Everything is NEW again....

It's Done!

A new kitchen finally!

Okay, this isn't our kitchen but, it has the same look that ours was going for.

I can say though that the paint job that I did is soooo much better than the one in this house that Dave and I looked at (and the fact sheet listed how wonderful the faux painting was).

NEW SCHOOL YEAR

Chay started 9th Grade at West.

He takes the bus and Trax to get to and from school and at times seems to having fun while being transported. He definitely has to head out to school a lot earlier than he did for Middle School in the neighborhood last year.

He decided to do the IB program and I'm proud of how he has grown academically and personally over the past year.

He has also joined the Cross Country Team and I'm impressed with how dedicated he is and how well he is doing. Before joining he ran a couple of times with Nicole but that's all I recall, and now he's running miles a day...up, down, all around.

Blade started 1st Grade.

Now that he is into the third week of school, he seems to want to go to school. He has been going willingly since the beginning but now he has verbalized that he was happy to be at school with his friends. Being with a lot of kids again, he has already caught a cold.

I'm so proud of how his reading skills have developed and how willing he is to do his homework.

New stage of life for Nicole

Nicole is no longer a teenager since she turned 20 yesterday.

(How is it possible that I have a 20 year old daughter? It seems only a few years ago that I was 20....)

For their birthdays, the kids get to choose where they want to go out to eat for their birthdays and Nicole chose The Cheesecake Factory (I should have hurried and put on the night option on the camera, or risked my life and stood in the traffic lane to get closer so that the flash would have had some kind of effect).

Nicole and her boyfriend Jose.

The food was nicely presented...and tasted "nicely" too.

Four out of the six ordered cheesecake....and that was plenty for 6 of us to eat.

Blade is an adventurous kid but not when it comes to his cheesecake...only cherry cheesecake please.

Chay had to have the Red Velvet cheesecake! No one loves red velvet cake like Chay.

Chay is posing with his cheesecake, and Blade apparently is intoxicated by all the richness he's consuming.

THEN we still had to go home to do the birthday cake thing.

Nicole didn't given any ideas as to what she wanted for a birthday cake and so Chay and I decided that since she loves Starbursts so much, we would make a Starburst cake in her currently favorite color of Purple.

(we found out that whole starbursts on the end of the curly wires were too heavy and we had to compromise by rolling bits of starbursts and sticking them on the end.

The lighting of the torch....

We used candles that relit...like the ones we used for Chay's birthday cake when Doug and his family were visiting one year.

There ended up being quite a collection of smoke and I was surprised that Nicole kept on task until the candles no longer relit!

Nicole was surprised when she cut in to the cake and found...a purple cake.

Chay and Jose were the only ones that had room for cake. Okay, Jose had room. Chay mixed up his cake and ice cream but wasn't able to finish it

Well, that's a quick update with some pictures. I don't have any adorable new baby pictures to share but, that's a GOOD thing for me! My babies are growing up so quickly.

Nicole has started her second year at the "U", and is now in an apartment with two other girls and officially kicked out of her bedroom at home. She had become stagnant with her move out of her room and so tonight, with Dave's encouragement, Chay started moving into HIS new room.