Jack is 7!

Actually, he has been for 10 days.

But, above is a picture from when he was about 10 days old. He was off of the ventilator, but was still on oxygen. He sure has come a long way!

We had Jack's birthday party yesterday. Mark of Mystery showed up to dazzle us all with his illusions. He was fantastic; and I heard many audible gasps from the audience.

If you watch the following video, you'll see Jack's expression at the end. It is priceless! Sorry it is sideways, but I fixed it halfway through by turning the camera. After the magic trick, Jack insisted he felt the balls coming up through his hand.

At the end of Mark's performance, we asked him to help us with a small disaster. We told the kids that I had forgotten to make a cake and we needed Mark to change a leftover pizza into a cake. He willingly waved his wand and turned the pizza into a cake. (Which, I had actually made earlier.)

Then, a little boy said to his mom, "that was the best cake ever". His mom said, "good, you should go tell Jack's mom and thank her". He said, " but she didn't make it!"

Ava's first swim meet

Saturday was Ava's first swim meet. She had a lot of fun, after she got over her nerves. Her first race was the butterfly. (see video below) Ava is in lane 2 wearing the red cap. At the end of her first lap, she thought she was done. Her coach had to tell her to keep going!

She didn't even want to do the fly, but her coach told her she would do really good in it. Ava also did the breaststroke and freestyle. She placed 4 out of 4 in the breaststroke (she's not taking after Mat in that one) and we think either 4 or 5 out of about 40 girls in the freestyle. We didn't stick around to find out the results in the last event. She actually swam the fly faster than her freestyle.