Congratulations, Graduate!

It's official now--Daddy-o is a 2008 Master of Business Administration (MBA). He's worked so hard these last 2 years--we're really proud of him. The graduation itself was fairly uneventful--minus Bugaboo's head-bonk and a couple bathroom trips, we made it through the 2.25 hours pretty happily, thanks to LOTS of snacks. Daddy-o's parents and 2 brothers made it to the ceremony,along with my mom, and then we were joined by another brother and the wives and kids of the 2 Utah brothers which made for a fun get together at our house afterwards. Grandma got her cousin line-up, except for the two babies who she took seperately. Doesn't this look like a fun group of kids?
And my little man who is learning to be silly with the best of them, and the baby cousin.

More Goodbyes

We had a great last get together with the group from Michigan last night. It's weird to think that we're all going our separate ways in the next few weeks instead of spending the summer together walking around Greenfield Village. We had a huge Mexican feast--chili rellenos, 2 types of chili verde, mexican rice, taco soup, and homemade ice cream. Yum!

And here are the kiddos--no longer babies, and 2 of them are about to get new siblings in the next 2 months.
Wednesday morning we watched Daddy-o play in the foosball semi-finals. Team Style fought hard, but a couple of injuries slowed them down a little.

Mr. Mischievious

Bugaboo is a real little boy--one that gets into everything, scavenges for food, climbs shelves, torments his sister. He's not a baby anymore for sure. He's constantly dirty--either from digging in the backyard, or, more likely, finding a bit of chocolate lying around. He loves to rub his hands through his head right after he's dug them through his oatmeal.

Today he brought me a big armful of diaper wipes which he was trying to throw in the trash--he'd emptied our last package and was putting them where they belong. He also dragged a poopy diaper around the house the other day, luckily without making too big of a mess. And he's figured out the trick of pushing a chair up to anything he can't quite reach. And has a knack for knowing when the bathroom door is left open and makes a bee-line for the toilet paper (which is a big improvement over his toilet swishing he was so fond of a few months ago).
But he's still our sweet little Buggy. Bean is always telling us how much she loves her sweet little Buddy. We are so grateful he's part of our lives--I can barely remember what our family used to be like. Calmer, probably, although not enough to make up for all the laughs we'd be missing.

Service and Other Fun

As our final MBASA activity, we washed the Paratransit buses on Saturday. They do it every year and its one of those activities that the kids absolutely love (and the service is pretty lowkey so it doesn't matter how much they "help"--I'm not sure that the buses are all that clean at the end, but at least the dirt got rinsed off.)
And then Bugaboo got himself ready to go out yesterday afternoon. What more do you need than a diaper and some rainboots?

School Fun

Tuesday night, Daddy-o finished his last class for his MBA. And since he had no finals, that means he is officially done. But school hasn't stopped just because classes are over.
He spent Wednesday at the MBA golf tournament.Notice what spring golfing in Utah is like. They actually had to golf in a driving snow for part of the morning.The cast isn't slowing Daddy-o down. They played best ball and actually used about a third of his drives. He didn't think he'd manage to play the whole round, but he hit every ball, 18 holes :)And then Thursday night was the Cougar Capital closing social. These guys have spent the year working on the student run venture capital/private equity fund (and if you don't know what that means, that's totally understandable--I didn't until last year. Here's wikipedia's explanation.)
Daddy-o was the M.C. for the night and put together some very entertaining awards--we learned a lot about these guys and what they've been doing all year.


This was the last of our multiple dinners for this week and almost the end of "school" for Daddy-o. He still has the fusbol finals--it will be interesting to see how that goes with the cast. Oh, and graduation, of course!

I'm a Cowgirl!

