Continuation...

Last Tuesday the 25th was Easton's Pre-K continuation ceremony.


He even sported his very first tie for the occasion.


The kids all walked in and posed with their teachers for the parents to snap pics on the way in. Poor Mrs. M as this is not the most flattering picture of her:


One teacher said some cheese-ball lines about how they were carrying in flowers because they're a little garden...starting to bloom, haven't reached their full potential, thanks for letting us nuture this garden, blah blah blah. Then the kids sang a cute little song and Dalton got blasted with my flash while he looked cute waving at Easton up on the stage:


Because I was messing around with my camera and things aren't second-nature to me as far as photography (or even my new camera) goes, I totally biffed it and when it was his turn to go get his little certificate I snapped a picture instead of the video. Then I forgot I had it on manual focus when I did start taking video. It's all a big hot mess. :( April (who was sitting in front) said she got a great picture of him getting his diploma but I have yet to see that. Not sure if I ever will. :(

Anyway, we did get some cute pictures of him with it afterwards:


We got a family picture courtesy of Lauren:


Daddy changed into khakis and a tie to match his big guy:


We got a picture of Easton with Mrs. L (the helper):

(She's the one that came to our house to observe Dalton and Autumn a few months back.)

Then we snapped some pictures of Easton with a few of his favorite school friends. Like Emily, his first favorite because they were in gymnastics together:


And Tabor who is Emily's best friend from when they were just 10 months old:


Then Jacob (who you know) but he is completely smitten with Tabor so I like this picture where Easton looks like a total third wheel:


No worries...there's Kaitlyn (who I mentioned Easton wants to marry):


And Mallory (who also goes to our church) and she wants to marry Easton...just look at those interlaced fingers:


Can't forget Dalton and his friends:


We can't call it Easton's school anymore...he's all "continued" and passed the torch to his little bro:


And before we know it, it'll be Scrunchy's turn:


They're all growing up so fast!

Zoo with the Skoo'

Just like last year, Easton's school did a school-wide family field trip to the zoo.

This Wednesday a week ago today (the 26th). That was another day that the kids crazily slept in for a very long time. Most people were meeting at the zoo at 9:00 but since we had an annual pass and didn't need to go in with everyone I wasn't in any hurry to wake those rascals up. I planned to just call people we knew when we got there or at the very least, meet up with everyone at lunch.

And that's what we did. We took our time getting up and ready for the day with packing lunches and applying sunscreen and all that jazz. We ended up arriving around 10:00 and I called April (Jacob's mom) and they had just gotten there as well. The only problem was that the zoo was the most crowded I'd ever seen it and we had to park super far away and hike over to the entrance. Eventually we met up with our friends and the first thing we saw was this peacock struttin' his stuff:


And Jacob was excited to see Easton:




We stuck with them (Jacob, April, and Sam) after that:


April then called Tabor's mom and we met up with them...and Emily...and walked over to where everyone was meeting for lunch:


We saw Mrs. L (the assistant teacher) for a group hug on the way:


We had some lunch with a big group of classmates and friends before heading on our way again with some of the extra friends. I had to get a shot of Autumn who was super-chill the entire day:

Everyone always remarks on Autumn's easy-going nature. She can hang so happily even without napping. The perfect third child. Hee hee.

We bought some cotton candy:


And posed the kindergartners together:


Took a spin on the carousel...Easton next to Tabor:


And how adorable is this???


Somehow Easton wound up hitching a ride with a wagon already full of 4 girls. Look how tickled he is to be in there...like he's getting away with something:


Posing with all the siblings we were wandering around with too. (Well not all, Autumn and Berkley stayed in the strollers.):


Dalton, Sam, and Holton...next year's class of preschoolers:


Easton making sure he still had a spot in the wagon:


With Easton elsewhere, my stroller had room for another and Sam plopped himself right in:


We were just about to start wrapping up our day...


...when the tornado sirens sounded. Not off in the distance. Right there. They only sound the sirens when there's a funnel cloud spotted in the area. Great. A few of the little girls started freaking out. I was being my calmest but Easton wasn't understanding the urgency in my voice when I told him I needed him out of the wagon and in my stroller with me. Needed all my babies close by. April apparently went to school for meterology so she took a look and we decided to make a break for the exit. We lost our other friends along the way but stayed with Weathergirl. The sirens had stopped by then but it was also threatening to thunderstorm so we were needing to be on our way anyhow. Only problem was, I was parked a zillion miles away. She offered to pile us all on the floor of her van and drive us over but our stroller wouldn't have fit so the boys hung in the van with her and Autumn and I booked it with the stroller to our car with the sirens starting again in the distance. Perfect. However, we made it to the car a lot faster than we would have if I had two extra boys weighing us down and we drove to pick up E and D before following April to the highway. If she was gonna pull over into a ditch, so was I. From her husband (on the phone) we got word the weather was just as threatening over the parts of town where we live (more tornado warnings in effect). Lovely.

