LU Graduation and Mother's Day Weekend

Matthew graduated with his masters from Liberty, so we headed up to celebrate with him and the rest of the family!  I took a pathetic amount of pictures, so check on facebook for some better ones from everyone else...

Matthew and Kelly had a night out to dinner (thanks to Kelly's mom!) before graduation, and Jonathan had a special Deerfoot Lodge hat made for Matthew (where they went to camp as kids)...then they were all cute and matchy-match!

Our kiddos made it through dinner just fine.  I felt like we were getting dirty looks from the mostly-elderly crowd at the restaurant, but felt a lot better when a couple sitting near us stopped us on the way out and said how much they enjoyed seeing our children during dinner!  Sometimes that kind of encouragement is just what a mom needs...

We stayed with our friend Dan (thanks, Dan!) while we were there.  Connor managed to both figure out how to climb out of the pack'n'play and to lock the door of the bedroom that he and Annalee shared...sigh.  Bedtimes and naps were r-o-u-g-h, but we survived.  We got up bright and early on the day of commencement and were thankful for saved seats (by Nana and Grandpa!).  We were able to sit and watch quite a bit of the ceremony (which was great) and also did some walking through the stadium with each of the kids.  We tried to get a quick family pic before changing and hopping in the car for another 4 hour drive...but this is the best we could get at that point!  Do you like our Liberty colors?? :)

The next morning, we were at church for Mother's Day (each of my kiddos made me a sweet craft!), and then Jonathan picked up food for both lunch and dinner (trying to go out last year was pretty catastrophic, this was so much more relaxed!).  Love my babies...

....and then....we planted our garden all afternoon/evening!  HALLELUJAH the fire ants we had been battling were pretty much GONE when we got home from VA!  I literally went out and got seeds after lunch, Jonathan finished tilling, and we planted like crazy.  Connor wanted in on the first picture of the garden, of course.

I am hoping that he will enjoy helping water the garden (well, I already know he loves the sprayer on our hose!) and that he will try some of the veggies from it.  When we had finished planting, I actually asked Con if he would pray for the garden with me (pretty sure we are going to need God's help for it to survive!) and he nodded and held my hand and was actually still for a moment while I prayed - what a sweet Mother's day moment with my normally over-active boy!

We planted mostly seeds, but here are our four sad little seedlings, weary from the transplant.  The first two are sweet pepper varieties, the third is a tomato plant called "the mortgage lifter" (imagine the story with that one, I picked it because it is supposed to be so successful!) and the last is a Greek heirloom tomato.

The last of the fire ants...actually outside of the area where we had planned to plant veggies, so Jonathan used some traditional old fire ant killer (non-natural), and scooped the whole mound out afterward with a shovel.

Always happy with a ball!  She was not too keen on sitting in the grass a couple months ago, but now she could care less!

I asked Connor to sit with sis for a pic...she immediately wanted the ball he had, of course!

but then I told him to go ahead and take out her paci and, well, here you go...

Ha!  Bad example, Mommy!  I will sometimes do that to make her laugh when she doesn't want to be changed, etc...so I guess that's what he thought I meant.  Obviously, they both got a kick out of it!

Ahh, the front stones back up and marigolds planted, with the hopes that it will keep some critters away from the veggies! :)