30 & 18

 We had Better than Shopping Cake and special candles for our birthday twins  

We’d had so much party food that I almost didn’t make a cake, but I’m glad I did. You have to celebrate properly. 

We got them their hotel room (with points) and filled up their car and gave them money towards their fun overnight trip, but they had to have something to open, so we got them some roadtrip snacks. 

The boys helped me wrap everything up so it was truly beautiful. 😉 

Emmett and I bought number balloons and we tried to tape them to the wall but couldn’t get them to stay. 

We did some fun boomerang pictures, so it ended up working out. 

Pretty cool birthdays for these two!

Adi’s graduation gift arrived that day too - a new laptop that auntie Alli helped us with her discount. 

June 3rd also happened to be Freshman Orientation. I thought it started at 7 and picked her up early from alley accordingly, but then we discovered it actually started at 6. Oopsie. . 

Adi ran a musical jeopardy game for her young women class and they had fun. 

It ended up working out okay because we missed the boring auditorium part and still got to walk around the school

Future Raider and alumni Raider!

It was a good birthday for our good birthday girls! It’s wild that I’ve been a mom for 30 years now and that we’ve had Adi for 18, but here we are. 

It’s a good life!

June 2nd

When I had time I took Henry in the morning so Lu and Damian could sleep. We went on a lot of walks. 

Ehlyvia gave us these nice legos that the boys enjoyed putting together, mostly by themselves.

We love our babes!

One amazing thing about Alexis coming to town is that she was so excited to help Adi register for classes! Admins been a little hesitant, so it was nice to delegate that responsibility. 

It’s the best of both worlds when we all work together like this. 

Damian and I got up early on the 3rd to decorate for our birthday girls. Henry got in on that action!

Thankfully no balloons were harmed in his balloon rodeo’ing. 

We picked Frankie and Delaney up from school and went to okada for an early lunch. Unfortunately, we managed to not take a single picture, but rest assured it was delicious and we had a lovely lunch. 

After, Matt took the girls back to school, Lu and crew went home for baby naps, and Emmett and I went to pick up some birthday stuff from Hobby Lobby.

He’s such a cute boy, he loves running errands with me. ❤️

June 1st - piano time

Monday was the girls piano recital. Delaney sort of got let go from piano after Christmas. She just wasn’t loving it and wasn’t being easy. Johnna and I talked, several times, and I really wanted her to continue. Our kids can do hard things, even when they don’t want to. But prayer and counseling with Matt got me to accepting that she should take a piano break. Doing our best over here. 

Anyway, Emmett loved the recital. He loved being our filmographer and loved my method of taking a picture of the program and crossing each name off on my phone. 

All the kids did such a good job. I can tell I’m getting old because I take so much joy in seeing the children and youth progressing and maturing. It’s so cool. 

Johnna is the best! She’s so endlessly patient and kind and we love her. 

Adi’s last group recital! Until she has her own students, that is. 😉 

 

Ruby comes to town

I love afternoon church. On Sunday after the party we spent a lovely lazy morning together. Somehow everyone ended up in our bedroom and Emmett took this banger of a picture of me. Don’t mind my wonky eye. 

Carter and pappy cuddled on the worlds ugliest and also the worlds most comfortable recliner. That chair became my zoom meeting spot and I’ve had more than one person comment on the comfortable looking-ness of it over the years. 

The boys went to church with us, and some Mimi snack surprises, obviously, and then after church Jeanne texted that she’d love to stop by for a bit. Hooray!

They left their little god Scoop at Jeanne’s sisters house in Virginia as they were moving and staying in air b&b’s, so Jeanne and Ruby had a quick trip to pick her up planned, and then the craziest thing happened. 

Jeanne’s sister Katie, who was 33 weeks pregnant, delivered her baby in her bathtub. Thankfully both are doing well, and baby girl will hopefully be released from the hospital soon. 

So that special delivery added another reason to come down. Jeanne stayed with them in Virginia, but we were glad to see them and send her away with a dinner of pulled park, pasta salad, and cupcakes for the new parents. 

These two were so precious together!

We tried to get a good picture, without much luck. And hello Adi!

