Our Mother's Day

We stayed at Josh's parents house on Saturday night. We did this to save on gas since we went to the graduation on Saturday and we planning to go to Sparta on Sunday so we just stayed.

We went to church with Josh's Mom and Dad, and Sister too! After church we met up with Ryan and Andrea and we all had breakfast. After breakfast we went to my Mom's house and visited for a bit before going to Grammy Abell's house. At Grammy Abell's house we had lunch and then got home in time for Josh to shower and prepare for his long flight ahead of him. He left for England for work and will be retuning on Thursday.

Caroline made me a beautiful bracelet. Josh gave me a new lens for my camera. I am very excited about it, it is a zoom lens so I don't have to get right up in people's faces when I take their pictures! I am still getting used to it, but I love it! I am going to take a picture of the bracelet that Caroline made for me and post it later.

Graduations

On Saturday, my sister Marcea, graduated with a Bachelor Degree in Health Care Management from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.

Here is Marcea getting her Diploma.

We are so very proud of her!!

After the ceramony, we all gathered outside to take some photos of the new grad!

She is going to be attending Graduate School at Xavier University in Cincinnatti in the fall. We are all very excited for her.

Marcea with my Mom, Linda and Dad, Chris.


My Mom, Grandma (Grammy Abell) and Marcea.


This picture of my Mom and Sister just cracks me up. My Mom was very emotional about her "baby" graduating from college. Seriously, she has been on the verge of tears all week!


My Sisters, Marcea and Leslie, and Me! I am the cute one! LOL!

(I hate having my picture taken!)

Then after all of the photos, we went to meet Josh's family to have lunch before we went to his brother, Ryan's graduation at 4pm. Ryan graduated with a Bachelor degree in Accounting. He got his degree (his second, first was a history degree) while working full time and taking care of his beautiful family. Oh, did I mention that he had straight A's every semaster!! Amazing!

So here are some pictures of Ryan's graduation...

Ryan with his wife, Andrea, son, James, and 4 month old daughter, Ruthie.


Ryan with his sister, Teresa and brother, Josh. Good Lord, Josh and Ryan look alike!!


Ryan with his Mom, Jane and Dad, Jim. Ok, so Jim, Josh, and Ryan all look alike!!


Ryan will be starting his new job in June and he is so excited about the new adventure!

It was a long day, but we were very proud of them both and wanted to witness this major accomplishment in their lives. We are so proud of the two of you! Way to Go!

Fifth Disease

I got a call from the director of Caroline's preschool this morning saying that Caroline had a rash on her cheeks and was running a very low grade temperature. I went and picked her up early and called the doctor. She had an appointment at 1pm this afternoon (smack dab in the middle of Will's nap time, yippie!) but I had to get her seen today. The doctor said that she has "fifth disease". She is no longer contagious because the rash has surfaced but the likely hood of Will catching it is very high. There is nothing that one can do to prevent it and there is really no side effects. Kids run a low grade temperature and then a week later they have a rash that appears on their cheeks and can spread to their arms and legs. And that is it. So we are playing the wait and see game to see if Will gets it too! Caroline is just fine, you would never even know that she is sick.

Circus Fun!!!

It was an official "Family Fun Day"! The Shriner's Circus was at the St. Charles Family Arena and the kids had a blast. Before the show started we were able to go down on the floor of the arena and Caroline got a pony ride. She thought it was so fun. The ponies were going really fast (that is why the picture is kind of fuzzy).

Caroline was on the edge of her seat the entire show. Will enjoyed himself too and sat through it very well. She said that she liked the acrobats the best. And the dogs catching the frisbis and the bear riding the motorcycle and the...(she liked the entire show!)

A clown gave them the smiley face stickers.

We left at intermission because Caroline had soccor practice. The show started at 1:30pm and intermission was at 3:15pm, so we got to see most of the show.

Family Picnic

The Moms Club had our annual Family Picnic this afternoon. It was super cold but we managed to have fun anyway. We enjoyed hamburgers and hot dogs and lots of other good food. Most importantly we had fun playing with friends!
Here are some pictures from the day.

Painting the kitchen

Josh and I painted our kitchen and dining room today and Caroline was ITCHING to help. So I gave her a paint brush and a small cup of paint and let her go to town on a wall. She had so much fun. Here is her handy work...

Oh, and yes, she is painting in her pajamas. ;-)

Ways to Relieve Stress...

This morning at my Moms Club meeting we had a guest speaker to talk to us about ways to relieve stress. I thought that I would share.

• Don't rely on your memory
• anticipate needs (stock up)
• Allow extra time
• never wear ill fitting clothes or shoes
• be prepared to wait
• find the humor in the situation
• ask questions
• avoid self-medication
• tackle one event at a time
• schedule time for relaxation and fun and stick to it
• learn the gentle art of saying NO
• Learn to accept what you cannot change
• shun the superman/superwoman urge
• laugh
• use aroma therapy
• don't be a perfectionist
• stay way from people, situations, and topics of conversation that upset you and make you tense
• de-clutter your environment
• fix things that don't work or get rid of them
• count you blessings