So things went very well today! The cake turned out wonderfully! The guests were delightful (as always). The conversation flowed and K and M loved their gifts.

I have to say, it was wonderful to sit with friends and talk. I know we have only known them for a few short months (save for Jaime and Fr.) but I feel that we have formed friendships that will last a long time.

I will post pictures of my cake as soon as I am able to.

Wow this Michigan girl went soft yesterday. A good portion of O-H-I-O was under a Winter Storm Warning yesterday. I was praying that it would pass us by as I was planning on going to Columbus to say good bye to the McG family*. When I woke up, I checked the weather and according to “Cartoon Weather” it was “Icing” down in Columbus. Snow I can handle, ice, I won’t drive in. So I called my friend who was hosting the good bye shindig and gave her my regrets, I would not be making it. We then called our friend who was going to watch K and M for me (Joshua was working) and told her that we won’t need her help.

Around 10 I got a phone call from my friend, Becky, who told me the roads were fine down in Cbus. I then got a txt from Jaime, who told me the same thing. Well, heck, now I felt stupid.

When Joshua came home around 11, I had decided to go. The roads were just fine and Cbus had NO snow or ice. And the Winter Storm Warning was never canceled…even though the ice and snow never came.

*The McG family is moving to Indiana. Yep, someone else who actually made the choice to move to the Hoosier State. My friend wants to finish his degree at IU, so off they are going. I wish them the best of luck. I will miss them, but really, B-ton is almost on the way to Lafayette, if we take the south route, so we can always visit.

In other family news, today we are having a Baptism celebration for K and M. (And after going to Mass today, I realized, for Jesus too!) M’s God-parents are local, so they will be here as well as a few Marion friends. K was baptised 3 years ago yesterday and M was baptised 2 years ago on the 13th. I bought a Wilton Puzzle Cake set to make their cake with. It is acutally cupcake, I hope they like them. I have to frost and decorate the cake when J gets home and, if they turn out nicely, I will post pictures.

We are back to being a one car family for a while. The little green car won’t start and well, as we are saving all of our pennies for a down payment for a house, we aren’t going to get it fixed for a while. I am kinda bummed about the car as we have put a lot of money in to it in the past few months and that was money we could have put in to our savings for the house. Stupid car. Oh well. God will provide. And after we get our tax refund, we will be right on for the down payment. Hopefully house that we are looking at will stay available for a few more weeks!

Okay, J has been picked up (i took a quick blogging break) and the baby is still sleeping, so now is a good time to get things prepped for today!

Today I went down to Delaware for an Epiphany Party. We were supposed to go as a family but K and M were sick along with J, so I just went. On my way there, travelling down 23, I noticed a car that was weaving in between my lane and the “berm”. I also noticed said car was having a hard time maintaining a constant speed. I thought said car might be driven by a possibly intoxicated driver, so I called 911. Gave the 911 operator all the information and was told they would get a car out to the road. A few minutes later I had a chance to pass up the driver. (He stopped at a light, I was turing right at the light, so we were side by side for a few seconds). It was then I saw that he was on a cell phone. Should I have called 911? I still think it was  smart plan. If he can’t drive and talk on the phone, perhaps someone (ie the police) should let him know that, but pulling him over and letting him know there was a complaint.

The party was great, new people to meet and old friends to visit with. And I was only a bit shy. After the party I went to Columbus to go to Home Depot and Bed Bath and Beyond (bbb). BBB did not have what I wanted, so I decided to go visit my friend Becky. That was awesome. Have I mentioned that I LOVE living in OHIO? I do.

Off to bed and work on a crossword puzzle.

Happy Feast of the Epiphany.

I got this email from my friend Rachael earlier today:

I just wanted to beg for your prayers, as fervent as you can make them, for my niece Claire.  She is the 6-year-old daughter of my brother Bart.  They just found out that she has a large malignant tumor on her belly and have been told that she has a slim chance of surviving because the cancer’s already so advanced.

Please keep this family in your prayers!

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)