house

When my sisters and I get together we spend hours talking about decor - I have always said that there are no better people than sisters to give you their honest opinion about things.... And we are nothing if not honest with each other - so these photos should give us hours of discussions. For the life of me however, I can not figure out how to get photos in any sort of order on this blog. To top that off I should probably wipe off the lens on our camera after pulling it from the beach bag - but for what it is worth here is our new home (in no particular blurry order...) There are rooms that need work and others that were not photoed (kitchen and dining - can't wrap my head around those areas) The grey front room is just getting it's start and will take a long time to be completed mostly because I am obsessed with mirrored antique looking coffee tables and how I am going to get Lars to sign off on the price of one of those puppies is going to take a lot of stratagizing - I don't think that is a word:) But for 9 months in we are happy and settled and loving this home.

Beach 2012

We went to the beach! We have become lovers of the 30A beaches here and when we can get to Seaside beach in just under 3 hours - we are all hooked! I didn't get any cousin pictures, but the kids loved having them there to swim and play games with - and what a treat for me to have Aunt Kim willing to hang with Toby at the pool (by day 4 Toby was done with the sand) so that I could get to the beach everyday with the other two beach kids. Lars was with us for the first part of the vacation - we had a great time spending fathers day with him and his dad - My friend Tomicka came for the second part of our trip - We finished our trip with seafood on the harbor - Oh how we love summer!!! (hoping to insert more photos here... Kim? Tomicka?)

End of school

The boys finished up their school year with an 'honors ceremony' at school. Because this blog is a way to keep a journal for our family and since the boys don't read it, I can be honest about the highs and the lows that we go through in our family adventures. We are at an academic magnet school that we LOVE. There has never been a question that this school was 'right' for Trey. Things come VERY easy for Trey. He easily gets straight A's without much effort on our part as his parents. He is gifted and beyond his years intellectually - I don't say that to brag - if you know Trey and if you know his dad you know that some people are just born brilliant and that is their gift. They are lucky devils - I was not born with that gift - I am a worker and I believe in doing hard things and that we can push ourselves to greatness. Toby is more like me and for that reason I have struggled to know if this school is 'right' for him. While I am so proud of Trey and his prinicpal's award and top accelerated reader award (he read all the Harry Potter books this year among many, many others), I am extremely proud of Toby this year. He pushed himself all year and wanted to work towards greatness. He started in the lowest reading group and worked his way up to the middle group. He became obsessed with taking AR tests. He has developed a strong understanding of addition and subtraction and although we still have to work on his speed in these areas - he wants to get better. At the end of the honors ceremony the principal said that the last award was the most important award of all - it was the good character award. Each day the school recited a good character pledge and the kids in each class were asked to vote for a student that best portrayed these characteristics. Toby's class voted for him - he beamed - we beamed - his teacher beamed - we are all still beaming! Way to go boys, you are both gifted and loved. On to a much deserved summer break!

Trey Baseball

Who knew baseball was so much fun!? Trey became obsessed with playing spring ball during basketball season. There are two things Alabamians take VERY seriously - they are football and baseball. I knew that baseball would not be the fun happy go lucky experience that we have had so far with our sporting adventures - but Trey was convinced and Lars found a way to make it so the kids could keep playing soccer and do baseball at the same time (that way was me - driving non stop from a soccer field to a baseball field - with Lars' help of course:)) I have to document that Lars was very tormented by the boys' obsession with baseball in the beginning. He may have told them that the boy who chose soccer over baseball would be his favorite - they both chose baseball! Toby is a bit of a soccer star this season and Lars' pride is something to behold - but they caught the baseball bug and in the end so did Lars. (He just bought a pitching machine) Toby is still in his T-ball season right now so pictures of him to come - but these are of Trey and his team who tied for first in their division. I can not get over how awesome his coaches were - I will always remember Trey's first home run and how one of his coaches was waiting at home plate for him where he hugged him and threw him in the air to celebrate that run. They did this with each player and I watched that team turn into rock stars by the end - they were unstoppable! Now Trey can not get enough baseball. He wakes up in the morning during the 6'oclock hour and gets on the ipad to check baseball stats. Lars and I wake up each morning to comments like "daddy Chipper Jones got a triple". We love these boys and love seeing their passion for new things!