High School Graduation, First Meetings, Surprise Parties & Lawn Work

Last weekend was packed full from beginning to end with work, fun, surprises, achievements and beautiful memories. Morgan and Katie drove in from west Texas on Thursday evening, and Ray flew back in from a few weeks in Florida on Friday morning. The weekend started with several hours of chopping and cutting to remove the damaged parts of our walnut tree.I’m happy to report that we only lost about a third of the tree, and while the view out into my backyard has definitely changed, it’s not a bad change. We cleaned house and readied things for a house-showing on Saturday morning and the arrival of my mom and step-dad on Saturday afternoon. Nana thoroughly enjoyed meeting and cuddling with her first great-grandchild.
We ate out nearly every meal and enjoyed every minute of it!
On Sunday afternoon, we’d planned a surprise 11-month birthday party for Katie. Morgan and Chad have moved to west Texas because of a job change, and we’ll soon be off to Florida meaning we won’t actually be able to celebrate her first birthday with her. I managed to send Morgan off to pick up coffee at Starbucks so we could toss up some quick decorations and be ready when she came back. A phone call for another house showing threw those plans totally off, though. I had no choice but to call Morgan, tell her about the party and ask her to come back and help pick up for the showing! A few more phone calls, however, gave us the perfect quiet spot for our little celebration while our house was being viewed by potential buyers. (A huge Thank-you! to the folks at our local Target for letting us use the back of their Starbucks coffee shop!)
We had a lovely time celebrating with Katie. She seemed to like the owl stuffy that I made for her (more about it next week in my next 52 Family Projects post). She definitely enjoyed playing the “drop and pick-up” game with it! Morgan loved the knitted flowers that Samantha made for Katie. (She’s really become quite the accomplished knitter!) Katie’s wearing one of the two flowers in this picture.
We wrapped up the party just in time to head home and get ready for Sean’s graduation! A few hours later we were settling into our seats to watch and listen.

There were a little more than 400 in Sean’s graduating class.
Our little ones were very well-behaved, thanks to a bag full of lollipops, some virtual coloring pages and plenty of cuddling.
Before we knew it, it was time for Sean to walk across the stage and receive his diploma.
Then the school song was sung, hats were thrown in the air and Sean was an official graduate!
It seems like just yesterday that I held this baby boy for the first time.
Now he’s grown up and ready to head out into the world!
Congratulations, Sean! I’m so excited to see what God has in store for you in the years ahead!