Rowan is 14!

This super special boy is FOURTEEN.  He really and truly is one of a kind. He's brilliant, so mature and so thoughtful. He loves a good debate but will thoughtfully listen to the other side. He trusts Jesus, is logical and sees the world in black and white. Rowan is so good with little kids, confident in who he is and is very even keeled when it comes to new experiences. Row had the best birthday with all (almost) the people that he loves! 

 

Birthday #1: Grammy, Grampy, Daddy & The O'Connor Fam: 

We celebrated Rowan with a Portillo's dinner, cookie cake and presents! We spent his entire birthday week in Illinois and he was thrilled. In fact, he requested that! :) 

Getting to celebrate with his cousins is a sweet treat! 

Rog and I split up our gifts for him throughout all of his celebrations so a small wallet that he can easily take to school was gift number one. 

Row immediately put on his new Cubs hat from Grammy & Grampy.

Birthday #2: Grandma

Row celebrated his birthday in Morton with Grandma! He chose Monicals Pizza for dinner and enjoyed playing Kubb and his new game The Chameleon with Grandma. Rowan had his favorite Thumbprint cookies from the Morton Confectionary for dessert.

Birthday #3: Rowan's Actual Birthday: 

Rowan actual day began with pancakes made by Coco. Rowan chose all the activities for the day and ended up choosing bowling, walking through downtown Crystal Lake playing Pokemon Go, playing Monopoly with Grampy and having Grammy grill hamburgers for dinner. It was a sweet, fun day.

 

More fun gifts from Grammy & Grampy 

We gave Rowan a few more gifts from our family including a new book, iTunes gift card and new Louisville Slugger baseball bat which he got to design himself and should be here in a few weeks. Check back for pics! Cora and Cruz got Rowan a fidget slug toy. 

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Birthday #4: Home

When we got home from Illinois, Row got to open the rest of his gifts from us, plus a few other things that had arrived while we were gone. Since he decided not to do any sort of birthday party this year, we got him an additional gift, a new bike, that he has yet to pick out! I will add a picture when he does. 

Thank you Linda!!! 

Thank you Uncle, Randy, Aunt Nicole and Emmett! We had so much fun getting to see you all before we came home! 

Rowan got his first bottle of cologne this year. He's so grown up. 

Happy Birthday 14th Birthday, Precious Rowan.

We are so so so incredibly proud of you and can't wait to watch you tackle high school. Each year gets more and more bittersweet for me as your mama. You are growing into such an amazing person that I can't help but be excited for the future while simultaneously mourning that amazing little boy that you once were. I am so grateful for you- we all are. 

July: First Half

4th of July:

We celebrated the 4th of July at Roger's Uncle Craig's house.  

and then headed up to Orlando for a few fun park days before Cora's dance convention began. 

EPCOT: 

 

Roger and Rowan had tickets to use from our Disney trip earlier in the summer when they stayed home sick. Cruz, Cora and I had to tag along as well. :)

First time on Guardians of the Galaxy as a family and it was AMAZING! 

The following day, the kids and I used our Universal passes while Roger worked. 

Tremaine Nationals: 

 

We brought A LOT of stuff for our weeklong trip. Coco needed her dance costumes, hair and makeup, six leotards, tights, shorts, street clothes, dance shoes, regular shoes, snacks, drinks and breakfast/lunch foods. PLUS fancy clothes for the gala for both of us! Roger and the boys came and went throughout the week. They stayed with us at first, then they went home for Rowan's periodontist follow up and so Roger could attend some meetings in Sarasota. They returned for the weekend, visited Hollywood Studios and Sea World together and then headed home on Sunday. It was great to have them there for part of the time though we barely had a spare minute to see them! 

 

It isn't an Orlando trip without a Portillo's Stop. 

Day #1 

The girls were so excited to meet the various Tremaine faculty members.

Cora and Grace ready to go. The dancers took about 5 hours of master classes each day across four of the days of the conference. One of the days was all competition. 

Day #2 

We snuck away in the afternoon to go shopping with friends.... 

and ran into one of the Tremaine teachers at the mall! 

The girls found Ms Emily the ballet teacher on their way back from the pool. 

 

Day #3 was competition day. The Gershwin's competed both their tap and jazz dances and placed third in both. Tremaine doesn't separate the dances into categories like there competitions (novice, intermediate, elite) so the girls were competing against some elite teams. 

We ended up having a fun year with this team of girls! 

Ready to hang out with friends during some free time. 

Day #4 started out with scholarship auditions. The process starts with learning and executing a ballet combo. The team of judges choose a group of dancers to stay after the ballet portion and move on to the next round which is to learn and execute a jazz combo. They then choose a small number of students to be scholarship finalists. I was SO proud of Cora as she made it through the ballet portion of the audition. She has grown so much this year.

Sunday evening was our chance to get dressed up, go to a fancy dinner and watch a neat show. This is Taelyn, Cora's dance big sister for the year. 

Ms Jill is the studio owner. 

Ms Geena is Cora's tap teacher 

and Ms Karyssa teaches Cora jazz and acro.

The dancers got to walk the red carpet and meet their favorite dance stars. 

Day #5. I left early on this last day while Cora took some more classes and got to watch the closing show. One of her dance friends brought her back to Sarasota for me. I needed to get home to unpack/repack before we left for Nashville bright and early the next morning! 

Neurologist: 

When we moved, we decided not to switch neurologists. Cruz is comfortable with his and we've had this doctor with us for the five years since Cruz was diagnosed. We're able to do Telehealth visits most of the time but will travel to Nashville for Cruz's yearly EEG. Cruz's EEG still shows spikes that indicate BRE so he's going to remain on his medication for another year at least. 

 

Friends: 

We saw plenty of friends during our trip to Nashville as well. So thankful that the kids (and I) can pick up right where they left off with these sweet friends.

House Updates:

The front is painted, the shutters and accents are up and painted as well. Apparently it's super difficult to finish the roof though as they've been doing it for over two months. ;) 

The tile is up in the showers (almost anyways). This video is of the master shower which Roger designed. 

The kitchen choices were mine so its fun to see them starting to come together. The hardware will be a brushed brass color but the home builder didn't offer that as an option so we purchased hardware on our own and Roger will change it out after closing. The septic is dug, the pavers are up, the house has electricity, the doors are put on and the trim is done. Slowly but surely progress is being made.