Happy Birthday Graham!

Graham celebrates his 15th birthday today AND started his driver's ed class. Too much for a mommy. He is growing into quite the young man and has many wonderful qualities that are unique to him - but many that are also right from his daddy. It seems like Cody just got behind the wheel and later this summer we will see Graham do the same.

Graham requested going to Fogo de Chao for his birthday dinner (something we did for Slade's b-day last year). It is an amazing Brazilian restaurant where each person has a token with a green side and a red side. You turn the green side up to have more meat (chicken, beef, pork & lamb). You can have as much as you like and just keep giving the go and stop sign for getting more. They also have a pretty fabulous salad bar. The kids were all pretty excited about going again and we invited Graham's girlfriend, Amara along for the b-day dinner.

Here is Graham getting served,

Happy Birthday Daddy!

I just had to "steal" this pic of Daddy from their website. Mom must of taken it on their way out to dinner for his b-day. Isn't he just so handsome?

Bad Mommy

Ops, I never posted about Seby's performance in Twelfh Night! Here is a video of one of pieces.



All the kids did an amazing job of memorizing their lines - in only two weeks. They were all so cute, but this guy stole my heart.

Zane's Fly Up

At our Montessori school there is quite a production when the kids "fly up" from the Children's House level (pre-K and K) to the Elementary I level (1st-3rd grade). Today was the big day for Zane and here are some pics of him watching his friends "fly up" then him getting ready for the big transition.





They start this ceremony with the kids singing songs, here is the "school song" called "This is my school." It is very sweet.

I didn't really like how the parents were so separated from the kids - it felt like the zoo a bit with them all behind the fence - but I guess with some of the kids being 2-3 years old it is an easier way to "control" the crowd.

Here he is, gearing up for this next big adventure in EI...

finished fountain

Hey something was supposed to get fnished today AND IT DID. The electrician arrived, on time, and finished the job! This evening Cody & put dirt in the base and planted some annuals. Thank you Cody!

fountain time

Slade, Graham, Seby, Olive, & I helped install the fountain today. Well, really Slade did it - but at certain points he needed us to help. Seby filled it with water, Olive thought it was a huge bowl of water for her and came to drink up when Seby was filling. I guess I can't really say that she helped in that manner - but she had fun watching. This isn't exactly the kind of a fountain I wanted for the front - but we put off buying one for so long and we found this one on such a great clearance price that we just had to do it. I think it looks great, even if the style isn't "classic" like the rest of the house. Right now we just have an cord giving it power - tomorrow the electrician arrives to finish installing the outlet, then we can cover the base with dirt and plant!



Here is Olive with her summer buzz cut. Well, really I forgot to give her a frontline treatment before we went up to the lake house last weekend. When so many of us were finding ticks and I couldn't find one on her I knew they were hiding. So off I took her to the groomer who shaved her down. Then I found 10 ticks! I just gave her the first monthly applications she will get until November 1st. Too bad they don't make frontline for humans! Actually that sounds gross, never mind.

Bath tub time!

The master bathroom is almost done. The tub was the first to be installed - as it was the biggest piece to get in. Now we have all the fixtures in! The painting will be finished on Monday, and the access panel (behind the tub) will be finished - then we are done. Well actually we still need to find mirrors and a storage device for between our sinks - but we don't care about that yet. We just want workmen out of our house! After the painters do the master bath they will move on to the master bedroom - oh my gosh - I can't believe it.

Cody had a couple friends sleep over last night and they broke in the almost finished basement - we just can't wait for it all to get done and we are sooooooo close!

Zane rides a bike!

Cody is helping Zane to ride a bike. This isn't the best video, I admit. But, there we were really taking Olive to the dog park and Zane was just going to goof around with his first attempts to ride a bike. Next thing we know the kid is really riding. Ok, so most of the video is really Cody trying to show him how to start off on his own (which is his big struggle) - but the kid can really ride. The video was also taken with my phone (had a I realized we were going to witness such a big event I really would of brought the camera). But here it is just a taste (from far away) of the last of our tribe learning how to ride.