My Graduation

I finally did it. I graduated with my masters. My masters is called "Functional Special Education" It covers children with severe/multiple disabilities, as well as children under the umbrella of autism. It has been a long road and a lot of classes. It would not have been possible without Mark. He was so supportive, when I needed to study and go to class and do homework. He is simply the best. Now I will get to do the same in return. Mark plans to start working on his masters next August. He is not sure the exact area yet, but something buisness.

For my graduation we had a small bowling/pizza party in Cheney on Sat. evening. Then on Sunday was the acutal, L O N G graduation. At WSU in DEC. they don't seperate anything. So it was all PHD grads, master grads, and all undergrads. It was a very long ceremony, but I'm still glad I did it. My parents, Marks Dad, my sister Amy, and my Friends Kelsey and Marshal all attended the ceremony, thanks everyone.

After the ceremony my parents treated Mark, Jaren, Amy and I out to dinner at Texas Road house - It was YUMMY! Thanks.

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Halloween 2010

Jaren was a monster for Halloween this year and the costume fit him perfect. He was so cute especially when he was walking.

While our internet is currently fixed, we still have no volume on our computer. So if the videos are not good, or the song, sorry :)

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Cheeks birthday party

Blake had his birthday party at Pump it up this year. He has been talking about it for almost a year. We all had a great time!!!

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UPDATE

Ok, our Internet got worked on last night and I've been on a roll during Jaren's nap this a.m. I have 4 posts ready to go.

But for right now I thought it best to just do a bit of an update on us since I've been so far behind.

Jaren - We have been battling a bit of skin concerns for the past 7 weeks. After 4 pediatrician appointments and three dermatologist appointments, we have finally found the answer and we are doing great. All in all he has eczema (sp?) Not a big deal, but just a bad time to start a flair up at the beginning of winter. Anyway after 4 antibiotics and having to cover him in aquaphore at night followed by wet PJ's topped with warm footed pj's we are now good to go. We had an appointment this a.m. and don't have to go back for 6 months.

Mark - doing great!!! Still loving Cargill (for the most part)

Me - doing better now that I'm not sick every evening. I kept getting promised the second trimester was better, but I held my breath. Yes, that is right if you do not know, I am PREGNANT. It came to Mark and I as a complete surprise. Here is the story.

Mark and I were done trying to grow our family through our personal pregnancy, we had both morned it and had moved onto growing our family through adoption. We were VERY blessed, as you all know with Jaren and the process couldn't have gone smoother or with a better birth mom. We were just holding our breath for the phone to ring so he could be a big brother.

Anyway, I was supposed to start (sorry boys) on my 30th birthday and didn't think anything of not, other than being excited I didn't Then about 3 days later I was getting annoyed that I hadn't started, because whenever this happened for the past 6 years, I'd get my hopes up for no reason and it was hard. Happened to be the day before Jaren emptied out under my bathroom sink and as I was putting it away I noticed I still had an old pregnancy test - expired by a year :) Anyway I thought well I'll just take it so it can so no and I'll move on. Not telling Mark of course because history told me that I couldn't get pregnant.

Gotta back up a few days. I had just received an e-mail from one of the places we have our adoption portfolio saying that she had a lady that was going to look at it and wanted to make sure we were ready for another baby.

Jaren happened to get up at 4:00 a.m. the next morning so after I put him to bed I had to go to the bathroom so I took the test. When I saw it said pregnant, I whipped, literally, the bathroom door opened and scared Mark half to death. Then I said to him, "This thing says I'm pregnant" remember he had no idea I was taking a test. He said "What" and sat up. I repeated "This thing says I'm Pregnant" Then I Mark says "Am I dreaming" . Well Jaren ended up having a fever so I stayed home with him and went to have my blood drawn. I couldn't have been more nervous, due to the result last time this happened. The doctor called me last that day and said it looked great, but that I had to come back in two days to have it checked again. And again it looked great.

I was considered high risk up until 8 weeks. At 5 weeks we had a sonogram and got to hear the heartbeat (that was a first for Mark and I and we won't soon forget it) We did get pictures of peanut, but that is all it looks like. I had to also take a progesterone pill up until 13 weeks and am not done with that.

I am 14 weeks as of yesterday and feeling great. I get winded easy and am tired very early each evening, but no nausea anymore!!!

Our baby is due June 21st and we are NOT finding out what it is. Healthy is all we are praying for and couldn't be more excited that Jaren is going to be a brother. I can't wait to watch him with the baby.

Ok, that is long enough, but wanted to share. We will have another sonogram in Feb.

K-state Football this season!!!

