White Coat Pinning Ceremony

Sterling took the hippocratic oath! 

His white coat has been pinned!

He's officially official!

That was our view of the front of the tent. And we were over thirty minutes early. I didn't think the kids could handle being any earlier than that! 

Will had a rough time. Pretty much the entire time. 

I felt like we were totally prepared. Tic tacs, brand new sticker books and notebooks, crayons, etc. Nope, Will decided it was too hot and too miserable to act in any other manner. Luckily, we were on the back row and he could lay on the ground a bit and we could still watch the ceremony.

Cutest. baby. ever. 

Ruthie stole the show when she saw daddy walking across the stage, asked if she could go to him, and I said she could. I didn't think it would be that big of a deal (it wasn't), but I forget what a big deal people around here make out of children. It's because of the sheer scarcity of children in Miami. Haha. So she ran right up (ever extroverted Ruthie) and Sterling picked her up and the ENTIRE crowd went "awwww".  She got her picture taken with the dean and everything! (Although, she has a dean back at grandpa's house that I sure wish we were taking pictures with MUCH more!) Several people came up to us afterwards and asked if Ruth was the little redhead that ran up. Yes, yes we claim her.

It was really neat, I must say. Sterling deserves some major credit for everything he does. It's hard and fun and wonderful and he does such an incredible job of sacrificing and balancing and working! We are living the life!

Poor Molly, not happy about this picture.

Look at that handsome man! 

Yes, yes, I was forcing Sterling to take the kissing pictures. Old man.

Sebastian the Ibis was wandering around and Ruth *desperately* wanted to give him a high-five. But then she chickened out. So she watched him across the lawn for forever and then told me "He's just like Mickey, right?" "Yeah, he's just like Mickey and Donald Duck." "Then I want to see him!"

She did get to meet him and he was very nice, and the entire time Sterling and Ruth were by Sebastian, Will was sobbing HYSTERICALLY, like his sister was getting abducted or something. While adorable, it was a little dramatic. Good thing we have such a brave little champion in our house.

Haahaa.

Ruth was put out that Sterling didn't have his stethoscope, so she gave him her Doc McStuffins one to use for the night.

Close to one year down! Yay! It's been a crazy, wonderful, busy, lovely, incredible first year of adventure and I think we can say we're ready to take on next year (after a nice summer break relaxin' at Grandma's, of course)!

Outside Fun!

This week has been in the 80's and we are loving it. The summer humidity has not come back full-force yet (we have some days, but not too bad) and so it's warm enough to feel like hot summer, but not too hot to be outside playing! Besides the return of the mosquito masses (that never went away, but were fewer than now), we are thoroughly enjoying March!

We went to this awesome park that I remember going to when we first moved here and a lady reminded me of it last week. It was further away than I remembered, so I'm not really sure it was worth it (especially since I let the kids take off their shoes, ended up leaving them there, had to make the drive again, and Ruth's shoes were stolen, sigh. But Will's were there which made me SOOO happy because they are his green puma ones that I love so so so much!!!). The parks by our house can get somewhat crowded at about 10am so the kids had a blast with the park all to ourselves!! Plus, more relaxing for me because I didn't have to go see if they were being nice, sharing, etc.

Thanks to Aunt Judy who told my mom that my cousin Autumn's daughter(long list of relatives, haha) chewed on a soother when teething even though she never took one. Molly has really enjoyed chewing on it while teething as well, and she has never taken one.

Mama's lap.

Cutie Patootie girl!

After running to and from that park twice, Sterling tuned up my bike a bit (I tried pulling the trailer with it last week and my wheel was having issues) and we went on a family bike ride to get a shake!

Oh she is just THE cutest! 

Ruth's face. She has been having an emotional life lately, poor girl. She begged us to get some cheese empanadas, instead of a shake. We told her they were 'cheese' several, several times, and she wanted them SOOO bad. So we let her get the empanadas and we got one shake to share as a family. As soon as she bit into them she burst into tears and all I made out was 'chocolate'. She thought they were the chocolate croissants we bought at the farmer's market a couple of weeks ago. Poor girl. I would have felt more sorry if we hadn't told her SO many times that they were cheese. Unfortunately, none of us really liked them (and I have become a HUGE empanada fan, so that is sad).

She never fully recovered, hence her face. She cried and whined pretty much the whole ride home (thirty minutes) so kudos to Sterling for narrating the ride home as if we were fictional characters and trying to cheer everybody up.

And today we made it to the pool! 

It was fairly chilly--I didn't end up getting in the water because I thought it was too cold for Molly. Ruth was a champ and jumped in and swam around a few separate times, but mostly they stayed on the side and played with buckets and cups. It's definitely getting close to swimming weather though, and I am excited to have another fun activity for our afternoons!

This picture cracks me up. Will is full-blown 2 now, and you can tell. This is his "NO!" face. It's a very long, emphatic, up-and-down sort of no. Sometimes adorable, oftentimes not.

On the subject of Will and his 2-ness, he said his first three word sentence today (I think)! We were at the park and our friends came up and he tried to scramble out of the swing saying "Say hi Cark, say hi Cark!!" He loves Clarke and it was adorable to hear him so verbal! Also, I need to record him saying 'cookie'. He puts so much desire and yearning into that cuh-kee, it's hilarious!! He also is hilarious when he scolds Molly. She is really grabby so when they are both in my lap she'll grab his ear or his hair and he is actually quite patient but starts chanting "No bebee, no bebee, no bebee." while looking at me with this very pained expression. Haha.

The other day when Ruth's shoes got stolen (my fault) we got her a second pair (they were cheap-o ones at Old Navy and I had JUST got them for her so she was dying about it). She picked green ones and when she showed them to Sterling he said "Oh! I love your green shoes! Did you know green is my favorite color?" She said, very seriously, "When you get small a little girl like me, you can wear my green shoes, too!" Haha, what a sweet girl! She gets life backwards like that all the time, though. At the store one time I told her Will didn't need a hair tie and she said "When he grows a little girl like me, he can have one too." She thinks everyone can grow older or smaller or from a boy to a girl. Haha.

Still a little chilly. It is 85 degrees, but the pool water hasn't warmed up quite yet.

We're missing all the fun of the snow in Utah right now, but we sure do have a lot of fun outside!