The Big House

The Big House (University of Michigan's football stadium) has been under construction for a couple of years now. The stadium's press box was out of date and other parts needed renovation, AND they needed to add a bunch of luxury suites and club seats. ;-) Well, the work is finally done, and the Big House was open to the public for tours this week! Since everyone who comes to a football game has to pay full price for a ticket (regardless of age or size), our children will likely not go to any football games in the foreseeable future! We really wanted Amelia and Andrew to see the stadium (oh and we really wanted to sit in the luxury suites and pretend we had one), so we toured it on Wednesday. WOW, is it nice! We are really venturing into the realm of die-hard fan-dom after living here for eight years, and touring the Big House got us so excited about the start of football season! Let's hope the Maize and Blue have a big turn-around season and win a bunch of games. Go Blue!! Oh, and here are some pictures. :-)

Amelia poses with a fire hydrant outside the stadium

Andrew in the club seats

watching one of last year's football games on the big screen

The upper-level windows have a beautiful view of U of M and Ann Arbor

Go Blue!

Our Graduate

Yesterday Amelia graduated from Pre-Kindergarten! We went to the ceremony (which was adorable) at school and watched as the kids walked in to the sounds of "Pomp and Circumstance," received their "diplomas," and enjoyed the special lunch the kids had prepared. I can hardly believe that in September we'll be putting Amelia on the school bus to head off to the beginning of her (many!) school years. Today was Amelia's last day at Teddy Bear Daycare, and it was bittersweet. She's had such a great time there over the last three years! She (and we) are very excited, though, to send her to Kindergarten in the fall. It'll definitely be an adjustment in many ways, but we fully expect her to do great things. Enough sentiment now! Here are pictures. :-)

the graduation announcement

Amelia with her teachers Miss Ashley and Miss Jonese

our little graduate!

Another video

Here's a link to another cute video of Amelia: Amelia reads a book. Enjoy! Oh, and tomorrow is a big day for Amelia, so keep an eye out for another new post on Friday!

Parent Night

Each year in May, Amelia's "school" (Teddy Bear Daycare) has parent night. On parent night each class, from infants up through Pre-Kindergarten, performs a song or skit for the parents. This is our third year attending, and each year has been so cute! This year's parent night was especially good for two reasons: 1) it was Amelia's last parent night there, as she'll be in Kindergarten in the fall, and 2) she had a big solo in her class skit! Here is a link to the video of Amelia's class skit (too big for blogger). Enjoy Amelia's Parent Night 2010!

Mother's Day Weekend

A few weeks ago my Dad sent me an e-mail titled "Mother's Day shshshshshsh!" He wanted to surprise my mom and fly my family up to NYC for the weekend. Who can turn down a free trip, right?? So on Friday afternoon we hopped on a plane. When we got close to the apartment we texted Abby (who was in on it), and she came downstairs "to meet her friend for dinner," aka help us upstairs with our luggage. :-) We got upstairs and Abby went in to the apartment, saying "I forgot my Metro Card..." and Amelia and Andrew followed...and BOY was Mom surprised! She said "what are you doing here???" It was great fun to surprise her and she was so happy. Good planning, Dad, and thanks for having us! We had really nice (although windy) weather all weekend, hooray! On Friday night we had AWESOME BBQ at Daisy Mae's; Saturday, Mom, Abby and I had pedicures, then met the kids, Dad and Bryan in Central Park to enjoy the carousel, a playground, and to visit "the rock" where Bryan proposed to me. Sunday we enjoyed a fantastic service at church, then were treated to brunch at Bar Americain, one of Bobby Flay's restaurants. It was SO good! All in all it was a great Mother's Day and really nice to be able to spend it with my mom. Here are some pictures of the weekend!

Riding the carousel

TALL slide

No fear!

with Nana and Pops in Central Park

Being goofy

Our family on "the rock"

Pedicures!

Busy, busy, busy!

Man, we've had a lot going on recently! We enjoyed a wonderful visit this weekend from Grandma and Grandpa Jobe. They came up to see Amelia's dance recital (part of the busy-ness!), go with us to Day out with Thomas, and just hang out. Also while they were here, we had the kids' pictures taken (finally!) and even got some with G'ma and G'pa. The pictures turned out beautifully, even though Andrew didn't want to cooperate and would only take pictures holding a football. Oh well! Such are Andrew's interests these days (anything involving a ball of any kind). Here are some pictures of our weekend events!

I was really sad to have to put makeup on Amelia...she looks so old! :-( Oh, and I am SO jealous of her super-long eyelashes. ;-)

flowers from her admirers!

the kids LOVED riding Thomas.

we had to take a picture of Emily and Emily!

check out Andrew's James tattoo...

...and Amelia's Percy!

we had so much fun!

Andrew-ese

So, Andrew is just over two years old, and we can understand almost everything he says these days. However, some things take several tries before we get it right. See below:

Andrew (A.): "Mommy, I see graggle."
Me (M.): "You see what, bubby? Dragon?"
A.: "I see graggle."
M.: "gaggle?"
A.: "graggle."
M: "wagon?"
A.: "GRAGGLE!!"
M: "Oh, triangle! That's right, bud!"

We have several conversations per day like this. Here are a few other words we've interpreted.

Chee-wos=Cheerios
cuck=truck
fwok=fork (we are REALLY trying to work on this one, as it sounds like a nasty word and is rather embarrassing when he screams it across a restaurant in public)
nuk=milk (although he's recently overcome this one, and now says "mee-yulk")
beer=bear (this is kind of funny when he says, "mommy, BEER!!!" and really wants his stuffed animal)
ma-mi-nah=banana
fwahg=flag or frog (or sometimes it even sounds like fork)

Andrew also has a few signature phrases that we hear daily:

"Mommy, I be wiiiiiiite back."

"Where's Yeeya? School. Backback. Wuchbox. Where's Daddy? Dow-stairs. Office. Wer-king. Where's Te-tchuh (Fletcher)? Nuh-no! (don't know) Where's A-doo? Ri-HERE!!!"

"MommywatchTHOmas!"

"Wook, Mommy! Wook!"

"Bessya Mommy" (after a sneeze)

"Peek-oo Mommy" (Thank you Mommy)

"Mommy A-doo Petzohs." (literal translation: Mommy Andrew Pretzels.)

"Dess what, Mommy! Cow jumpedumpedumpedupmed duh MOON!" (somewhere along the way he became enamored with the phrase "cow jumped over the moon.")

I hope you've enjoyed your lesson in Andrew-ese!