End of an era.

 The end of the year show program. 

Julia before her very last day of preschool....ever. Wow. 

 My little dancing queen after the show. To say that Julia has come out of her shell this year at school would be an understatement. 

 The kids before Nates graduation ceremony. We were up and out early ~ we had left the house before 7;15 and it was a long (3 hour) ceremony. I was solo with them and I was totally impressed with their ability to sit still, even I was bored. Good job, guys. I love that you can see the Cathedral spires in the background. 

 You do what you have to do to get through three hours. 

We made it!

Its over! Julia is officially done with preschool (insert maybe a hint of a sob here?) and Nate is officially graduated with his MBA (full on cheer here)!

Big changes.

In other big changes Julia is not going to follow her big brothers footsteps and go to Fern Hill next year. We have been distinctly.....underwhelmed? With the quality of the kindergarten program at FH this year. Granted, probably 90% of that was due to the LTS that he pulled in the unlucky draw of a teacher going out on maternity leave three weeks into the school year. She was, unfortunately, replaced with someone awful. I know (or, fully hope, anyway) that Julia would have someone different next year....but it has just been shocking to us that in a half day program Luke has been having snack....and recess. Further, its wild that as an afternoon kindergarten student he has had a full 8, yes 8 less days of school due to in service and conference days than the morning kindergarten kids. Its just not been thrilling from an actual educational perspective. Anyway. Back in January we got Julia on a wait list for a private school, the same one that Jake is going to be going to next year. The odds were about nil that she would actually get in......but just last night we got the call that they had a place for her.

Today we went and interviewed, and she is in. It is a full day program, she will be bussed there and home, and be in school from 8:45 till 2:45 every day. Jake will be there M-W-F from 9-12 with the option to stay till 3 any day. So.....I'm losing not one but TWO kids to full day school, just like that. I'm both thrilled (for the sake of her education) and a little heartsick (for me). I was going to set it up so that Jake stayed for lunchbunch every day, and Jules was going to be in AM kindy, so she and I were going to have lunch together alone every M-W-F ....and suddenly my girl is going to be gone ALL day.

I'm not sure that I'm ready for this. I know she is, however, and I know that she is going to thrive in this environment. She will transition back to public school for first grade. We plan to keep Jake there through Kindy as well.

I'm even more grateful for my decision to keep us camp free this summer (or, if anything, just do that one literacy camp for Luke in July for 2 weeks). After losing last summer to crutches and sorrow, I want to be schedule free this year, to revel in my kids and the freedom that summer brings. Knowing that fall will mean that the big yellow bus will be swallowing TWO of them up for the entire day will make these long days together even more precious to me.

Here we go, summer! Congrats Nate and Julia ~ I'm proud of all these smart people in my family :)

Mothers Day, I die with the cute.

 MOthers day tea with my Jules.

 Who I apparently am.

 We spent all of Friday planting, feverishly.

 I was blessed to receive flowers from my love.

 This was one of 12 cards I got from the chilluns. They have picked up on my man hands, obvs.

This was the cover of Luke's book. He hid this away on Thursday when he brought it home from school. It is a bound book.....and it is a weeper. He woke up first today ~ I had set my alarm for 6 to get set up for the babysitter and get all set up for golf......and when Luke walked downstairs first iwth this in his arms I asked him if we could snuggle up on the couch to read it.

I was not prepared.  I ned to say a thousand times over that Luke is just so GOOD, somehow. He is a heart of gold. He has a kindness beyond his years. A tender heart blessed with a outgoing personality the like of which I have yet to see the match of. He.......humbles me. I don't deserve him.

Anyway. Luke presented me with this book which just broke me right down into a puddle. It made me think that maybe I'm okay. That maybe Luke is a thousand times more forgiving of me than I am of myself. It is beautiful and I will treasure it forever. The kids (actually Nate) had taped all 12 handmade cards all along the back stairs......and on the coffee maker, and on my chair.

