yale, IKEA and a squeak of ramblings

a couple weeks back, we went to yale. i've heard so much about the school over the years, even though it's always been like.. 'yale' to me, not necessarily a place i'd ever really go, visit or see. anyway, we coupled the trip with a 'we need some furniture from IKEA' as well, which is conveniently right next to the university. 

we walked around campus with the kids, and they had a semi-blast. they would rather run free and not have us old parents telling them to 'be safe' or 'walk with us' or 'don't go in that building it's the headmaster/dean/whatever' ... but they really did enjoy it. as most people do these days, i took pictures with my camera and MAY have taken a few that were not of my kids. (WHAT?!)

here's a few:

the library was seriously lovely. i couldn't get over it, for reals. look at the card catalog. my kids will have zero use for them, and i barely even know why it made sense for us to use them. it was cool sharing my experience with the kids, and i think that it made a book that we've read a few times at home make sense. 

how crazy is this image? it's from the library. no, not a church, the library (ps- not the stations of the cross either. do not think it is. do not be misled. please)

here are my kids wandering off with the supervision of the hubs. he's pretty great, and the kids love him. (duh, who wouldn't?)

 typical facial expressions we see from each kid. #1 smiles fab- albeit largely, #2 can't keep his eyes on the camera for long enough to really settle (and often has his hands in his mouth... which is weird since he doesn't do that unless a camera is on him or we're reading books), and #3 either has his eyes shut (getting less frequent, though) or is talk-smiling. here's a shot of the latter description. i'm a fan of 'real' photos, so i love it.

kid #4 spent a fair amount of the trip in his car seat. bummer for him, easy for us to manage the four kids and keep all of them safe. we spent a chunk of time in this courtyard area racing around and being silly so this was a good time for the baby to bust out and get fresh air on his back. at least until the grass looked like it was tasty enough for food.

after our walking tour (which included ice cream! yum) we hit up IKEA and bought a expedit shelf unit, a tiny tree (which is supposed to be in the hubs office but is STILL by our sink...), and some of the smelliest baskets ever. i'm still waiting for the stink to fade, but it smells like elephant hay or something. i look forward to it fading swiftly. :)

have you ever been to yale? i was told while in college that they are one of the few to have a graduate program in letterpress. i'm not going to lie- it would be hard for me to pass up applying if we didn't have kids. i'm still on the track of 'four kids are a lot to manage, so lets enjoy them while they are young' ... because seriously how is kid #1 starting kindergarten next year?! less than 3m away.