Avey’s Ninth

Avey’s birthday celebration lasted all week, with gifts pouring in with the mail each day. So far, the most popular one was a crochet of the main character from a puzzle game, Cut the Rope. Avey took it to the park with us this morning, and she spent hours over the week constructing a display for it on her wall, including several elements from the game. 

We heard about a fun event at our local fire station, and decided to check it out. Of course it was scheduled for the rainiest day we’ve had this year. But still, the kids had a lot of fun. We got to take a ride around the block in a real fire truck, and got tons of little toys and nick knacks. 

Near the end, they even had a burn demonstration. They set fire to a structure they had built in the parking lot to show us how fire spreads, and the importance of sprinkler systems in the home. It was really cool to see a television set melt!

Poor Hakan had a rough time on Thursday. He woke up about 4:30 in the morning coughing, but he quickly fell asleep again after I went to check on him. He awoke again around 5:30 complaining of “chokies,” which turned out to be throw up. He got up a little wet, but not stinky (thank goodness). He tried a little cracker and some water, but that didn’t last long. The poor guy kept asking for food, but we had to turn him down. His tummy finally settled after some soda and a little cracker. Once he kept that down, we gave him some bread, which he wolfed down. He then followed that up with some chicken salad and some of Avey’s birthday cake. He hasn’t had symptoms since, so we are glad that it was so short.

We tried to give Kira some peace and quiet as she watched General Conference, so we went to the park where we had come upon the praying mantis weeks ago. We thought we’d look for it in the tree where we left it, certain that it would be in vain, but sure enough, it was still there! Avey was excited for a chance to prove her bravery, and let it crawl on her:

She has matured a lot in the last year, and we are excited to see how she grows more. She’s been on a kick recently of trying things that she hasn’t done before, including physical challenges she is likely to face in her gym class. She’s gotten the older boys into it too, and we often find them doing somersaults and other tumbling games on our couch.

We are looking forward to some shorter school days for Avey this week, and we also expect a friend from our Provo days to visit us later in the week. Maybe we can also manage to squeeze in some sleep…

#Happenings