The week in review...

What a week!  I officially started classes last Tuesday at Bradley.  I have one week under my belt and only 15 months to go!  For those of you that don't know, I was accepted in to Bradley's Accelerated Nursing program.  It's a 15 month 2nd Bachelor's Degree program that I will finish by August of 2012.  There are only 7 of us in the program, so I'm thinking we'll be pretty much like family when the whole thing is over!  It's Bradley's second year of offering this particular program, which is kind of neat to say that I am a part of it.  Anyway, I'm in Health Assessment right now, so I've been finding pulses and listening to any one's heart I can get a hold of!  It's interesting to hear what a "normal" heart sounds like and see how a "normal" heart actually works.  It's interesting to compare all of this to Livvy's "broken" heart, since that's all I really knew.

Baseball is well under way for Jack.  He made the travel team this year, so it's big time baseball.  He's been playing short stop and pitching a little bit, which stresses the mommy out.  Pitching puts a lot of pressure on a little guy (although I don't think he notices) which make me crazy.  That's a lot of responsibility. 

Jack's running club at school signed up to run the Family House race this past weekend.  Jack was sooooo...excited to get 3rd place for the 3rd Grade division.  He ran the 5K in about 32 minutes...and this was after a sleepover that only consisted of about 5 hours of sleep!  Way to go Jack!

Brooklyn has been keeping up with her gymnastics.  She was "invited" to pre-team, so she actually practices 6 hours a week!  She loves it on most days and we agreed to do pre-team with the promise that she'll take swim lessons this summer!  She turns 7 on June 3 and we have a big day planned with a girls only train trip to Chicago to visit the American Girl Store!  Can't wait!

We had a great Spring Break trip to Tybee Island, GA at the end of April.  I still need to get organized enough to put pictures on the blog, but it may not be until next Spring Break at the rate I'm going!

School is out on Wednesday for the kids and they have a big summer planned so far!  They are going to be spending lots of time with Grandma and Grandpa and their cousins while Zac is at work and I am at school. 

Other than that, everything is status quo. 

Today is Olivia's second anniversary of her "Homecoming to Heaven."  We don't have any big plans.  We'll get ice cream and head out to the cemetery, which seems to have become the new tradition for her anniversaries and birthdays.  Olivia loved ice cream, but wasn't supposed to have it once we found out she had issues with aspiration.  It seems only appropriate to take her some on this special day! 

Ice Breaker!

Obviously I haven't blogged in a really, really long time.  It's not that I don't have things to blog about.  It's just nearly impossible to figure out where to begin.  So, this is my "ice breaker" post.  Hopefully, once I click on that little button to submit this post, I will be back at it. 
I digress.
Back to the ice breaker...my bestie had her baby last night!  It's a girl!  This makes 3 girls and one lonely little fella!  Congratulations Nicole, Ben, Annelise, Alaina, and Jonah!  She is beautiful!
Now...if only she had a name?!?
Without further ado...
Introducing:
Miss Thing (said with a heavy southern accent, of course!)

P.S. - I stole this picture from Nic's blog.  I figure she'll forgive me.  The fact that I actually posted something on here will constitute forgiveness and get me some major brownie points.  Gee.  Maybe she'll even call me (totally kidding, Nic!)

Miss Livvy's B'day

I was looking at pictures today and realized I never blogged pictures from Olivia's b'day party!  Silly me.  We kept it low key this year and just had some cake and ice cream.  Grandma C., Aunt Amy, and Cousin Alais stopped by after they went to visit Liv's at the cemetery and we sang Happy Birthday and enjoyed some cake.  Afterwards, Zac, the kids and I went to get some ice cream and go see Livvy, too.  This year went so much better for all of us than last year.  It doesn't get better, but it does get a little easier, I guess. 

Brooklyn still thought she should share her ice cream with Olivia!

What a great big sister!

Football!

Jack has officially started football. 

You would think that being the wife of a former football player and coach would make this an exciting time for me.  Let's just say it's a work in progress. 

I went to get Jack from a practice back in August and I was ready to pull him off the field and bring him home.   It was 90-some degrees, the coaches were making them run like crazy, and the poor little guys looked just miserable.  Keep in mind this was all before full pads and tackling.  I told Zac I wouldn't be able to attend any more practices or Jack might have to "quit" the team.  Because Jack lives and breathes baseball, he wasn't too fond of it at first either. 

Luckily, things have gotten better.  I haven't attended any more practices (if so, I just wait in the car).  Games have started and we are all loving it!  Zac informed me that it would get better for Jack (and for me) once the games began, and he was actually right.  Go figure.  Anyway, the Eagles lost their first game (you could tell the kids had some first game jitters) and they won last weekend!  He's been playing defense and has made some good tackles, in my humble opinion.  Jack thinks he is super cool because he gets to wear his jersey to school every Friday and he got to ride in the Homecoming parade.  I'll leave you with some pictures from the first game for your viewing pleasure...

