Ding ding ding! Round Two!

Sally made it through the surgery part of round 2 and is at home doing well! She's been a great patient, keeping a smile on throughout painful moments. Everything went well. Friends and family have been great in giving support (and my favorite.... food). I've tried to have Rapunzel locked away in her room upstairs while me and the girls have been busy making sure my fantasy football roster is set up for the week. I think Ashlyn and Ava had more fun with Grandma running the show after round 1. We miss you Mom! Here's Sally's pretty smile!

So strong......

Poor Sally is stuck with me.......

Here's what happens when Dad is in charge.... Sorry Ava.

Here's Ashlyn helping trim back the palm trees in the back yard. Scary!

The road to recovery!

We love you Sally!

We've been busy!

We have had a busy month! Ashlyn has been adjusting to kindergarden really well and her teacher tells me everyday how great she is in class! She likes going and we can tell she's really learning some great stuff.

We've been trying to take advantage of the hot weather and swim (minus mom! I haven't been getting in the pool all that often) but the pool is starting to cool down! We had some friends from Corey's work come over a couple of weekends ago and the Babb family helped make it a full on party! The boys had a heated game of basketball in the pool that the kids kept bravely swimming through. I wouldn't have been that brave! They were throwing elbows! Corey had a blast with his friends over! Ashlyn's friend, Brelyn, whose dad works with Corey, came all the way from deep in Queen Creek last weekend to swim and this weekend for Ashlyn's party, which was so nice! They already have drive far to work every weekday, so two weekends in row was extra special!

Ashlyn had a 3 day birthday extravaganza! She had a few friends go with her on Friday for a tour of the firestation, where her favorite girl firefighter works, Jody. It was really nice of Gilbert Fire to entertain us! They showed us all around where they "live" and Ashlyn liked Jody's dorm room because she had girly sheets on the bed. They let the kids go into the firetruck and turned the lights on for us.
The next day, Ashlyn had her birthday party at Freestone park. At 4pm in Arizona in Sept. Can I just say my brain isn't working at full capacity right now and that's why I take the blame for lousy party planning! Thank you to all who risked heat stroke to celebrate Ashlyn's birthday! You can see all the pictures of the red-cheeked children on my Picassa site! Sorry! We played with water balloons, ate pizza and cake and played at the playground. Ashlyn has been asking for a firetruck cake with a princess candle for about 6 months now, so she got it! I was pretty happy with how the cake turned out!

The next morning, we took Ashlyn to McDonalds for breakfast AND took her to Olive Garden for dinner. We have a tradition of having Olive Garden the night before Ashlyn's birthday because Corey and I ate there for our "last supper without children!" In past years, it's been take out, but we braved the sit down and it turned out ok! On her actual birthday, she got to take suckers to her class and have the Babb family over for cake and ice cream... and more presents! Happy Birthday, Ashlyn! Thank you, everyone, for making her birthday "the best day EVER!" (A direct quote from the birthday girl!)

Our Tree!

A storm took out part of the tree in out front yard (half of the tree fell over in April and almost fell on Corey!) and we decided it had to go!
It was diseased in the middle, anyway!
So we had it taken out and our front yard looked so big but so empty!
Well, handy guy that Corey is, he spent some time researching the best tree to replace our old one. He went down to Lowe's, bought a Sissoo tree and planted it himself, all while having the girls "help," which we all know meant a lot of extra work!
Ashlyn was very proud of her new tree and loved showing it off and telling people she helped plant it! I'm proud of Corey for knowing how to do that himself and doing a great job!