Graduation and other milestones

 Since Evelyn's preschool is staffed mostly by university students, it follows that her preschool graduation comes at the end of the university semester, rather than the end of the local school district.

Due to a miscommunication (I was under the impression her graduation started at 2:30 rather than 2), I missed the very beginning of the graduation (I discovered my mistake *at* 2:00), and Bubby and Poppy missed the program, but arrived in time for the reception afterward.

Miss Priss looked pretty sassy in her red dress, though it clashed with her graduation cap. We sure love this lady: she's sweet, thoughtful, independent--and plays well by herself and with others. (Her one fault may be hyper-sensitivity--these days, she seems to cry at the drop of a hat. She's been known to cry when I remind her to do something I've already asked her to do.)

Here's a picture of Evelyn and Logan, the friend from preschool that Evelyn is convinced she's going to marry. She's not shy about telling people this either--her whole preschool knows. Even Logan's mom knows!

And here is Evelyn with her two main teachers, Ms. Ostrowsky and Ms. Livingston.

 My camera took lousy pictures of the graduation ceremony. The videos are better, but only by a little bit. (And if they're wobbly, it's because I spent part of the time trying to keep hold of Oliver while I was recording). Poor Evelyn somehow got overlooked when they were handing out diplomas. She had the saddest face of any child I've ever seen. But then her teacher realized she still had a diploma--they were trying to figure out whose it was, when I stood up and called out that Evelyn didn't have one yet. As soon as they called her up, she was all smiles again.

 In other milestones for the week: on Saturday we attended the local Kite Festival for Reading--a couple of generous doctors and dentists in the area donate money to the schools in proportion to the number of students from each school who participate. Andrew's been diligently reading since January--so he turned in a form with a whopping 2800 minutes on it (first graders only  needed 600 minutes to get a free kite). Here he is, enjoying his free kite.

(What you don't see in this blurry picture is his cranky mama, who had a head cold and wasn't enjoying the crowds of people.)

My brush with the law

 Okay, technically my titular brush with the law was *last* Sunday, but I forgot to post about it.

We were about 30 minutes from home, and I was thinking about the things we needed to do when we got home in order to be ready for church on time. So naturally, I wasn't watching my speedometer as well as I should have been. Not, that is, until I passed a highway patrolman, looked down at the dashboard in a panic, and realized that I was going nearly 10 miles over the posted limit  (which was 75; in my defense, that area shifts back and forth between 75 and 80 frequently and I think it had just shifted back down). I watched in my rear-view mirror as the lights lit up and the patrol car pulled out on the highway. I continued slowing down until it was clear he was coming for me and pulled over.

It's a pretty ignominious feeling, getting pulled over with the car full of kids. Andrew wanted to know, "Why are we stopping?" and "Why is the policeman pulling us over?" After the policeman wrote out my ticket (he did downgrade it to the lowest amount) and let us go, Andrew very helpfully reminded me the rest of the way home not to go too fast . . .

The rest of the week was pretty slow (particularly compared to last week). Of course, the snowstorm on Tuesday meant that we weren't out and about anyway.

I'm ready for spring now--anyone else?

We passed another Oliver landmark this week--10 months! He's come a long way from this scrawny 2 month old (who looks like he's being eaten by Eeyore).

 Not sure why he looks so sad and contemplative, but he's a sweet baby. (Incidentally, you'll have to excuse our camera--for some reason it's impossible to get the left side of the photo to focus.)

More Oliver shots. One guess as to what he's doing in this picture--it still makes me laugh every time I see it. (And yes, he was very stinky afterwards).

Evelyn can't quite read yet, though she's getting down the basic principles. Still, she volunteered to "read" Oliver a book. There aren't very many things that make me happier than watching my kids read to each other.

And, of course, a totally gratuitous picture of the fat baby.

The weather warmed up nicely for the weekend--the kids and I went to a ward clean-up yesterday (I was supposed to be in charge of a youth service scavenger hunt but not enough youth showed up) while Dan stayed home with the semi-sleeping baby. I say semi because Oliver's naps have been atrocious the last few days--the longest he's slept has been about 35 minutes. I took him in on Friday to see if he had an ear infection--he didn't, but the PA did say it looked like there was pressure building in his ears. Depending on how tonight goes, we may take him in again tomorrow. Oliver's also settled into a *delightful* sleeping pattern, waking up every night for the last several nights like clockwork: 11:30, 3:00 and 5:00. Isn't he supposed to sleep through the night already? Good thing he's otherwise such a sweet baby.

This next week is the end of the semester--I think we're all looking forward to the change of pace.

All about Family

This week feels like a blur--not least because I didn't get as much sleep as I'd like the last couple of nights . . .

Earlier this week, the university hosted their first ever Festival of Excellence. Because the provost's office wanted me to cover the festival for the newsletter I'm editing, I spent much of the day there and Dan and I juggled kids.

Thursday night I went to a book signing with my lovely sister-in-law Lia and her friend Elise--Elise and I edited a collection of essays that Lia compiled and which was recently published by Cedar Fort. I think most of the people who came by were friends of Lia, Elise, or their families, but it was a lot of fun.