By the way, Zac is helping coach, so he is in hog heaven with all of this.  Many parents have come up to me and expressed their appreciation for Zac's enthusiasm.  He tries really, really hard to get the kids pumped up when they make a good play, but they really just look at him like he's crazy.  Quite honestly, it's very entertaining to watch him jump up and down get all excited.  I guess I do like football.

Happy 4th Birthday, Olivia!

So, I'm a little jealous today that you are spending your birthday with Jesus, but would want nothing more for you.  It's a good jealous.  I'm just going to paint a beautiful picture in my mind of the party you are having in Heaven today.  Daddy, Jack, Brooklyn, and I are going to have ice cream tonight to celebrate your special day.  We are also going to go to the cemetery and I'm sure we'll be singing, so be sure to be listening!  We love you so much and miss you tons every day.  You are never forgotten, not even for a second, because you are implanted in our hearts and minds forever!  Give Jesus a hug for me and be sure to thank Him for the best gift of all!  Hugs and kisses to you, too, Livvy!

Love,

Mommy

Highlights

I really think that I am so far behind that I can't even catch up on this blog, so here are some highlights from the last couple of months:
School:  I finished my Chemistry mini-mester at the beginning of June.  I think that is probably the most intense class I have ever taken.  Keep in mind that I majored in Art and Spanish in college, so I just had to know how to be creative.  In Chemistry, I actually had to think, which doesn't come naturally to me.  I ended with a solid "B".  I also completed 3 online courses at 3 different institutions - Developmental Psych, Abnormal Psych, and Nutrition.  Another round of "B's"  The fact that I can actually say that I am a "B" student is a miracle in and of itself...I'm very proud, not just bragging;)  In a couple of weeks, I start 3 more online courses (Western Civ, Pathophysiology, and Composition II), as well as Microbiology in the classroom.  Once I'm done with all of these in December, I will be ready to start the nursing program at Bradley in May.  All I have to do is get accepted, which I should find out in October or November.  No biggie, right?  We'll see.
Kids:  We celebrated Brooklyn's 6th birthday on June 3rd.  She chose a Luau them for the fam and it turned out really well.  Both kids just finished a great season of baseball/tee ball.  Brooklyn thought the first couple of games were great because she liked getting all dressed up in her uniform.  After that, she was ready to be done.  Jack had his first year of "kid-pitch" baseball.  Saying he loved it would be a understatement.  He mainly played shortstop and pitcher and still firmly believes he is heading for the big leagues. 
Zac:  Being on a 12-month contract, he simply works a lot.  He and Jack did manage to take their annual camping trip with the cousins.  They tried out skiing with the boys, which Jack wasn't too impressed with.  He did, however, love the knee board and tubing.  We celebrated our 10 year anniversary at the end of May and took a weekend trip to Chicago with a whole crew to watch the Cardinal's beat the Cubs at Wrigley (woohoo!).  It was a ton of fun and a much needed getaway for both of us.  We also managed to take a family vacation (see previous post) and returned home last week from that.  I strongly considered staying in S.C., but returning from that heat and humidity made me realize I do like the Midwest.  Besides, it would be kind of weird for me to live there with Zac and the kids living here;)
The house:  It's still here.  No new projects going on at the moment.

So, I guess that hits most of the highlights.  I'm *hoping* to put together a "picture post" in the near future, so it's very possible that I may come up with some more highlights once I go through the pics...stay tuned!

Hello...

Is there anybody out there?

Pink Floyd, right?

I know, I know. You thought we'd dropped off the face of the earth. Again.  So sorry about that. I just finished up my summer classes and am officially a "B" student for the first time in my life. More on that later. We've obviously been crazy, busy around here, but right now we are finishing up our family vacation! We are heading home tomorrow from South Carolina! We've been staying with my bestie, Nicole, and her fam. It's been totally relaxing and hot and beautiful and hot and fun and hot. I really am going to try to keep up once we get home because there is so much to tell (obviously). So, here is a preview of what's to come.

The perfect day.

We had an absolutely perfect day.

Well, except for our trip here,

but that's a whole other story and we'll get to that later!

We started off our day going to church and Sunday school. Then we came home and started digging.

My parents and my grandma were able to join us and helped out with the planting...We got some special little trinkets to put on the tree, too!
Livvy has her own little tree, with lots of little angels hanging from it, and some cute things to surround it!

Grandma gave us this little turtle, too and it fits perfectly!

