Gymnastics

The girls' last day of gymnastics was this week. Unfortunately, I forgot the camera for Avery's last day, but here are a couple of pix at Audrey's last day (Audrey is demonstrating some of her moves and Avery and Iain are dancing ... they aren't both happening at the same time). =)

Kai's 1st Birthday

Kai turned one today! I can't believe it. Has a year really passed? He is such an incredible joy. So happy, almost always smiling, and all boy. His new favorite thing is to put his head down and crawl toward Audrey or Avery as fast as he can and head-butt them. Really. The girls run away laughing, and then he laughs and does it again, chasing them all over the house. He also has started standing on his own and is cruising around the furniture. Iain's parents are in town for a few days and we had a great birthday dinner and cake for Kai tonight. Chicken tacos and green beans (I think Kai ate half of the green beans himself). There are no pix of the green bean eating but a few of the cake eating that followed. It didn't take him long to figure out what to do. =)

Audrey's Dance Recital

For the last 2 months, both Audrey & Avery have been taking gymnastics, ballet and swim lessons. We will never again do 3 classes each for 2 kids. =) But they have both done a super job with each, and below are some pix from Audrey's recital yesterday.

Memorial Day weekend

Last weekend we went to the OCF retreat center in White Sulphur Springs, PA for a family weekend. It was awesomely fun to just hang out together as a family for 2 entire days. Iain & Audrey went canoeing (Avery was in the canoe on the shore but as soon as it started to get a little tippy, she decided to get out), we went to playgrounds, petted some horses, went fishing, and didn't use cell phones or the internet (that last part is probably the real difference-maker and I think we should try to do it at home more often)! Here are a couple of pix from an ice-cream stop we made on the way home, and also a pic of Kai at Arlington National Cemetery (we went on Monday evening), as well as the kids having fun at the house earlier in the day on Monday.

Kai Now Waves Good-Bye

That's it. No pictures or other detail. Just proud of our handsome little man. =)

Life

So life is good, as usual. My mom was here last week and it's always such a treat to have her here because the kids adore her and because I get time to rest (and because I love her)! =) Audrey is becoming quite the little chatterbox. Today, the girls and I had a picnic lunch on our front steps while Kai was sleeping. We let Rica come out with us and after a few minutes, she wandered to the neighbor's yard (though you should understand that that is only about 20 feet away from us). We went after her which led to a crazy 7 or 8 minutes of chasing her back and forth between the yards, under the decks, over fences, through gates and back again. Tonight at dinner, Audrey gave Iain a play-by-play account of the entire thing. When Avery tried to add some detail, Audrey put her hand up and said, "Avery, I'm still speaking." Two nights ago, Audrey, unforced, came down the stairs and asked, "Do you know my memory verse? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. Psalm 121:2." Beautiful. Last week, her swim teacher told me that Audrey is so advanced for her class and she's trying her best to challenge her. This is the same girl, who 9 months ago, would not put her face under the water at swim class. Now her favorite thing to do is sit on the bottom of the pool while she waits for her class to finish whatever they're working on. Amazing. Avery is so sweet and funny. She routinely says please and thank you and cheers for Audrey when her sister has done something really well. Today, I called her to look out the front door at the hail that was coming down (it was an insane amount of hail ... both our front and back porches were completely covered in ice balls). As we were standing there, a huge lightning bolt hit in front of us and I said, "whoa, we should close the door." She asked why and I was about to tell her that I didn't want to be too close to the lightning, but I only got out, "well, I don't want to ...", and she jumped right in and said "DIE?". Um, yes, exactly. I don't want to die. =) Her favorite thing these days is tape. She tapes everything. I mean everything. Have a toy? She'll wrap it and tape it. Shoelaces come untied? She'll tape them together. Cut her own hair off? Tape it back on. Kai is a smiling machine. Last week, he had a double-ear infection and an eye infection. Yet he still managed to smile about 23 hours of the day. He is starting to cruise around the furniture and two weeks ago, Audrey alerted me to the fact that Kai was on about the 5th stair up from the basement. He loves to play the piano and if you sing "If you're happy & you know it" he will alternate between waving his arms around and clapping his hands. He hates taking medicine, but the way he starts sputtering his mouth like a volcano before the syringe gets close to his mouth (see eye & ear infection, above) makes even this challenge adorable! Since today he went to the dr and has another week's worth of medicine, I'm going to try to get this on video..

A few more pix

Somehow these didn't make it into the last post. In a couple, you can see Audrey taking Rica for a walk. Yes, our cat likes to take walks. Audrey thinks this is exceptionally awesome!