Congratulations Casey!

My younger (but not shorter by any means) brother graduated from high school on Sunday. I can't believe it! That means that I have been out of high school for SIX YEARS! I've been in college for SIX YEARS! I have an almost SIX YEAR OLD! Goodness... where does the time go?! I didn't think I'd see the day when my brother graduated from high school. Not that I didn't think he would pass or anything, but he always seemed that much younger than me. But alas, it came!

The weekend was filled with preparing for his party and then celebrating during the party. On Saturday Ayden and I joined my mom and sister in making some food for the party. We rocked out some bagel dip, seasoned oyster crackers, and some super yummy noodle salad, not to mention a TON of buns that were cut. Okay, so my sister and Ayden made the bagel dip and oyster crackers, while I cut the ham, buns, and stirred the noodle salad. It was a good day though and I had lots of good food. Jay went to his cousin's graduation party, but I had had enough of his family from the weekend before and wanted to spend the day with my mom.

On Sunday was the actual graduation and then party. The weather was kind of sucky, but we couldn't really do much about that. Graduation was good and was a lot shorter than I thought it would be which was good. I got some halfway decent pictures. We had really good seats... second and third row. Oh yeah! That's what going an hour early to save seats will get you, haha! Only, I should have sat in the second row with my mom instead of the third because when my brother was getting his 'diploma' (they don't actually get the diploma until they stop in the office afterwards), my grandma stood up in front of me to get some pictures and totally ruined my shot. And then I was all flustered and the one I did get ended up being blurry. Oh well, it's not like it was Ayden's graduation or anything. Ah, true to my sister… gotta add some flair to the picture! Haha!Aren’t we precious?! Who would of thought my little brother would be SO damn tall?! Haha!

They didn't have a kindergarten graduation at his school. Not that I was expecting them to have one, but it would have been cute, lol. Anyways, we went out last night and got a balloon and some cookies for him finishing kindergarten. He's officially done and his 'report card' looked pretty good for how smart I think he is. He didn't excel at anything, but I wasn't expecting him to. I just wanted him to move onto the first grade and that he accomplished!

Today he was at his first babysitters house. He was a lot better about me leaving than I thought he was going to be, but he is definitely coming out of his shell around new people. Yesterday in Walmart we saw one of the lunch ladies who works at his school and he said hi to her without another thought. I thought it was so cute. I don't think that she knew who he was, but she said hi back. Anyways, I wasn't too nervous about leaving him because the girls that are watching him are my friend's (and classmate) daughters and my friend was home the whole time too. That and it was only for a few short hours. Definitely saved me this summer!

I started going through all of Ayden's toys last night. After talking to my mom over the weekend I've decided to get rid a lot of the toys Ayden currently has and doesn't play with. I will keep the essentials for any future children, like the legos, blocks, little people, etc... but a lot of everything else is going! She brought up a point that I guess I never really thought of. Don't know why, but it just never crossed my mind. Any future children Jay and I have will get their own toys at birthdays and Christmases as well, and we can't just expect them to play with all of Ayden's old toys and never get anything new. Of course thats right, what was I thinking?! So... its sorting time! I haven't decided if I want to have a rummage sale for the toys this summer, wait until next summer, or make a stop at the children's consignment store and get cash that way. I have decided that I do want to donate some of his toys to the clinic media center so future student clinicians can have more toys to choose from, however our media center is pretty great already. I just thought it would be a nice idea. I have about half of it done already! Jay and I were thinking of using the money we get from selling some of his toys for Ayden's birthday present this year. Jay was thinking we should get Ayden a Nintendo DS. We've thought about it in the past, but never really put much thought into it. All my younger cousins have one pretty much and they LOVE them. I just want to make sure that he would play with it enough. He has a game boy advance that Jay's parents found somewhere with one game and he plays that quite a bit, even though I don't think he knows what he is supposed to be doing. At this point, that is what we think we are going to get him for this birthday. But it could always change.

After seeing a piñata at the last birthday party we were at, Ayden is bound and determined to have one at his this year, which is all fine and dandy, except, he wants a Transformer one or SpongeBob and I don't, lol! I'd actually prefer SpongeBob over transformers since we did a transformers party last year. I kind of want to do a pirate party this year. Okay, so with most adults, it really wouldn't matter what kind of party we did since adults don't really care about themes, but I thought it would be cute to have a treasure hunt for Ayden to find his gift from Jay and myself. I don't know, creative crazy mom letting her mind get loose again, lol!

I don't remember if I mentioned the fact that I made my brother's graduation invitations or not... if not, well I did. It didn't take a lot of work initially and I enjoyed doing them for my mom. We had a lot of back and forth towards the end to get everything just right. I was a little bummed when she first got them printed out to see how they would look and she told me that some of the stuff got cut off. My guess is that where ever she got them printed at didn't have their settings correct or she didn't look at them close enough because I made the invite on a 4x6 template so nothing would get cut off. Oh well though, they turned out nice and she got them all printed for like $3 since she had some coupons. Okay, so after I do those for her, she said that her dad really liked them and that he wanted her to make his and her mom's 50th wedding anniversary invitations. Little did he know, I made my brother's invitations. I told my mom I wouldn't have a problem with it since it wouldn't be too hard. Little did I KNOW how damn picky my grandparents are. Jeesh! What have I gotten myself into!

When he is telling me what they want its like to a 'T' this and that, even colors! So... what did I do. I went to the website that they had found with a sample they liked and made mine look very similar. Can't knock what you told me you liked in the first place, right?! Anyways, they needed a recent picture to put on it and I took some of them last weekend at my brother's party. I edited them and emailed them yesterday so they could tell me if they liked any. I personally thought that they looked really nice. Professional, no... I mean, I'm not a professional, but what I expected given what I know I can shoot, yes. And... they didn't like any of them. I emailed them like 6 or 7! They said it wasn't the quality they didn't like, it was how they looked. Okay, so I get that people want to think they look good in pictures, because I know that feeling. However, I personally thought that for pictures of them, they looked rather nice. You know, when you 'fake' smile the way you do. Anyways, they've opted to use a picture they had originally showed me in the first place. Whatever... I can't pretend that I'm not disappointed because I am a little bit. I liked the pictures. If I didn't, I wouldn't have emailed them to look at. And really, I don't think they actually get how little they are going to look on the invitation in the first place. But like I said, whatever.

But wait, there's more... they also wanted me to take a family picture of them sometime this summer, them and their four kids. I was all for it, until now... I mean, if they didn't like any of the pictures that I took of them before, what's to say they will like any that I take later. I can't foresee any of the children (my mom, aunt, and two uncles) being too picky about it, but after my grandparents not liking my previous ones, well... I'm not thinking I want to do it anymore. Have them not like someone else's pictures. That, and I don't want to invest my time in it if they won't like them in the end anyways. Maybe they will just tell me they don't want me to do it anymore. Maybe they already think that and don't know how to tell me, lol. Oh ugh, what have I gotten myself into!

CIAO! LOVE ME!