Graduate

Well, I am a graduate.

**I attempted to mark myself in the next two pictures. I am right under where it says "ME". No color I chose made it stand out, so, click on the picture to enlarge it if you would like a better look!

Waiting in line (pictures were a bit tricky in the arena, so some are blurred -- no flash):


Baccalaureate candidates switching tassels from right to left:


Subway buddy, Jenny:






At dinner:


Amelia in my cap:


She had to wear it backwards, otherwise it fell over her eyes!

Amelia's new face:


She has been doing this ALL the time the past couple of days! I think it is hilarious!

I have one more exam on Tuesday and then I am officially done. Just in time for the holidays :)

Pick Up Your Room!

This morning Jason and I were a little out of it. He isn't feeling well and I am just, well, exhausted (more mentally than physically). As I went in and out of consciousness this morning I knew Amelia was awake and that she had gotten a bottle. Next, I realized that she was awake and playing in her room. I assumed she was in her bed...nope! Jason let her play in her room like a big girl this morning and this is what we found:

When I first opened the door she seemed a bit upset with me. Probably because she had been locked away for an hour or so...




What seemed like a good idea at the time proved to be not the greatest. I had just cleaned up her room last night and now I get to do it again tonight. One day I will be able to tell her to pick up her own room!

School has been winding down, fast. I dropped off my paper today, returned my library books (for the first and last time) and sold back my books from my last required science class, about caves. I got a whopping $2 back for them. I figured I wouldn't get much since they weren't that much to begin with but I have no use for them, so I took the $2. I didn't even use them for the class, why would I use them in the future?! I only have one class to wrap up. I have a paper due tomorrow and the last test on Tuesday (yes, 2 days before Christmas Eve) and then I am DONE. I am not sure when I will write the last paper...there is a movie (An Education) at work that I would like to catch before it ends tomorrow. It is feeling good to be finishing college, just in time for the holidays.

Honors Ceremony

Last night my family and I attended the senior honors convocation at UWM. Myself, and around 200 others, recieved gold cords to wear at commencement in honor of our consistently high GPAs. I don't have a lot of good pictures (there were 3 cameras and no one ever seemed to understand which one to look at...) but here are a few that turned out ok (from my camera):






(sorry Dad, none of the pictures with you on my camera turned out, I'll have to check mom and kim's cameras)

My big paper is due tomorrow, at 4, and I plan on giving it another look now that I finally recieved some feedback from the professor (took long enough!). I am anxious to put college behind me :) I do have to work tonight and I have spent the day getting the house back in order from having guests (I still have to get into the kitchen...) so I plan on looking it over after work. I hope I have enough energy to do it!

Amelia is doing great, as usual. Today she has really been interested in water bottles:



I also liked this picture from the weekend:


I really like monster stuff (and dinosaur stuff...) but it is usually all for boys! Not these pajamas though!

Doesn't she look so big here:


She's going to be walking soon! She LOVES to stand!!!

Summer School, Part 2

Today was the first day of my second half of summer school. My first impression of this class is that it is going to be MUCH easier (ie- lighter reading each night). This class will last until August 12, which is a bit longer than the first one lasted, but I only have to go twice a week! Another added bonus is that it starts at 930 (vs 9).

Amelia's appetite has returned! She must have adjusted somewhat to the heat and/or the a/c has probably helped. She is back to her normal, piggy self. Her tummy is getting bigger:


Amelia has also managed to find her thumb (instead of her whole hand):


I am hoping that this does not become a habit of hers!

This afternoon Amelia and I exercised (yes, both of us did). We tried out our Mom and Baby Fitness DVD for the first time. I didn't do the full workout... Instead I tried out one of the "mini workouts" for busy moms. We tried the one that works on the post-baby belly. It sure worked my abs out! I haven't done yoga in quite some time. Amelia did really well but got fussy during certain poses and also towards the end. They also had a "mini" workout for baby, baby yoga. Amelia liked most of that! Her favorites were "taffy baby" and "so big". She smiled and giggled a lot! She wasn't to fond of "candlestick", which is similar to what we (parents) do when we are changing diapers (holding their legs up in the air and then, for this, moving them in circles).

A funny face to leave you all with:


I have NO idea what she was looking at that apparently was very interesting.

One Week Left!

Today started the last week of my Vietnam War class and I could not be happier! My next class will also be a lot of work, but I only have to go to campus twice a week, which will be really nice! I have to make a large dent in our last book to read and write a paper about tonight, called Catfish and Mandala. I am told it is an easy read, so let's hope I can get a lot of it read tonight! I can't wait for Thursday to turn in the last paper and take the final and get out of there and have no schoolwork for the weekend! I have been far too stressed out and anxious, so I am really looking forward to this weekend. I get a break just in time for Jason's first Father's Day...

This afternoon I finally made it to the Police Administration Building to get fingerprinted. It is something required of all bartender's license applicants. It was kind of cool, it was all done electronically, no ink! The whole process was frustrating though. The area the police building is in is hectic, especially around noon (when I went), and there is "construction" all over the grounds. You know, things are fenced off and dug up, but there are no workers anywhere... I walked around in circles for a while. Finally I got there and it only took about 15 minutes to take care of business and be on my way. Oddly enough I ran into two people I know while there...

