So today, I have gotten a few things done. More then I thought I would. I put away folded diapers, sorted two baskets of clean laundry and folded all the kids clothes out of it. (Later I will fold the other stuff). The kids clothes are put away. I washed the dishes (all of them, even if you can’t really tell right now!) I vacuumed the living room, sort of dusted and even vacuumed under the tree. Dinner is almost done, but J helped with that. (Ham and beans in the crock pot if you are interested) and I made these http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Double-Chocolate-Peanut-Butter-Thumbprint-Cookies/Detail.aspx

Tonight I will just have to mop and prepare things for tomorrow nights dinner. (Corned beef and cabbage, need to cut up the cabbage and prep the veggie tray. I will probably make the tea tonight too and put it in the fridge to chill. I also want to try a dip called Mississippi Sin (kinda like a ham ball) for tomorrow night too.

Last night, I went to the store to buy things for this week. I bought beer for the first time in a long time. I have purchased a pint while out a few times, but not anything from the grocery store or liquor store. I bought some Harp and Guiness so we can enjoy black and tans. Yum. 🙂

Oh, before I leave, one more htings I got done today…a shower!

I meant to put this in my last post:

http://jamesmhahn.blogspot.com/2008/12/catherines-first-christmas-mass.html

That is a great post and the blog is great over all. I don’t know Jim Hahn, but he is the brother of Father Bill Hahn, who is a good friend of ours. For those who were at our wedding, he was the priest who wasn’t Father Tim. 🙂

Currently doing:

Resting. The kids are all napping. I am pretty sure that Caecilia will be waking soon for a feeding. However, she did take almost 4 oz during her 11 am feeding. Oh, I see her now, she is awake in her seat and seems to be tooting. She is good at that.

Need to do:

Mop the kitchen and bathroom. I will probably do that tomorrow evening as I am really only doing it for our NYE gathering. No sense in risking it getting messy by mopping it today.

Vaccum. This may wait too, as I generally can do it only when the kids are in bed for the night.

Go to the grocery store. I forgot cabbage for the corned beef for NYE. I also want to pick up a bottle of champaigne or sparkling wine, whatever. I wish that I would have brought a bottle of it back from France, but for €25, I think not. Alas, Kroger has http://www.barefootwine.com/bubblydry.html on sale and I would like to try some. I like Barefoot wines.
Off to feed my little girl now!

Today we went Michigan to see Kelly at her parents house in Michigan. We met Kelly while we worked at Mooseheart and she has become a good friend of ours. K and M love her and she loves them. I miss having coffee with her or having her hang out in our quarters after lights out. She has a great sense of humor and her being around keeps me in stitches.

So we left this morning. We left a bit later then we planned mainly because the kids were sleeping so well this morning. Karol got up shortly after 6 but layed down on the couch to look at the tree and fell back to sleep. I had Caecilia lay with Joshua and I stayed on the couch. Margaret came to snuggle with me and fell back to sleep. Joshua brought C to me a bit later and took the two big kids back to our bed and they stayed there for a little while longer. We finally got on the road at 10, we had planned on leaving at 9. Oh well.

We were making pretty good time, with a planned arrival time at K’s parent’s house around noon. Shortly after we got on to 75, we noticed that the traffic was moving very slowly. The roads went from wet to slush to ice in a short time. We were stopped just south of Bowling Green and sat there for awhile. The kids did great! I was very proud of them. I moved to the back and K started chatting with me about EVERYTHING under the sun. We got off at the Bowling Green exit, stopped at Starbucks and continued on back roads until we got to K’s house, only two hours later then planned. (So a total of 4 hours on the road).

We visited with K and her friend C and had a great time.

Our trip home only took 2 hours and it was rain rain rain and fog fog fog all the way back. All in all a good day.

I was also thinking about times when I lived in Michigan and big snow storms drop 12 – 18 inches of snow on us. My sisters and I were BAD about making sure windshield washer fluid was full and we would run out all the time. We would talk about hoping to have a big truck drive by and splash water on our windshields to help us see. Then I thought about slush getting stuck on the wipers and not working well. So what do Michiganders do? They open their window, reach out and grab the wiper and slam it down all while traveling at a healthy speed down the road. That was nuts.

So now we are home, C is sleeping nicely, J and I are watching Star Trek: Enterprise and resting.

So we have been watching Star Trek:Enterprise episodes as of late. The opening song is decidedly NOT a typical Star Trek song theme song and VERY cheesy. Youtube it for fun! The post title is from the lyrics.

