White Coat Ceremony

Jeff's program requires that he complete a year and a half of course work and also pass multiple tests before he was given his white coat. He has passed all of his classes so far and passed the big competency test with flying colors. We were thrilled about that. We decided to take the boys to the 3 hour ceremony, which sounded exhausting to me, but I knew it meant a lot to Jeff since the three of us are all he has here that could attend and support him at the second largest celebration of his educational career. We made it through, causing minimal distraction, with the help of fruit snacks and Netflix. Also, luckily the family that shared our table was kind enough to help with the boys and held my phone to record when it was Jeff's turn to walk across the stage so I could focus on taking pictures. It was really awesome to see Jeff walk across the stage and receive his white coat. He has worked hard for this and we are just so stinking proud of him. It is a little confusing to do the white coat ceremony in the middle of the four years, because it would seem like this means he is done. It doesn't. He's not done. It just means that he is now an intern and can see real patients and complete a regular eye exam in the clinic. He will start doing that sometime this summer.

Bensen started out so happy and excited and by the end of the night he laid down on the chairs and slept. It actually made the last half hour easier for me since I didn't have to worry about him running around bothering people. It wasn't even that late and it was so not like him to be like this. We realized the next day that he was probably feeling sick since we spent the next few days with him not feeling so well. Anyway, the pictures are still cute.

And the full length video.

Happy 2nd Birthday Bensen!

We had so much fun celebrating Bensen's 2nd birthday today. Here are lots of pictures to prove it. (I skipped a few months, I plan to go back and update those later)

1- I wanted a picture of Bensen with the decorations/presents. He wanted his fruit snacks. 2- Smiling picture with fruit snacks

1- We invited Bensen's friends Emmaline and Adelaide to come to his party. They couldn't come that night, but they did come over during the day for cupcakes and to bring that cute dinosaur. 2-5- How Bensen eats his cupcake.

1- I have been working on these decorations all week(as if I had nothing better to do), so don't mind if I made sure they were in a lot of pictures. If any of you know me, I'm not the most artistic person, so even thought they may not be much, I am still proud of the outcome. 2- Bensen posing with the goods. 3-5- Jeff discovered a new talent of making an awesome balloon guitar and sword. Bensen loved them. 6-7- Guitar/Sword fighting.

1-3- The yummy treats. I am not a baker so I bought the cupcakes, but I did decorate them (again, GO ME!) And my mom sent cookies that arrived today and went right along with our Cookie Monster/Sesame Street theme.

1- Bensen was not sure about everyone looking at him and singing Happy Birthday. He looked very concerned through the whole song. 2- Jeff helping Bensen blow out the candle (Dex is not sure what is going on, but he is sure cute!) 3- Eating cake 4- Bensen and his cute friend Adele (when we were inviting his friends, we realized that all of his friends are girls, cute girls. There are just no boys his age around here.)

Our guests 1- Irina and Josh Ruegsegger 2- Keri and Rhyan Dockter 3- Adele 4-5- Bensen enjoying more cake 6- Co6aka was so loved. 7- These great dads and their babies.

Presents time 1- A cool ABC Reverence book from Grandma Lynn 2-4- Opening his Little People Builders Firetruck 5-7- Cookie Monster (from us)

1- Josh and baby Dex 2- Jeff dominating at Draw Something 3- It seems like he's always picking 4- Dex eating his finger and looking cute as always 5- Bensen spent the rest of the evening feeding Cookie Monster cookies. It was great! 6- Bensen in his new snow coat and boots and documentation that I was actually at the party as well.