Master Sewell

I know I mentioned Brandon's graduation in the post below, but it was such a huge accomplishment, I really think it deserves its own post.

The graduation weekend began with the Fuqua School of Business' graduation. Fittingly for Brandon, it was held at Cameron Indoor Stadium. It was awesome to have our parents get to be in the stadium, even if it wasn't for a game.

Afterward, we let the girls choose where we all went for lunch.
Hadley said she didn't care, so L chose Red Robin.

The festivities continued the following day with the university-wide commencement.

It started with a mad game of Quidditch

There were celebrities in attendance! Of course, there was Oprah, who was given an honorary doctorate degree (in what, exactly?) and gave the commencement speech, but she's small fries compared to this guy:

Alan Kalter!!!

The speeches were really good. The first guy, Robert Jones, was excellent. He was very funny and had a great message:


Now, I'm not the biggest fan of Oprah, but I enjoyed most of her speech, too. In case you were wondering, she made it clear that having your own plane is awesome. Thanks for the tip, Oprah. I'll see what I can do about picking one up next week. The video of her speech can be found here. And, yes, I fully expect everyone to watch these videos. :)

Yeah, that's the best picture we got of the 4 of us.

I can't even tell you how proud I am of this HUGE accomplishment. Grad school is always hard, but only those who have attended (or witnessed the attendance of) a university of similar caliber can understand just how challenging and rewarding this experience has been. Graduating from Duke is one large and impressive feather in Brandon's cap. My dear, you are awesome.

Hitting the Highlights

Some people are starting to think they're funny, giving me a hard time about being behind and my lame attempts to catch up (ahem... Mandy, Dad ;) ) So, here we go! The Sewell's Wrap Up in NC and Move to TX: the abridged version. Enjoy!

With our time in NC coming to a quick end we really wanted to make the most of it.

We visited the local strawberry patch
and left with a ridiculous 12 lbs of berries.

Yum!

We hit the beach one last time

we were in good company

We miss fellow Fuquans!

We had a photo op with the Blue Devil
*picture pending...
it's such a great, ugly picture, but it's on the dead desktop


Grandma and Grandpa Sewell came for a visit

Grandma and Grandpa Fairbanks came for a visit

We celebrated Grandma's birthday and
Daddy snuck Hadley her first taste of ice cream,
hence the smile.

We hit one last Bulls game

Brandon graduated

He's kind of a big deal. :)

We had final outings with lots of wonderful friends,
most of whom weren't photographed :(

We drove up to DC where we saw our favorite Knudsen's
and visited Arlington Cemetery (on Memorial Day, no less)

We took our ladies to Sesame Place
where we rode rides, swam, and met monsters.

Elmo stole Daddy's hat!
And, London rode the roller coaster. So brave!

I really love this picture:

We drove from PA back to NC for one last night (yes, I cried)
and then flew to TX for 2 days

London's millionth plane ride. Hadley's first.

For some fun trivia, I want to mention that you can fly the friendly skies even if you brilliantly let the movers pack up your wallet (including all photo ID) and drive it to Texas. All you have to do is have your marriage license, birth certificate, and Social Security Card on hand. Miraculously, Brandon had put all of that stuff in a big envelope and kept it with him. Genius, dumb luck, or something else? Let's just say I was thankful.

After TX we continued on to UT
where we played with family...

and friends...

and went to the Salt Lake Real game.

Grandpa Fairbanks scored us fancy box seats and caramel apples.
David Archuletta performed after the game. He was adorable.
Oh, and look how hot Brandon is in our family picture. *swoons*

We also blessed our precious Hadley

Now we've been in Texas for a few months. We've acclimated well and are enjoying ourselves. We're renting a nice house that just happens to belong to another Mormon guy. Totally random. We live in a nice neighborhood, have a great ward, and don't mind working for The Man all that much. Let's be honest. We love The Man. He provides a paycheck.

Give me a few more months and maybe I'll blog about actually living in TX. We'll see.

Easter in August

This was so long ago that I don't really have much to say about it. Except that I'm really proud of myself that we still have Easter candy in the house (not sure how or why we moved candy half-way across the country). That's kind of gross. I should probably throw it away.

Dying eggs

Easter morning.
I love bunny-cakes!
The eyes were made out of mini-chocolate chips this year.
And, the bow tie was a great addition.
Nice work, Bran.


