School's Thisclose to Being Out!

Seriously, who gets out of school in the middle of June? Everyone else we know has been out of school for a week or two. Akiko still has one more day. Tomorrow is her kindergarten graduation, so keep your eyes peeled for that post.

Anyway, today the kindergarten classes went on a field trip to the park and I was able to chaperone. I haven't been able to on any of the other field trips they have taken because I've got two other little ones in tow and have been disallowed to take part in them. So, when Akiko's teacher said I'd be able to, I jumped at the chance.

It was a lot of fun. We just walked to the park, but it was all five of the kindergarten classes, so there were about one hundred kids there.

Walking to the park. I was a little late, so I brought up the rear.

One of the teachers brought along a bunch of recess equipment: stilts, jump ropes, chalk and bubbles. The kids had a lot of things to choose from besides the regular playground fare.

Akiko demonstrates the stilts.

Asher demonstrates his one-handed Mowgli crawl.

This picture is just to show that Moses was there, too. He ran off and did his own thing the whole time we were there.

Yo homie! What up?

Rethinking the decision to put this one up.

Asher is the unofficial "class baby." All the kids in Akiko's class fawn over him. Especially this sweet boy and another little girl (three pics down). They are his biggest fans.

We were both disappointed that this bubble wand didn't give us star-shaped bubbles.

Akiko posing with her BFF.

Bubbles!! My bubbles.

Asher with his other #1 fan.

Aren't bubbles awesome?

"Whoa! Akiko, how did you do that?"

I tried to keep him away, but finally had to relent and let him play in the wood chips and sand.

Showing off his standing skills.

Building sand castles.

Sand goes in...

... octopus comes out.

Playing with the parachute with Mrs. P.

Wheeee!! Swinging is fun!

So, I'm super excited for summer this year. Last year was kind of a bust for me. We were still new enough to the area that I didn't have a clue what to do around here. I was also extremely pregnant and then I had a newborn and no energy.

Akiko has only nine short weeks off of school (what?), so I've compiled a list of nine things (out of dozens of other fun choices) that we're going to do once a week every week of summer. This is in addition to our summer camp group that we have planned for a few of the weeks. I also plan on spending a fair amount of time at the pool.

So, here's to looking forward to Akiko's first official summer break. I'm totally stoked about the whole sleeping in thing, too.

Preschool Graduation - The First Time

Moses finished his first year of preschool yesterday. This is year one of three. That's right. Moses will graduate preschool two more times before he gets to go into kindergarten.

Nonetheless, Joseph and I are still really proud of him. His teachers love him and told me how much he's grown and changed this year.

Moses has always been the kid who is perfectly content to go off and play by himself, but I've been told that he's become more social over the course of the year and has transitioned from parallel play to cooperative play. In fact, he is able to tell me the names of his friends at school, which, I think, is a pretty big deal. Especially for a boy.

Anyway, Moses has enjoyed his first year of school, but I think he's looking forward to the summer. Frankly, so am I.

Here's the video of Moses receiving his "pretend diploma."

Now here are a few shots of Moses on his big day:

Moses and a couple classmates waiting for everyone else to get their diplomas.

Super proud.

He thinks he's such a big boy now.

Asher doesn't understand what the big deal is.

He wanted to pose all around the garden.

I can't find my baby boy in this picture. All I see is my big boy now.

I Totally Knew She Could Do It

We've hit another milestone today! Well, at least Akiko has.

Akiko can ride a bike without training wheels!

So, here's the thing: she's had this little princess bike for, like, ever. I think we bought it for her when she was about two and a half. So, yeah, we've had it for a while.

Anyway, it's a toddler bike, so it's got training wheels. For the last several months, Joseph and I have been trying to convince her to get rid of the training wheels and we have always been met with screaming resistance on the subject.

I could tell Akiko really did want to take them off, because one by one, her friends have been getting rid of theirs, but she would not let us do it. Joseph did, at one point, but... I'm not going to go there. So they went back on.

For several weeks, the subject had been dropped. Akiko got a scooter for her birthday that she rides to and from school daily. Her bike gets hardly any play time now unless one of her friends is over.

Well, this afternoon, we were over at her best friend's house because I had some things to talk about with her mom (we're doing another summer camp together this year, so stay tuned on that subject).  We sent all the kids outside to play so we could talk. Kids wander in (there were 13 kids over at the house, not including the babies) while moms usher them back out.

While I sat on the floor, entertaining Asher, I saw Akiko ride past the door on her friend's bike, park it and come in. "Hey Mom! I can ride H's bike all by myself without training wheels and without falling!"

"Really?" I ask, half excited and half exasperated while thinking, I knew she could do it. I just knew it! She just needed to get over whatever it was that was holding her back. 

So, it never really was that moment where one of us is holding the bike steady as she wobbly steers her bike down the street and then we let go and cheer her on. No, it was just a Hey! I guess I could do it all along moment for her.

I'm really excited and proud of her, but I also want to shrug my shoulders, throw up my hands and sigh because all that fighting over the stupid training wheels was so not worth it. The moment was also a bit anti-climatic.

I am excited, though, that we can go on family bike rides and pull the boys in the trailer. But that will only happen once we get Akiko a bigger bike and get rid of that darn toddler bike.

Quote from Akiko just moments ago:

"Mom, I'm totally excited for you to take off my training wheels. It's so much funner to ride my bike without them."

I guess I better get to it!