My precious babies. ❤️ They are seriously so fun. 

Damian sent me his party pictures. Loading the truck with 500 individual desserts was wild. 🤣

Everything held up pretty well and it was all hands on deck at the Darrow’s too - unloading and setting up and decorating. 

The boys ran wild, which was perfect. 

We had so much yummy food. I ❤️ party food. 

It was a beautiful day celebrating 2 beautiful girls. 👩🏻‍🎓❤️👩🏻‍🎓

 

Graduation party!

 Saturday was a busy one. I woke up around 6 and got to work. 

Henry again was a total mvp. Delaney was at dance, again, and Adi and Frankie were sleeping off all the fun they had at Project Graduation. Matt went to help set things up that morning and was my errand boy. 

We assembled chocolate trifle cups, mini cookie fruit cups, and strawberry shortcake cups. Cut up rice cripsy treats and packaged up cookies. Made a failed strawberry jello pretzel “salad,”, and frosted Oreo cupcakes. 

Fitting everything in our truck was hilarious. Thankfully Damian and the big boys had arrived so we loaded up their truck too. 

The party was so fun. Party planning together was the best, still a lot of work but so fun to share the load. We had around 80 people there and it was fun to mingle with friends. It was a beautiful day!

I told everyone in my family to please take pictures anytime they thought of it, but I haven’t collected pictures yet. Another day, another blog. 

And then when it was over everyone pitched in and cleaned up and we split up all the food and it was so fun and also so nice to be done. 

So much celebrating!

It’s Graduation day!!!

 28 photos is too many for one blog post, but your 3rd child only graduates from high school once.

Adi left early, but later than she’d planned to, and we left earlier than we’d  planned to because Sarah and Alecia told us how crazy it was there. We basically walked right in, which was nice. We found our seats in the far bleachers and Lu and I headed to the bathroom.  

On our way we talked to some teachers down on the field and asked who got to sit down there and when she said for VIP’s and people with disabilities, I pointed to Lexi and was like look at her. We laughed and headed to potty, and on our way back to our seats that same teacher grabbed us and said we were welcome to sit on the field if we wanted to.  🎉 Doesn’t hurt to ask!

The started playin pomp and circumstance and I started tearing up and that was on repeat. 

The speeches were all short and sweet. I especially liked our superintendent that talked about how the grads parents see them and see their little 5 year olds heading off to kindergarten their first day. Got me right in the feels. 

We spotted Adi at the end of her row pretty close to us, so that was fun!

I grabbed these from the recorded feed. 

And I went a little crazy. 

The clapping wasn’t too out of control and there were only a few obnoxious screamers. 

We cheered for all the seniors we know. 

It was a beautiful day!

We kept saying how lucky we’d gotten that it wasn’t too hot or rainy. 

It was such a lovely graduation. 

I really loved having it outside. It was my first outdoor graduation and I’m sold. 

We’ve known so many of these kids since before they started school, it’s just really special. 

Ahhh! 

We traded picture taking duties with another family. 

Our 3rd Raider!

And our 1st and 3rd Raider! We all missed  our #2!

We met up with Lily for some pictures.  

Those are some cool moms right there! And obviously amazing graduates. 

And we let the dads in for good measure. 💙 

It took almost an hour to leave the parking lot which was terribly annoying but not terrible. Matt and I chatted and we didn’t really have anywhere to be, so we were fine. 

We went home and waited for Henry to wake up from his nap and then headed to Texas Roadhouse for the girls first time, and maybe my second? It was perfect because all the other graduates were just leaving, so we waited about 5 minutes.

One last grocery trip and then home. And that’s when we noticed this. 

I didn’t even think about sunscreen. 🥵 

And then we began dessert-o-Rama. I baked my giant cookies and sugar cookie cups. 

We made rice crispy treats and frostings and puddings and fillings. We got everything done to make for a smooth Saturday assembling. 

We put Henry in his high chair and he was SO good! He even got to stay up later than his 6:00 bedtime because he was so happy and chill. We got everything done and the kitchen cleaned and we were tired but ready!

Delaney had dance, Matt drove, and Adi and Frankie headed to project graduation and it was a nearly perfect graduation day.