Nate and I had an 8 am tee time at Glen Mills ~ it was a wicked beautiful day......we both played great and so enjoyed the time together. I love my husband and treasure him in every way. I got to lounge on the couch and obsessively read all afternoon, the kids played outside while Nate tackled two house projects (with one disaster no comment).......we had delicious take out and are about to watch our favorite show.

I am grateful.

We Hoe Down.

 The Family. It was a beautiful day in late April as we celebrated my wonderful Mom. We had 85 people at the party, and everything went off without a hitch. I was so relieved ~ party planning is fun, but stressful! 

 The DiLullo gang, minus Alyssa and Tessa, who stayed home with Babysitters that night.

 Pop Pop, Luke, Jake, and Mr. Bear, Luke's class mascot. It was his week to bring Mr Bear home and write all about his weekend with our family. I bet it was Bear's first time riding a mechanical bull!

 Luke and Julia enjoyed the Photobooth to the max!

 My little cowgirl. 

 Jake was pure awesome riding the bull. This kid is a character, I just don't know how else to put it. I wish I could freeze him ~ he is such a joy right now. So sweet, so much fun, so easy and compliant.

I just can't get enough of Jake's expression in this photo. 

Well, we have done it! Nate is officially done with school and we have successfully gotten through Mom's party! Now we just have the hurdle of Nate's party (June 1st, here at our house) and it will be onto the ease of summer! 

Life is good ~ the kids are in a super easy phase ~ playing together so nicely, everything just seems to be flowing without a lot of effort. I'm loving it and feel so grateful. My stress level feels lower than it has been in, well, in two years. I can't even tell you how wonderful that feels to write. The weather is beautiful and we are enjoying lots of time outside, and the school year is winding down. I'm looking forward to my Mothers Day Tea with sweet Jules this Friday, and then we have a nice weekend of a date on Friday night, planting flowers and doing some house projects on Saturday, and then I get to celebrate Mothers Day with an early round of golf at Glen Mills, and then a calm day with my family and dinner out. 

In planning ahead to our summer schedule I'm trying to keep things calm. I just don't want to spend a ton of money on camps when the truth is the kids are easy and I'm super selfishly enjoying the idea of long days to ourselves with no running around. We have a 7 day disney cruise planned for the last week of June, which we are all SUPER excited about, and a week at the beach in July and August. We are looking forward to spending Memorial day up in Stroudsburg and doing a family hike and spending some time at Quiet Valley, and then we will come home to celebrate Jake's THIRD birthday! 

All in all, I'm enjoying this hiatus of calm. The one dark spot is the basement. We had a major issue with our floor. After getting to the point of the basement being 98% done, I had another contractor in here who identified a major problem with our floor. We had a come to Jesus meeting with our builder last Friday, when he acknowledged that yes, there was a major problem and his crew had royally screwed up. They hadn't leveled the concrete floor before laying the laminate, and there were major depressions in the floor ~ our floor would give out within a very short time. Thankfully he did the right thing and said that they would redo the entire thing ~ but even that was terribly upsetting as it means that ALL of our new furniture and TV's are now displaced, wrapped up in plastic, as the ENTIRE floor had to be taken up, leveled, and redone. Massive, tear inducing headache. I'm just so sick that this project, which was supposed to be done by March 10, and has been under construction since January 4th, is still not completed. I'm so tired of dealing with construction noise and dust and inconvienance in my home. I'm sick that our playroom is still up here off of the kitchen, which has meant that the homework room has not been able to be built. None of that will be done before Nate's party, now. It means that all of the decorating that I hoped to be doing in the basement is of course on hold, also meaning that none of it will be done before Nate's party. I will say that it looks beautiful, I love the bathroom, I love the wet bar, I love the paint choices and the furniture......I just don't love it all displaced and sitting under plastic. Yes ~ i know. This isn't illness, this isn't divorce, or death, or anything like that. But I can say that it IS terribly frustrating, and draining, and the stress of this ongoing confrontation and conflict with the builder has worn on me at this point. We entered into our contract in good faith, and they simply haven't honored their side of the contract. Its frustrating. And yes, not having things "perfect" for the party really is no big deal, but man, I just wish things were different. 

So, thats where we are!