Wishing Well Hack

Well, once I had finished the flower girl and ringbearer projects, I thought all I had to do left was throw Kristen a bridal shower and I'd be off the hook until the wedding. I was wrong.

Kristen had purchased a wishing well on Amazon for real cheap. And when it came in the mail and she put it together... well, it looked worse than real cheap. It looked awful.

Not being the "crafty" sister (I keep telling her that she just needs to practice, just like anything else you want to be good at), she asked for my help to make it better.

Of course, I couldn't say no. But once I finally got a look at the thing I didn't even know where to start. Take a look for yourselves:

Pretty tacky, no?

Anyway, at least Kristen told me about the project before I left California, so I packed up an armory of craft supplies and brought them out to Utah so I could hopefully help the sad, cardboard box.

Well, after some sawing, spray painting, hot gluing, cutting and a half jar of Mod Podge later, we came up with this (thank you thank you thank you Chelsie for all you awesome help!):

I tiled the roof and covered all the seams. Even just doing that made it look a million times better. Then we made it look prettier and gave it some movement.

I hope Kristen and Keith got a ton of moolah in it. They're trying to buy a house.

Doing this project, I have absolutely fallen in love with Mod Podge. I mean, I liked it well enough before. It was fun and is multi-purpose. But I found it's true purpose in this project. I am now a die hard fan.

In fact, my next big project (that has nothing to do with weddings!) that I'm really excited about, uses it, too. Stay tuned...

Wedding Pictures!

I know you've all been dying to see these.

So, I mentioned before that I wasn't able to take any pictures with my camera, so my dad was kind enough to email me all of his. Thanks Papa! (Larry, Mama, you are also welcome to send any my way. *Wink wink* )

So, my dad sent me 21 pictures. Only 6 of them had Kristen. A whopping 15 of them featured Akiko and/or Savannah (my niece, the other flower girl). Only 1 had Keith in it. Someone's biased. *coughPapacough*

Anyway, I'm not going to show you all of them. Just the best ones.

Kristen with her flower girls, Savannah and Akiko.

Our darling little flower girls.

Don't you just want to eat her up?

Grandma Sachiko with her beautiful little granddaughters.

My older brother, Mike, and his wonderful family, Chelsie and Liam.

A really nice picture of my family.

My oldest brother, Danny, with his sweet family, Terra, Savannah, and Ian.

We told Asher he wasn't allowed to pick the flowers at Red Butte. He didn't listen. Little rebel.

There should be a witty caption here for whatever Moses is thinking.

Me with my two favorite girls in the whole world: the two Akikos.

Noah getting cozy with Anna. Even though they're both Akiko's cousins, they're on opposite sides of the family, so it's okay.

Oh! Look! There's the groom! I knew he was hiding out here somewhere.

So, those are the informal pictures taken by my dad, who barely knows how to work his camera. I think he misses his old film one sometimes.

The following links will take you to the professional photos:
   The engagement photos can be viewed HERE.
   Kristen's bridal photos can be viewed HERE.
   Wedding photos can be viewed HERE. <-- This link will be activated when Stacy gets the photos up.

Standing and Almost Walking

So, a few weeks ago, when we were in Utah, Asher surprised Grandpa Fred and me by suddenly standing up from a crouch. For the last several weeks since then, he's been doing a lot of practicing standing and he's getting really good at it.

Akiko and Moses still get super excited whenever he does. I'll be doing my thing at any time during the day when one or both of the older kids will suddenly burst in and delightfully exclaim, "Asher's standing!! Asher's standing!!" Then just as suddenly, run back out of the room.

Asher has been getting a lot of positive feedback from his new trick that he automatically starts clapping for himself as soon as he gets his balance.

As we all know, Asher has never been one to stay in any place for very long, so I knew it was only a short matter of time before he'd attempt walking. So it was on a beautiful afternoon this last week (Wednesday, for the record), I was out visiting my friend, we were talking about the very subject when Asher stood up between us and took a couple steps toward me before he lost his balance.

He was so excited by the reaction that he got from me that he has been practicing his stepping a lot. Of course, Akiko and Moses are even more enthusiastic about his bigger and better new trick, that the exclamation has turned into, "Mommy!! Asher took one/two/three step(s) and then he fell down!! (insert giggle)"

Here is a short video of Joseph and me helping him practice:

So, while I wouldn't say that Asher is walking, it's definitely a milestone. Actual walking will come very soon.

And now, for your enjoyment, here are a bunch of cute pictures of Asher that we've taken in the last little bit:

Asher wakes up with the best bed-head.

No, that's not chocolate. It's mud. He escaped from the house and found the mud. =P

Hey! What are you lookin' at?

More bed-head! Seriously, I didn't do a thing to it. This is how it was when he woke up.

Mmmm! Graham crackers.

Easter outfits! I couldn't help but get the boys matching suits.

Moses found great-grandpa Con's Bonneville and decided to take it for a spin. Asher is uncertain of his brother's driving skills. Especially since his feet don't reach the pedals. Maybe that's a good thing.

Asher's favorite spot at Uncle Paul's bbq. I so need to get me some of these chairs.

How do you keep a 10 month old happy when you get stuck in a snow storm over Donner Pass? Feed him circus peanuts. Thanks Akiko.

Asher's first spaghetti night!! Coincidentally, this was just a couple hours after the circus peanut incident.

Getting ready for his first haircut. Sob! I loved that crazy hair.