Today Jaime came up for a little while to bring an Advent present for the kids. It is a toy Nativity Scene. The kids love it. She also brought some of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizzelle. Yum Yum.

Gotta go, Caecilia needs me for food. (But before she started crying, she was smiling and laughing, I swear!)

On Thursday we received an invite for a gathering at my friend R’s house. My friend said if I fee up to going, what with having a 2 week old and all. Well, did I ever feel like going. We don’t get out much as it has been cold and with Caecilia’s odd sleeping patern right now, getting to weekday mass is even a bit hard.

So today we loaded up the kids and headed to their house. Of course we had to turn around as I forgot the diaper bag and sling. Once we got on the road, it was an easy drive to thier house. I haven’t seen them since earlier this summer when we met at the Park of Roses for a picnic. R’s parents were there and it was nice to visit with them, I haven’t seen them for over 3 years. It was nice to visit with everyone. We ate and ate and chatted and visited with the new arrivals and caught up on close to 5 years of “stuff”. I really missed this group.

After dinner, we went to the nursing home to sing for the residents. I have to say, that no matter what, I will do everything in my power to keep my parents out of a home. I had to concentrate on other things to keep myself from crying while I was there. I hope that our little group of carollers and children brightened a few of the resident’s day. So many of them seemed to LOVE the little children with us (I think we numbers 12 kids under 5).

After carolling, we headed back to celebrated R’s birthday with some cake and ice cream, well an ice cream cake. It was GOOOOOD. We visited more with our friends and our kids enjoyed playing with the other kids. I totally enjoyed myself and would have stayed hours longer, except our kiddos needed to get some sleep. (one of them did not have a nap at all today!)

I know I keep saying it, but I am so very thankful that we moved back to Central Ohio. I love the community here. I love that feeling of “home” that I have with our Parish and our Priests. (Really, Father JW comes to our house all.the.time.) I don’t think I can thank God enough for allowing us this opportunity. He is so good. (Duh)

Last night we went and looked at a house from the outside, just in case we are so blessed to be able to buy a house soon. I actually had a list of a few houses, but we only drove by two. The first was a neat little house with a big yard and a nice enclosed porch. The second house was in the Marion version of the Ghetto. I looked at the picture on line and who ever took the picture should get an award. Why? Because they made that house look very cute and cozy. When we drove by, it had a nasty old couch on the porch, which wasn’t covered enough to protect the couch. The frence out front was falling down and there was debris all over the yard. Not a good place.

After that bit of disappointment, we went to pick up our Christmas tree. It is set up in our living room, awaiting decorations, which we will do on Christmas Eve. I can’t imagine right now Karol’s excitement to have it actually decorated. Last night he kept thanking Joshua for “Christmas”. He loves the tree as it is and was so happy with it.

It is a nice little tree, I will try to get a picture of it on here soon. We did get it from the place by Joshua’s work and they are so nice and friendly. Joshua and Margaret picked it out as Karol had fallen asleep in the van and Caecilia was also asleep.

And on to sleeping. Joshua and I went to bed at a normal hour last night. 1030. We read for a little bit then prayed and fell asleep in the middle of the second decade. Caecilia decided that we weren’t going to have a restful night of sleep. She was awake every two hours and very fussy. Joshua ended up on the couch so I could nurse her and supplement with the light on. I think part of the problem was with the light off, she would fall asleep again before eating all that she needed. So she ate and ate. Between 1030 p and 730 a, she had 8 oz of formula in addition to what ever milk she got from me. Yikes, that is a lot.

At 930, she woke up and was FUSSY. A diaper change fixed that. I was fussy too, so Joshua sent me back to bed. I slept on and off until just about one, waking to nurse and that was it. That was nice. Joshua said Caecilia had a good morning, so I guess she was just being fussy for me. Now she has been sleeping soundly for two hours.

Off to clean the kitchen.

The past two nights, J and I have been very bad at going to bed on time. Both nights, I think we were shutting our eyes at 1 am. Of course, when K gets up at 630 each morning, it doesn’t make for lots of sleep. Of course there is Caecilia who will need a feeding at some point between then and 630. With her, I can sleep through most of the feeding, so feedings don’t really affect my sleep.

However, I think Caecilia is hitting a growth spurt. My internet research shows that they hit one at 2-3 weeks. She is two weeks today. So yesterday she spent a lot of time sleeping and today she ate for like 5 hours straight. She would eat then watch things for a half hour, then eat again. Now she is sleeping and she really needs it.

