Saying goodbye...

A solid week of goodbyes at Stanford. Emotional. Tiring. Without question, worth it. Lots of "why haven't we done this more?" I don't have pictures of everyone and everything, but we've said it all already, and we are thankful for the friendships - in the courtyard, on playdates, out to dinner or coffee, at water parks, movies... wherever! But goodbyes are always yuck (just couldn't think of a more fitting word), no matter what good things are yet to come. Daniel keeps asking when we are going back to our old house. Hmmm...

Laura the Explorer turns 2

Although I haven't posted about it until now, Laura's birthday actually didn't get overrun by the graduation events of the weekend! We had grandparents here, an impromptu birthday lunch with friends in the courtyard, and we even managed to make a cake the night before (which admittedly, I haven't often done for the kids' birthdays...)

So here's some snaps from Friday when Laura turned 2!!

"Deez my stawberry jammies!"

Purses, dolls, fairy wings, a ballet tutu, what else could a girl need?

Daniel was a very proud big brother, helping carry the cake and starting the singing too! He even claimed that he made the cake - such an imagination...

Off to see the world!

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And a couple video clips from the day:

#1

#2

#1 - trying to get Laura to say she's 2 on video is harder than it sounds...

#2 - if you can't hear what she is saying over and over, it's "i'm going to get some scissors", and then when I ask her what she got (the tutu), she says "dancing". She loved it all - the fairy wings even went on and stayed on!

Graduation

What a weekend. I have had enough of sitting in the sun to last me a month or more, but it was so worth it. The atmosphere at each ceremony was exciting, and the kids did so well at each one, picking up on our excitement by yelling out, at fairly interesting times, "Daaaady!!"

The processional - okay, it's hard to see him, but he's in the middle with his hand raised!

Having him take the kids across made me feel like I was represented up there... we did it! Yes, I know, he did it, but I kind of felt like we completed something too!!

This was fun, but can we go home now? Everyone else has left...

Big Stanford-wide graduation on Sunday where Oprah gave the commencement speech...

Final 2 weeks

I'll post about graduation next, but here's a stack of pics from our final 2 weeks here! Lots of busyness, but also lots of fun...

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End of year preschool party:

I think the cowboy boots from the class dress-up box go quite well with the snake painted on his face! :)

Laura got to stay for one of the last days of preschool - she was pretty proud to hang out with the big kids!

The teachers made an awesome memory book for each child - it's favorite reading material at the moment...

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Camping out together, well sort of. We took the sides off Laura's crib, then soon after we sold her crib, and she camped out on the floor with Daniel!

It all looks very serious, but they are engrossed in the telling of a "made-up story"! Ahhhh, the joys of being done with study!

...and more joys of being finished - channelling the excess energy which is no longer needed for studying!

Oma relaxing in the hot weather...

... we all had to cool off from the week-long 95 degree weather! (32 C)

A quick day trip to a beach with an amusement park...

...and a bit of ball and bat action on the beach afterwards (except Laura actually ran away with the ball).

Oh, and yeah, I'm 5 months pregnant now...

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And then a few walks around campus to snap some pics before we head off...

Having a bit of fun mimicking statues around campus!

The gorgeous view from the Tower!

Thank you Mom, Dad and Beth for taking the time to be here...

It's big!

Laura from the backseat while we are driving: "I have somesing in my nose. I'm going to git it out wif my finger. [pause while the said action takes place]. I Got it! It's big!" *really, what am I supposed to do when I can't reach her and we're all busting up laughing anyway?!

Unsupervised

This is for my cousin Shelby, who recently had a post about her own unsupervised children!

Unsupervised on Monday: Apparently she's been watching me and knows what to do with mascara!

Unsupervised on Friday: the first haircut!! Not that it was meant to be the first haircut, but her brother did the honors. And he cut his own hair. And he cut a friend's hair. And that friend also cut Laura's hair and another friend's hair... or that's the story I got anyway! It's rather amusing, and not as bad as it looks, because that clump came from a variety of areas on her head, and luckily not in the front or a big chunk in one spot. But at least I have some hair to save - Abbey, you want some? Some of it might be Ellie's?!!!

Generations

I love this photo - my 2 sisters and I with our 4 grandparents. Too cool.

I have a very similar photo with my 1st niece Erica, 7 years ago, and now with her little sister Amanda (my 2nd niece), who is 6 weeks old. Bring on the girls, I say - there are already 6 boy grandkids!

What are the chances of 9 grandkids/cousins all with open eyes and no tears?!!

dorothy

Well, maybe she's not wearing Dorothy's cute gingham dress, but she's got the shoes and this was one of a few pairs she tried on within a few minutes! Maybe a stalling tactic before bed... (i swear my kids do wear clothes sometimes!)

"so that's your strong face, so what?!"

Not sure Laura was that impressed, nor intimidated by Daniel's strong face!!

This was from our weekend away - the kids had fun with all those babysitters!

marriage retreat

48 hours, without kids, at the beach... what else except lovely. We went on a marriage retreat weekend last week and got coerced into taking a 'couples photo', and then actually liked the photo - imagine that. We had 3 different people taking care of our kids over the two days and nights - thank you Catherine & Jimmy, Debbie & Whit, and Julie & Nir!

A few days after the retreat we had our 20-week ultrasound. So there's my belly and baby at the same time - good luck figuring out what the ultrasound picture is (it's the face), I was pretty disappointed by the picture quality, but the moving image was great. Still amazing.