I'm not much of a freaker-outer in such instances. I don't like to scare the kids... but the boys weren't completely unaware of what was going on, either. They'd heard the sirens too and I explained things matter-of-factly. So on our drive home, Easton got really worried about what would happen to all the animals at the zoo in the tornado and he then led us in a prayer asking God to keep the animals safe. Sweet, sweet boy.

We made it home completely unscathed and turned it into a big learning experience where Easton had lots of questions about tornados so we went online and learned about them and watched the news reports to see if we'd need to hide in the basement. Hail ended up being a huge problem for our neighbors several miles east of us. Pretty extensive and costly damage at their place but again, nothing noteworthy happening directly above our house, praise God.

We waited on Jason and did a simple dinner and that was the end of our exciting zoo day.

For Jennifer and TFH...

Those two gals sweetly let me know they've been missing my blogging recently. I've been happily occupied with other things lately but I still do like to journal a bit with this here blog but I've got nearly a month's worth of happenings I have yet to "report" on. But Jessica suggested just starting with the last couple of days. And that I can do.

So, I give you our Memorial Day Weekend...through today. Which is a Tuesday. :)

Friday the boys were getting to go spend the night at Gramoo's house. It was going to be Dalton's first time and they were both very excited. After Easton woke up and had his regular juice and morning TV show he said, "I'm going to go pack." I held him off a little while as Gramoo wasn't going to be ready for them till after she finished teaching that day. But before long they got their stuff together. Easton packed his so carefully by folding each thing. He also brought his light saber in the bigger part of his backpack because he was pretty sure Lauren would want to play Star Wars with him.








Even though they were all packed and ready to go, it was still early in the day. Heck, Autumn was still in her adorable jammies (from Andrea).



And that's her peeking in at the bathroom where *I* was still getting ready for the day.

Dalton came to see what was taking so long:


I'm telling you, they were excited.

And Miss A showed off an adorable little dress from Izzy once she was dressed.

I took that after she crawled in from the kitchen. If she's motivated enough, the girl can traverse long distances.


The boys simply couldn't stand to be in the house any longer so we left for the Old Navy sale to kill some time. We certainly accomplished that and spent quite a bit of money (on great deals) too!

Finally we made it to Gramoo's and the boys gave me hugs goodbye but they were, of course, totally fine with me leaving them there for the night. So Autumn and I headed on our way. Around then Jason gave me a call and let me know that our good friend Tracy had seen my Facebook status about dropping the boys off at Gramoo's and she offered to watch "Kid #3" for the evening if Jason and I wanted to go out. I hemmed and hawwed for quite awhile because I already had it in my head that we were going to go to dinner just the three of us and this potential change in plans was really throwing me for a loop. I didn't have any pumped milk on hand...I didn't want to make Autumn stay up too late just so I could have a date with my husband. But in the end we decided to drop her off at Miss Tracy's and Jason and I headed to see "Date Night".

We picked her up and headed home where she was beyond ready for bed, sweet girl. She paid us back by waking up at 6:36 the next morning. The one day we don't have the boys our baby who normally sleeps till, like, 8:30 was up and rearing to go. Oh well. We had plans to go to breakfast and that way we could beat the crowds.

"Would you take a look at Mr. Not-a-Morning-Person here?"


"He loves me anyway."


We did breakfast and shopped the Old Navy sale and at Lowe's and Bed, Bath, and Beyond. She's a perfect little tagalong. We came home and took care of things around the house and yard while she napped.

My mom and Lauren ended up keeping the boys quite awhile into Saturday so they could swim on opening day at Moo's neighborhood pool and such. Autumn and I went to the fabric store while Jason did a bunch of stuff in the yard. She had another nap and then we got word that the boys were coming back home and we'd all be going out to dinner. Autumn and Jason ventured to the trampoline for Miss Miss' first time while we waited on everyone:

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Eventually we got the call that the boys were nearing the restaurant we'd be meeting at and we headed on our way. We found both boys had just woken up from napping in the car and they were total snugglebugs which was so nice when I was just getting to see them again after more than 24 hours. As soon as dinner was over we headed home to put them back in bed which was a little bit of a bummer not to get to see them too much but that's part of spending the night at Gramoo's, ya know? We were glad we had 2 more days of weekend with them to look forward to.

