Our MBA Grad

On June 13, Jarod graduated from the DePaul MBA program with distinction and we were so excited!!!It seems like just yesterday when he broke the news to me that he wanted to go back to school when I wanted to have a baby.

3 years later, I have what I wanted and Jarod has what he wanted! JK! He had actually been toying with it for a while and when we made the big move from San Diego to Chicago we were very excited that 3 of the best MBA programs in the country were here and even more excited when Wrigley said they would pay for it so he took the plunge and here we are.

The last three years have gone by so quickly but it also feels like it took forever. This little munkin wasn't even around when we started and we had just moved in our house. Man, time sure does fly.

Jacoby and I are so proud of him and we are so excited to have him around more! We don't even know what to do with ourselves having him home for dinner every night and not having to do homework all weekend.

Jim, Mary and Collin made the trip to Chicago to be here for the graduation. We were happy to have them here to help us celebrate.

Jacoby thought that Jarod's gown was pretty cool and really liked to play with his hat. I love this picture of Jarod playing with Jacoby.

The little brother who is not so little any more!

I love this man more than I can even say!

and these boys are so wonderful!

Jarod walking up on stage for his big moment!

on the jumbo tron.

Walking back to his seat at All Sate Arena

The graduation started right during our usual nap time and I was a little nervous how I was going to keep an 18 month old entertained at a 3 1/2 hour graduation but Jacoby was great! Here he is telling his daddy to say cheese and taking pictures of him. He also ate his lunch on my lap then fell asleep in my arms for over an hour of it. He is such a good baby!

Mary took Jacoby down to see Daddy after the ceremony. He was so excited to see him up close after a few hours of having to look at him from a distance and not being able to get down to him. My favorite picture of the day as well! After the ceremony it started raining really hard so we ran to the car and met up at Joan's house for Geoffrey's graduation party (Jarod's cousin).

Jarod's grandma Estelle was in town for Geoffrey's graduation so it worked out well for celebration as well.

I love this picture of Jacoby and his Great Grandma Leinen. She is an amazing lady and is hilarious! She keeps me laughing every time I see her with her one liners and her quick wit. We are always excited when we get to spend time with her.

The whole gang.

We are so proud of Jarod and what he was able to accomplish with his schooling. It's an exciting time in our life and we are just enjoying it so much!

Strawberry Picking

In June, we packed up the car and headed to Indiana to go and pick strawberries! We had so much fun! We were about a week late for picking so we really had to dig for them which meant that we got really dirty but it was fun. Jacoby had a lot of fun picking them but pretty soon he got bored with that and started just dumping the already picked strawberries out of the buckets. That wasn't very much fun for mommy so daddy took Jacoby to go and drive Ruby (our car and yes he calls it that!!). After he drove for a while he soon discovered that the strawberries were edible and from them on he was happy as a clam picking strawberries and putting the entire thing in his mouth.

We brought our strawberries home, which by the way are so much better freshly picked than the ones that you get at the store, and made yummy jam, froze some and ate strawberries for the next few days like crazy!