last day of preschool...

so, i dropped grady off at preschool this morning for his last day, and i was almost in tears walking out... :'(  i know he's only 3 1/2, but i hate having to pull him out early for the move. however, i am thankful that (being 3 1/2), he doesn't quite understand it enough to be sad. for him, it was a happy day, because it was his "special day" in school :-)

his teacher gave him a big hug, and told us how much he'd be missed.

even the teacher of the class across the hall stopped us on our way out, and said she didn't know it was his last day, and was going to miss him a lot. she told us what a special, happy, and genuinely sweet boy he is. as a mother, that just makes my heart happy :-) 

anyway, we got a fun book of his year in review, projects, etc... something that will be fun to look back at in years to come.

i wanted to get a picture of grady on his last day of preschool, in the same place we took his first day of preschool pic. the first is from september 10, 2012. the second is feb 28th, 2013. even though it was only a little over 5 months, he looks so much older to me! our little boy is growin' up! hahah.

  

grady and his teacher, mrs. hundley

(unfortunately the teacher's assistant, mrs. brunken, was sick and out with the flu).

auntie kristin made grady a "last day of preschool" hotwheels  cake. he was pretty pumped!

we decided not to try to get grady into school in watertown, for just a couple more months. we did get him enrolled for next fall though - he got the last spot!

hot wheels

grady got a hot wheels wall track for christmas. i knew he'd like it...but lately, he LOVES it. i never knew something so simple could be so darn entertaining. and yes, i'm pretty sure it's going to be in our virtual tour and house pics on the realty website :-)

jon turns 30!

well, jon turned the big 3-0 last week! woot woot! what an old fart ;) haha.

we've been so busy trying to get everything in order to move in a few weeks that we didn't have much time to have a big celebration, but we did have some fun. 

grady was trying to convince us it was NOT daddy's birthday however, it was GRADY's birthday..."because dad is not 3". i really love reasoning of a three-year-old :) i think he thought he wouldn't get cake unless it was his birthday, which was really all he was concerned about.

jon and i got out for an early happy hour, then back home for balloons, ice cream cake & some boy time!

we have also been wanting to eat dinner at the space needle for quite some time. we'd heard the food was nothing to rave about, but the experience would be worth it. so we decided to go there for a birthday dinner. i'm glad we did it before we move. the experience was worth it!

view from our seats! 

birthday boy!

another view from my seat. you make one revolution about every half an hour.

amazing!  

view from below as we wait for our car.

good-bye seattle! we'll miss you!

smith family

a friend of mine asked me to take pictures for her and her family, as well as a 1-year-old pics of her daughter. i nervously said i'd do it, but that this would be my first real session, so not to expect much, lol. she was very open for whatever, and i don't do indoors, so we'd have to fight the rain and cold for an outdoor session. well, we waited awhile for a decent day, and even got lucky with a little sun! i had high hopes and was pretty excited, but rookie me...went to a location i wasn't really comfortable with and we started too early in the afternoon - the sun was still way too high, and everyone was freezing their butts off! so, to spare the boring details, the session didn't last too long, kids were cold, and we were done by the time the light was getting perfect. 

ughh. i left wanting to cry, thinking i'd be lucky if i got one decent shot... 

well, i surprisingly got 2 or 3 keepers, and i did my best to save a few others. oh well...a learning experience for sure!

so, this is janessa's gorgeous family! she is a friend from nursing school & just moved to washington this summer! so awesome! we love having play dates together - our boys are good buds. and of course now we are moving back to south dakota. i will sure miss them!  :(

Sami's cake smash!
i felt bad after the family session, so i wanted to try again to take some decent pictures of at least sami. so offered to do a cake smash session.
this was way more fun anyway!

and big brother devon

 devon and grady couldn't wait for sami to be done! they were going to get a cake of their own to frost, decorate & eat all themselves, but when we walked away to clean up sami, i turn around to find this!

guess they didn't want to wait one more minute! they dug in and kept busy stuffing their mouths for  a good ten minutes, haha.

cute boys!