Rain Memorial Weekend

We ignored the rain today and pretended like it was a beautiful sunny day!

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Graduation Par-tay!

We were SO BLESSED to spend Everly's last day of school at Teacher Kathy's family home on the water. Twelve kids, 20 parents, the sunshine, and a giant rope swing. It was perfect. Such a great day to celebrate such a big occasion as these kids head off to Kindergarten (oh my gosh) next year. Such a sweet group of kids.

Graduation Day

Everly had her sweet little graduation night. And I, in a feat of all miracles, did not cry! 

 On our way! With three flower bows and a candy ring. :)

(best photo ever by the famous Miss Misha Waite-Dotson) :)

Evie and the famous Teacher Kathy.

And first day and last day - look at this kid all grown up!

oh my.

my favorite part of today.

Color Run!

For Mother's Day this year we spent the night in Seattle at the kids' godmother's downtown home and headed to the amazing Color Run bright and early at 8am! It was SO.MUCH.FUN. A 5k, running through streams of color being squirted at us followed by a nonstop dance party with so much color powder that I'm still cleaning it out of my ears. Seriously.

 A clean, white before!

 The runner extraordinaire! This is Parker's eighth 5k in 5 months!

 Sweetpea prefers to run on dad's shoulders.

 I adore this photo of Parks.

 And the hilarity begins.

 I think I inhaled a cupful of powder, from face to the sun, laughing, arms in the air, dancing with my family. 

I LOVE THIS.

 This boy was down in the trenches, in the thick of it, dancing up a storm and throwing color on people.

 The aftermath. AFTER we'd been blown off.

The boy and I. I am so proud of this kid. When he was diagnosed in the fall and became so ill and couldn't do any of his sports anymore, he would ask daily if he was going to die. Break my heart. Jeremy suggested taking up running for him one night because it was something he could do and he could persevere, build up a tolerance and learn that he is still strong. And that, he is. He has improved his times, keeps up with adults, runs a 5k in 32 minutes now, and usually medals in his age group. I am so proud of this boy and all he's overcome! Happy Mother's Day to me. I am so blessed that these kids make me a mom.

Happy Easter!

Apparently I'm a little behind. I've been balancing a lot of work, a lot of big changes for the non-profit I volunteer for, and keeping all of the family time I can around all of that. So, all the little things went out the window. But I'm slowly catching up. And in honor of that, Happy Easter! A little late, but documented, nonetheless.

 

Papa Bear.

My birthday was last week. And the highlight of it was going to see the first grade play in the evening at Parker's school. It was The Adventures of Mother Goose and Parker was playing Papa Bear. He even had a speaking part..."Stop, Goldilocks! Stop!". I knew before I even saw it, this was going to be Broadway material.

There was a matinee performance for the rest of the school that day. When I asked Parks how it went, he assured me it was perfect, except Anthony was too afraid to come out during their part. Anthony was playing the part of baby bear and he is a friend from the next door Lifeskills classroom. Anthony does not have a lot of language yet, but he has a huge grin and a REALLY loud, awesomely cackling, infectious, screaming laugh.

That night, the stage was set. Parker's friend's mom is a professional face painter and she came early to paint the cats and bears (or kittens, I should say - three of them - they lost their mittens). There were sisters and brothers and moms and dads and grandparents filling the auditorium. The kids were filled with nervousness and excitement with pride reverberating off the walls. The songs were sung, the speaking parts were nervously spoken into the microphone. And then a short time after the Duke of York marched his men atop the hill and then back down again, the three bears made their appearance. They came from behind the curtain, holding hands with a nervous Anthony, making it a few steps onto the stage. When suddenly, Anthony let loose. Nerves, be gone! He ran around with wild laughter and then beelined back to Jack Hoerner's life-size pie near the back of the stage and jumped in. Mother Bear wasn't sure what to do with a baby bear in pie, so she followed him, with a fading smile at the audience and tried to coaxe Baby Bear out of the pie. Baby Bear came out, wildly ran around the stage and jumped in and out of the pie. Parks took one look at this craziness and decided THE SHOW MUST GO ON! and took it upon himself to do all of the parts, dancing around the stage, marching around and adding in some moves of his own...to possibly distract from the Pie Incident? I'm not sure. I do know that boy has no fear, as he mad-libbed a part at the end, waving goodbye to Goldilocks and shaking his bum back and forth in slow motion while raising his eyebrows up and down at the audience. Folks, we've got a total ham on our hands.

Yes, it was the best play ever. Broadway material? Even better.