Roxy Poxy!

Last time you saw our Christmas present Roxy, she was a tiny little thing. Well, she eats 3 times a day. Need I say more?

In the fort we made over our snow days

What? I'm not supposed to be on the chair?

With Macy and her snowman

First time I saw Roxy and Gabe actually touching without biting each others heads off. Gabe tolerates Roxy, but not well. With Gabe's hair cut, Roxy is now bigger than Gabe.

Macy absolutely adores Roxy, and is constantly carrying her around and picking her up. Not much longer is she going to be able to do that.

This little dog is scared of every loud sound...the lawn mower, the blender, the beep of the oven timer. Here she is hiding with Macy while I vacuum. I can't imagine what she'll do when the smoke alarm goes off.

Macy likes to give her piggy back rides. :) She also likes to pick up her and Roxy wraps her arms around Macy like she is giving her a hug.

She's a sweet, sweet puppy who likes to eat socks and underwear, and isn't learning to not jump on people/things. Urgh...But we love her anyway!

Easter 2013

Happy Easter!

Spring break

Over spring break last month we went to our favorite Spring Break destination place: Atlanta!

Macy sliding down the handrail at Stone Mountain. You can see how steep it is through this section; I was very happy for that handrail on the way up AND the way down. 

A picture from my camera that I sent to my niece--she has a koi pond in her backyard, and while they were at work one day, we went and dumped 40 goldfish in the pond, then waited for her response that night. She called and said, "I guess they'd been hibernating and hiding in there all winter!" Not excatly, Lauren. We love you!

Our last night there we roasted marshmallows in their fire pit, and Josh sang his song "Oh happy people" over and over. Love that boy!

Top of Stone Mountain! It was a beautiful day.

My brother made green pancakes for St. Patrick's day breakfast. Yummy!

We visited the food truck park in downtown Atlanta, and it was a fun and different experience.

Flying kites in the Olympic Park, and then we went to the CNN building. Next time, I think we'll take a tour of the CNN studios.

The girls and my beautiful niece, Lauren. Macy was so happy that she is taller than Lauren too. Sorry, L, we got the short genes of the family.

It was another wonderful trip. Not making appearance in pictures is my wonderful sister-in-law Julie, my other nephew Brandon and his girlfriend Laura, and their ferrets.

Kaylin!

What has Kaylin been doing the last couple months?

Entertaining herself during volleyball tournaments!

Playing Upward Basketball! 4 of her best friends were on this team, so it was a really fun season. Bobby was her coach again, and does such a great job with them! I've said before--he's a natural at working with kids. Kaylin loves playing basketball.

She also saved all her birthday and Christmas money, and bought herself an American Girl doll! In case you aren't up on this, they are $110 each. (Why didn't I invent this concept??) She's always been our spendy girl, and I'm so proud of her for saving. One Saturday she went over to Grandma's and did a TON of work-raked the yard, stuff in the house to earn extra money. She has played with this doll a ton. I'm happy to see her so happy.

Kaylin has also had a rough couple months in terms of her health. She's endured 2 MRI's--one of her hip and one of her full spine--along with several doctors appointments and x-rays. She doesn't mind them though; she's a trooper! Her hip seems to be holding its own, her scoliosis seems to be staying steady at 30ish degree curve. She does a cyst in her spine, and she'll be evaluated in 6 months with another MRI to see if it has grown. Apparently having a cyst in your spine isn't as scary as it sounds.

Love this little sassy pants to death!

My Macy

Let's see...what has Macy been up to during my blogging hiatus? Volleyball, volleyball, volleyball.

She played this spring on a competitive volleyball team, and absolutely loved it. We went to 7 tournaments January-April, luckily all 7 were in the general area. She didn't really like spending ALL day at a tournament, but she loves playing volleyball.

After many seasons of basketball, we've learned we don't have an uber competitive child when it comes to sports.  But you know what? That's okay. She loves the game, she is a darn good player (in my opinion) because she stays calm and collected.

As a whole, the girls developed SO MUCH during these months. It was absolutely amazing to see how much the girls improved from the first tournament to the last one. It will be so fun to watch them play over the years!

 In this tournament, they won 2nd place. Got tshirts, which are as good as medals. The parents and kids were just so estastic that they made it to the championship game, we almost didn't even care they were 2nd. It was a fun day.

 Macy, Tess and Gracie--the firefighter's daughters.

 

What else has she been up to? In January she did the Polar Plunge, raising money for Special Olympics.

 

And in general, she has been growing up and becoming a teenager who is 2 inches taller than me. And I love her to death.

Trying again...

Yes, I'm alive. Just took a little hiatus of 3 months. :)

I think part of my blogging rut was the feeling that no one was reading...which is probably true, and and any readers I did have I'm sure I lost with that break.

But over the last three days, I realized something. This blog isn't for my non-existent readers. It's for me, and my family. It's a place to record our history. A year from tomorrow we lost Kobe  
and I turned to the blog to read my post and to figure out the correct date.

And after the events in Boston, I decided I needed to do another 1/2 marathon. It has been in the back of my mind recently, but after Mondays' events, it became clear. I need to do it again. I need to show the terrorists--whoever they are--they haven't won. I need to run again. So I looked for my blog  post about my first 1/2   and realized again how important this blog is to my memories and my family's memories.

So, I'm going to do my best. Going to try to record the events in my family's timeline as the girls continue to grow and change.

Thanks for hanging around for the ride.