Congrats Jared!

While, this event happened in December....it's too important not to write about now, and I want to be able to print this off with the rest of the book at the end of the year.

As most of you know Jared graduated in December!!! Go Jared!! I am so proud of him as is the rest of the family.

Jared started school a few months after we moved back to Illinois, oh I think almost 5 years ago. Why not, he has the IVG & the GI Bill from 4 years being in the Navy.....that's enough to be proud of in itself. Anyway, it would have been crazy not to use this FREE money for school, so between his parents and me we did a pretty good job convincing him he needed to go to school!

He started out at SWIC in Belleville and obtained his Associates degree in Electronics Technology within a year, I think. He knew he wanted to further his education, just didn't know in what so he continued at SWIC doing general classes he knew he would need. A few months later he found this Outreach program through Scott Air Force Base & SIU Carbondale for people who work full time but want to get their bachelor's degree. I think he ended up starting this in August of 2006. This program was every other weekend Saturday & Sunday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., for a year and a half. He was already working full time, sometimes overtime and going to SWIC 3 to 4 days a week. It was a very hard decision to make for us as a family, but we both knew it would be stupid for him not to take advantage of it, so he did it! He did so well, he graduated Magna Cume Laud(second highest honors) and made the dean's list every semester. His grade point average was 3.75-3.8. Here we are a year and half later December 13, 2008, and Jared is a college graduate!! He now has his Bachelors degree in Industrial Technology from SIUC school of Engineering.

Jared encourages everyone to look into programs like this and regrets not doing this earlier in his life. He still did it and I am so PROUD!! He plans on going to get his Master's in August of 2009.....more power to him, and I will support him all the way!!

Throw It Up Mom!!

So I am going to use this blogger website to also write and keep track of all the hilarious things my children say. So beware there will be quite a few of these types of entries, but I do encourage you to read these cause like I said they are pretty funny, especially coming out of a kids mouth!!!

Here's the first one:

So this morning Jordan turned on the Transformer movie....surprise, surprise, what's new. I told him, "dude you just woke up if you wanna watch tv then you can watch whats on tv...you watch Transformers too much!! If you want to watch Transformers you can watch it during rest time." "Ok mom" he said. So he goes and watches tv long enough for me to get the dishes done.....10 minutes. He comes to me and says, "mom I'm ready to watch Transformers now", and I said, "oh good, your ready for rest time then?" here comes the good part.......He then says to me "THROW IT UP MOM, I'M KIDDING" I am not ready for rest time, I will wait!! I was like WHAT??? I was not ready for that one I must admit. Trying to hold off my laughter, because that was hilarious!! I am like where did you get that from??? He says Tony says it. I'm like who is Tony?? He say it's Iron Man mom!! I should have known because when he is not watching Transformers he's watching Iron Man.

After laughing for like 10 minutes I am like I have got to write that one down. So there you go too funny!! There will be more to come I promise!!

The Boy's Birthday Party

We had the boys birthday party Sunday January 18th, 2009 at Riverbend Bounce in Wood River, IL.

Jordan turned 5 and Aidan 4. They are growing so fast....where are the years going??

Everyone had a blast. Let me tell you this was the way to go for a party. You can let the kids run and play and not worry about them running off or getting into stuff they are not supposed to. You don't even have to clean up after your party is over they do it all for you. It was perfect!

People who attended from Jordan's class:

Lucas Schaefer

Regan Spinks

Aidan's class:

Jared Thomas

Jordan Waltz

Aubree Wallace

Family & Friends:

Jonathan, Lauren & Bradley

Dawnjulene, Lil' D & Dache'

Carrie & Rylee

Heather, A.J., Hunter & Parker

Nana & G.J.

Grandma & Grandpa

Grandma Vaughn

Joss & Sarah

Justin, Tatum & Brayden

Kaylee

I'm sure I am forgetting someone and I will remember later!! Thanks to everyone for sharing this special day and all the nice gifts!!

Kaylee Ann Shields

Kaylee is 6 months old now. She is the best little girl ever! She has the best personality....always happy, never cries, sleeps through the night....what more could you ask for.

Kaylee is just now starting to sit up, she's a little wobbly but I am sure she will be a pro soon!! She is also rolling front to back and back to front now, saying da da and ba ba and of course she did say G.J., which melted his heart!!

I took her to her 6 month doctor appointment on January 8th, 2009. She is 16 lbs and 26 inches long. By the way, she hates getting her shots!!!!

Finally Some SNOW!!

Aidan wanted to go out like this.....I said no you can't go out in your underwear, so he told me, "mom I am going to put my snowboots on"......Silly me!!

Alright, we're READY!!

Well, we had our first snow of the year. It started Monday evening January 26th and didn't stop until this morning Wednesday the 28th around 4 a.m. We had a grand total of 7 inches.

Needless to say Aidan was very excited that it snowed on his birthday. The first thing he asked yesterday morning was "Daddy can we go sledding for my birthday?" Too Cute! Of course Jared left work early and took the boys to the park to sled ride. They had a blast! Unfortunately I wasn't able to get any pictures of them sledding, I had to stay here with baby Kaylee cause the poor little girl has been sick for over a week now.

Of course, the sun is shining today and already starting to melt the snow. It is still pretty cold though and will be the rest of the week.

Here I Go!!!

Alright....so I have to thank Dawnjulene for introducing me to this. I have known that blogger was around for quite sometime now...just never interested in trying to figure it out. Now I know a few people that have blogs of their own so why not start my own. Dawnjulene is so right though, this is a perfect way to "scrapbook" your family and how much they grow over time....and also share it with everyone you know.

So "THANKS" Dawnjulene (in a good way)...and "here I go" I will probably be on here everyday writing something!!