Lake Life.

We spent a week down at the cabin with Jeremy's parents. A perfect week with sunshine, tube time and plenty of friends dropping by and spending the night!

 Our adopted family. These kids are going to be best friends/possibly marry each other/at least be college roommates/grow old together forever and ever. Avery 6, Everly 7, Fischer 8, Parker 9 - all looking at Ireland, 11 months. :)

 These two sweethearts. 

 My brave girl! She water skis, she tubes, now she knee boards. All the way around the lake!!

 This is the stuff of summer. Jumping off the dock with your best friend in hand.

 Xander, Isaac, Parker, Everly, and Fischer on the paddle boat. Not pictured: Avery and three dogs on a stand up paddle board. :)

 Landie in a pool!! It took 5 of us convincing her this was fun. :)

One of my favorite pictures from the summer. We played endless games of Extreme Bocce. I told everyone to put their game faces on and this is the result. :)

New grill.

We've known Parks had to get an early round of braces and an expander to fix a couple things before his bones fuse, so why not this summer before he heads into fourth(!!) grade.

Summertime and the livin is easy...

 Evie and Parks on their way to Camp Discovery! Parks has been looking forward to this camp for A YEAR! Camp Discovery is a 4 day overnight camp for kids with epilepsy. Parks, Jer and Evie got to go this year. Jer had to head out early though after severely injuring himself in the first 4 hours of camp. More on that later.

 Ireland is in a bathtub! Being a sink bath baby, she fears the open water. Pools, mini pools, lakes, bathtubs this summer - they all made her cry. So Evie and I took a good hour one afternoon to slow coax her in. One toe at a time.

 PICKLE! THE GREATEST THING ON EARTH! While Parks and Evie were at VBS earlier this summer, Jer and I took Landie Pie out for lunch and she discovered her new fave.

 Sweet, sweet Arlo. This cat lets Ireland love him way too much and way too hard every day. They are the best of friends.

 

We made our own silly putty during a dreary summer day.

 A friend watched Miss Ireland one afternoon and Jer and I got to take Parks and Everly on a fish themed afternoon date - Finding Dori and Sushi!

Ireland's tenth month.

Landie Pie is a mover and a shaker this month!! She started crawling and has perfected a scoot crawl like a pirate with a peg leg. She gets around pretty fast now. :) My absolute favorite thing she does right now is crawling around until she finds me and then sitting at my feet while she waits for me to pick her up. She doesn't whine or cry or reach. She just sits there patiently and then crawls after me if I walk somewhere else.

Ireland has also perfected her pageant wave and she waves at everything and everyone that moves in her presence. Then she claps for herself. She's quite impressed with everything she can accomplish. When she's holding anything in her hand and we walk by she holds it out to us with her little pudgy arm extended all the way to show us what sort of amazingness she holds in her little fingers. She is delighted with the world right now!

And I took her photos on a summer morning before Evie woke up because Parker wanted his chance to have his picture taken with her by himself to keep it fair. :)

 

Aaaaand this is how most of these photos went because of Miss Crawly Crawlerton. I am absolutely shocked I got even a few (albeit blurry) ones. 

Run!

We raised money for The Northwest Epilepsy Foundation's 5K this year and a whole crew of family and friends supported, donated and ran with Parks this year! This summer is his first opportunity to go to Camp Discovery just for kids with seizures like him where they are equipped to handle that and he gets to stay overnight!

It poured down rain, but the kids and grandparents did great. :)

Ireland's ninth month.

Miss Landie Mae turned nine months in the end of May! Parks spent the night with his grandparents when I took these sweet pictures so I had to chronicle these ones with just the laaaaadies.

 Those thighs. Those crossed feet. This is Landie Pie in a nutshell.

 These two. Talking. And talking. And talking. And talking some more.

The Biggest Achievement.

Parker started Taekwondo in the fall of first grade just a couple of weeks before he had his first big seizure. Jeremy and I were ready to abandon ship because TKD is a lot of hard work with practices two days a week all year round with additional testing days quite often. But Parker wanted to stick with it and we honored that. Especially at that time when his activities were so very limited. He climbed belts every few months for a couple of years until he reached the fall of third grade and his Epilepsy had taken such a toll that we decided he had to stop taekwondo. We went in to discuss his health and our sadness with his teacher who had been with him since the beginning and I'll never forget Chris telling us that he thought Parker had come to far to have to give up now and he would come in on his day off and meet him on Friday nights and do one on one sessions for as long as Parker needed. It turned out he needed it for the entire year and so Chris faithfully met him for the last year. In the spring Parks was doing well enough to add an additional day for a few months while he worked on his final belt. In June he went through his final series of tests for his Black Belt. Two tests for a couple of hours, 6 broken boards, a long essay, 12 poomses, hand techniques, kicking techniques, and self techniques...all studied, perfected, tested and passed! To say we are proud of this boy's THREE YEARS of hard work is an understatement!!

 Parks and a couple of his friends waiting for the ceremony.

 This year's blackbelt recipients and judges in the row behind.

 Walking away with a mighty big trophy and a mighty big smile

 Parker's teachers from his color belts; Master Lee on the left and his dedicated teacher Chris on the right. I told Chris that we all teared up when Parker's name was called for black belt and he told me he sat there and cried as he watched Parks walk up and get his belt. And then I cried again. The dedication and love from this man!

 Master Park and Parker. Master Park worked with Parks once he got his Danbo belt and for the 6 months he worked toward his final belt.

 Parks and Grand Master Choi. This is the absolute kindest group of incredibly talented and strong men who lead by example with just the right amount of fun, high expectations, and serious athleticism.

 Of course, three years of hard work earns you a party with the grandparents, your own cake and doting on Parks for the evening. :)

 The proud Black Belt.