Piano Recital

Bedtime

Bedtime is so hectic sometimes. . .

but tonight it is beautiful.  I walked down the hall and noticed that my P and A were snuggled up each on C and M's beds reading them stories in their respective bedrooms.  What a blessing to walk down the hall and see such love and tenderness from my children giving to their brother and sister.  I am so proud of them and so grateful for them each and every day.

Court of Honor 2

Some really fun pictures of the kids at the court of honor.

My sweet, sassy, girl!

Miss Ellie

I just like her hair in this one.

The two best buddies around!

Isn't that face awesome!

Love her smile.

Sharing secrets. 

Davis and Chase.  Best cousins (at least Chase thinks so).

He is really bummed, by the way, that his best cousin had to go off and move to China.  We miss you Davis.

Court of Honor

Luke and Mason both received their Eagle's.  It was neat to see two great young men receive this special merit of hard work and honor.
(apologies for all the rotten pictures.  I need to work on my skills. . .)

A dad and his boys.

"I'll be your candle on the water. . ."

Pretty lady!

Getting ready to send the candle's on the lake.

Luke telling about his eagle.

The boys and their parents.  Way to go!

Jackson was really cute with his candle.  

Best shot of this one.  I had an awesome one of Kathleen and Luke but it was super blurry.  Grrr.

Blake Family Picture Reunion round 1

We went to the Blake family reunion in St. George Utah.  It was so much fun!  The kids ADORE their older cousins and bask in their attention.  There is quite a special connection between one Chase and one Davis.  Makelle still prays that her cousin Kathryn (I don't know if I spelled her name right, sorry) will stop throwing up.  So without explaining much just to get pictures up I will say no more right now.

Porter and Sean are buddies.

Aladdin show.  Drew is AWESOME!

 

Getting ready for Aladdin.  Glasses ready.

Matt & I climbed Angel's Landing in Zion's.  Thanks Lindsey for being so upfront about "bouldering." It was worth it.

Life

This is how our life has been lately, how about yours? (photo taken at 1 a.m. on unpacking day 1). 

Catch up list

From January to now: 

1. Matt went to San Diego for the Annual AOA Meeting and had a wonderful time. 

2. Porter turned 7. He is getting so big and helpful. He loves to make breakfast for us and will usually have it done before I ever get into the kitchen. 

3. I ran a 1/2 marathon trail run, decided 13.1 wasn't long enough, got lost, had to retrace my steps and add an extra 1/3 of a mile. Go me. 

4. I had a birthday. Man, I am getting old. 

5. Abbie had a birthday. She is quite the nine year old. She is artistic and really enjoys nature. So much so that she catches fish with her own hands. If we are ever starving I'm sending her to find food. 

6. Abbie has been through the rounds with doctors. Good news is she does NOT have: Turners, Shox, and a whole slew of other really not fun syndromes, diseases, and deformities. Bad news is she has what is called Madelong's deformity. Basically she was born with extra ligaments in her wrists and those ligaments pull on her growth plate and deform her arms. Good news: She is under Shriners hospital for care and Dr. Kozin is the really the best Ortho Peds. doc there is. Right now we are not doing surgery, probably will have to have surgery on both wrists in the next year or so. We will see. 

7. Abbie is growing! We are really excited that at age nine she is finally into size seven clothes (well mostly, she can still fit in size 6 but we are hopeful). 

8. We have spent several weekends traveling back to Richmond to find a rental as well as make permanent home decisions. 

9. We had an architect draw a schematic for us and it is PRETTY!! 

10. Matt is doing well in surgery and is anxious to be in charge of his own time. We are excited for that as well. 

11. We have loved Philly and all of the great things here, and we are very excited to leave Philly and all of it's busyness. 

12. Makelle lost her first tooth. NOT they way they usually come. She hit her tooth really hard about two years ago and it died. Finally last month because of lack of blood supply became infected and had to be pulled out. The tooth fairy was very nice to her! 

13. Chase is continues to be the funny man. Right now his favorite is to imitate the aliens off of Toy Story. Go figure. What is even funnier is that he does it so he can laugh at himself. It cracks us up. 

14. That brings us to now. Matt's birthday is this week and then he will be an old fogie like me. Lucky him. He is the number one hardest person on the planet to shop for. I have to start thinking at Christmas for his birthday and I still have come up pretty blank. I do have to say though last year I did pretty well (bought him an ipad).