  Sydney was "Ella" from the Disney movie that came out this year and Ava was a rainbow unicorn.  I had fun making Ava's costume this year.  Sydney enjoyed wearing makeup! 

We had a potluck at Ava's friend, Elyse's house that was fun!  It was a rainy year but luckily the rain did let up while we trick or treated.  Lucy came out with us this year and she was a witch dog! 

I was lucky enough to help with Luke's Halloween party and then was able to join Sydney's party and Ava's!  What fun!