Month and a half of crazy! Part II - Celebrations and more celebrations!

More of our month and a half of crazy!!

Prior to D's graduation and Grandma Weber's visit, we attended the Memorial Day Parade in Stoneham - it runs right in front of Nana and Grandpa Hanson's house, which makes it mighty convenient!  It's a short parade, but it's nice.

Kiddos waiting for the action:

Random flag guy on a bike:

Kiddos, enthralled by the bands:

"Stoneham Strong":

 Little fife and drummers:

Father's Day also showed up in the mix of crazy!  It was so crazy we (or rather, I) forgot to send my OWN father a card, so I sent him this instead:

Then D had to make Grandpa Hanson a Father's Day card, too:

I love the facial hair on Grandpa.  So funny!

Later that week the park near our house (Tyler Park) held their first summer concert!  Overview of the small but fun event:

Dashiell checking out the grass:

Aurelia munching on popcorn:

Aurelia was almost done by this point - she was in need of a daddy ride!

One of Dashiell's preschool friends had a HUGE birthday party a couple of weeks ago.  It was for him and his two cousins, so they went all out!  Bouncy castle and house, pony rides and petting zoo, plus a ton of food. Aurelia LOVED the small bouncy  house:

Dashiell was brave enough to go on a pony ride this year!  We hadn't tried it in a couple of years since he used to be scared of them:

Here he was directed to "sit up straight", which apparently means "cover your ears with your shoulders":

I hate to think of what he was touching here:

Aurelia not only loved the bouncy house, she also loved the kiddie pool.  So much so she didn't care about getting her dress and (non-swim) diaper soaked:

And I almost forgot!  It was Nana Hanson's birthday this past month, too!  The kids sent her this:

In addition, we went out for a lovely dinner for Jeanne (Nana) with family and her friends, and the kids behaved so well, considering the venue.  It was a nice restaurant, not the kind we usually take them to.  The kids' menu was printed on the actual menu, not on a separate placemat type thing that they could color!  And we were woefully unprepared - Dashiell brought along a book to color in at his own insistence (did we think to pack it?  No, he did).  Other than the regular diaper bag stuff we had nothing.  I can't say it was the most relaxing dinner, but I'm so glad we were able to go!

I think that covered most of our celebrations this past month!  Up next:  EVERYTHING ELSE!

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!