We had a field trip to The Farm on Thursday. Bean has been there before and loves feeding the animals, and most of all, riding the ponies.
She even got to meet the alpaca up close.
Now, if you are wondering why there aren't any pictures of Bugaboo, well, this is about the best I could do. It's pretty difficult to get a good picture of a kid who won't let go of you. My little animal lover learned that he likes animals better in books than when they are towering over him. I wish I had gotten a picture of him when I tried to put him on the pony--he let me know with some very emphatic head shaking and clinging desperately to me that there was no way I was going to be setting him on the back of anything that moved by itself. But he did enjoy meeting the chickens.
When we first got there, Bean ran straight to the computers they have set up for the kids and immediately began "coloring" the picture on the screen. I had no idea that she actually knew how to use a mouse! Or that she would be able to figure out what to do with this program with no instructions, but she had it all under control by the time I caught up with her. I guess kids really are just born understanding technology these days.

Tulip Festival

The gardens at Thanksgiving Point opened this last weekend, and Monday was the most gorgeous day of the spring--sunny and in the 70's, so we took a little MBASA trip. I've decided that the only way to do the gardens is to make sure there are lots of other kids there to distract Bean from all the walking she does--she was a trouper and only told me she was tired once.

Of course the water was the highlight of the day. At least it was warm enough that the kids didn't mind walking around dripping the rest of the morning.

Bugaboo was fascinated by the ducks--he LOVES animals. And he loves saying, "Gwack, gwack."

A bunch of the kids. The best group shot I got.

Bean and Bugaboo with one of our neighbor friends--we are going to miss living by them when we move.
And finally, a line of kiddos. I don't know what it is, but I love seeing a bunch of kids all lined up watching something.

In typical Utah fashion, it snowed the next day.

We hope we get more days like that soon because we need to go back and see the tulips when there are more in bloom--the cold weather these last couple weeks has slowed things down so the Tulip Festival wasn't much of a festival.

So You Think You Can Dance?

After watching Bean's dance rehersal on Saturday, Bugaboo has decided he's got the moves down.

Party Like It's 1999!

In some ways, I'm starting to feel like I'm back in my last week of high school (which wasn't in 1999, BTW, but there is no song about the year I graduated ;))--saying goodbye to friends, having "one last get together" (except we keep planning more and more get togethers), taking pictures of friends every chance we get (because I have realized that I've hardly got any photos of more than just my own two kids from the last 2 years.)

As If We Didn't Have Enough Going On

Yep. Daddy-o broke his hand. He's been playing basketball with some of the other MBA guys this semester on Tuesday nights, and has pretty much come home with something hurting each week (man, it sucks getting old--we're both starting to feel it!), but this week was a little more serious. And it was the second to last play of the night--so close!

We're just sad that this means swimming on the cruise is out. And packing and lifting will be interesting--not impossible, but I'll be doing a lot more of it on my own than I'd planned. Hmm. . .maybe he did this on purpose?

Only 16 days until Graduation

Let the chaos begin.

In the next 2 weeks, we have exactly 6 dinners, 3 of which are adults only, so require a babysitter. It's feeling a little hectic (although I'm not complaining about not having to fix dinner, or about getting to see friends). We also have 3 babysitting co-op nights, one of which is our night to have all the kids here. Oh, and a little graduation bash for all the family that will be around. That means that 10 of the next 16 nights are already spoken for. Crazy.

Then there is all the daytime stuff--lunches, a stake enrichment meeting (women's group at church), 2 fieldtrips to Thanksgiving Point, golf tournament (Daddy-o, not me), a carwash service project, dance recital rehersal, dance recital (okay, that is actually the day after graduation, but it's still adding to the busy days we have going on here), parents coming into town, playdates. . .

But when its all over, we have 5 days of this :)

Putting Those Clips to Use

Creative Juices

Finally got around to taking some pictures of the things I've been working on the last few weeks.

Clippies for the Bean:

Growth Chart for Bugaboo, to go along with his sisters:

(His name is at the top, but had to cut that out of the picture for blogging purposes).

Scrapbooking Challenge layouts (and maybe a couple random ones thrown in there--I hadn't posted any for awhile so here's everything I've done lately.)

And layouts for our Summer Internship album: