Grad Party Time!

Though Graduation was a month ago, it didn't feel official until last weekend when we hosted Delia and Kate's big Grad Party!  Graduation weekend is crazy with a dozen different parties to get to.  One day, we had 3 on the calendar!  We pushed ours out a month to avoid the party traffic and give ourselves a little time to pull it together (Grad Party tip #1).  I love that these long time friends wanted to throw their party together.  We found working with Kate's family was absolutely perfect!  They contributed their gorgeous, landscaped back yard, and I contributed my experience of doing this before. ;)

The girls created the cutest Grad Party invite to insert separately into the announcements of our local friends. (Grad Party tip #2-- a separate insert allows you to send announcements to far away friends and family without the party invite obligating them.  And Grad Party tip #3-- use an easy-peasy QR code to track the RSVPs!)  Love all the blasts from the past they found.  "Kate & Delia Through the Years" was a fun little touch to add to the table décor.  

Our dinner was catered from a local taqueria/carniceria and it was legit and delicious!  Asada, grilled chicken, and pork pastor tacos and nachos with rice, beans and all the fixings fed our 75 guests and gave us each a week's worth of leftovers and still some for the freezer!  The girls planned the dessert menu by each picking their 3 favorite desserts.  Donuts, Boterkoek, and brownie mallow bars for Delia!

The day of the party was a fun set up day.  We had tables and also just lawn chairs in circles for seating, lawn games, and the girls' brag tables under the newly constructed pergolas.  Delia's "shrine" had all her scripts, programs, photos of the many characters she's played, and her worn jazz shoes.  Kate's had sports section champ hats, academic awards, and her Salutatorian and Homecoming Court sashes.  These are some remarkable girls!   The vases (that Ella made for her 8th grade graduation party!) were stuffed with wild sunflowers that we just picked from the side of the road for free! (Grad Party tip #4 ;)

Each grad is given an engraved Bible with their diploma at graduation.  Kate and Delia invited their party guests to highlight and sign their favorite verses in their new graduation Bibles.  Isn't that cool?  Feel free to text her your favorite verse and she'll add it to her highlighted Bible!

Delia and Kate had a timeline display, featuring one picture from each year of their lives.  Here are the favorite pictures Delia picked.

This fun wall featured photos of all the girls' different friends!

Delia and Kate made this cute prop for a photo booth.

It was such a delightful night of visiting with all our favorite people, that I didn't get nearly as many pictures as I would have liked with all the different dear ones, but here are a few.  Above are Chloe and Hailey, two friends Delia met just the week before when she was placed in a HiCamp cabin with them!  She and Kate and Chloe and Hailey became fast friends and had the BEST week together.  We loved that they responded to a last minute party invite and showed up for a long visit!  Chloe (in green) is actually going to the same college as Delia next year!  They'll be in different dorms, but already have a weekly lunch date worked out.  So glad they've found a sweet friend in each other in a new place.  God's hand of providence was definitely in the cabin assignments at HiCamp this summer!

Junior and Senior girlfriends.

Abigail, a 7th grader who Delia got close with during Annie, was sweet to come to the party with her mom, one of my new first grade co-teachers!

And the dearest of friends: Laura, Kate, Natalie and Nich.  

We learned this from Ella's party 2 years ago: the best part of a grad party is the night of our closest local friends coming to hug, congratulate, honor, and encourage the graduate.  Delia was SO blessed by church family, drama friends of all ages, former mentors, middle schoolers she's mentored, teachers, siblings and parents of besties, and family friends showering her with generous gifts and cards full of beautiful words of affirmation and promises to keep praying for her.  It's a special night to feel loved and celebrated for all the lives she's touched in her years in this home and school! 

An Old Familiar Favorite

You can't visit us with a little one and NOT take a trip to the cheese place for gouda samples and animal feeding!  This is pure nostalgia for my girls.  Teenagers were happy.  Two year olds were happy.  Fish were happy.  Goats were happy.  

Just Playin'

Our preschool does field trips to this wonderful children's museum, so I was excited to experience it with Annabelle!  We had a very fun morning learning through play.

We learned about music.

And bees.

Even my big kids had fun playing here!  A whole room of light and mirrors inspired Ella to create this crazy kaleidoscope design (above). And Delia and I climbed all the way up the crazy (and just a little scary) 2 story play structure (below).  

Annabelle's favorite was the wind and vacuum center.

We even learned about real life skills in the super authentic, and adorable, play grocery store!  

A whole water room was a fun place to play and learn about currents and water movement.

And we hope Annabelle learned about the thrill of the stage as she played the lead part, "Pickle".  It even had its own choreography! ;)

We also sadly learned that it's hard to leave when you are having so much fun, but that lunch and nap clock was ticking.  The museum anticipates this and makes the exit as fun as possible with hand stamps and kid-sized doors.  If you're local and have little ones, this place is a HUGE recommend from us!

Not too Blue

Annabelle is such a fun age for little outings!  We had a great visit taking them to some of our favorite places.  First up, blueberry picking at the lovely farm our church friends own!

Someone was a fan!!

Soaking up all this time with Ella before she departed for the summer.  Delia was busy with the many grad things she had going on this week.

Riding in style!

I found this so funny.  Ella is actually not a fan of blueberries.  Yet, she's still grown up picking them with our family.  She's been trained since she was little to be efficient at this job and has one speed and one mode: "Get it done." On this outing, we were not necessarily looking to fill the freezer, but more to just enjoy the breezy morning, sampling all the varieties of juicy berries, and being entertained by Annabelle running through the patch, eating her fill.  The 2 year old got the note to enjoy it-- check out her bucket with, like, 17 blueberries in it.  Ella filled hers to the brim.

You know my Berry Best Blueberry Muffins were a part of this day! :)

Annabelle the Antidote

In the course of one week, I ended a 12 year a career in the Preschool, watched my youngest graduate high school, and said goodbye to my oldest till possibly August.  It was a big, feeling-full week!  Good thing we had the perfect antidote to any kind of Big Changes Blues-- the joy and sunshine that is my 2 year old niece, Annabelle!  We're so blessed to have seen Annabelle in all different stages of growth and this one is definitely a favorite!  She is SO full of personality, constantly chattering and asking questions, building her imagination, testing out her humor, up for any adventure, and charming us non-stop with her quick smile and affection.  We had the best long weekend spoiling her with allll the attention and play!

We pulled out the little pool and made a pom-pom bath.

We cleaned up the old playground and did swings and slides.

We pulled out the chalk and bubbles from Ella's box of Dorm Fun.

We never had a shortage of arms and hands to hold, snuggle, and play.

We had group nap contests.  Annabelle is a good napper, but she was no match for Delia who pulled TWO all-nighters the week of graduation!

We did lots and lots of reading.  Aren't these books Ella gave Annabelle hilarious?  They're actually pretty good!  The 2 year old asked to read them repeatedly.  And now she's a pro at OChem! ;)

We scootered, longboarded, and skated at church.

We baked.

We played all the old games my little one used to love, like, "This bed sure is lumpy!"  (Make the bed with the kiddo inside and then pretend to sleep, only to awaken to an eruption of giggles.)

We celebrated the late May/early June birthdays.

We took Annabelle on her first In & Out outing.

And we just savored the time together!  What a gift to tackle a week where I could have cried a dozen times with laughter and happiness instead!