<p>The last time my mother and my mother-in-law were here together, they took all the wastbaskets out of the bedrooms and bathrooms and washed them outside with a hose. </p>
<p>I am buying new wastebaskets for every room in the house this Saturday.</p>
<p>owm—OMG!</p>
<p>owm - lol, not that my mother would have done that, more like I would be doing it at her house, but funny just the same. It is interesting what gets people going though. wastebaskets must be their pet peeves, it is one of my husbands too.</p>
<p>Not much time - sneaking in here to try and keep up.
LOL! </p>
<p>UT - congratulations on the Swat decision!</p>
<p>My parents are flying in next week and will be with us for the next month. Yes, it will be a bit of a pain since my mom doesn’t get around too well - but we are thrilled that they can be with us for D’s graduation. We don’t get to see them often enough and my dad had promised D he’d be here for her graduation!</p>
<p>Crazy month or two ahead with all the spring sports, awards ceremonies, recitals, graduation ceremonies and the like! Finally almost done ordering senior pictures. Trying to figure out what the plans are for the grad party - invite has been emailed. H and S have their birthday this month as well - just to make my life more interesting. Just scheduled S’s birthday party as well.</p>
<p>Was looking at ordering personalized m and m’s for D’s party - think she would love that. Anyone done this before? Any tips?</p>
<p>OWM - What the heck? That’s, just…wow! 
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<p>arisamp - I love the m&m idea. I haven’t done it but looked at them online and now they ‘follow me’ thanks to super-cookies.</p>
<p>Graduation is in two parts here :)</p>
<p>Baccalaureate Mass on Sat and Commencement on Sun (7 tickets).
No announcements will be sent eventhough school supplies them, adn they are beautifully done so great momentos!</p>
<p>No family involved as we are on different continents 
literally.</p>
<p>Arisamp~Yes!! M&Ms in school colors are fun, and left over are always welcome @ college during move-in ;)</p>
<p>Owm~My mother would do this
Grad gifts…Mont blanc pen,sterling silver picture frame, cufflinks. I would do a nice lasting gift :)</p>
<p>OWM, wrong attitude! You should be enjoying having someone else wash out your wastebaskets! You can work this for all it’s worth. I fully expect to hear from you that the grandmothers have repainted the bedrooms, regrouted the tile, and refinished the kitchen woodwork. ;)</p>
<p>Someone else mentioned upthread Sierra Trading Post, and I’ll second that. Make sure to check for coupon codes when using them. Altrec is a bit pricier, but two day shipping is free with a (minimal) minimum purchase, and they’ve got lots of brand name stuff on sale. Be very, very careful buying North Face on ebay. Simplest is just not to buy TNF on ebay; too many scammers.</p>
<p>DreadPirateRoberts would make a great username.</p>
<p>arisamp, you can “stretch” the personalized m&ms by mixing them with some plain ones in the same color. Also, be sure to check for coupon codes. </p>
<p>I feel like I’m back to planning bat mitzvahs.</p>
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<p>I’m so glad that y’all didn’t flame me for not wanting company for graduation. I would much rather have a visit that is not tied to a holiday or an event. I think I’ll make a hotel reservation, just in case I have the nerve to put them there.</p>
<p>kinderny: I had graduation announcements made online at peartreegreetings.com. They have many styles that you can customize with your own photos and text. I created these for out-of-town people who would want to know where he is going to school. I love how they turned out. For some who would want a wallet-size picture, I used stick-on scrapbooking corners to include that inside on the top fold panel that did not have text. Really easy (and I am not a scrapbooker.)</p>
<p>For the intown folks, I had party invitations made at Sam’s Club. Just a 6X8 with his picture and the date, time, etc. Very inexpensive and done in an hour. </p>
<p>Take that, Jostens and your expensive, ugly formal announcements!</p>
<p>(Oh and today, one of those unaddressed invitations that I dropped in the mailbox by accident came back. Three more to go!)</p>
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<p>OWM - not trying to compete with that, but the last time everyone was coming for a visit (I’m the only family member out of state) my mom offered to pay for a cleaning service before all arrived :rolleyes: I have no doubt she had good intentions. It just didn’t come off well.</p>
<p>Fortunately, my SIL (as well as all of you) listens to my ranting and completely gets it. So we just have an open bottle of wine at all times…;)</p>
<p>I was going to include a pic of S in his college t-shirt and I love the idea of the Kindergarten one as well - thanks for the idea!! I’m also going to put a note about no gifts, just good thoughts.</p>
<p>Hey UT - another congrats on Swat!</p>
<p>My son graduates on 5/22. Each student receives 10 invitations to use as announcements, but they are not required for admission at the actual graduation ceremony. There are no grandparents left on either side, and none of my dozens of nieces and nephews has ever invited us to their graduations. I am reluctant to send S1’s announcements out to family, for fear they will feel obligated to come and to bring a gift. How pathetic is that? Our immediate family will probably just go out to dinner immediately afterward, just the six of us.</p>
<p>My son has also rebuffed our many offers to throw him a graduation party for friends. I think he’s is afraid his buddies won’t make the 30-45 minute ride from where he attends school, to our home - so he’d just rather go to all their parties. It makes me a bit sad. I think I’ll try to work on getting him to agree to hosting a send-off party sometime in August. * sigh *</p>
