An Italian pizza birthday party

We had an Italian pizza party for the kids' 8 and 1/2 birthday party this year. We had cupcakes and cookies that looked like pizza, pizza, salad and breadsticks, of course! Yummy dinner, kids played outside and it was gorgeous weather outside so we were able to hang outside and chat. The kids had a fun time and it's always nice to have the family together!

Photo booth fun from our mustache-themed pizza party for our family!

 Callan.

 Camden.

 Sebastian.

 Camden and Sebastian, defying the norm.

 Waiting to open presents outside. It was a nice evening in our shady backyard. 

 Xander picked out sparkler candles that said "8". You couldn't blow them out, so we just waited until they ran out!

 With their favorite presents. Lots of Legos, video games and Pokemon cards for the boys, art activities and kits for Grace and stuff to redo her bedroom (more on that later).  They each got some board games from Brian, they're really into that lately and they play a lot of games together.

 Do you like Xander's black and blue fat lip? He ran into someone at camp and really bruised it up!

They are looking so grown up to me - they're entering that awkward late elementary stage where they are starting to look like adolescents and less like little kids. Where are my babies going??

In other, non-baby news, all three of the kids have started orthodontic treatment with my dad! They have what is called a "Crozat" appliance, which is expanding their narrow palates. The idea is to widen the area where their teeth are supposed to come in, and they will come in straighter, possibly making it so they don't have to have braces later on. Will and Xander have especially narrow palates and also narrow everything else. Dad is hoping that widening everything in their face will enable them to breathe through their noses better too! (They are both terrible mouth breathers). Will snores too, so he's hoping that the nose breathing will help that. Click here to read more about Crozats.

They've had the appliances for about 5 days now and so far so good. Their instructions are to keep them in all day and night. They can only take them out to eat at home and brush, everywhere else they have to leave them in to eat (this prevents them from losing them!) They are a little sore, but we've been doing lots of Advil and it's been helping. We'll keep you posted about the progress! Maybe I can get my dad to share some of their before and after mouth pictures, too.

Summer is almost over, if you can believe it! Baseball/softball is over. It was a good season, I think. They did a little better this year at hitting, fielding was still a challenge as they wait for the balls to come to them instead of moving their feet. Throwing improved some, too. We'll keep on them! Here are a few pictures of the boys' last game day. We had great weather this summer for games on Wednesday nights, and they all played on the same nights in the same place! So, we were pretty lucky in that regard. Most of the time, one game was early (5:30ish) and one game was later (7:30ish) so we packed up a dinner in the cooler (sandwiches and fruit, etc.) and ate at the ballfield. It worked out nicely and the best part is that our weekends weren't taken up with games! We liked that!

Our last news is that we are redecorating Grace's room to be a little more grown-up. She picked out a comforter and matching sheets online and between my mom, Ellen and me, we got it all for her. Here are some pictures of what her room used to look like.

It was cute, just a little "little girlish" in my opinion. You'll have to wait a few more weeks for after pictures, though. We're not quite done and we don't have everything we've ordered. Actually, I painted the walls over the weekend, and I may be repainting this weekend again. I don't love how it turned out, so we may try again! I'll get after pictures as soon as I can! Sorry for the long post. I think that covers most of our June and July for now! I'm sure I'll have more news with school starting in 2 weeks!