Sunnyside Farewell

This is it. 14 years of Sunnyside Elementary are coming to an end. 

Everly is 5th Grade Graduate!

 She enjoyed taking photos with some of her friends

We watched intentely for her photos to come up on the final slide show. She was clearly the best kid there. 

We really will be so sad to leave Miss Frieberg. She was the perfect mix of love and discipline. 

One final cookie in the cafeteria....

And that's a wrap!

I love her. She is sweet and funny, kind and confident. 

She's ready for middle school!

Ethan And Kassie's Open House

Ethan and Kassie are coming! And Kassie's parents are coming! Holy smack, we gotta clean this house. What if they find out that we aren't especially great at cleaning our bathrooms. 

It's definitely too late to repaint the basement. I had good intentions!

But the flowers are gorgeous, the photos are lovely in their thrifted frames, the plates and cutie-pie caramel corn cone holders arrived just in time. 

Mark is smoking the butts!

4 almond bundt cakes and 7 Chocolate Lovers are ready for display and slicing.

The spread is set! I love the weathered wood with the silver frames and pink roses. Makes my heart happy. 

We set out the tables and I prayed that the shade would move into place.

People started to arrive and Ethan got to introduce his sweet bride to the people he loves. It was so fun to hear him say, "This is my wife, Kassie!"

It took us about 10 minutes of watching people cook in the sun before we knew that we would need to go to the shade. It was not going to come to us. Kyle, Janelle, JD and Katie jumped in to get everything shifted over. 

Sooooo much better. 

We settled in to greeting everyone and introducing our friends to Kassie's parents. It was a beautiful day. Julia and Sara kept the food full and the forecasted rain did not arrive. 

The garden was sparce but manicured. But the new fence looked so nice and the lawn was green and pretty. 

The Asiatic Lilies did me a massive favor and chose this very moment to bloom. The only last a few days, so this is nothing short of a wedding miracle. 

Dad's roses were not as flashy, but just as beautiful. I need to plant more of them.  

We had a lovely time chatting, letting kids play in the swings and holding Audree's new baby boy. 

And just like that...it was over. Folks went home, we froze the ridiculous amount of leftover food (why can't I learn to cook a normal amount??), delivered extra cakes to the deserving and breathed a sigh of relief!

All that is left is to hang around, convince Kassie that Winnie isn't scary (she is totally scary) and get to know our new in-laws!

Sweet Benevolent Universe, it didn't rain!

A Lovely Day

 Do you know what I need for Mother's Day? 

This.

Birthday Husband

With all the changes our family has gone through these last few years, we aren't all together for birthdays anymore. But I LOVE LOVE LOVE our new tradition of singing "Happy Birthday" over facetime. 

It's my new favorite!

 

Garden babies, wedding nails and the gooseberry deluge

The garden babies are appearing.  

 

My first baby grapes!

At the very most, we will get three apples this year. 

I'm pretty sure these are volunteer jalapeño plants. Look how cool! The seeds sprouted right in the shape of the jalapeño that fell there.

A little less cool is the absolute flood of gooseberry plants that are sprouting up in every single bed. I'm gonna need to wage ruthless war on the gooseberries. 

Luckily I have my wedding nails to ring their little gooseberry necks. 

Also...look at this cute little blue bird: