Mar 7: Grad Party

Steven threw me a little grad party for Family Home Evening. He made lots of food and invited over our 'grand forks family'.

Some of the food.

I didn't take any pictures during the party except:

There was lots of good food and even better company. The question I got asked most frequently was, "How does it feel to be done?" My answer: "It feels like a giant weight that I didn't even know was there is lifted off my shoulders".

We are truly blessed to have good friends here. As we told everyone it was Family Home Evening, we thought it best to have some sort of message. I shared this quote:
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, A Prayer for the Children (Apr 2003 CR, 90)
“Live the gospel as conspicuously as you can. Keep the covenants your children know you have made. Give priesthood blessings. And bear your testimony!11 Don’t just assume your children will somehow get the drift of your beliefs on their own. …
“Nephi-like, might we ask ourselves what our children know? From us? Personally? Do our children know that we love the scriptures? Do they see us reading them and marking them and clinging to them in daily life? Have our children ever unexpectedly opened a closed door and found us on our knees in prayer? Have they heard us not only pray with them but also pray for them out of nothing more than sheer parental love? Do our children know we believe in fasting as something more than an obligatory first-Sunday-of-the-month hardship? Do they know that we have fasted for them and for their future on days about which they knew nothing? Do they know we love being in the temple, not least because it provides a bond to them that neither death nor the legions of hell can break? Do they know we love and sustain local and general leaders, imperfect as they are, for their willingness to accept callings they did not seek in order to preserve a standard of righteousness they did not create? Do those children know that we love God with all our heart and that we long to see the face—and fall at the feet—of His Only Begotten Son? I pray that they know this.
“Brothers and sisters, our children take their flight into the future with our thrust and with our aim. And even as we anxiously watch that arrow in flight and know all the evils that can deflect its course after it has left our hand, nevertheless we take courage in remembering that the most important mortal factor in determining that arrow’s destination will be the stability, strength, and unwavering certainty of the holder of the bow.”

You can call me Master.

So, in case we're not facebook friends or you missed a few posts back, I have been working on finishing my Master's Degree. After a LOT of work, an almost all-nighter, and a lot of typing I FINISHED!! I actually finished with a 10 hours to spare. My final paper was supposed to be a thesis...which I wrote the first half of in my class last fall. Well, they changed the program requirements and changed it to a case study analysis. Awesome right? But, I sucked it up and wrote the dumb thing. Throughout my writing, I kept writing myself notes of encouragement.

Also, a few times in the middle of the night when I was writing I bought myself a few books on Amazon to motivate me to finish writing. I knew exactly how many points I needed to earn on the final to still pass the class (I had to get a D on the paper at least to pass with a C). Seeing as how I was completely burned out, I set my goals on just passing...and I did...with 101% (thank you extra credit) for my final grade. It was a rough last week, but I won't lie it feels great to be done with it! I started the program before I had any thought of being pregnant and I'm pretty proud of myself that I kept going and finished even though my life changed quite a bit!
Here's what it takes to finish a MA in HR:

wheat thins, several drinks, lots of encouragement, food, books, paper, and of course post-it notes.

To celebrate me actually finishing, we ran errands and I bought my new glue gun (Steven and I made a deal that I could get it and I had a coupon so it was like $2 bucks)

AND we went to Denny's. As anyone with kids probably knows, it's almost impossible to enjoy a meal at a restaurant when you have a very curious baby with you.

As always, we were taking turns with each other to eat, catch the toys, and entertain the baby. Also we were attracting attention of all the elderly couples around us. After a particularly long time which ended in Steven taking the baby for a walk, we finally finished. When we went to pay, we learned that someone else had paid for the majority of our bill. We are pretty sure it was an elderly couple we had noticed watching us and the baby. Did they know that we were there celebrating such a big thing for me? Probably not. Will they ever know? Probably not. But we hope they are blessed for their kind deed :)

AND as if this day could get any better, we got a call on the way home to learn that our sister-in-law was in labor. She ended up having the baby within the night...

So in one day:
I finished my MA in HR
We got dinner paid for by an anonymous stranger
AND we became an aunt, uncle, and cousin!

Excuses

I meant to write about Quintin's first experience with homemade applesauce, or his teething nonsense, or our President's Day IHOP visit, or a number of other things.

But they will have to wait.

Because I am...

4 days

2 assignments

4 discussion posts

20-37 type-written pages

AWAY

from finishing my Master's Degree.

Oh ya.

Random Thoughts from a Crazy Pregnant Lady

I am SO pregnant. I have a three minute attention span. I thought it was kind of a joke when everyone told me about baby brain but it's NO joke. So here's what's on my scattered-brain tonight:

1. I love three day weekends with my sweet husband. Today is our last long weekend before the baby gets here. We watched 2 1/2 hours of Pawn Stars, cleaned our house, did our laundry, took a long walk in the rain, enjoyed dinner together and had lots of study time. Today was so simple, but so wonderful.

2. I love the rain. I have been listening to the wind rustling the leafs outside and now finally the rain. It's so relaxing. It is kind of weird to have a rain storm that lasts so long though- this is no AZ monsoon.

3. Baby D is going on a growth spurt. I am SO tired today. This happened at about 18 weeks too. All I did was eat and sleep. The difference is that now he is so big and doesn't have as much room to move around.

4. The nursery is almost done. I will take pictures and post about all my craft projects when it is done.

5. My business ethics teacher is FINALLY giving us a break this week. Last week there was almost 200 pages of reading. I tried to do the assignments without reading and it was impossible so ALL of my assignments were late. The weird part--it didn't even phase me. I am pregnant, busy and just didn't feel like reading 200 pages in less than 3 days. This week we only have one chapter, one discussion post, and one case study- easy peasy.

6. On the other hand, I really like my research class. I have no idea what the end goal of the class is, but we are working on it.

7. I'm starting my thesis. I decided to research employee turnover. We'll see if it's as interesting as I need it to be to write a short book about it.

8. I'm going to the doctor again tomorrow. I will update on all that business later. Maybe I will even post the names we are thinking of.

9. My husband is a hottie. I will spare you the details of every detail of him, but we just bought him a black polo and it is SO HOT. It shows off his arm muscles and accentuates his features. We also bought a blue one and a green one and I can't wait until he wears those. I think it's a good thing I still think he's hott.

10. I am bored writing this now so I will leave it at ten random things. We've been busy doing other things and maybe someday I will tell you all about it.