So, on Sunday we headed to church as usual. We invited our friends "Baby John" and family to meet us there, which they did, and then our two families headed to a picnic in the park for lunch. Here's my boys at that park:




After lunch and some playing we came back home and I think we might've installed Autumn's new ceiling fan and hung around enjoying the five of us being together again.

But clearly I also spent some time playing around with my camera (there's still sooooo much to learn and practice). However, I do get some cute pictures as a result sometimes. Like this one of Autumn in this adorable outfit which I'm darn-near-certain was from Kelli:


She's the queen of the scrunchy-nose face lately. It has replaced her tongue sticking out:



Tracy let me know how much they were loving her new tendancy to do that when they baby sat her on Friday. Their house guests were enjoying her so much that they were taking camera phone pictures of her and sending them to other people we don't know. :)

Oh...and her two little teeth are more visible now:


Monday we all slept in a bit (past 8:00!) and I didn't take a single picture but in the afternoon we went to our friends' house for a little get together. You know Easton's friend Jacob from school? The kid that I think is the coolest 5 year old I know? His house. And Tabor and family came too. Jacob's neighbors stopped over as well but it was a perfectly great gathering. They're both really great families and our kids all play together so well. We're used to get togethers with someone crying or tattling or having hurt feelings or needing discipline or a combination of all of the above...not with this group. Not anytime we've been with them, either. It's not just that it was a good day...that's how these kids are. It's fabulous. So we hang out and visit and listen to music and drink beer and Jason played horseshoes and we'd watch the kids whenever they'd re-surface. I'm so so glad that we met these families from Easton being in class with them and now we'll get 2 more years with them because all the little siblings will be in class with Dalton the next 2 years. I seriously love them all.

Anyway, the evening at their house ended (very late) with marshmallow roasting and s'mores in their fire pit. It was after 9 before any of the kids were in bed but I loved how we all smelled like campfire all night long. The perfect kick-off to summer, if you ask me!

Today was a casual day. Autumn slept till nearly 8 and the boys till after 8:30! Wowsa! I could get used to that, let me tell you! We got our regular Tuesday doughnuts which will have to change to Saturday or Sunday after this summer thanks to every day school for Easton starting in August.

We came home and ate them and Tracy asked if I could keep Wyatt while she took her daughter Emily and Emily's two friends to the mall for some girl-time. We were happy to have Wyatt and the boys all played and Autumn mostly slept. After Wyatt got picked up we began our summer tour of parks that we have planned. Our goal is to check out all the parks with playgrounds around here. I made a list in Microsoft Word. :) So we set off for our first new-to-us park this afternoon. Turns out that one was at a school and we didn't want to trespass on a school day so luckily I remembered the location of a different one in my head and we made our way towards that one instead. We found it!






Autumn's scrunchy face again:


I'm pretty sure that outfit was one of Ky-Ky's but it makes me think of Chrissy from Three's Company, I do not know why.

More park fun pictures:



Easton recently learned how to pump himself on the swings. I never thought to teach him. We don't have a swingset in the backyard and he's much more of a monkey when we go to the parks so he's usually climbing rather than on a swing. So, he probably could've learned awhile ago if someone would've mentioned how to do it to him. But, one 5 minute "lesson" (if that) and he's been rocking it ever since.

Now I'm wondering when I should try to teach Dalton? I really don't think he'd get it yet at all. The boy still likes to put his pants on backwards and his shoes on the wrong feet. Maybe at 4?

Being out in the natural light but a cloudy day also afforded me more opportunities to shoot in semi-manual mode with my camera:




She's got lashes like her brothers, lucky gal:


And as we were leaving I decided to take a picture of Dalton's eczema. His is not the typical eczema most kids have (allergic-type, the kind that likes the cracks in your skin...). His is nummular (which means "coin" in Latin). But we're having a heck of a time controlling it lately. Doesn't he look like he's been burned with a cigarette a bunch of times?

Poor guy. I'm just showing you guys...not looking for advice. :)

After the park we had to make a quick grocery stop and headed home to meet Jason. Well, that's 4 days I've knocked out. It's a start. Stay tuned for (potentially) more soon...