Ava's Creative side - medium Playdoh

Here's a fun shot of Ava's creative side sprouting out. She created all the detail: hair, fingers, the face.

Eli finds his fingers

Here's a great shot of Eli going to town on his middle fingers.

We love our swing set!

The backyard was leveled and then I spent the day on Black Friday putting up the swing set or "Play structure" as Ava likes to call it. Its such a fun addition to our family. Also included is one more picture front yard. Nice and flat.

A visit with the Great-Grandparents

Four Generations: Sara, Eli, Ava, Jillian, Great-Grandma "Gigi" Howard and Grandma "B"

Great-Grandpa "GPa" Howard, Jillian, Ava, Great-Grandma "Gigi" Howard and Eli

We had a great time visiting with the very great Great-Grandparents. Sara's grandparents came down from Roseville to meet little Eli. The girls were excited to see their Gigi and GPa and I know the Howards were excited to see their great-granddaughters and their newest great-grandson. We had a fun time and its always really special to be able to take pictures like these. We are so blessed to not only have such wonderful grandparents to our kids but for the kids to have two sets of wonderful great-grandparents!

Eli at two months

Eli had his 8 week checkup last week and he is a big boy! He weighed in at 12lbs (55 percentile) and was 23.5" (75%). WOW! He is a good pound bigger than either Ava or Jillian was at that age! Otherwise he was healthy as could be. We're enjoying him so much. He's starting to talk a lot more and you can even get a bit of a giggle out of him during diaper changes. He is getting to his side now when laying down and just yesterday grabbed at a toy and held on. Amazing how quickly they grow!

Watch out Elton John...here comes Jillian!

Just for a good laugh.

Ava's Brachial Plexus Procedure

We are so fortunate to have found a new procedure to address Ava's brachial plexus injury! We saw Dr. Hentz this summer who told us they were doing something new: injecting the pec muscle with botox to temporarily paralyze it then casting the affected arm. The idea is it will allow her arm to have a slow, deep stretch in underused tissue, muscle and joints. Once its removed her arm should be stretched out but her super strong pec muscle (which has overcompensated for years now) will have no ability to move. Her now stretched arm will have the chance to move in ways it never has!

Step two will involve putting a constraint cast on her non-affected arm. This cast will be on for around six weeks and will restrict her from using her non-affected arm and force her to use her newly stretched left arm.

We're especially excited as this "Constraint Therapy" is a research project out of Stanford meaning it is being fully sponsored and paid for: cast, specialists, therapy, everything! God is so good!

We'll keep you posted on the results!

Home Improvement - Back yard

Before

Loads and loads of gravel - (three plus pickup truck loads full)

After #1 - no more gravel

Preparing for a swing set!

Home improvement - Front yard revisisted

Well, with all this fine California weather, we needed to continue on our home improvement projects. The front yard was first. Last post showed the removal of the faux river. Now we had to scrap and scoop up layers and layers of tan bark(two truck loads). Remove old sprinkler system pipes. Remove hidden cement paths and the rototill it all flat. Lots of back breaking work. But its nice to do it yourself. Thanks to Dad and Dad for all the help.

J&S

Game on!

A follow up to our soccer star post. Ava really got into the game aspect of soccer and had a blast on her last day. She scored the first goal with a keeper dribble down the field and shooting it in. Then she volunteered for Goalie! She made a great stop. In the end, everybody got a medal.

J&S