Graduation Prep and Reception

This past week has been cRaZy getting ready for George's Med School graduation. Melissa, Rachel and I planned to have a BBQ with our families together after graduation on Sunday. All in all, we were going to have about 50 people there. Planning an event to accommodate that many people is no easy task! Not only was I trying to put the finishing touches on George's gift, I was sewing table clothes for the BBQ, making cakes and cookies, and cleaning up for family to come. We were very busy!

The week was also full of graduation events. One day we went to a park for a BBQ with the other graduating med students. The guys got their yearbooks and were able to visit with their friends.

Perusing the yearbooks.

I had the job of making cookies. It was a big job, so Rachel, Melissa and Melissa's cousin Amy came over to help ice them one night.

It was fun and definitely made the job go by faster.

 

 Saturday night, May 19th, George's parents and Allen came into town to attend a reception held for the students and their families.

They served small appetizers and drinks. It was a beautiful evening.

 The doctors.

 The three wives!

Rachel and Chris Bailey

 

After the reception, we came back to the house to finish preparing for the graduation. Amy and Stephen drove down from Northern VA and brought Lance back from his dad's house so he could be here for the graduation, too. Once the kids went to bed, the party really started!

I volunteered to make cakes for the graduates to eat for dessert at our post-graduation BBQ. I bit off a bit more than I could chew when I offered to make three cakes--one for each graduate. Thankfully, Amy came to the rescue and with her, Stephen and George to help, it went smoothly and was faster than I thought.

I had seen this cute design on Pinterest and decided to try it out. It was super cute!

Working with fondant is both fun and difficult. I think I'm getting better at it.

Amy making fondant stethoscopes.

George's warm hands were very helpful in kneading the fondant.

After the cakes were finished, George decided to add a personal touch to his:

You can't be an EM doctor without a little blood, right?

What do you think? They turned out very well, thanks to everyone's help.

And it was only 2 a.m. when we finally made it to bed. Not too shabby.

"Hola, amigos!" means "hello friends".

Lance had his first performance at school on May 17th. He even had a speaking part! It was a little program about different countries where they sang about 6 or 7 songs and several of the students got to get up and say a sentence or two.

Lance did a great job! He used to tell me how much he disliked singing at school, but for the past couple of months he has really liked it.

Jude, Cole and I went to his morning performance they put on for the first and second graders. It was very, very cute.

Lance did a great job giving his line!

He was super proud of himself.

They did an evening performance, too, that Scott came to. Scott picked Lance up from school to begin their weekend together, but stayed in town until the performance so he could watch.

There is something so precious about a group of young children singing. I loved getting to see my Lance work hard and do his best. George and the boys all came with me to the evening performance, too, and got to give Lance a hug afterwards and tell him what a good job he did. Lance was beaming. Love that kid!

Date "Knight" at Chick-fil-a

Chick-fil-a is awesome. May 14th they put on a mother/son date night. You had to sign up and make a reservation so they could make sure they had enough tables. It was super cute! It was Medieval-themed with cute decorations. Each table even had a little flower on it with table clothes.

You bought your meal, then sat down and a server brought out your order while you waited. We even got a free cookie or brownie! The boys were able to pick out a flower to give to me as well.

Lance and Jude thought the cows were awesome and were so excited to pose with them.

This guy was hilarious! He walked around the tables making balloon swords and animals for all the kids. Lance's balloon was so cool--it had two little balls in it, one on each side of two balloons twisted together. The balls rolled up and down the balloons when you turned it upside down. Probably the neatest balloon toy I've seen.

He did a great job being entertaining while folding the balloons. The boys were cracking up the entire time. Jude got an awesome black sword and holster.

Posing with their balloons and the cow. (They don't have shoes on because they were playing on the play place. Don't worry, I really do dress my children.)

The boys got to take home some crayons and a shield they could color and I got some great coupons for free milkshakes. They really outdid themselves.

We had a great time! It was nice to be able to spend a little bit of quality time together. Cole stayed home with George while we went on our date. I needed some down-time, too, after spending many long nights working on George's graduation gift and other sundries to go along with the graduation celebration that was to take place in less than a week. 

We really need to do this more often!

Mother's Day

Mother's Day was spent up in Northern Virginia with our moms.

That morning, George and I made breakfast for my mom and the rest of the family.

Crepes, anyone?

It turned out great! We had all kinds of sweet toppings: strawberries and bananas, sweet cream cheese spread, nutella, sauteed cinnamon apples and buttermilk syrup that I let simmer until it became more of a caramel. Oh and whipped cream and homemade berry syrup.

It was a hit!

After Church we took our customary family pictures.

Unfortunately we were missing Chad and Amy (she was in Florida visiting Chad for the weekend).

There is no question we are mother/daughter, is there?

That evening we had dinner with the Glass family. George made his mom an amazing pork roast in homemade sauce.

While my boys didn't think it was so fabulous, everyone else thought it was really good. The meat was so tender and the sauce stepped the flavor up a huge notch.

I love that George can cook. It was a great meal!

Jude wasn't a huge fan, probably because he was stuffed with snacks as usual when we visit Grandmom and Pop Pop.

After dinner we tried to take a family picture, as we usually do, although none of us were really dressed. Not wanting to let the opportunity pass, we took the pictures anyway.

Getting ready. I think Jude is saying "cheese" right here.

First attempt. You can probably tell how Lance felt about taking pictures. I don't think he's quite grasped the concept that "Mother's Day" is for mothers. He'll learn. ;)

And, we're getting better...

Meh. I guess we can chalk this one up to "real life".

It was a nice day. I got exactly what I wanted--a little Willow figurine for Jude to add to our family group; we have a mom and dad holding a baby and a little boy figure with a puppy for Lance, so we were only missing Jude--plus some nice cards from George and the boys. After dinner, we piled into the car again and drove back to Charlottesville so Lance could be at school the next day.

Happy Mother's Day!

Father/Son campout

Our Stake had a father/son camp out the weekend of May 11th. Since Lance had a soccer game the next day and because we were driving up to Northern VA to celebrate Mother's Day that weekend, too, we decided to have our own father/son camp out in the backyard with the Elmers.

We broke out our 8-10 man tent (thanks, Mom!) and after scraping away the rocks and sticks that cover the ground behind our apartment, we set it up.

Jude wanted so badly to help. Sweet boy.

Lance and Killian wanted to hammer in the stakes. 100% boy.

George manned the grill and made fantastic burgers and brats to share.

I had forgotten just how enormous this tent really is until I watched the kids playing in it. It's huge!

Jude and Bennett had a great time being Ironman and running around with their masks on. They are best buddies.

Cole was a good sport and just hung out in his seat or exer-saucer while the festivities took place.

Mmmm! There is nothing like meat right off the grill. The Smiths came for a bit, too.

We love our friends. I can't imagine a better place to live.

The empty tent provided literal hours of entertainment for these six kids.

Crazy!

And it wouldn't be a real camp-out without a fire and some s'mores.

I think the boys were pretty wiped because Jude and Lance decided to go to bed all by themselves.

George, Lance and Jude slept in the tent all night long with the Elmers while Cole and I stayed inside. As much as I love to camp, I was pretty grateful for my soft bed.

6 a.m. came around and found these guys had ditched the hard ground and the cold night air in exchange for a couple extra hours of sleep in modern comfort.

Sweet Jude had to be touching George while he slept. Precious.

We took Lance to his soccer game that morning and then came home, took down the tent, quickly packed up and left for Northern VA to celebrate Mother's Day with our moms. We were pretty tired!