Week Twenty

This week, Nora got her first real hair cut. I think I've said that before, but this one was for real and not just a trim. Her long, wild curls? Gone. I'm hoping that her hair maintains some wave as it grows back, but I'm not holding my breath.

Here she is just after getting it cut. She wanted me to play with her princess castle and was telling me, "No pictures!"

It's cute. I'm not sure if I love it yet, but she needed something shorter and neater since she absolutely refuses to let me do anything with her hair other than brush it and pop a headband on her head.

This week was high school graduation week. I attended Austin-East's grad, obviously. Then I stuck around for Fulton's ceremony since I taught many of those graduating senioros. Most important, though, we celebrated Brad's niece Mary's high school graduation.

Bo and Lea hosted a party at their house, and family traveled in from out of town and out of state! I took a ton of pictures of all of the little kids playing together at the party, but I actually walked out the door without taking a picture of Mary! I managed to find one of the graduate and the whole Bo Lyle family (minus Matt) on their way to her graduation. Here is the fine looking crew.

And here she is at her actual graduation.

When I first moved to Tennessee, Mary was about 7 years old. I asked her recently, and she says she doesn't remember meeting me for the first time, nor does she really remember Brad without me. That's hard for me to believe! She's grown into a lovely young woman that her little cousin Nora can look up to. We're pretty proud of her as she starts her college career.

While at the party, the little kids (Nora, Adelle, Matthew, and Jack) had fun playing together both inside and out.

Two monkeys up in a tree.

Got the ball!

The brothers were too busy "being boys" to play catch with Nora.

Nora took a break from playing dollhouse with Adelle to smile for the camera.

Nora and Adelle admiring Naomi.

Now, while Nora and Naomi are first cousins, Nora and Adelle are "first cousins once removed" meaning Adelle's mother, Katy, and Nora are first cousins, even though Katy is 25ish years older than Nora while Adelle and Nora are just 5 months apart.  We love to get pictures of Grandpa holding Nora, his grand daughter and Adelle, his great-grand daughter at the same time.

Mark this in the record books. For the first time in my almost 11 years as a member of the Lyle family, I got a picture of Sam cheesin' for the camera. I mean, how could you not smile with these 2 silly little girls on your lap?

And speaking of the wide gap between first cousins, Nora is no longer the baby, so here I present you the oldest and youngest of the Lyle first cousins to date!

Katy age 28ish (?) and Naomi almost 9 months

Other highlights of the evening?

Cupcakes.

Bonding time between the littlest of the cousins.

I thought for sure Nora would crash early last night after all of the festivities, but she didn't. And then today she was a-rarin' to go. This resulted in her crashing at 5 p.m. and sleeping for 4 hours. I tried to wake her multiple times, but when this kid sleeps, she sleeps.

It is now almost 10 p.m. and she is sitting next to me on the couch not sure what she wants to do with herself. I'm going to try to get her back into bed very soon so hopefully her schedule tomorrow isn't too off kilter.

Speaking of tomorrow, tomorrow is the first day of my last week of the 2013-2014 school year! I can't believe another one is in the books.