Graduation, Crib Assembly, & Shower "oh my!"

It has been such a busy June already! Luke graduated from UW Tacoma with his Master of Ed. on June 11th. The hooding ceremony was on June 10th. There are some quick snapshots of us at the hooding ceremony with our friend Jesse, who went through the same program and also graduated:

More pictures from graduation to follow. We took several lovely ones with Luke's parents the day after commencement. (Due to the size of the class of 2010 and the commencement location-Tacoma Dome-we weren't able to get many great shots during the ceremony.) We held a small open house at our apartment right after graduation and welcomed family and friends alike to come and help us celebrate Luke (and Jesse's) achievement. It was a fun time, and we are so thankful to everyone who showed their support--it's been a lot of work and we couldn't have done it without our friends and family and church family.

Also happening that weekend was the baby shower hosted by the members of Mount Cross Lutheran, our home church. Again, more photos to come from the shower. I didn't get any on my phone or camera because I was otherwise occupied during the festivities! We received so many beautiful and generous gifts including: 3 bouncers/baby-rockers; a stack of blankets a yard high; over 15 onesies; sleep sacks, crib sheets, teddy bears, lots of books and board books, 2 Baby Bjorn carriers, a sling carrier, a gender neutral diaper bag, a towering "cake" made of diapers, bottles, binkies, booties and rattles, about 20 different rattles and toys, a large blow-up rubber ducky bath/pool, baby legos, a Boppy nursing pillow, 3 bath sets including a miniature bath robe that is so cute it breaks my heart, a first aid kit and lots of other delightfuls as well. The two large group gifts given at the shower were 1) a $400 gift card to Babies R Us (WOW!) and 2) $645 towards the cost of moving a vehicle out from Michigan this summer so that I can have my car back! It was so overwhelming and so exciting. We feel so blessed to have received so much. There are too many people to thank. (We tried, and fell overwhelmingly short of expressing our true gratitude.)

One special gift from the "grandparents" otherwise known as Luke and I's parents, was our Crib! During Luke's open house we were presented with the crib, and Luke was so excited about it that we had it set up the next morning. Here are some pictures of the set up (he took the wise advice to set it up in the room where it will live--often people set up their cribs in other rooms, go to move it in to the nursery and then find that it won't fit through the doorway! We fortunately didn't have that issue!):