Here are slideshows from the K-state football season. Seeing's how we made a BOWL GAME!!! and the season is still officially going on, I'm not that late on this one. I'm hoping to get some posts going this week to try to catch up since I'm off the next two weeks - as long as our internet cooperates I should be able to do it. As I say this I'm on day two of trying to get enough internet service to finish this post. I was half way done and then did't have service for 24 hours. AHHH. They are supposed to be coming out today to do something about it.

On my list of to post is: Videos - old and new, my cousins wedding, misc photos from the past several months, halloween, blakes birthday party, my graduation, baby update - old and new :) Get excited!!! Then of course Christmas - I can't wait for this year, Jaren will actually care - I am aware he may prefer the box and bow over the gift, but that is perfectly fine. He is ready too, our toys here are old news.

Anyway here it goes. Our first game was again UCLA this year.

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The next game - you have already seen photos off, but I am posting it again. UCF - this is the game Jaren came to.

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The ISU game was played at Arrowhead again this year. We had good weather although game time was a bit warm.

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Finally, (not for K-states season, but for Mommy's season) was the Nebraska game. This game due to ESPN was played on a Thursday night. We had started a tradition with our friends Matt and Kristi to travel to this game together each year, and since Nebraska decided they were to good for the big 12, or afraid of Texas, whichever it is, this was to be our final trip and we wanted to make the best of it. Mark and I both took Thursday and Friday off of work. We took Jaren to daycare and they headed up to Manhattan. We went to the bakery to get some goodies. After that we met up with the family at Rock-a-Belly for some good eatin. Then traveled to several spots in Aggivilee for some pre-tailgaiting. We had a great time - Thanks to Aunt Amy and Blake for babysitting Jaren for us.

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Finally, during our tailgaiting adventures this year, Michael and Matt, I believe began Bro Icing people. Basically, this is when you place a smirnoff ice somewhere to be 'found' whoever finds it, has to get on one knee and chug it. This was fun to watch and even more fun to scheme. It did make us out to be rude though as noone would do favors for anyone by the end of the season. "Hey, could you grab me a cup?" "NO", "Can you hand me the doughnuts?" "NO".

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Hail storm

I am thinking of this again as we just finally got our gutters replaced from this fun storm.

This was the evening before I defended my final research for my masters, Sept. 15th, 2010. Mark was out of town, and my mom came over to help with dinner and watch Jaren so I could practice and prepair. We were going to watch my neice Matea for a bit this eveing too. My dad had called a bit before the hail got here asking if my mom had pulled her car in because he heard hail was coming. I said yes, I made her because I didn't want her to have to leave in the rain. Amy had called as well letting us know she was getting some pretty big hail at her house in town Goddard so we knew it wasn't far away.

Jeremy and Brandi were on their way into town to drop of Matea and they called and asked if they could just stay till the storm passed, by the time they got here we were deep in the big hail. In the end, Jay and Brandi's van in my driveway had both the front and back windshield busted out. We had one hole that went all the way though our roof and our ceiling in our garage, and about 22 other holes that went all the way through the roof and into the attic. Oh, don't forget that we had just paid to have our house repainted 3 yes, THREE days before all this happened.

My dad ended up taking off work to come help Amy and I, Marks Dad came over to help us and drive Jay and Brandi and their girls home. My uncle and cousin stopped by to see if we needed help, and my other uncle called and offered his services. Amy had many holes that led to water running down her ceiling and into her fire detecters shorting them out and causing them to go off constantly. Anyway it was a mess and they hail was HUGE!!!

Jeremy and Brandi's front window of their van. The back window was competely gone.

This is what our whole yard looks like, but since we didn't have property insurance ,or something like that, it still looks like this.

This is what our garage ceiling looks like. The hail came all the way through the roof and the ceiling and landed and shattered on our garage floor, thank goodness on the third car side so no car damage.

This is one of the many spots along our guttering that was distroyed.

This mainly shows how hard the hail was coming down the hail is completely buried in the yard.

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slow dance

I know I am WAY behind again, but we are having some MAJOR issues with our internet and have tried to make two posts and gotten kicked off before I was done and lost everything I was working on. So this one is going to be short and sweet.

I just had one of the best experiences of my life to date and want to note it. Today was my last day of school before Christmas for me, so I left school as soon as physically possible to go get Jaren and get home.

We got home and I got Jaren a snack and started dinner. Then came the best part....

Jaren asked for one of his favorite things. He wanted the music on. So I put on a Christmas CD, turned the house lights off and the tree lights on. Then for a half and hour Jaren and I danced. Some fast fun twirly songs and some slow songs which involved him cuddling on my shoulder and licking my shirt ;)

I wish I had a picture, but as we were the only people home I obviously don't, but let me tell you it was darn cute!!!

Enjoy the holidays!!!