Things That Happened While I Was Running Around Like a Crazy...

Packing, moving, studying, finals, working, graduation, garage sale, parties, anniversary, Mothers Day...

This last month or so was a whirlwind. It's all sort of hazy, I'm not really a 4-6 hours of sleep kind of gal. But from what I remember, its been sad, happy, sad, stressful, fun, and a little sad.

Sadly, I only have a pictures of a handful of these events. The garage sale not being one of them. It was my first and last. People rummaging through my stuff trying to "barter" with me is not my cup of tea.

We had one last crazy outing with our friends and went to a Tigers game. I loved it! Comerica Park was so awesome. It's May and we're in coats and boots, welcome to Michigan. We got the kids cotton candy but none of them would eat it so we had to take care of it for them. No worries.





Brandon and I celebrated Eight Years at the beginning of May. I love what we've accomplished and where we are at now. He really is my best friend and the most amazing Daddy. In the middle of the craziness he planned the day and got some friends to watch Benson. It was so fun to be able to just talk and hang out together, I'm a lucky girl.

My mom and little sis flew in on Mother's Day to help manage the craziness. The next few days we packed as fast as we could while still following my "everything in the box must go together and be inventoried on a spread sheet" system. I'm not crazy. I really could not have done it without them and my neighbors. Moving is the worst, avoid it.

Speaking of Mother's Day, shout out to our moms! We have two of the best.

Brandon hooked me up with a new Timi and Leslie diaper bag, I'm obsessed!

Bob graduated too and is now an actual Doctor, wow. You would think I would have taken a picture of him, but no, only of the kids and us girls... look how cute. I miss them! Ugh.

Jamie and I planned a little party for the law school grads. It was kinda white trash but seriously so fun. We wanted to celebrate with the people that were our lifeline for the last three years, it was our last hoorah. Love them. I avoided saying goodbye at all costs, I think I only cried twice.

And the reason we're here in the first place...drum-roll please...GRADUATION!

He (we) did it!!

Something about the bagpipes and all the graduates marching in line made me super emotional. I'm so proud of Brandon. I know it wasn't easy having a wife and new baby but he rocked it. I know he'll do big things and buy me a big house. Kidding. I'm so grateful for his friends. I know they made all difference in this experience. They have been so good to us. I'm so grateful for my friends, this would have been all the more difficult without them.

Moving day! Wow, the logistics that went into this are crazy. Jamie and I nearly lost it towards the end, our stuff literally didn't fit, we were literally packing up until the last second, but in the end we survived.

The crazy part is, they try to trick you by saying, Yay! You graduated! You're done! But the reality is, Brandon drove across the country Friday, got to Las Vegas Sunday, flew to Utah Monday, drove the moving van here, unloaded, and started bar prep on Tuesday. We are most certainly not done. Bring it on.

Weekend Drama, Easter Fun

This weekend was mostly a disaster and still managed to be fun. My hard drive crashed Thursday night and I cried for 24 hours straight. Hopefully we'll have things back up and running by Tuesday. Most everything backed up, expect for the pictures I JUST uploaded that we took for B's graduation announcements. We spent 80 something bucks buying software and a card reader to get them back and now I seriously hate them all (of me) and don't want to use them. Our basement has a leak, our stuff got wet, oh the drama!

Our fun friends hosted an Easter Brunch- I made cute mini Fruit and Yogurt Parfaits- try to imagine them, I am pictureless due to the hard drive drama! Benson mostly ate the Cadbury Mini Eggs he found all over the ground...and got seriously fried. A few hours after we got home I noticed his bright red head. I felt so bad so I cried about that too. We haven't seen the sun for 6 months so I think we all forgot what to do!

Our other cute friends (we have lots) hosted Easter play group. Complete with lunch for the moms and fun for kids.


Kate was so cute and shared her eggs/let Benson rip them from her hands.


All the kids decorated little bunny cakes...Benson played with this pink cup.





Sunday Benson crawled straight for Easter basket- he's a tad spoiled and knows any new toy is of course for him.


His Easter outfit was ridiculously cute.




Ah-mazing Easter dinner. Even better company.

Busyness

We have been busy. Like seriously. Busy playing with our friends almost every night of the week, busy with girls nights, busy with church stuff, busy packing, busy working, busy with parties and baby showers and going to school.

Brit, Kari and I made 100 cupcakes for our ward activity- cute huh? I thoroughly enjoy when other people are perfectionists too. Ha ha!


We had a “Feather Her Nest” baby shower for our cute friend Jessica. There were nest cupcakes and sparkly birds and good food. So fun.


Just a handful of my very favorite people on earth...


Benson got dirty. For like, the first time ever. He all the sudden was okay with crawling in the grass, eating the rocks, and crawled straight into the mud puddle in our yard. He topped off his night with eating an entire cupcake by himself. Oh the progress.

For the Sake of the Book...

I started our blog right when we moved to Michigan. I love that Brandon appreciates my craftiness and reminded me that when we make our blog into a book of our three years here, it won't have all the headers. He's right- the headers need to be in the book! Here they are in no paticular order, for the books sake...

On my mind...

These:

Have you tried them? Something about them being mini makes them amazing.

March Madness:

Soaking up as much time as I can with these people. Love them.

Benson: He now sighs every time I sigh. It's both hilarious and disturbing how much I do it. I sigh when I'm stressed and I'm kind of a stress case these days.

The Bottle: This little (bpa free) plastic thing has been emotional roller coaster in our house. I wanted nothing to do with it at first. I so badly wanted to breastfeed, but it wasn’t meant to be. So at one week old, pumped milk from a bottle it was. And 6-8 times a day at that. I grew to love the bottle. It meant freedom! Well maybe not exactly freedom, but it meant dinner and movie knowing Benson was well fed back at home. I can’t say I ever grew to love the pump, but I’m so grateful for the technology that allowed me to still feed him in an unconventional way. I’m fairly certain his sleeping through the night at 10 weeks was due in part to the bottle. What’s not to love? As 12 months old approached, Dr. Hart reiterated the importance of the sippy cup, in which Benson was completely uninterested. He has had his bottle since birth, and he’s attached. We slowly got rid of the mid day bottles and now it’s only morning and night. Apparently 15 months is the “cut-off” so on this morning of his 14 month “birthday” we went bottleless. It was straight to the high chair for breakfast instead of our normal morning routine of bottle and snuggling and playing in his room. He seemed confused all morning, we are creatures of habit. (I was not a fan either Benson!) True to his stubborn ways, even after 13 hours of sleep he didn’t want the milk badly enough to drink it from a sippy. He was sad, which made me sad, and I just want to give in. I find myself perplexed. What’s more important? That he’s weaned from the bottle or that he gets milk? Being a mom is hard.

Disturbing: No thanks to Gymboree, entire families will be matching this Easter.

Progress

I packed, drum roll please….. ONE box over spring break (which brings my grand total to one)! Maybe progress isn’t exactly the right word?

Benson is fully recovered from surgery (and fully in the midst of a horrific cold).

The snow is so dang near melted, I can’t wait for my last amazing Michigan spring.

More like lack of progress, Benson is still refusing to walk (but he did figure out how to bend over and look though his legs upside down, which he finds hilarious).

Benson’s new word is “yeah”. Whenever he coughs I say, Oh Goodness! Are you okay? He says “yeah” (in his cute little Benson voice). I love it!

Less than 2 months until graduation! The bar app is officially submitted! Whoop whoop!

This is officially my 100th post, I so wish I had something 100th post worthy to share! I so love looking back at the last 99, and I love the progress our little family made in the past 3 years.