Cooper's PK Graduation

It's hard to believe that Cooper had his last day of PK recently!  He had such a fun time in PK and we loved his teacher.  I hope he loves kindergarten just as much.  We of course had to pose for a few pictures. 

Oops, I was having technical difficulties...here is Cooper on his first day of school.  I wanted to compare pictures but I think it's a bit too small for that :).

 The last day of school was a fun day.  They had a bunch of different stations set up to go play.  Jackson and I were fortunate to come up and visit for most of the day.  Cooper was door holder so he was at the front of the line, but I just had to post this picture of Jackson joining in the class.  He thought he was part of the class, did everything they did and even followed all  of the rules.  When we go up to read to the class, he sits with them and gets in line-everything.  I think he's ready for school! 

All of the kids wore their school shirts and for privacy I blocked out the name.  Kind of a pain when all the kids are wearing them so I didn't post many pictures from the day :).  Here's Cooper at a few stations...

Jackson and I took a quick break from the day and met our friend Henry at the park.  Aren't they so cute?? Both smiled with their eyes shut. :)

We made it back in time to watch the kids eat lunch and then say goodbye to their wonderful teacher :(

When we got home I had some really fancy decorating up to celebrate!  :)  Next year I'll do it a bit differently, but it worked for this year!  Our friend Zach came over to celebrate the last day of school with us.

Breaking through, woo hoo!  They each took a turn.

Then we had a little sundae making party...

then got out the bounce house!

That evening Ben had his graduation from PK.  He had a real graduation so we were excited to attend.  It was a little late so Jackson stayed home with Ryan.  Here are the three cutie pies.  Cooper loved Ben's hat.

Laura made these adorable graduation hats!

She also made a cookie cake and put Cooper's name on it too which was so nice.  He loved it.

Next up, KINDERGARTEN!!!  AHHHH!!!   Cooper's ready but I am NOT. 

Swim Lessons and Mother's Day

Cooper has been taking swim lessons this spring and has loved them.  We had his last one a few weeks ago. 

This is what Jackson did while Cooper was swimming, he'd play with the other kids who were waiting for lessons.  This was Jackson's little buddy, he played with him every time.

?????

Hopefully those lessons will pay off this summer and Cooper will be able to swim independently!!

On Mother's Day Ryan had to be out of town for work, and my mom was out of town, so we had a laid-back Mother's Day!  (We celebrated the next weekend-Ryan and the boys brought me breakfast in bed and pampered me a bit :))

Cooper and I made pancakes.

 Then when he heard me talking to Laura on the phone saying "happy mother's day," he RAN to his backpack and brought me a little wrapped present.   Isn't that the best present ever?  He made this with his fingerprints.  I absolutely love it, and I LOVE how excited he was to wait and give it to me.

We had another tea party/ picnic.  They were obsessed for a few days, that's gone now. 

 We've been eating outside a lot lately before it gets too hot.

 So nice not to have to clean up drips from this!

 Watermelon is their absolute FAVORITE fruit.  I don't really know why...it's so messy I like them to eat it outside!

An Award and a Tea Party

Cooper's PK had an awards ceremony and I was so proud that Cooper received "most cheerful."  His teacher said that whenever she was having a bad day she just had to look at Cooper and he would cheer her up :)  Isn't that so sweet?  It made my day.

After their awards we sat and listened to another class.  Cooper and his class just happened to sit behind us and when I looked over, this is what the boys were doing.  SO cute!

Ryan took the day off so he could go to the awards, so afterward we went sunglasses shopping.  J was being hilarous with the glasses!  (Those are only mine, I didn't let him wear any of them ones in the shop!)

Cooper was very excited to help me build another Ikea purchase.  I looked around our house and I'm pretty sure we have at least one piece of Ikea furniture in every room in the house!

 Here's the finished product-just some art supply bins. They hold SO much stuff!  I miscalculated the number of drawers I needed so I need to get one more, then label all the bins.  It has come in very handy so far!

