Critter Encounters

 A few weekends ago, I went out to buy some more maternity shorts. There is a Petco next door, so Aaron and Elliot waited for me there. I joined them afterwards, and was able to catch this friendly employee letting Elliot help her feed the hamsters he was goggling at. Never have little pellets been dropped into little bowls with so much excitement. 

 A few days later, we were walking by the park when a boy from the ward wanders up to us. He got pretty close before we realized he had a snake draped around his neck. The snake's owner followed (probably to make sure that Joey wasn't stealing his snake), and he offered to put his horned lizard on Elliot's shirt.

Oh hey lizard

I guess you are on my shirt now

I'm not quit sure how I feel about this

Ok I'm done now

Quietly freaking out

When I asked the guy why he had two snakes and a horned lizard at the park, his answer was "5th grade graduation." Why not?

It's a Girl!

It is official- we are having a girl! Both Aaron and I had made a point of not really guessing the gender to avoid being dissapointed. After we had confirmation it was a girl, both of us admitted that we were hoping for a girl.

The classic ultrasound shot

This one is super cool- the nose and lips are looking straight at you! There are some fingers by the chin.

Impressive knee kissing back bend

Baby girl was dancing all around during the entire ultrasound!

A Lovely Saturday

Yesterday started off with our normal trip to the community garden.

Some plots are doing super well. Ours not nearly as much as this one!

Picked some beets

The Tucson Botanical Garden was hosting a weird plant sale and offering free admission for the day. We went to check it out and were impressed!

Elliot was all about the picnic

 

Mini train town

 Post nap, we headed to the pool. Elliot was beside himself with joy for a solid hour- a big step over last year! We'll have to have many pool trips this summer.

To cap it all off, my cousin Melissa was going through some old pictures of her mom's and sent us over this absolute gem of my dad. 

There are no words adequate to describe this wonderful discovery

The Box & The Bandaid

This box has become Elliot's happy place. Give him some markers and crayons, stick him in the box, and he's good to go!

Also great for hiding in, and for driving like a race car when Daddy can be persuaded to push you

 

The box contains some of my very finest artwork, like this monster family

 Elliot started picking at this scab between his eyes while sucking his thumb. Every time we got him out of his crib in the morning or after a nap, it would be bleeding again. So, we kept band-aids on it for a week or so. Conveniently, the small band-aids we had came in bright blue or red. Very inconspicuous.

He greatly enjoyed his bandaid. 

Thrills

While we were visiting Mary last week, we went to a park that had some small carnival rides. I was excited to get Elliot some exposure to rides before our Disney trip. He was really excited to get on, but once he was on he went completely silent and still, sucking heartily on his thumb the whole time. I think he needs to take it all in and get used to the idea before showing visible signs of enjoyment.

Ferris wheel with Andrew

 

Elliot's cousins shared none of his reservations.

Rebekah

Benjamin and Andrew

On a separate day, Elliot got his first moon bounce exposure! We were at the park and a family that was setting up for a birthday party invited him in when they saw him staring longingly. He was jumping around in there FOREVER. It was hard to remove him when the actual party was starting!

And then there is the classic "toss your kid in the air in the backyard"

James Hall with Emma and Aaron with Elliot

Aaron's Graduation

Aaron graduated with his Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering this week! He knocked off a couple of graduate courses while still at BYU, then spent 4 long years taking online courses through the University of Arizona while working full time. It involved working on school pretty much every evening and most Saturdays. Despite all the time spent on that, he still managed to to be an awesome dad and husband. This guy is pretty much Superman. 

Elliot has always been very supportive of his father's schooling

Our pal Lakin volunteered to take some pictures with her nice camera.

I really wanted a picture of Elliot wearing the cap

This was the best we got

Elliot decided that this long sleeved robe must be a ghost costume. Aaron embraced that vibe. 

I sure love this guy.

 We got a babysitter and headed up to the university for the graduation ceremony. We had only been up to campus a few times and didn't know our way around at all. This was one of the many reasons this graduation was different from our BYU graduation four years ago. 

Proof he had a hood. Lakin and I had it looking better during the photoshoot, but this was the best I could do.
A volunteer went down the line of graduates shortly after this and did them completely different anyway. 

 Graduation was held at the U of A stadium. Aaron made a brief cameo on the big screen that I sadly was not quick enough to snap a picture of. The keynote speaker was Major General Charles Bolden, former director of NASA. He was awarded an honorary degree for his work with the University's space program, which is one of the best in the nation. 

Aaron was somewhere down there

The ceremony ended with a fireworks display accompanied with way too loud pounding music that made me feel like a curmudgeonly old grump. How can people enjoy music when the bass is rattling their bones and making their ears ache? Despite the finale (which many people did seem to enjoy), we had a good time celebrating Aaron's hard work. We are both glad he went for it, but even more glad that it is over!

 

On Aaron's first night without school work to do, I fully expected him to take the evening off while I worked. Instead, he jumped right in to the summer programming project he made up for himself. He's a hard worker!