 

Friday after school let out, I took the kids and we drove up to my parents' house to repeat the performance, this time at the King's English in Salt Lake. (I'd heard a lot of good things about this indie bookstore, but I'd never been there before.) This time there was food and the publicist from Cedar Fort showed up--but most of the people who bought books knew at least one of the signers. (It was lovely to see my aunt Dahnelle and my cousin Demitri come by. I can't help wondering what my cousin Mikela--single, no longer affiliated with the LDS church--will make of the copy my aunt bought for her!).

Around the signing, we got to spend some time with grandparents and cousins. It was chaotic, but fun. (Also exhausting: Oliver decided he doesn't like to sleep for sustained amounts of time after 3 a.m.)

Our most exciting cousin moment was sharing a house with our newest cousin, Justin and Lia's baby Abdiel. He and Oliver have a tentative relationship right now: Abdiel tried to crawl over Oliver and he enjoyed poking him with toys. Oliver mostly took it in stride, partly because Abdiel can crawl and he can't, so he made a good captive audience. It's funny to me to watch them, because although Oliver was technically born first, it's clear that Abdiel is way ahead of him in developmental milestones. Personally, I don't mind that Oliver can't crawl yet: we love him at his lumpy stage.

Fun with Cousins

 This week was Spring Break for Sarah's kids, so they brought the whole family down to visit. And of course, I have zero photos to document this. Matt and Laurie were in town too, so Dan's family had a great reunion this week.

On Monday, Sarah and I took the girls in to have haircuts with Stacia, the woman who's been cutting Sarah's hair since she was younger than Maggie (about two, I think). Evelyn wasn't quite willing to go as short as Lydia, but she got a cute bob anyway.

Haircuts were part of the elaborate preparation for family pictures on Tuesday. (In the last two weeks, everyone but Oliver has had their haircut; I cut Andrew's--I think I'm finally figuring out how to do it without it looking too lopsided). Family pictures were scheduled during lunchtime, one of the few times Dan had outside of class, which meant that Andrew got out of school for pictures. You'd think that most kids wouldn't mind getting out for a little bit, but Andrew was seriously unhappy when I came to pick him up (mostly, I think, because he was going to miss recess before lunch). He threatened to ruin the pictures, but I think we finally talked him into a better mood. (Good thing, too, because his Bubby would have been very unhappy with him). Andrew hasn't quite learned yet that threatening his parents with bad behavior is unlikely to get him what he wants; if it comes to a power struggle, we have most of the trumps.

On Wednesday, I got Andrew out of school again--this time for the District Science Fair. He was a little more okay with things this time, although he kept asking me what I was going to do to make it up to him that he was going to miss P.E. I reminded him that he didn't have to do the science fair, so missing P.E. was his choice, not mine.

Bubby, Sarah, Matt, and Sarah's older kids all came to the science fair to support Andrew, which was very generous of them, considering how noisy and crowded the room was with all the displays. Jake took the girls outside to play on the playground, which helped, but it was still a long wait. They started announcing the awards by grade, so Andrew's group (K/1) was first. They announced the winner for third place--a boy Andrew beat at his school fair--and Andrew perked up. He actually stood up and walked to the edge of the crowd, clearly waiting for them to call his name. And then, of course, when he didn't place in the top three, he was undone.

 

Andrew's competitive spirit is a good thing sometimes, when it motivates him to try to do new things, but it's a serious handicap in times like this. As soon as they'd finished clapping for the winners, I hustled him and his poster out of the room. In the hallway, through tears, he exclaimed, "It's not fair! I had to miss P.E. and I waited for hours for the judges and I was so bored and I didn't even win!" And so on. Behind us, Matt and Sarah were chanting, "It just doesn't matter," but I don't think Andrew heard them. I finally helped him do the math: of 22 entries in his category, only 3 won. So 19 other kids (his age alone) were in the same boat he was. He finally calmed down when I took him, Evelyn, Katie, and Lydia for a celebratory ice-cream (his bad attitude in losing aside, I was proud of him for trying, and for behaving for the 3+ hours he was stuck in the gym).

That night, we had an adults-only dinner at Bubby and Poppy's house. Laurie was leery (note the alliteration!) of the hotpot at first (I think all the raw meat dumped into boiling chicken broth wasn't very reassuring), but I think everyone ultimately enjoyed the meat, vegetables, and conversation. It was nice to be kid-free, too, even if it meant hiring a babysitter.

On Thursday, the collective celebrated Katie's birthday by having dinner at Bruno's (pizza and pasta) and then having a dessert (soda or ice cream) at "The Cow" (really called the Top Spot, but we call it the Cow b/c it sports a large plastic cow on the sign). We had another babysitter that night--this time, Jake, who came to sit with the older kids while Dan played cards at Bubby/Poppy's house with Sarah and Matt and I went to my writer's group. (Oliver ended up going with his dad).

The weekend we've spent listening to General Conference and trying to fight our sugar ant problem--I think we've finally figured something out, so here's hoping for an ant-free house in the coming weeks.

After missing all or part of preschool at the beginning of the week, Miss Evelyn was excited to be back at preschool the end of the week, in part because she missed her friend Sydney, but also because she'd missed her current favorite person: Logan.

But she can tell you about that herself.

I have had several talks with her about being too young for a boyfriend, so she insists that Logan is just her friend. But the other day she also told me that when she grows up and has kids, Logan will "see her baby" because he's said that he's going to marry her . . . Should I be worried?