Week 14 at Home: She's 12!

This was a good week. The kids both had a great time at their summer programs, and on one of their days home, they were able to spend most of the day with Grandma Deb who is visiting from Florida. I had a really productive end to the week at work, a happy hour with friends, a great dinner with my parents, and Scott's been able to get a lot of stuff done this weekend so he can enjoy his day tomorrow, since it's Father's Day!

The biggest thing that happened this week is that Ava turned 12! I'm not really sure where all of those years went, but one thing that I'm sure of is that we have a wonderful daughter. She is so even keel, polite, responsible, and kind. And even though we're beginning to see signs of the teen snarkiness, she realizes it and then adjusts her attitude. Most importantly, she seems to still like us, so...we'll take it!

Grandma Deb took the kids on an adventure in St Paul...

They were able to visit several family members at Ft Snelling...this is their Grandpa Bruce (Scott's dad)

Yummy birthday cake!

Opening gifts...plus, we gave her a new laptop. She's amazed at how fast it is compared to my 11 year old one that she was using...lol

Look at how she's changed!

We're wishing all of the father's out there a wonderful day on Sunday! Big hugs and love to my dad, Scott's dad in Heaven, and Whitey (Scott's stepdad)...and let's not forget Scott! He's a great father to our kids and a supportive partner. We love you all!

Comments

Grandparents, Birthdays, and Sprinklers, Oh MY!

What a whirlwind week we've had...I was trying to get everything wrapped up at work so I could take my 5-day "furlough" from last Wednesday, through tomorrow. Wednesday was my first day at home, so Ava and I had a ton of "fun" getting everything ready for the upcoming activities. I did have a wonderful massage, so that started my vacation off very well... Gramma Karen and Grampa Doug drove in from KC on Wednesday afternoon. We had a great evening catching up, and enjoying the nice weather (until the downpour that happened right as they were leaving our house!) On Thursday, Scott, Dad, Mom, and I drove down to Cannon Falls and Rochester to check out the areas for potential future homes/land for us. At some point, we'd like to move south of the Cities. Ava was a very good little girl, especially considering that she was stuck in a car for most of her FIRST BIRTHDAY!!! We went to Applebee's for lunch, and the wait staff came out singing to someone else...I...

Goodbye Sweet Spanky

This is a post that I'm not very excited to write. As you probably know, our oldest dog, Spanky, had struggled with health issues (ear infections, seizures) his whole life, and recently, his health had severely deteriorated. He hadn't been eating, his ear infection was so severe his face was swollen, he had a hard time getting up the stairs, and he very rarely wanted to play. Last week we got a few tail wags from him, and he ate a few bowls of food, but it was a 50-50 chance that he would actually keep the food down. On Thursday, we made the decision that if he wasn't any better by this weekend, we were going to put him down. I know Scott didn't want to make that decision as Spanky was a very special dog to him - he truly was his little buddy, following him around everywhere, wanting to be wherever Scott was, and howling his sadness whenever Scott would leave him. Throughout Friday night, it became clear that Spanky wasn't going to have a miraculous recovery...

The Early Bird

I realized that I skipped a chunk of pictures that I wanted to share...things were super busy last weekend, so we'll blame my lapse of memory on that! The focus was so much on Ava's party, that I neglected to share the family birthday photos, too. Two weeks ago, we invited all of the grandparents over for a wonderful dinner of smoked prime rib (and other yummy sides), and then topped it off with a raspberry mojito birthday cake for the newly minted eight-year-old. We like to experiment with different birthday cake flavors for her birthday, and this one was MUCH better than the watermelon cake from last year (gross-gross-gross!) Saying cheese with Grandpa Doug! G and I took a break from the present pics to take some selfies ;) Even his cars made an appearance! Super excited to be receiving an aquascope! And no birthday is complete without something from American Girl - this time is was a pizza party set - awesome! We have also...

Go, Go, Goers!

Search This Blog