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How about paying for a cleaning service AFTER everyone LEAVES? Now that’s something I’d have a very hard time turning down. ;)</p>
<p>Thanks to OWM…I did my grad open house invites at peartreegreetings. I only ordered 40 formal announcements from the school rip-off and those went mostly to out of town family.</p>
<p>My mom was the type that I had to major heavy duty cleaning before she got there and she would clean again when she got there. I would never be able to find stuff when she was there. When she passed, my DH joked…oh well I guess our house will never be clean again…sad but true.</p>
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<p>I haven’t done this in Seattle but in a couple of Florida ports. I checked online with Google searches and also found recommendations on the Ports of Call threads on the Cruise Critic website (No space and dot com). We booked a car / van and they had us call when we were leaving the ship. They were in the holding area and when we came out of the terminal building, we followed up and the driver was there in a couple of minutes. We were at the airport in time for our 11 AM flight time and had time to spare.</p>
<p>Our son lives in hoodies, jeans and sneakers. He also has a North Face and a knit cap with the pigtails that seems to be all the rage in this area plus it keeps his head warm. No boots unless he is shoveling the walk or drive and no gloves unless he is shoveling or sledding. When he needs boots he borrows an old pair of mine (same size). Our D (HS 2014) lives in her North Face fleece and her Uggs.</p>
<p>My parents have been gone for years and DW’s entire family lives overseas so we only see the in-laws / grandparents every two or three years. DW’s parents are in their mid-70’s but are still in reasonably good health and Dad still works part time in his consulting business. S got very excited whe he heard that his grandparents were making the trip from Australia to be here for his graduation as he hasn’t seen them in nearly three years and he is one of the student speakers at the graduation ceremony. They will be with us for about a week prior to graduation and then they will join us on a graduation trip before returning home in early July.</p>
<p>Our community has doubled in population over the past ten years and the “new” high school auditorium (2001) is now too small for graduation (The class is 251 this year). We will be in the gym (no A/C) and have 7 tickets each. Fortunately, S has been able to get a couple of additional tickets from his GF to cover the two older siblings and their spouses who are both local. The graduation is at 2 PM and will be over by 4 to 430, including the informal photo session. We have scheduled a family dinner (without our small grandkids) at S’s favorite steakhouse at 6 so that everyone can relax and regroup before dinner.</p>
<p>The graduation party is the following Friday night so we get a few days off. Then we leave on the graduation trip. I am getting tired just thinking about it!</p>
<p>OWM: I think that’s a hoot!</p>
<p>It’s popular here to have a baby picture and the senior picture on a photo paper announcement (cheap from snapfish or costco). I love seeing all the baby pix from my Ds friends. We have a “no gifts” line on the open house invites going out. I expect she’ll get a few $20.11 checks regardless. Official (Josten’s - I don’t like them either) announcements will go to family and godparents only. I’ll be sending them about a week before the ceremony and inserting a senior picture. I really don’t want anyone to feel like they SHOULD come.
Now, I find myself checking the waitlist thread a couple of times a day. Not sure if I want to see the school hit the list. D seems fairly happily committed to JHU, but who knows how she will react if she learns a waitlist opened up at a school she preferred earlier in the process.
My mom tries to do some housework anytime she is over. At first it bothered me ("what my housekeeping is not up to snuff?), but now I enjoy it. Saves me some time and makes her feel very helpful, and rightly so. And, her intentions are kind not critical.</p>
<p>I think I’m the only one not sending out graduation announcements! We’re down to one grandparent on each side and they’re either too far away or ill/can’t travel easily.</p>
<p>Mnmomof2 – I keep checking the WL thread too (and posting updates) even though D got off the WL at her top school of the 4 that WL’d her. I just want to see how long it takes Wm & Mary to go to their WL. I am glad she’s not waiting for them anymore.</p>
<p>Wishing for beautiful weather for all the graduation ceremonies!</p>
<p>kiderny - sold! to the lady with the vat of kimchi!
What do you get an 18 yr old? Ds did technically get a new car (not his but his to use for the next 4 months) so I’m thinking car type accessories? Needs a dancing hula girl or something. Of course his bday is tmrw so it’s kind of late right?
My dad will be the only family attending and that is only if the weather cooperates and it’s outside at the football stadium because otherwise it’s in the gym and we all get 4 tickets. Dad would rather hear about it later than deal with that. I think he needs to have a party but we aren’t there yet.</p>
<p>Classof2015, no graduation announcements from us either. I was hoping D1 would have a graduation party for her friends. It looked for awhile like she was going to have a few friends co-host, but they’ve backed away and she’s unwilling to be The Host. A pity, it’s such an easy party to do: a few giant (26" diameter!) pizzas, soda, a lifeguard for the pool, and bob’s your uncle. Maybe I’ll just invite all of you, and switch the menu to include a frozen margarita machine. :D</p>
<p>UT, I envy you getting to visit the Swarthmore campus on a regular basis. Such gorgeous grounds.</p>