Little ladies looking lovely!
Especially Hadley. She LOVES Easter.
I think she was peeved she didn't get any chocolate.

After church L had an Easter egg hunt with Dartmo.
(Sorry, Larissa. I still think 'Dartmo' every time I type Easton)
Didn't I find the best place to snap a cute photo of my girls?
The sunlight in their eyes just begged me to take a picture.
I should probably start a photography business...

Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

Much to my dismay, London turned 3 in April. I cannot believe how grown up she is. She's a great kid and is so much fun. It's funny to watch how her sense of humor is developing. She loves to tease (especially her dad). She's learning to manipulate us a little, and it's actually pretty clever. She loves to offer to get us treats so she can just happen to grab one for herself as well. She's stubborn, she's imaginative, she ignores half of what I say, she loves to cook, she always clears her dishes without asking, she still sticks everything in her mouth, she remembers every logo and commercial she's ever seen, and she is extremely polite. The queen of "please" and "thank you." I love this kid.

Since we dragged L half way across the country, away from her beloved cousins, we decided to let her have a party with friends. She chose a Backyardigans theme. We invited her fellow ankle-biters to join us at the park for some pizza, cake and (completely melted) ice cream.

L and her BFF Easton waiting for the other guests to arrive

L's cake.
It's supposed to channel Uniqua. See the curly 3?
Reminiscent of Uniqua's antenna?
Not sure I pulled it off, but I'm proud of it anyway. :)

I was surprised how odd it felt throwing a party for my kid. I was "in charge" but I had no idea what I was doing. I know it was stupid, but the whole time I was worrying about how long to play at the park or when to have cake. And then there were the presents. Why I felt so weird about the presents, I don't know, but I felt like I all but when up to all these wonderful women and said, "Hey! Will you spend money on my kid?"

They really were wonderful women, too. Balancing a newborn, a video camera, a still camera, a cake that needed to be lit (in the wind, mind you), and presents everywhere was pretty much impossible. All I ended up having to do was worry about the cameras, because my awesome friends took care of everything else. And, Amy, I'll always love you for trying to climb that stupid tree when London's party balloons blew away. :) I'm sure it was just another birthday party for every other adult there, but to me, the whole thing was kind of strange and a little stressful, and you guys made it so it was an amazing time for my baby girl instead of a disaster. :) Thank you!

As mentioned previously, L lost her poor birthday balloons. She was SO excited about them and asked for them first thing when we got up that morning. My heart about broke for her when the wind made quick work of the apparently inadequate knot I tied and I saw them fly up into the air and lodge themselves high up in a tree. I was SO proud of how well she handled it. Even when she discovered that the longest stick she could find was not nearly long enough to rescue them.

After a fun-filled morning, the festivities continued. L played with her birthday loot until dinner time, which was spent at her favorite restaurant, Red Robin. At the restaurant, her birthday balloons were replaced with a solitary, but well received, green one. To make things even better, the Red Robin was in attendance, and he gave L a hug. She ordered macaroni and cheese, french fries, and Sprite. This would be her last meal if she were on death row.

Once we returned home, she received her present from us (the cutest pink chair in the world) and opened about a million presents from her grandparents.

She went to bed worn out and properly spoiled. Maybe a little overly spoiled, but I'm okay with that once in a while. Four months later... Happy Birthday, London! We love you and are SO proud of the awesome little person you're shaping out to be.

Model Baby

A few days after Hadley was born, our good friend Tara came over for a little newborn photoshoot. I had several people ask me who took her picture for her birth announcement. You can see more of her work here. She's incredibly talented. For those of you in Durham, she's gone for an internship this summer, but she should be back in a few weeks. I highly recommend giving her a call. Tell her Julie sent you. It won't get you a discount or anything, but it will let her know that you are acquainted with really cool people. :)

I had a hard time deciding which pictures to post, so there are quite a few. I'm not going to apologize, though, b/c my children are beautiful!

She got some great shots of L, too:

Bringing Home Buggie

I remember having a "now what?" kind of feeling when we brought L home from the hospital. All of a sudden we had this kid. I was glad that we had so much family around to visit over the next several days. Not only because they brought a lot of food :) but b/c they helped me focus on other things so I didn't over-think being a new mom too much. Without them, I may have driven myself crazy with thoughts of inadequacy. I can't believe I've been inadequate for three whole years now. :)

Isn't she tiny and precious?