preschool graduation.

we've had a whirlwind of events in the last month and my head is still spinning from it all.  i've got a lot to catch up on and haven't even begun to process the bigger stuff yet.  hopefully blogging about it will help get it all settled in my mind.  but for now, we're gonna rewind and do things in order even though i'm tempted to skip ahead and get to the more recent events first.

so early last month, mikey and allie had their end-of-the-year celebrations at school.  meaning they were all three home with me for the majority of the time i was running around packing like a madwoman and now they're all three home with me while i run around UNpacking like a madwoman- NOT recommended, btw.  anyhow, allie's was a see-ya-later-alligator party since technically she would've been back there in the fall if we hadn't moved away.  mikey's was a 'graduation' celebration since he was in a pre-k class and his classmates were all headed off to different schools for kindergarten in the fall.

thankfully, phil arranged to get that day off, so we could both go to see mikey and allie with their respective classes.  i was so relieved since each kid would have at least one of us there to see them.  but it worked out even better since allie's party started fifteen minutes before mikey's did, so we happily got to see both.

we started off at allie's party.

where she immediately started cracking up as soon as she spotted me.  "mommy, what are you doing sitting on the floor?!"

our cute lil' alligator girl waving hello to her baby sister.

it took a little while to get all the cute lil' alligators assembled and ready to sing their special song.

"alligators go chomp, chomp, chomp!"  (yes, thankfully phil got this on video!)

 alligators taking their bow.

we couldn't have asked for a better teacher for allie's very first school experience.  miss krista was so sweet and warm and caring- she always made it a point to greet not only allie each school morning, but also greeted lauren and mikey by name too when we all came to drop allie off.  miss krista would often say how much she enjoyed allie's drawings or share something sweet allie said when i went to pick her up.  allie just loved her teacher and her yellow sunflowers class.  we all did.

a last goodbye hug. 

miss elise was the teaching assistant in allie's class and allie just loved her too.  miss elise always took time to listen to what all allie had to say and went a long way in making my middle child feel special.

but before i could get too emotional about allie's last day, we all had to dash over to mikey's celebration.  we even managed to get there early enough to get seats right in front.

there was even a program of events for mikey's graduation!

mikey's friend c. was the emcee and had the audience cracking up when he replaced "please rise" with "everybody, get up."

this picture kills me.

hey look, it's my little graduate!

getting his diploma.

examining his certificate.

he also thought it was funny that i was sitting on the ground when everyone else was sitting in chairs.  but he's used to me being in odd places by now.

mikey and his best friend thomas with their teacher, miss tanya.  miss tanya wasn't quite like allie's teacher, yet she was still very kind and patient in her own way.  mikey loved his teachers just as they were but didn't really need them to be so nurturing and mothery.  what he really needed was a great group of friends to play with and have big adventures in their little playground and that's exactly what he got this year.

and with miss krista, the teaching assistant in his class, who gave the blue butterfly class just the right amount of warm cheerfulness each day.

i was feeling a bit emotional at mikey's preschool graduation and can't even begin to imagine what i'll feel like at his high school or college graduation.  gulp.

after the short ceremony, it was time for lunch!  once again, mikey's very good buddy sam saved him a seat at his table for lunch.

thomas and mikey found each other after lunch for a few last goodbye hugs as they told each other, "i'm gonna miss you a lot."  and then i started to feel really emotional.  when phil asked me why, i had to stop and think about it before realizing that it was because 1) mikey had just had a better year of school than i think i've ever had and 2) this was really a goodbye for these two since we were moving away and i didn't think mikey really understood that yet.

these two slipped away behind some stacked chairs where they could look down on the playground where they spent so many hours playing star wars-transformer-stealth gun games (the boys used long shovels as guns and thought they were being sneaky thinking their teachers didn't know what they were about when they actually really did know) together.  great friends are so hard to come by as i well know and while i was SO thankful that mikey had such a great best friend this year, i was also sad knowing that it was coming to an end.

i grew up moving around a lot as a kid (went to five different elementary schools) and really, really wanted our kids to be settled in one place and in one school as they grew up.  i know our kids are still quite young and will still have that opportunity, but for some reason, our current move and having to say goodbye to yet another set of friends (both my own and seeing my kids say their goodbyes) has hit me a little harder this time around.

uprooting and re-settling every couple of years isn't so easy and it seems to get harder each time we do it.  the good news is that the light at the end of the tunnel has been spotted and hopefully we will get to settle down in a year or two.  i just hope there will be a great set of friends to be made for all of us once we finally do get there.