Month and a half of crazy! Part I - Graduation and Grandma Visits

I am so far behind I don't know where to begin!  It's been a busy month-and-a-half and I've got a bazillion pictures to post!

Let's start with Dashiell's Graduation!
My little guy graduated from preschool last month, and it was an awesome celebration of his time at the school!  It was held in the evening so more family members could make it to the event, and it was a PACKED house.  Standing room only!  All the kids who were moving on to kindergarten gave a concert, singing such classics as "This Land is My Land" and "Sweet Co-op Days" (which was actually "Sweet Caroline", but with the words rewritten to reflect their time at the co-op).  You can see Dashiell in the light blue shirt and green graduation cap in the front row:

All the kids did great, though I was a little disappointed that Dashiell's class spent the whole concert sitting down - the "standers" definitely had more energy than the sitters. Each of the classes did a separate song as well.  D's class sang "Take me out of the Bathtub" (to the tune of "Take me out to the Ballgame").  It was cute!

Then there was the presenting of the diploma's:

 

When it was Dashiell's turn to get his diploma, he loudly declared: "Goodbye Teddy (his friend he was standing next to)!  Helloooo Mrs. LeMasurier!" (his teacher) which of course garnered many laughs from the audience.
Afterwards we snapped a few pictures of our graduate!  With us:

 And by himself:

A friend of his from his previous class wanted to get a picture with him, illustrating perfectly how girls are just better at the whole posing-for-pictures thing:

It was a fun ceremony, and I am so proud of my little guy!  He had a great year!

The next day Grandma Weber came out to visit!  Yay!!  Once again, we took shamefully few pictures, but believe me we had a great visit.  Grandma got to see Dashiell's preschool concert on his last day of school, we did a bunch of gardening, we went to the zoo, and we went to the final party for the playgroup Aurelia and I have been going to (which I also took Dashiell to for 2.5 years prior and he was able to come with us, too).  Fun stuff! 

Flamingo heads at the zoo:

Grandma and kiddos, dappled:

Grandma and Aurelia, chillin':

At the Hanson's:

The morning Grandma had to leave (boo):

Not the greatest pictures, but it's what we've got! 

So that was roughly the beginning of our month-and-a-half of crazy!  Up next:  Random parties, parades, and other celebrations!

Hand washing expert!

Dashiell has become a hand-washing fiend.  He washes his hands all.the.time, to the point where a couple of weeks ago Rick asked, "should we be worried?"  Given the fact the Dashiell hasn't been sick in months, I say no, we shouldn't worry, and we should be happy that he's a hand-washer.  But the true nature of this post is to point out that every time he washes his hands, he sings the ABC song while soaping up.  And Aurelia, our little house ape, has noticed:

Second kids are awesome.  And so are their older siblings, who teach them how to do important things, sometimes without even realizing it.

Let's play!

I'll be honest.  We watch our fair share of TV at our house.  The kids like it, we try to keep it on more "educational" programming, and sometimes I just need a break from all the questions and "Hey Mommy look at this!".  However, we do try to keep it to a minimum, or else we get this:

AAAHHH!!!

So we've been making a concerted effort to GET OUTSIDE, especially now that the weather has been darned-near perfect for the past few weeks. So we've been visiting many parks!  Some of them are strictly walk/run around on the grass parks:

Tyler Park, around the corner from our house

Some of them have great climbing structures:

Aurelia in the tunnel that used to freak Dashiell out

Some of them have awesome sandboxes/sandpits:

Oh how they love to dig!  And oh how I love to empty sand from their shoes for 30 minutes after going to the park...

And some of them are not parks at all, but are the play structures in our friends' backyards:

Aurelia navigating the slide (and it's ladder) like it was no big thing.

Of course there are days when we either need to or just want to stay inside and play, and that's okay too!  We color:

Dashiell was at the "big table" coloring, so 'Reels grabbed her crayons and plopped herself down at the kid table.  Gotta be just like big bro!

We paint pottery at birthday parties:

All the kids were SO focused

We find our own indoor "climbing structures":

 

 

Yeah, the chair at the sink is a favorite.  I'm not sure what prompted the naked chair climbing, but I guess they don't need a reason to lose their clothing!