 The boys have rediscovered an interest in their tea set.  I sent them to the playroom to clean while I made dinner and they came back out with the tea set and wanted to have a tea party!

 Yum, even water tastes better in a little cup!

 Cooper was the official pourer.

 Cooper actually had me buy "kid tea" at the grocery store this week.  He wasn't too big of a fan, I thought it was really tasty!   

Cheers!

 They really wanted a group photo, including Lily.  Ryan was at work still.

 We had corn on the cob that evening and I just HAD To post this picture.  This was Jackson's face every time he took a bite of corn! 

 Cooper loved it too, he just wasn't quite so dramatic. :)

San Francisco

Ryan and I had such a wonderful long weekend to San Francisco!  It's our 9 year anniversary coming up, and we're hoping that we'll be traveling to China sometime near our 10 year anniversary...maybe???... so we decided to take a trip this year instead. The view above is from our hotel window.  We stayed in Union Square which was a great location, close to everything.

Here's Ryan in front of Niketown.  We HAD to go in afterward. 

So the first day we arrived it was a little after lunchtime, so we just left our hotel and walked around.   We first went to Chinatown. 

It was so colorful and vibrant, I loved it!  It made me excited to go to China, although I'm sure not all of China looks like this :).

We then walked through a beautiful park, and ended up at Fisherman's Wharf.  I took tons of pictures but I tried to spare all of you and just put in a few of my favorites.  Here's Pier 39 with the sea lions.  We didn't walk around to the pier that's right next to them, we stayed on this side.  Can you see them lying down there on the docks?

We then walked all around Fisherman's Wharf and walked past Boudin (a yummy restuarant known for their sourdough.  I had to take a picture of this creation for Cooper and Jackson)

Then we just kept walking and seeing the sights, marveling at streets like this!  It was SO steep and I was amazed to see people RUNNING up them.  I had a hard time walking up them!

We had to see the famous crooked street!  Crazy isn't it?

This is the view from the crooked street. 

We had reservations at this restaurant.  Very very good.  From here we walked back to the hotel! Very very VERY far.  We walked so much that first day, my feet were killing me!  But it was fun and made me feel better for all the ice cream I consumed on the trip.

Our second day we took the trolley down to Fisherman's Wharf instead of walking the entire way

and decided to rent bikes to ride across the Golden Gate Bridge.  See it in the background?

Beautiful, isn't it?  (the bridge, not us :)

We lucked out and had GORGEOUS weather.  60s and 70s, sunny.

We rode our bikes to the top of this hill and this was the view of San Fran.  I almost had to get off my bike and walk it, it was so steep!  Luckily most of it was flat, I hadn't ridden a bike in forever!

Right before riding across the bridge.

We rode our bikes over to Sausalito and ate at this restaurant.  VERY yummy fries! 

We had every intention of riding our bikes from Sausalito to nearby woods to see some historic trees.  After we took a break, had lunch, we just decided to relax in Sausalito.  So we got out our books, got ice cream, and sat on a bench facing the water and just relaxed.  It was SO nice, just what I wanted for our vacation. 

We then took the ferry back to San Fran. Can you see it in the background?  I'd say the ferry was much easier than riding the bike!

Here's where we stayed.

The last full day we were there we met up with good friends Stephanie and Rich and their kids Zoe and Will.  Isn't she precious?  She's a mini Stephanie.

He's a cutie pie too!

Here's me and Stephanie.  They live in downtown San Francisco so it was fun finding out all about what it's like to live there.

After we met up with them we went and relaxed on the beach again.  It was just gorgeous!

Then we went and got a bread bowl here.  Everyone told us we needed to!

Here's Ryan relaxing. 

One last view of San Fran.   We sure missed our kids, it was very strange not having them with us.  We both missed them for the pictures too, neither one of us wanted to be the one in the pictures, but we had no kids to stick in front to take pictures of! :)  They stayed with Laura and Tom and had an absolute blast.  They didn't miss us one bit and didn't want to go home afterward, so I'd say it was successful all the way around!