{Almost} Summer!

It's the final countdown-- the last day of school is tomorrow, then summer will be officially underway! I've been pouring over our calendar, confirming dates, looking up destination information, and getting excited for a fun three months! And did I mention the added summer benefits of not having to drag Tom out of bed at 7:30 every morning? That's something to look forward to, too!

Before summer kicks off, though, a lovely Memorial Day weekend, a couple of graduations, and a visit from Nonny and Bob. I didn't take any pictures over the Memorial Day holiday-- we went to Salt Lake City to visit Gramm & Gramp, and Marilyn has a fabulous new camera that was much more fun to play with than my own. I'm sure she'll post some pictures of our adventures soon. We had a great time!

Gordon is all ready for kindergarten in the fall. He had his immunizations (a fun-filled experience that included two screaming kids, and embarrassed mother and a very calm, very strong nurse), he is registered at the school, and he passed all of his numbers, letters, and other pre-requisites with flying colors. Now all he had to do was graduate from pre-school! The graduation/singing performance was last week and, in true pre-school form, it was adorable. The kids sang several songs and I loved watching Gordon on the top row, singing his little heart out and following along with the actions in his bold, energetic style.

Gordon has had a great year at Smart Start. His teacher, Mrs. Taft, has been wonderful and he really looked forward to every day at school. We'll miss his cute teacher and all of her creative energy!

My mom gave Gordon $1.00 as a graduation present. I love that when you're in pre-school, getting a dollar is not only satisfactory, it's thrilling!

My youngest sister, Allison, also graduated this last week-- but her graduation was from high school. I'll admit it: the best part of her graduation was the fact that my grandparents, Nonny and Bob, came to visit for the occasion! They've been out of the country since the end of last summer, so it was very sweet to see them and catch up. Gordon, Neil and I had the pleasure of spending Tuesday afternoon with Nonny and Bob, eating lunch at the Olive Garden (have you tried the roasted chicken flatbread? Yum!), then visiting the Museum of Idaho. The museum has a fun dog-themed exhibit-- "Wolf to Woof"-- and our animal-lover Gordon was in heaven. (Neil stayed contentedly in his stroller.)

Nonny and Bob are such good sports and crawled around with the kids in the children's area. Gordon is still carrying the tickets, illustrated with different dog pictures, in his special tote!

Graduations are always a cause to celebrate and I think Allison was especially thrilled to be finished with high school. We enjoyed a family dinner at Allison's choice, Red Robin, then I went with my parents and grandparents to the graduation ceremony. It was long-ish, the benches were uncomfortable, and the seniors were a little on the unruly side, but finally, diplomas were awarded and the class of 2010 was on their way into the real world-- after a stop at an all-night party, of course.

My sister, Ann-Michelle, me, and Allison (yes, she has blue streaks in her hair) at Red Robin

The graduation attendees-- me, Nonny, Mom, Allison, Dad, Bob

Allison, the happy grad! She'll be going off to college at the end of August and my parents are going to have a very empty house.

Happy Birthday Gordon!

On Saturday, my little Gordon turned five! It's hard to believe my funny little boy is growing up so quickly. Gordon is a darling little devil and he really does add so much joy and energy to our everyday lives. Here are five favorite things about Gord:

1. Everything Gordon does is done with gusto and enthusiasm! Even his fits are full-blown, which is super fun for his parents. It's fun to be around Gordon because his energy is so contagious.
2. Gordon gives the best, most heartwarming hugs. He is completely in the hugging moment, so you really feel like he means to give you all of his love.
3. Gordon is a clever little thing. He has an uncanny memory, especially when it comes to promises about treats!
4. Gordon loves holidays-- especially Halloween. We probably have a conversation about which holiday is coming up next and what we'll be doing on that day at least once a week.
5. We're starting to see some musical talent emerge from Gord. He loves to play the piano and sing-- my very favorite is to catch him singing when he doesn't realize that I'm listening!

I love my little Snuggle Puppy and I'm so glad he's mine! Happy Birthday, Gordon!

One, two, three, four... FIVE!