After I made it home this afternoon, Amelia and I had some fun. Mommy needed some cheering up and Amelia is a pro at that! All she has to do is smile =) We had tummytime, rolled over a few times and worked on "standing". Here are some pictures I snapped when I realized she was about to go over:



She was a smiley girl today, which is becoming the norm =)



Pretty soon and she will also be rolling from back to front! (I know, it's a little "early" for that, but she is so close sometimes!)

I also dug out a different paci for her, by Avent. We have had them all along but when she was a newborn they were so large and covered her nose all the way and that made me too nervous. I tried one out today and she seems to have "grown into them" at this point. I think she liked that there is a "handle" on them, like Nuk pacifiers. She was more content to hold onto the handle than anything (even if it meant the paci went in and out as she sucked):


I have to get the kitchen cleaned up (bath nights tend to make a mess in a clean kitchen, especially since Amelia has taken to splashing an awful lot lately!) and shower now, so I can start with that book! Might be a long night...or a short one that results in my falling asleep.

June Already? Wow!

I can't believe that it is June already! Today I started week two (of four) of my Vietnam War class, the mid-term is on Thursday already! It is kicking my butt big time! There is so much reading to do and between going to the class for three hours a day, coming home, spending time with Jason before he leaves for work/going to work myself and then playing with Amelia til bedtime, I can't keep up! By the time I get myself some dinner and a shower it is already nine o'clock or later and I am tired and ready for bed, but I always read, always (I don't always finish the assigned pages, but I read every day).

This afternoon Amelia and I dropped Jason off at work and headed home to get ready for a run. The weather predicted rain, then this morning/early afternoon it was almost 80 and then by the time we brought Jason to work it was 60 and cloudy! We got out of the house as fast as we could and went for a short run, and then walked the rest of the way today. We stopped by Honeypie to drop off Jason's phone since he forgot it! I forgot to grab her a hat, the cat kept escaping and I was tired of that, so I "fashioned" her a something out of a recieving blanket:


Amelia was being a weirdo today when she was on the floor in her Boppy. She kept pushing with her legs until she went over the top of the pillow and was looking at the world upside down. Even then she kept pushing, but couldn't get anywhere.


Amelia is looking so much older every day!



Amelia is rolling to her side more and more all the time. When she is laying on her back (usually during breaks from tummytime) she rolls to a side and just kind of hangs out on her side. Won't be long and she will be rolling from back to front as well!


And now for a funny face, as is becoming a tradition since she makes so many great faces!


Lastly, for anyone that is used to talking with me via phone on a regular basis, during the week I may be hard to reach. I like to take some of my time to update on here once Amelia is asleep, and then it is time to eat dinner and study, study, study. I am behind in my class and can't afford to get any farther behind, especially since it is so short to begin with! So, I will do my best to be available on the weekend nights to talk/return phone calls, but no guarantees. This class is seriously more work than any other summer class I have ever taken (and I have taken summer classes many summers). It is also material that is hard for me to grasp, kind of. It is very complex and there are often no "right" answers. Feel free to e-mail me if you want and I can probably reply, phone calls just get so long sometimes and I lose track of time and it is midnight before I know it, so I am going to abstain from the phone for the most part for a while.

No Time to Breath!

I have hardly had time to stop and breath since last Friday. I have been BEYOND busy! After being out of town for the weekend, I had to start summer school yesterday morning and then pretty much went straight to work after. I wish I had had one day between getting back in town and starting school because we had SO much stuff to put away and get this place in order. My summer school schedule includes two classes. Right now I am in 'History of the Vietnam War' and I go Monday-Thursday, from 9-12, for four weeks. Immediately after that I start 'Egyptian Mythology' and go Mondays and Wednesdays, 930-12, for eight weeks.

I have been so frazzled lately and it is really getting to me. I keep losing things and misplacing things, like my glasses, and it takes FOREVER to find them sometimes. Currently, my sunglasses are gone and I am convinced I won't find them since I have no clue where I had them last. Was it at home? Somewhere we went in the past two days? Who knows! I am mad because they were prescription and in order to replace them I need to have an eye exam and I am currently uninsured so I have no idea how much that would be and then there is the cost of the sunglasses/lenses to come up with. This summer is going to be tough if they don't turn up!

My professor for the Vietnam class, Chia Vang, has never taught summer school and it shows! She assigns SO much reading. Tonight I have 100+ pages to read for class tomorrow, eek! I do like her, so far, I just wish she would ease up on the reading assignments! She is very interested in the subject and it shows in how she approaches teaching the class. She is originally from Laos and her family fled to the United States as refugees in the seventies. Coincidently, she spent the past thirty years in St. Paul before moving to Milwaukee to teach!

Amelia is officially in size 2 Luvs diapers. What a big girl she is becoming!

Here are a few pictures of her when I went in to wake her up today:


She did not cry for us this morning, but rather she "talked" a LOT and we finally went in. I can just picture her there, staring at the ceiling with her hands behind her head, "talking", waiting for us to come in.



I have NO idea what she was doing here...but she did this "move" all morning, as she continued to "talk" up a storm.

And now for yet another funny face, for you, from Amelia:


I have now procrastinated enough on here. I have plenty of reading to keep me busy for a long while! I am willing to bet that I will not be able to finish it all by 9 a.m. tomorrow...oops and oh well at the same time :)