Open Wide!

So we finally started Trevor on some solid food. Here are some pictures of his first taste of rice cereal. He loved the stuff. He loves it at, except for peas. Everytime we give him a bite of peas you get to see him give a very large shudder which totally cracks us up. We keep feeding him the stuff just because we love watching his response and Trevor is so good humored he keeps taking it. We sure love our little man. He's 7 month old now and just started getting mobile. He army crawls all over the place- its so fun! Its a good thing we've got all of our packing stuff put away so he doesn't get lost in it!

What the..? This is new...

He's not quite sure about this...

Resounding approval. We've got him beggin' for more.

Success!

Lynette gets in on the action.

Wingin' it at the Butterfly House

So I'm a little late putting up this blog, but hey I've been busy! When Michael's parents came in for graduation we took them out to the Butterfly House cause we figured they'd enjoy it. We had a great time. Lynette wasn't near as afraid of the butterflies this time as last (though they still made her a tad nervous) and then weather was much nicer so we could check out the outside as well as play on the fantastic playground. There were a lot of school field trip so the place was crawling with kids, but it was okay. We're sure going to miss this place.

The butterflies really seemed to enjoy my hair. They have good taste.

Butterflies eat by filling up this swirly "tongue" with fluid so its straight like a straw and sucking the nectar out of plants.

Did you know that if you took a caterpiller off the leaf it was hatched on and transplanted it to another species of plant it would die? Hm...surprised you didn't know that.

Say "Cheese"! Come on Lynette, smile! Please..

Lynette meets Mr. Millipede. Cool

So I took a picture of this random woman because it cracked me up how all of these butterflies were just attacking her. Here you can see two on her neck, there was another on her head and another on the zipper of her pants, but I figured she wouldn't appreciate me taking a picture of that area. She tried to brush them off but they just wouldn't budge.

This moth was absolutely enormous. If it landed on my nose it would have covered most of my face. Apparently these are pretty rare to see because they are born without mouths so they only live about 3 days. I thought it was pretty cool.

Paging Dr. Dobson!

Four years ago we arrived in St. Louis as newlyweds with a fresh bachelor's degree and high hopes as we tenatively began our medical school marathon. Here we are now at the end of our journey with my finished bachelor's degree and two extra kids tagging along. Dang what a ride! I honestly can't believe how fast it all went.
Graduation itself was an interesting ordeal. The first ceremony involved the entire Wash U. family and I spent all three hours of it chasing after Lynette and trying to shield Trevor from the glaring sun, ugh- but don't worry, if any of you missed it and would have liked to have been there, my mother-in-law taped the whole thing for your viewing pleasure. The second ceremony was for only the medical school and was far more enjoyable, partly because it took half the time as the first one. It was so fun seeing all of our friends and respected professors one last time. We got a lot of pictures, which was a little difficult fitting everyone in with those enormous puffed sleeves- first time I saw them I thought of Anne of Green Gables exclaiming "Marilla! Look at the puffs!" They don't call it "Pomp and circumstance" for nothing. Anyway its all said and done, at least this leg of the journey is- there's plenty more to go. Its funny calling Michael Dr. Dobson, he kinda cringes everytime he hears it, partly because for the last four years anytime anyone called him that it was usually said sarcastically, and partly because he's terribly afraid he's going end up killing someone in residency. Well we'll see about that. We're both pretty nervous about this next year, but we're excited for it and ready to get it over with- so lets go...bring it on.

Brand new diploma

Future doctor in the making?

Our good friend and favorite piano mover, Wale.

Proud parents.

Michael and our friend David Brogan in the puffed green marshmallow procession.

Sistah Friend!

My sister Kim came to visit me in St. Louis at the end of April. It was so fun seeing her again and I was prepared to pull out all the stops. We went to the City Museum, the art museum, the zoo, the Butterfly House (sadly, it was closed), ate out at the Hill, checked out Historic St. Charles, saw my husband's play, and of course treated ourselves to Ted Drewes- all in 5 days! It was crazy fun, and fairly exhausting...but oh well. Rebecca also drove in to join us for a 24 hour period. I think my favorite time of the whole week was when the three of us were talking to Melissa on the phone- it was just like we were teenagers again, without the hormones. To top it all off we paraded into church together all wearing black and white dresses, and no, we did not plan that. It was a fabulous week. I sure do love these girls!
















Fun times at the City Museum

Inside the cockpit of a plane at the city museum.

Splashing around in the Penguin House.




Sweet treats at Ted Drewes!

Picnic in Forest Park.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

So this year's medical school musical was "A Funny thing happened on the way to the Forum", it was Michael's third and he decided that in addition to having a fairly large roll he also wanted to work as a producer. I helped out at the beginning teaching group vocals but once Trevor was born I only assisted a bit in personal solo voice lessons, which was a new experience for me and really fun. I sure love teaching. The musical was a bit different, it was more of a comedy with random funny music thrown in. It was really funny, although we didn't feel all that comfortable inviting our close friends and family to it since it was pretty risque. My sisters, Kim and Rebecca, came down for the weekend of performances, though, and got to see Michael in all of his drag-dressing glory. I'm so proud of him and how much he has grown on the stage, who'd have thought you could have these kind of experiences in medical school!?

Our friend from the ward, Logan McKenna played Milos Gloriosus.

"I'm lovely, absolutely lovely."

"And flowers, I should have flowers."

"And a strange little boy."