On to other things. Today we are going to get our Christmas Tree. We learned a long time ago, that our plan for buying  a tree on Christmas Eve probably won’t happen as most tree lots are closed by then. At least in Lafayette they were. The first year we were married, we tried to buy one and there wasn’t a single lot open, but St. John Lutheran Church down the street from St. Boniface has some left over from their tree sale and a call to the church office got us a free tree. What was supposed to be a Charlie Brown tree turned out to be Big Butt Bertha. (It was bundled so we couldn’t see what we were getting).

So on to this year, there is a home and garden store right by church. Joshua checked it out yesterday and they have trees for $20, so we are going to pick one up today. Last night I had to go buy a tree stand. Fortunately, Meijer had an old fashioned stand for only $9.99. Yippee.

I bought cranberries and plan on popping popcorn to decorate the tree with. We also have a ton of ornaments that we can’t wait to hang on the tree. We will probably decorate the tree on Christmas Eve though.

Speaking of ornaments, I have to say my sister Krissy is awesome. A while ago she gave me ornaments that once hung on my Grandma Kress’ tree. As I have a great love for my Grandma and Grandpa Kress and try to honor their memory in any way I can, I love to have the ornaments on the tree.

So that is our day. Tomorrow Joshua has a short day at work, praise God. I look forward to having him home for a good part of the day, so I can rest a little bit more. Hopefully Caecilia’s birth announcements come in the mail tomorrow, so I can send out cards (yes, her birth announcement is going in our Christmas card) and send out the gifts to our families.

In addition to Christmas that we are awaiting, we also are having visitors after Christmas and we are going to visit Kelly Baker the day after Christmas. She will be at her parents house in Southern Michigan, so we are going to Trek up there and see her. Yippee. And she has been nice enough to say yes when I asked her if she could pick up Margaret’s Epiphany present at a store in Chicago. Who doesn’t LOVE Kelly?

Happy Advent to All!

Who would have thought that I would ever miss Lafayette? I didn’t think I would. I am more missing St. Boniface and the Schola right now. I am listening to a sort of Advent Station on Pandora right now and the music is so very pretty and reminds me of the St. Boniface Schola.

We are staying here for Christmas this year. That isn’t a big deal for us, but the parish we go to is a little weak in the music department. We have songs that are just plain bad most of the time. I am sorry to say that, I really wish it were different, but it isn’t. The rest of the parish is good, so I can’t complain,  but when there are SO many good songs to sing in Advent and we sing something about circling around God , I want to barf. With that being said, the Handbell Chior is “doing” the Midnight Mass here. I WILL NOT sit through a Handbell anything, let alone mass. So we are trying to figure out where we want to go. I really want to go to St. Patrick. J wants to go to Holy Family. I also wouldn’t mind going to St. Mary in Deleware or St. Michael in Worthington, but we have to see.

I started this post last night, but I didn’t finish it, so here is the ending of it now! Caecilia was up from 230 to about 5 this morning, eating and staring. Fun. I didn’t mind too much. Margaret got up at about 430 to “snuggle” with me on the couch. After a while I sent her to “snuggle” with Joshua. That is about it. Not too much else to report.

the time we were in Kohls, walking past the bra section when Karol piped up “That’s where the baby eats from”. Joshua and I both thought it was too funny.

So, Caecilia is a week old now. She is doing well. She is almost back to her birth weight and doing just fine. She is a good eater and likes to snuggle. She seldom fusses, unless she is hungry or getting a diaper change. She likes to explore the room with her eyes and look at the lamp. We have lots of fun together at 4 in the morning, when she needs a supplemented feeding, so I need to be awake awake to give it to her. We sit up on the couch and she eats while I talk to her or surf the internet. Then we go back to sleep until Joshua has to leave for work.

Karol and Margaret are doing a great job of adjusting. Margaret is a big help. She likes to help change diapers and makes sure the baby has lots of blankets to keep her warm.  Karol has been making sure he behaves and only has major meltdowns when Joshua is home. They have both been very very good about naps too. M goes down at about 1230 and K at about 1. M will play for a while by herself, so she doesn’t actually go to sleep until probably 115 or so. Karol will lay in our bed and read books for a while.

I have to come up with a lunch idea for today. I think mac and cheese would be good. What for a veggie? We have lettuce and the kids love lettuce, so perhaps that.

Margaret is now trying to sit on my lap, so I have to end this post now! I don’t want to leave without wishing everyone a Happy Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe!