The Final Graduation

You may or may not have noticed that last Friday the "days until graduation" counter on the blog has finally hit zero.  Talk about exciting!!

As graduation was in the evening we found a baby sitter to be with the girls so we could enjoy the ceremony.

Now my camera isn't great in low light.  Here's Corey parading into graduation with his fellow classmates. (ha ha, can't you see him?!)

I did get a half decent picture of when they called Corey's name.  Here is the grad shaking hands with the dean.

 

Here is Corey and his classmate friends.  We were really lucky to make some great friends here.  The wives of some of these guys got together often, which helped make the school years much more bearable!

Here's Corey in his fancy graduation garb.

Happy end of school Corey!  We are all very proud of your hard work.

Six Years

Today we celebrated our sixth anniversary.  We can't believe six years have gone by, which probably means we're old. 

I wish I could say we had a delightful day, but I'd be lying. 

We had a long week with sick or not feeling well kids.  Noelle had the brunt of it--fevers, bad sore throat, stomach bug, then consequences of dehydration from stomach bug.  Thankfully Noelle is finally feeling better tonight, she even asked to eat food and drink something (huzzah!).  She was even smiling and giggling before bed.  Sigh of relief!

Moving past the pitty party...this morning while were occupied (nap, movie) we snuck outside to take pictures.  We have to document these things or else we'll forget.

Love my flowers this year!  Such a fun mix of flowers, and it even has some bells of Ireland (the green flowers)--those were in my wedding bouquet.  Corey and Noelle picked out a great arrangement.  It was cute the florist gave Noelle a few daises that she happily brought home.

 
Even though we've had a stressful week with kids we're glad we're in this together and look forward to many more (and hopefully happier) anniversaries to come.  I think when the girls are older I'm going to go all out for Cinco de Mayo just for fun.  Even though we have nothing really to do with it we'll make it a family holiday.

Birthday Party

Noelle was so excited the morning of her birthday--if you couldn't tell from her pictures.  We decided to do a "Hello Kitty" theme, as she loves her right now.  I made a Hello Kitty themed flower garland, and then Noelle and I colored some fun birthday pages we found online.   

The splash park just opened last week so this was the first visit of the year!  Noelle was so excited to go, and was really excited to share some birthday treats with our playgroup friends. 

Ivy loves water, but the splash park isn't super for her age (you get splashed everywhere!).  She did like playing with the fountains bubbling before they got bigger.

Noelle was very excited for her kitty cake.  I think it turned out pretty well!  Probably my best kid cake so far.  Noelle only ate the jelly beans.  Goof.  Our kids don't like cake which is funny.

Now I'm just going to dump a lot of pictures.  Excited birthday girl!

The moment she has been waiting for!  Singing and blowing out the candles.

Noelle got some play kitchen accessories.  I finally got pictures of the play kitchen, I put them over on my craft blog, here.

After getting close she would say "next present!".  I don't think clothes are very exciting to her :)

Corey showing Noelle's puppy purse from Grandma Darlene.

Noelle's favorite gift from mom and dad was the little paint set.  She got right to work painting pictures.

Noelle is Three

Our little Noelle is not so little anymore!  She's the big T-H-R-E-E today and is completely ecstatic.  She's so excited for her birthday.  We have fun plans today.  Our play group is going to the splash park and we are bringing birthday treats to share.  Corey gave Noelle flowers this morning (a tradition we started last year) and she was so smitten.  I think she said "thanks dad" and "such a nice daddy" about ten times.

Ivy's Birthday Party

We had a birthday party for Ivy yesterday evening.  It was hard on Noelle to wait that long.  She wanted to skip right over dinner and get to business! 

Here's our party decor:

A star banner (don't worry the book I cut up already had a few chapters fall out).

We have a cake problem.  We love sprinkle cake, but the frosting isn't the most luxurious looking.

Noelle colored a birthday sign for Ivy.  I love seeing how her coloring is developing.  She's doing a great job coloring things.  She drew something at the bottom but I forgot to ask her what it was.

Ivy dug into the cake more than Noelle did on her birthday.  She still didn't eat much but had fun with the frosting.  Ta-DA!

This is tasty!

I love birthdays!

She's loved all her presents (and Noelle thanks you too, she has had fun playing too).

This book was a hit at library time.  I feel like half the kids wanted to look at this cute pig book instead of listen to what the librarian was reading (I brought it for Ivy to play with).

Also it there's finally a little color around town as the cacti are blooming.  A tiny cactus in our front yard had beautiful purple blossoms.  The only downside to cacti blossoms is they only last a day or two and then they are gone.

Happy Birthday Ivy!

Ivy is one!  Still trying to figure out where last year went.

Ivy Almost One

Ivy is almost a year old (on the 16th!).  We can hardly believe it.  Where did the year go?

Some notes about Ivy.  She's a smart little thing.  I can see her brain working and learning.  She likes imitating what we do.  She'll pick up her shoes and set them on her feet.  She picks up a crayon or pencil and sets it on paper.  She loves playing peak-a-boo with her bedroom door, she loves opening and closing the door peaking out and giggling at you.  She likes putting on necklaces.  She loves gram crackers.

Her favorite word is "da-da!", which she often exclaims when Corey opens the door in the morning.  She doesn't say much else (unless you count general screams for things), but is getting better communicating with her hands (opening them for "gimme!" and things like that).

She is just about the sweetest thing ever.  She loves nuzzling into you when shes really happy, giggling, or sad.  She loves being in the thick of things, but she also likes exploring the house on her own.  She has her moments (most oftenly caused by her big sis), but is usually quick to bounce back.

She has 4 teeth officially (at least two more on the way).  She has two on bottom and two on top--although the top teeth aren't the front ones.  We'll have a vampire for a bit :)

It's scary how fast she's growing.  She is now mastering crawling, and can even get onto the couch when Noelle's chair is next to it.  She loves walking around when you hold her little hands.  Also, just look at this I captured yesterday:

"Look mom, no hands!"  I think the record I've caught her standing is for 5 or so seconds.  She's on her way to walking any day now.

Easter Week

The girls have had a fun week.  This is the first year we dyed eggs with the girls.  Noelle loved it (knew she would).

I also found out that despite hating many forms of eggs (scrambled, egg salad, fried, etc) Noelle loves boiled eggs.  She's been eating them whole.  She's also had lots of fun peeling them herself.

We had fun trying different things on our eggs.

On Tuesday we had a little Easter egg hunt at the park.  Noelle loved it.

She ate candy as she went.

After all the eggs were found all the kids just sat down where they were and ate all their candy.  Ivy ate gram crackers.

Not related, but Noelle is getting better at drawing.  Here's a smiley face.