The end...

I am coming to grips with the end of an era, the end of the blog. This blog has seen a ton... from kids being born to kids in the hospital. It was the place for me to put all my thoughts about everything, big or small. But now. Now it's just too hard. Some of it is time, but some of it is content. I'm not sure it's fair for me to share things about my teenagers that they don't want shared. And I don't know if my thoughts about them or about life should necessarily be written for them to read either! :) And so if I don't share that, what's left? I can write about the day to day stuff, but even I lose interest in that. I can talk about my travel, but this doesn't seem like the place to keep doing that either. And so... To Brian Ebbs, likely the only person who still checks this regularly, I bid you adieu. I will see you in the real world!

THE best visitors of all time

Ok, I'm really not just saying this because he reads the blog. I truly and really love it when the Ebbs' come to visit us. It's such a low key visit, low expectations, lots of great conversation, good kids, they're appreciative but know they should act like our house is their house, the whole nine yards. We don't see them nearly enough, and we don't visit them nearly enough. But, we did get the chance to see them in the summer, and it was as great as I knew it would be. The only downfall is that Tammy told me she'd send me pics and she didn't! So, I have these...

Like every summer, we have baseball and softball games. And Brian and Tammy just come along to all. Jack loves Nolan, and was excited to be able to be bat boy for them. It was awesome... they could not have been cuter together!

 And they also came to Abby's games, and brought signs! What better cheering and fan section could you have?

And then... we had hula hoop contests! These are some good hula hoopers! Tammy even brought prizes. I think Nolan might have won, but I may have discounted some of his scores (sssshhhhh!). In the end, Ava was declared the winner. The prize was a post card of flamingos hula hooping, and Ava couldn't have been prouder. Months later, it's still hanging by her bed. I love it!

Amazing family, amazing friends!!

Cubby

At the beginning of summer, Ava was in drama camp where they produced Peter Pan. I was so proud of her. She worked hard and tried out for Tinker Bell. She didn't get it, but she was ok with that. She was Cubby instead, one of the Lost Boys. She was the cutest Lost Boy I ever saw! They had four hour practices 6 days a week for two weeks, and then it was show time. It was amazing what they learned and all they did in those two weeks. I loved the show... all three times I saw it!

My favorite line... why are there no lost girls? "Because girls are too smart to fall out of their cribs!" 

I have no idea

Sometimes he tries to be so cool. His hair and his clothes and his shoes have to be just right. And then other times he's such a goofball in his dancing and his jokes. He and Ava are either super loud laughing and playing or super loud fighting. Usually you can't tell the difference and one leads to the other. In this moment, they were clearly enjoying!

Note... Ava has Max's underwear on, both on her head and wearing them!

For the record, Abby has her own share of craziness too! I'm not sure what this is either! Funny is that there's no picture of Max in this post. I think we're just used to his level of craziness!

God bless Ava Christine

Ava made her First Communion last April... the last of all four kids. Like Abby, Ava wore my mom's veil from her First Communion, and also tried on my mom's dress as well. The picture she's holding is the picture of my mom from her First Communion. 

As long as we're on the subject of Ava...there are some other random ones. This is at a baseball tourney where we found these trees and other things to climb on. She's sometimes crazy, and strong willed, but as long as I don't completely shut it down, she will change the world some day. Last spring she threw a sweatshirt at me from the backseat, so I threw it out the window. Seriously child, you can't beat me! She's been following every older child to every sporting event ever, and she's finally getting into her own. It'll be fun to watch her and see what she does!

She looks so angelic! She was very excited about this day, and loved her dress. Even better is we borrowed it from a friend of ours!