Graduation Day! WooHoo!

Yesterday evening I graduated with my Master's of Science in Early Childhood Education! Woo! Hoo!

I've actually had quite the long and convoluted process to get here, so I am so thrilled to have finished! I started in fall 2007 at NIU doing my Master's and Early Childhood (EC) teaching certificate. After a semester, I found out I could transfer to National-Louis and finish the program much faster, so I did that. I started taking classes at NLU but then soon found that catch. NLU was requiring that I take undergrad classes to finish my certificate. They said it was state requirements because my Bachelor's didn't have enough English or History. Whatever! NIU wasn't going to require them! So I putzed around for some time taking these English classes and then CLEPing out of the others.

THEN my job changed and I needed my EC Teaching Certificate ASAP. So...I put the Master's on hold and just took the classes I needed for the Certificate. Well then I needed the EC Special Ed Approval, so I took the classes and test I needed for THAT. After that I was ready to finish my Master's again. I decided to transfer back to NIU because they were much more flexible and willing to work with me. So in summer 2011 I transferred back to NIU, they accepted most of my credit hours, and I took classes in the summer, fall and winter. This winter I had class twice a week and it was A LOT. Spending 4 hours a week just driving to and from class almost killed me! But I finished! I was actually really worried that one of my classes  was going to ruin my 4.0 GPA, but I just got an email this morning that I got a 101.5 in the class so now Adam is never going to listen to me worry again.

Graduation was Friday night!

Me scanning the crowd for my family!

Shaking the hand of the NIU president for the second time!

My wonderful and supportive husband

Uncle Richie came too

My super awesome parents

Of course we had a celebratory dinner and I wanted fried potato salad (an undergrad favorite!) so we headed to Fatty's!

Yay! My parents got me a Silhouette! Now I can cut ALL the things!
I can do ALL the craft projects on Pinterest!

Yummy pretzel bites.

DELICIOUS fried potato salad

My in-laws came out to celebrate too

  

And my awesome grandpa!

I was so lucky to have the support of my husband and family throughout this whole process and I really felt their love last night at graduation! 

Foray Into Sewing-Faux Chenille Baby Blanket

My third sewing project was to make a faux chenille baby blanket for my soon to be nephew at my SIL's baby shower. Ashley tweeted about this tutorial and I was excited to go for it!

I had a lot of fun picking out the fabric. They are doing the nursery in owls, so I was on the hunt for something owl that was not too girly. There's a lot of girly owl stuff out there! I picked out coordinating flannel fabric. 

Following the directions, I used fabric glue to hold the pieces of fabric together. Adam had to help me hold the pieces straight. Excuse my pajamas. I live in pajamas at home!

Using a taut string to draw a chalkline for the first diagonal line.

Spending my life sewing diagnoal lines 1/2 inch apart.

Then it came time to cut the back. Oh....boy. I feltl ike I spent years cutting in between those lines! I even injured my hand! My thumb was numb for about 2 weeks?! But really that was because I am stubborn and once I start something I don't like to stop so I did all the cutting in two sittings....about 5 hours.

The tough part was doing the corners. I had my heart set on having a minky border before I knew how hard minky is to sew with. Doing the corners was quite tough! And I broke two needles because I didn't realize I should be using special thick fabric needles. 

pre-wash

The final product! 

I just love how the fabric curls up and looks so soft and inviting! I cannot wait to see Baby Boy H laying on it enjoying some tummy time when he decides to join us in this crazy family!