Avery turns 5

Happy Birthday sweet girl!

making cupcakes topless so this is the only picture I'll share:)

Presents!

Rapunzel

Wearing her birthday crown at school.

Planet Pizza celebrating with the fam.

Me and my birthday girl. Love this girl more than anything! Can't believe it's been 5 years we've had her in our lives. What a blessing.

Ready for the party!

Hair for the girls to wear, and thank you paints.

The cake Avery picked out... lantern scene from the movie

Avery loves doing art so we did lots of art at her party. Decorated princess crowns, lanterns, and painted a sun emblem on canvas.

made pascal party blowers:)

Mimi and Papa trying to get a grandchildren picture- Drew not cooperating.

These girls are so close. Avery loves having her cousin Kelly here:)

Avery turned 5 last Thursday. We made cupcakes for school Wednesday night, chocolate with pink icing and sprinkles. When she woke up Thursday we ate chocolate chip pancakes and opened presents. That evening when Philip got home from work we took the kids to Planet Pizza. They loved the bumper cars and the play area.

Saturday, we celebrated with her sweet girl friends and cousin Kelly from Austin. Mommy (and Daddy) did a lot of work preparing for the party. It turned out wonderful and the girls had a great time. My parents, Avery's mimi and Papa, also came in to celebrate. We ended the day with BBQ with the family. Avery and Kelly had so much fun together. They call each other sisters. Drew had fun playing with his cousin Christopher. Soon baby Davis will be hanging with the big boys playing cars and mowing the lawn too.:) We are so thankful for our friends and family. Thanks for helping us celebrate Avery's special day.

End of Summer fun

Dallas World Aquarium

I managed to get this cute shot of the kids outside the aquarium
water fountain fun!

My mother in law and neice came to town. Avery and Sonja had so much fun together. Avery always loves to have family come and visit.

We also took a trip to the zoo the other day, but I have no pictures. We rode the monorail which we had never done before and enjoyed it. The kids loved looking at the lions. Avery told me that you can tell the girl and boy lions apart because the boy has a mane. :) Two of the girl lions started licking each other and Avery thought it was so cute and that it must be a mommy and her little girl. Drew has so much fun at the zoo. We could probably go once a week and the kids would be happy. We may just have to get a membership!

Avery is 5 today! Whenever I get teary eyed from being happy I tell her they are my happy tears (because she gets concerned if i cry). Last night I told her I was having happy tears thinking about her turning 5 and how thankful I am for her. She told me "it's ok mom, all mommy's get happy tears when their kids grow up." Love this sweet girl. Will post tomorrow about our day.

Yet another catching up post...

The kids started school Tuesday. They both were very excited and did great! Avery is going 5 mornings this year. Drew will go Tuesdays. Avery is taking gymnastics Monday/Wednesdays in the afternoon. Drew and I just started our first mom and tots gym class this morning. He did well for his first day, and I'm thankful for this time with him.

Life has seemed a tad crazy lately. I just try to remind myself how blessed we are- how fortunate we are to have our health, our family, and our friends- how our plans are not always His plans. One of the biggest bumps has been with our plan to move this Spring. We are having some foundation issues, which has led to a torn apart bathroom (an issue from the foundation which was causing water not to drain and an awful smell)... which will lead to pulling from our "buy a new home" savings. Our thought was to try and get moved for Kindergarten round up and get Avery settled in a new school. We'll see what happens. For now, I will try and focus on the positive.... pray that all works out with school...and make our home seem more spacious by decluttering. It has already helped. Lucky Philip has more furniture to store away in our already crammed garage. We did do A LOT of organizing this past weekend in our garage. What a difference it makes. Our goal is to get 1 car in. If you've seen our garage, you will know how awesome that is. As Philip cleaned out, I organized things into tubs and bins and labeled them. We bought storage shelves from Home Depot to store all the tubs on. We still have a few things to get rid of and send to the attic but that will have to get done on another day.

Avery on her 2nd day of school. I forgot to take a picture the first day of her AND Drew. I'll get one of Drew next week.

The beginning of an organized garage... :)