Oh, five. Such a glorious, adventure-filled age. Especially if you're Gordon, for whom everything is just plain awesome. He really is an excited little guy-- always! I barely have enough energy to keep up with him, which is why I'm SUPER excited for kindergarten. I'm also excited to leave the glue supervision to someone else for a little while!


Gordon's actual birthday isn't until tomorrow, but we had his birthday party today. First off, I should note that a long time ago, I vowed not to have anything other than a family party for my children until they reached a certain age (not 5), but when I asked Gordon what he wanted for his birthday, all he could talk about was a party. So, I gave in and got him a teeny little present and a big ol' party. Now that it's over and it appears that everyone had a blast, I'm thinking birthday parties are not such a bad idea. I'm not sure what my problem was to begin with, but I'm pretty sure it had something to do with the mess.

So, here's a rundown of our fabulous 90 minutes: Pizza! Dinosaur Pinata! (and thank goodness for ages 5 and under who don't hoard the candy but make sure even the little guys get some) Presents! Presents! Presents! Cupcakes with trick candles! Trick candles?! I know, I had no idea! Help us blow the candles out!! Okay, stomp the candles out! Cupcakes! Party horns! Party horns on the trampoline! Sticky, squealing, happy children all over the yard! Hooray!

And that's about it. An hour and a half is just about right-- and I'm feeling pretty safe in betting that most of those kiddos (especially the ones in the younger age group) fell asleep on the way home.

Right now we're dealing with a bit of birthday-boy-bossiness and older-brother-jealousy, but aside from that, I'd say it's been a really fantastic day. Certainly a "best day ever" in Gordon's book-- and it's not even his birthday yet!

Mesa Falls

Spring is fighting back here in Idaho (although it did snow last week-- boo!) so we took advantage of the balmy weather and spent Saturday out in nature! We followed my parents, sister, and my brother and his cute girlfriend to Mesa Falls in the Targhee National Forest. It was a perfect little outing-- a short hike with stairs, a couple of lovely waterfalls to ooh and ahh over, and of course, a fabulous bunch of people to share the day with!

The boys were thrilled with the water, and with Chris, who threw giant snowballs over the edge of the path into the water below.

M&M cookies at Mesa Falls, then a stop at the "Frostop" for hamburgers and fries made for a perfect little outing! I'm excited to return to Mesa Falls this summer for an overnight campout!

Mother's Day weekend was glorious, if a bit gluttonous, too! We enjoyed family, no extra church meetings, and food, food, food. Food highlights: pizza and treats at Freed's on Friday, the aforementioned Frostop and my dad's famous teriyaki chicken on Saturday, enchiladas and fried ice cream on Sunday with the whole family. Uh. Yeah.

The good news: I've been super disciplined with my eating and exercise this week! Ha!

This week, I'm working on planning our summer adventures. I did this about 5 years ago, when we were in Logan, and we really had such a fun time that year! Since then, I've been a bit of a slacker and with moving, etc, last year, I felt like our days off have been wasted in doing nothing. So, last night I made a list of everything we'd like to do, then poured over maps and the calendar to see what we can squeeze in. I'm excited about the possibilities we have to look forward to!

Finally...

Okay. Okay! Blogging at last!

I've debated about this for the past while and decided that I'm going to go ahead and combine all of my stuff-- life, digital scrapping, cooking, reading-- onto this one blog. I figure that it's pretty reasonable to be able to keep up with one blog, so hopefully consolidation is a good thing in this case. Life has been good. Busy, of course, and crazy, but good.

Spring is almost here in Idaho (although it did try to snow yesterday, nothing stuck, so ha!) and I'm so very ready to get outside. Tom fished his bike out of the storage shed and has been riding back and forth along the little gravel road beside my parents' yard, the dog racing not too far behind. Gordon likes to play in the front yard with the rocks (and yes, we've gone over the rules: you cannot throw rocks at people, animals, or cars), and the dirt, and the bugs... you know, boy stuff. Neil is obsessed with balls ("bah!") and got so excited over this one at Target that I couldn't resist.

So very cute! So, there's my life update for the moment. Tomorrow I'll post about some of my