The Update

Ava is doing well. She is an opinionated and quite obstinate two year old. She can be as sweet as honey one moment, and in the next moment, wack you over the head with a stick (as Jory can attest to). She is speaking much more, her favorite phrases being "don't touch me" and "no, its MINE", and oh, lest we forget..."I pretty" (uh oh). Delightful, we know.

Jory is still our sweet red-head most of the time. He wants to say and do everything his older brothers say and do and we are trying desperately to keep him from saying and doing most of theses things. We'll see who wins... He is on the brink of starting piano lessons. He loves to play legos and has discovered the joy of playdates when his brothers are at school. He tolerates Ava fairly well and when they aren't fighting in the car over everything and anything (yesterday it was over whether it was snowing or not -"is too - is not - is too - is not" - AHHHH) they are quite happy together, singing and dancing and chasing each other around the house with swords (I tried and failed to keep them from this - so much for my girly girl aspirations for Ava)

Joshua is still as determined as ever. He has amazed us this year with his school work. He will literally go through his homework packet, choose the assignment least desirable to him and say "let's do this now and get it over with". He had to get glasses last month and picked them out himself. We think he looks pretty cosmopolitan. He is pretty proud of them and was even more so when James tried to convince us that his vision was failing and he needed glasses like Joshua - then admited he was just jealous. You could see Joshua mentally jumping for joy.

James...he's nine....sheesh, we have been parents for almost a decade. Hopefully we have not made too many terrible mistakes in our parenting. James is pretty entertaining to be around. He is doing wonderfully with his piano study and is doing well in school. He and Joshua get along splendidly most of the time. They have a lot of fun together.