And of course we help ourselves to snacks, directly from the fridge:

Grabbed a whole apple and went to town on it!

Or cereal box:

Ditto with the cereal...'Reelsy likes a good snack!

 

We won't be getting rid of our TV anytime soon, we're not that good. After my bout with the stomach bug from hell last week in which I laid on the couch most of the afternoon while the kiddos contentedly watched Disney Jr., I firmly believe that TV can be a mommy's savior if used under the right circumstances.  But on those days when it seems like ALL the kids want to do is watch TV, it's nice to be reminded that they have the ability to have fun without it!

Mishmash

Time for a photo dump!  The kids have been awfully cute lately...

First, Easter.  I know, it was THREE weeks ago!  But I've been busy, alright?  Sheesh!

We didn't get any pictures of Dashiell coloring Easter eggs this year, but Rick managed to grab a few funny post-coloring shots:

BAHahaha!  I love the expression on D's face!

On Easter day we got semi-dressed up and headed over to Auntie Sue and Uncle Tony's house for dinner with the fam.  It was nearly impossible to get any good pictures, but these ones aren't bad:

This next picture was taken the week before D's mustache bash - you can see why he was inspired by the awesomeness of the 'stache:

I bought Aurelia these funny pink plaid pants at a consignment store and was trying to get a picture of her in them with her pink fuzzy sweater.  It's a look that only works for 1-year-olds and elderly ladies in nursing homes:

A few weeks ago Dashiell was trying to draw a person with a body big enough to include the digestive system.  He started drawing this picture and decided he didn't like it before it was finished.  Rick and I, however, love it. 

The arms in a little shrug?  Awesome.

Dashiell got a lot of cool things for his birthday.  Here he is taking a picture of the rocks he dug out of his rock excavation kit:

Here he's painting the birdhouse he built:

And probably the most fun gift is the SCOOTER that his grandparent's bought him!  Wow!

When Aurelia saw the scooter she TOTALLY wanted to ride it too.  Nudged D out of the way, grabbed the handles, and tried to step on it.  Then she sat right down on it.  I'm thinking next summer she might be able to handle her own three or four wheeled scooter.  Dashiell's is a 2-wheeler - oooh!!

Speaking of Aurelia, here are some random cute photos of our favorite girl! 

Enjoying some hummus:

 Climbing on the ottoman:

Saying "cheese!"

And playing peek-a-boo in her kitchen:

We went to a small carnival near our house this weekend, and D had fun on some of the smaller rides.  He loved the bouncy slide, and the woman who was running it was nice enough to let him go down it about 15 times.  I was able to catch one marginally okay photo:

He also dug the "loony airport" since he could "fly" in a plane:

There were also a couple of funhouses that he liked and the BIG slide that he went on with Rick (no good pictures, sorry).

While Auntie E was in town this past week we celebrated her birthday, which is coming up in a few weeks.  Of course Dashiell had to be part of the candle blowing:

This photo for some reason didn't make it into my previous post about Boston.  It's Elizabeth and Aurelia in surprisingly similar poses walking through the Public Garden.  Pretty dang cute if you zoom in...

And finally, this weekend we were able to spend a little time playing in the back yard.  I kind of love this picture of my two kiddos hanging out in Dashiell's "treehouse slide" (which, btw, is WAY too small for Dashiell, but he's not ready to admit that yet!):

My cutie pies!

A couple of developmental notes:  Dashiell grew 3 inches last year.  3 inches!!  No wonder he went from a 4T to a 6 in such a short period of time!  And he is happy to report that he will not be getting any more shots until he is 11 - that's more than twice his current age!  Yay!

Aurelia also grew a lot - 2.5 inches in 3 months, so she's now in the 90th percentile for height, just like her bro.  She's also REALLY working on talking.  She seems to speak in full sentences, but unfortunately its in a language no one else can understand.  We can kind of make out "thank you", "what's that?", and "cheese!".  But usually it seriously sounds like she's holding a conversation with us - even our pediatrician commented on it.  It's super cute, but I can only imagine how frustrating it must be for her!  And yes we have tried signing with her, but she wants none of it.  My little stubborn girl! :)

Whew, I think we're caught up now!  I swear I used to be good at keeping this blog updated!  Have a good week, everyone!