The kids had a half day today (who knows why???) so we thought today was the perfect day for the kids to meet their new cousin Brielle. She was such a sweetheart and snoozed peacefully in all of the kids arms even as they fought over who got to hold her!

Squished up babies are the cutest!

Owen was a natural!

Pretty sure she gave Aidan a little smile here.

Aidan was thrilled! I think he gets his baby loving trait from his Grandpa!

Isabella was so looking forward to the chance to get to meet sweet little Bre and she loved every minute of it!

Super sweet cousins

We've had a very busy week at the Teodoro house.

Aidan celebrated his 13th birthday with an airsoft birthday party. It was hard to coordinate a party with his friends busy schedules (soccer and football are in full swing!), but the boys that could make the party had a super fun time.

Mike loaded the boys up and their full gear into the van and headed down to Julia's Gulch where they had several airsoft wars.

Then they came back and had a pizza eating contest. Jr. High boys can eat a lot of pizza!

Birthday spankings have now turned into birthday beatings.

And the only presents teenagers want is money.

Lots of money. Aidan wants to save it for something big, he just isn't sure what that is just yet.

We ended the evening with ice cream cake

Even teenagers aren't too big to blow out each others candles.

Then the boys played some made up games in the backyard. A perfect birthday party for the coolest teenager around!

Owen had a banner week. While he mostly knew how to tie shoes, it finally clicked and he is now tying EVERYone's shoes.

He also moved up to level 8 (out of 10 levels in the swim america program) in swimming this week. He's working on swimming 100 yards freestyle with bilateral breathing and now he's moving on the swimming the butterfly and breaststroke.

He's starting to talk about joining the swim team.

And while I don't have a picture of it, he's also gotten quite good at pumping the swing on his own too. Huge milestone for a little guy.

Isabella is taking swimming lessons too and is working so hard! She has such a good attitude about trying new things even when shes a little unsure about it.

Sophie celebrated her first birthday!

She even gets to share her birthday with our newest niece Brielle Faith.

While new babies are so super sweet to visit, Mike and I often find ourselves "high fiving" and are thrilled to be past that stage of life!

Under the tutelage of a wonderful teacher, my friend Tiffany, I learned how to can this week.

We canned 28 jars of salsa on morning.

And only started one minor fire. See, even moms can stir up their own kind of trouble while the kids are away!

I thought I would add a few pictures that my dad sent me of Aidan's visit to Arizona in August.

Here he is with my brother Ben

And this one is in his favorite place...their pool.

School is definitely back into the swing of things. Just this morning Aidan slept in past his alarm and only had 10 minutes to get ready. You would think the world was about to end.

Isabella woke up with a scratchy throat and a tickle and was sure she needed to stay home.

And Owen...well, Owen was actually happy to be heading to school. Minus the fact that the shorts he wore were a bit too big and half way on our walk to school he begged to turn around to get a belt. Sorry dude.

With all three kids in school now, we are trying our best to enjoy the time when they are all home. And with a streak of 80 degree weather it wasn't hard!

We headed out in Grandpa's boat for an afternoon of water sports.

Owen did some knee boarding

Aidan got up on the wakeboard

and even crossed out of the wake!

And not to be outdone by his big brother, Owen hopped on the wake board with dad and did some boarding of his own.

With Owen safely back on the boat, Mike enjoyed the calm water and did some wake boarding himself.

And got up on the ski's for the last time of the year

Grandpa got out there too and made it look effortless.

The drive back was a little cold so we huddled in the front with the heater vent

Aidan loves to drive the boat

We were also able to celebrate Aidan's birthday with an ice cream cake. Yummo!

On Aidan's actual 13th birthday, we enjoyed the rest of the cake before heading out to peanut butter jelly night.

We brought along some of the youth group kids

Jacob from next door

and the Edvald's

Yum, peanut butter and jelly for the homeless...a super way to spend your birthday!

We all gathered outside afterwards to sing Aidan happy birthday

And of course to have Chaise spin Owen around a bit!

This past week, I ran my third half marathon, the You Go Girl in Tacoma. I wasn't quite sure I would be able to run because of a knee injury. But after not running for 6 weeks, I pulled it together, slowed my pace and found a friend to keep me distracted enough to finish the race. You can read more about it here.