3 months in 5 minutes

As you can imagine, a lot has happened since we last spoke. So here's the rundown at lightning speed...

Gabby rocked the science world with her tornado experiment (I'll post video of it--including the gasps of amazement from her classmates--when Noah shows me how).
The biggest bit of awesomeness to come out of the last two months was that my little sister, Julie, got to live with us while our parents and my youngest sibling went gallivanting out in the U.K. Sadly, she's now moved on and is somewhere in Paris missing us horribly I'm sure. Oliver today cried for the first time saying "JuJu" between sobs. I think he's finally realized that she's not here any more.
While Julie was here, she entered "Columbus Idol" and rocked it--making it into the TOP TEN!!! Truly, she deserved to win it, but who am I to say--I only have a DEGREE IN SINGING.
Miss America 2009 was one of the judges (she hails from Indiana). Noah was devastated his missed it.
Gabby ran her first race (1/2 mile) and was by far the happiest (dare I say cutest) child in it. When she got near the finish line and everyone started cheering, she grinned from ear to ear all the way to the end.
One June 10th, Alex turned 5. He requested a Mario party. And since you only turn 5 once, we went all out. Julie and I spent 2 1/2 days working on the Mario piñata--that's right folks, we MADE it--from balloons, newspaper, tissue paper, flour and water. . .

and then we watched it get destroyed in under 5 minutes. R.I.P. Mario.
I had high aspirations for Alex's cake, but it turned out looking pretty stupid and because I'd just spent 10 hours + making a piñata, I wasn't about to care enough to spend more time on something that was just going to get eaten.
And that pretty much sums up the last three months. My sister has way more pictures and I meant to get them from her, but y'know, now she's in Paris 'n stuff.