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Yep, he's a full-fledged high school graduate.
Before the event. The gold cords are NHS and the pink one is for Fine Arts.
And after, with Dad (notice the change of tassel position).
And Grandma.
And even The Girl.
It was a really nice day. Hope you have a great Memorial Day, and while you are having a great day, always remember....
Eldest Son's family was here for a bit over the weekend. The plan was to take the SGB on his very first fishing trip. First off, the weather didn't cooperate very well. It rained for a good share of the time, which didn't bother me, as you know, but made it difficult to fish. Then, DH took the camera but didn't take any pictures, so the event wasn't documented for posterity. Sad, sad, sad.
But then again, while they were here at the house, I did get a few shots. New Little One....and we are pestering him for grins again. And every time I take a picture with this carpet in the background, I just sigh contentedly.
The SGB with him. NLO is very fascinated with his big brother. The SGB is bundled up for the fishing adventure. Hopefully it will keep any rain off. (And as I'm posting this, I'm thinking the right side of my picture will be cut off and you may only see the SGB's nose instead of his profile....)
Hugs.
And helping zip him into what his parents call the Body Bag.
He's a good big brother.
A couple of new non-tech fun activities up at the cabin this past weekend. (BTW, I'm looking at the pictures from yesterday....they aren't cut off IRL. Sizing them to "large" on the blog apparently takes the right side just like it does on layouts.)
There were several rousing games of Dominoes, as well as a new card game DDIL#1 taught us called "Lucky Duck."
And then there was this project involving those nice, bright orange buckets you saw yesterday. Because Eldest Son's family will be doing some traveling, and because they are attempting to grow some vegetables in containers on their small apartment balcony, Eldest went online and found directions for making self-watering containers.These are 5 gallon buckets, one stacked inside the other. The PVC piece is where the water is poured into the bottom bucket which acts as a reservoir. A cup of soil is suspended out the bottom of the top bucket and into the reservoir and behaves like a straw, wicking the water up into the top bucket where the plant lives. Pretty nifty!
New Little One has acquired some awesome grins, so whenever we see him these days, it's all about turning ourselves inside out to get them.
Last weekend at the cabin he was fairly accommodating as we made faces with the goal of getting those gummy grins.
His daddy was pretty good at getting them.
But sometimes a guy just isn't interested in performing. (Sorry about the very lovely orange background object....more on that tomorrow.)
Not even when his grandpa is trying his best.
And making interesting noises.
And making eye contact.
Sometimes there's just something more interesting....
....over there.
So Grandpa just gave in and turned him around.
The baby curls have made a departure. He looks like quite the big boy now.
This is also his look of utmost concentration...notice the tongue.
The SGB and Ollie have become pretty good pals over weekends at the cabin, although the puppy can get a little rambunctious at times and nip a little.
Still, the SGB's favorite thing is to run and run and run with the pup.
All that running can really wear a puppy out, so you've got to make sure he gets fueled back up again. "Puppy....food.....eat it."
Yep, pals. :)
The SGB is in the line-it-up and sort-it phase. It is so cute to watch. Any time he is presented with several similar things, they get lined up. A couple of weekends ago, we had both he (and the puppy) up at the cabin while his parents were traveling.
He must have lined these three cars up in every style and configuration imaginable....side by side, end to end, with people, without people. And by the way, all the people are "boys."
And when he gets tired of playing with them, he's in a tossing phase. Last weekend, as he was throwing them down the stairs at the cabin, it was, "Deese boys.....upset." I'm not quite sure yet what the boys have to be upset about, but maybe we'll find out in future trips.
Newly-Graduated College Boy was home over the weekend. I just sent him off down the road to head back to Utah so he could go to work at his summer job tomorrow.
He works at a web-hosting center taking calls from angry people. We miss him when he's gone. And I'm going to have to come up with a new nick-name for him since he's not technically College Boy any more. That label will fall to San Diego Boy in single digit weeks. (Got his coming-home itinerary in the mail this past weekend.....WOOHOOOOOO!!!)
Anyway, it's his birthday today. He's 24 on the 24th.
He came home for a little mama-spoiling on his birthday. He wanted quiche sometime during his stay, and a yellow cake with chocolate frosting....from scratch, which I was more than happy to do for him. I mean, we don't get to see him very often...and a kid only turns 24 on the 24th once.
The gift I made for the voice teacher required a little doing. I contacted as many of her past and present students from this area as I could find. I did pretty well thanks to a couple of kids who were on
I compiled them into an album that I entitled, "For Good." This comes from a song in the musical "Wicked"...the last 2 lines are, "Because I knew you, I have been changed for good." I used the full lyrics to the song as the title page and followed it with the sentiments from the students. A little blurry here but you get the idea. This is San Diego Boy's and my pages. It was really fun to get and read the responses as they came in. Lots of "Awwww....." moments.
She opened it after the recital and cried. That's when I knew I'd accomplished the goal of letting her know how much she has touched the lives around her. She is such an amazing person and a fantastic teacher. It was well worth the effort to do it.
It was good. It was really good. His teacher said so, and she's the expert. What was really great was that every person there was someone who had worked with/cared for Preemie Boy in one capacity or other. He sang the socks off every, single piece, including an encore number I'm glad we put together at the last minute. Just a little tour of the evening....
Programs at the entrance. My DDIL#1 put these together. She has amazing graphic design skills and I really appreciated her doing this. It looks so much better than anything I could have done. She even emailed them to Office Max in my town and had them printed up. Very cool.
DH and The Girl had comments between some of the numbers to give Preemie Boy a chance to get a drink and rest his voice just a bit. The Girl's comment before it was her turn....and the comment was because she was nervous, not because she was being snotty about reading the words, "What if I throw up??"
Preemie Boy emoting a little. You'll recall that he has been very stone-faced in the past, so little gestures like this are HUGE progress in his stage presence.
The close up.
The hug from his accompanist, aka me.
Presenting the gift to his awesome voice teacher....more about that tomorrow.
Sometimes I just really wish that all day, every day could be just like this one night.