We ended our afternoon with a trip to the cemetery to take Livs a pinwheel and some flowers.
We all said our favorite memory and thanked Livvy for everything she's done for us!


But...in between the tree planting and the cemetery visit...

this happened:

That's my mom.

My dad went out to get some lunch for everyone, and Zac, Jack and my mom were playing baseball. Zac, being the fair guy that he is, hit a pop fly to my mom. She caught it, lost her balance and next thing I hear is:

"Get some ice! Don't look at it, Connie! We're going to the hospital."

Zac swooped my mom into the car, I took off, Jack took over in the house and called my dad so he would meet us there and we were off.

She broke it pretty good. They splinted it up for the night and she goes in tomorrow for surgery around 2:00. Luckily, she's not in a lot of pain. I kept telling her this was a great distraction for us today, and where would I rather be on this particular day, but in a hospital!

Zac felt pretty bad. I was thankful it wasn't Jack that did it, because he would have felt HORRIBLE.

There is a reason it happened today that we may never know...but it sure did give me some good blogging material!

I also have to apologize for the pictures. I lost the battery charger for my "good" camera, so I've been using my old one. It seems to have a big blurry spot in al the pictures...makes me crazy, but obviously not crazy enough to actually search for the battery charger!

Olivia Grace

One year ago today, we said good-bye to our sweet little girl. She taught us so much about life and love and truly fulfilled her purpose here on Earth. As much as we miss her, we thank God for everyday for the time we did have and for the lessons she taught us. We have a full day of tree-planting planned for Miss Liv. I'll try to take lots of pictures and post them later.

In memory of Olivia Grace Chatterton (Aug. 27, 2006-May 23, 2009)

Chemistry

Chemistry is no fun.
Be glad I didn't blog about it yesterday, because it wouldn't have been good. I worked on my homework until 9:00...and started at 3:00. Ugh...
Today went much better. I actually understood most of what was being talked about. It's definitely good that I am doing this mini-mester thing because I don't think I could handle a full semester of this. It's great to be able to say that I only have 10 days of class left!
I was a bit nervous going yesterday, and you could probably say I wasn't very well prepared. I had no calculator (I had no idea Chemistry involved so much math!), I had no pencil (which made my errors very difficult to correct), I got lost trying to get out of the building, and when I got home, Brooklyn started referring to me as "college girl" instead of mom. She's spent too much time around her father!
Anyway, this "college girl" is going to stick with it. As discouraging as yesterday was, I'm actually enjoying having all this important stuff going on!

Beautiful!

Check out what the delivery man just dropped off at our door...

A beautiful flower arrangement from Grandpa and Grandma C.

And in the midst of uploading the flower pictures, I found this beautiful picture of the kiddos at Easter! I know, I know, that was months ago, but I never got around to that post!

Thanks, Rod and Sue! They're beautiful!

The Big News!

I'm going back to school. That's right folks. Starting tomorrow, I will again be a student.
Zac decided that I need to do something productive with my life that will have some sort of retirement plan so he can be done at 55, or something like that. So, I've enrolled in a classes at ICC and I start Chemistry tomorrow. It's a 3 week mini-mester that I will do every day all day until June 7. Then I'll take 3 online classes this summer, Microbiology in the fall along with 3 more online classes. Once I complete those, I'll be on track to start the nursing program at Bradley (if they choose to accept me ;)
Bradley has a 2nd Degree Nursing Program for people who have a Bachelor's degree in another field (mine being art and Spanish...not much you can do with that). It's a 15 month program that will begin in May of 2011 and I'll be finished with a Bachelor's of Science in Nursing in August of 2012. I'm really excited about the whole thing. A little nervous to be going back to school starting tomorrow, but excited about the fact that I will be a nurse within 2.5 years.
Growing up, I always wanted to be a nurse, but life took me in a different direction once I got to college. I'll be the first to admit that I spent my college years focusing on the social aspect and finding me some good husband material. I accomplished both of those things, and now it's time for me to actually apply myself in school!
Although it was a childhood dream to be a nurse, I do give all of the credit for my future endeavors to Olivia and the nurses and doctors in the PICU. Caring for Olivia made me realize that I absolutely love being able to take care of people in a medical capacity. The nurses in the PICU completely inspired me everyday with their knowledge, compassion, and overall care for the patients and the families.
So, as I embark on this new chapter, a special thanks to our sweet little Olivia, and to the nurses we've been touched by. I'm so glad that our God has blessed us in such a way that we are given second chances and that he puts people in our lives that give us direction and a new purpose. It's so fun to see His plans unfold!
Well, that's the big news around here. If I need help with my Chemistry homework, I'll let you know... :o)