We are going to a conference in Reno, NV in November. It is a Catholic Conference (www.adoregod.org) and JF is going to have a booth for Impressus Art (www.impressusart.com) We are really looking forward to it and got a sweet deal on the whole flight, hotel and car combo. I highly recommend expedia.com as they really hooked us up! So we are looking at this trip as a dry run for our flight to Italy. It is a 4 hour flight for Chicago to Reno and I found out the kids can each have a bag to check EVEN though they don’t have actual seats. EXCITING!

And to tell you the truth, it doesn’t seem so bad. Other things are on my mind, much more important then that. My darling son went pee pee in the potty! He got a yummy cookie to celebrate. Dove Chocolate chip macadamian (sp) nut.

I am thinking of convincing JF that we need to do an ice cream run tonight. I really want some coffee ice cream with chocolate chips. Perhaps I should wait until tomorrow morning.

On the bright side, my MIL did comment that I am looking more slender. Hmmm. I did step on the scale and have noticed I lost 4 pounds. Perhaps that is because I avoided brunch at her house. I do have to say that I must get on that workout plan that I said I would. I have a workout room a block over and some work out equipment in the basement. I will do it tomorrow. I will go down and work out tomorrow after the girls leave for school.

Thanks to Laura and Anne for being my only readers. Oh and Keeney too. Keeney won’t have to keep in touch this way much longer as she is my newest coworker!

Yikes. Tonight I was doing my normal routine of making sure all the doors were locked and the cabinets were secure when I heard Toddler K crying like never before! I ran to him like a good Mumma and found that he had his finger caught in the drawer to my desk.  It was caught so that he couldn’t move his hand in any direction. I tried to push and pull it but it wouldn’t budge. Then brilliance hit me. In the kitchen, in the lazy susan, we have a can of that nasty spray non stick stuff. One quick spray and out came his fingers. Really red but a hug, a kiss and an ice cube helped that.

Did I mention the other day, Toddler K discovered dirt? We were at a corn boil down by the lake. The picnic tables were set up on an area that was just dirt.  He started playing in it with his McFriends (Hi Carolyn) and by the end of the day, our Superboss, Scott was telling us that we should bathe our child in water, not dirt.

Ah dinner last night. Yummy Wisconsin Beer Brats, horseradish mustard, deli styled buns. Yum. Of course we started with a salad of a spring mix of lettuce (from a bag, I cheated) as well as some other toppings. We had my favourite food of all time…the sweet potato. I LOVE sweet potatoes, LOVE THEM. But that is not the point of this story. This story is about celery!

We gave Toddler K a piece of celery (not his only dinner, just part of it!). He played with it a little then offered some of it to Papa and then to me. Of course as his slobber was ALL OVER IT, we pretended to take bites. Nothing gets past this kid as he started pretending to take bites. Toward the end of dinner, he came over to my spot and asked to sit on my lap. Okay, he doesn’t really ask, he just climbs up. He was eating away at his celery and started biting off pieces, for me. He has been drooling on this piece of celery for a good 10 minutes now. I had to eat them though. And that is why I am in celery hell!

OH MY! Are my wonderful husband and I CRAZY or what? Well, first let me tell you! We went to visit some friends of ours who live in the Belleville Diocese (Illinois). Belleville is right across the Mississippi River from St. Louis. Cathoicmumma had the idea to go and see the Arch.

Did you know you could go up in the Arch? You certainly can. Did you know the Arch is 640 + feet high. When you go up in the Arch, you go ALL THE WAY UP. You take a six minute trip up to the top in a little pod that seems like something out of Star Trek. You can spend as much time at the top as you would like, then you take a three minute ride down. The ride down was much nicer then the ride up, because we were heading to the ground…the beautiful, wonderful ground. I love the Earth.

Baby M fell asleep up at the top and Toddler K decided it would be fun to look out the windows. I tried to stand in one place, in order not to call out of the totally enclosed area. My wonderful husband, what did he do? Took pictures. Barf.

The ride home was uneventful, until we drove past a sign for a town called Benld. (At least I think that was the spelling.) If anyone wants to tell me how to pronounce that, feel free.

Today we took the kids to a small waterpark in Batavia. Toddler K went down the slide for kiddies. He hated it. Twice. Okay enough of that. However, about ten minutes later, he pointed and said “me me me” which means, “I want that”. Down he went again. I think he was done for that day. I went down the big persons slide. I really didn’t like it. I did it on Sunday then again today. I hate heights, why do I put myself through it over and over again? Baby M loved floating around in Toddler K’s little “boat”. It is a little inner tube that had feet holes for wee ones. She laughed and laughed.

We then watched fireworks. K really enjoyed them, so did M!

Hello! I promise I will get better at posting more often.

I have some BIG news. Margaret is trying VERY HARD to crawl. This morning she got up on one knee and moved about 3 inches. AMAZING! Soon she will be able to chase Karol around!

Also, I started taking a class to learn Italian. This in preparation for us going to Italy in 2008. JF expects me to teach him. Hmmm. Let’s hope I can!

Margaret made her first trip to the beach yesterday. We went to a beach north of Chicago, about 3 miles south of the Wisconsin border and it was beautiful. Sadly the water was FREEZING. It wasn’t something one could get used to either, it was probably about 45-50 degrees. Karol enjoyed eating sand. He did this last time we went to the beach, I figured he would have gotten over it, having teach and all but no, he didn’t. He was eating a cookie that he stole out of the beach bag (cookie thief) and let’s just say that he got to keep it because it was covered in sand. He then ate the whole thing.

We played on the beach for a while, Baby M took a nap then we ate lunch/dinner. Delish. Grilled steak with onions and mushrooms with a side of asparagus and a hint of sand. On the way home, we decided to take a quick trip in to Wisconsin where we saw the Jelly Belly factory! It is located at 10010 Jelly Belly Lane.

I think we are going to Italy. Not anytime soon, but we have a time frame and I picked up Passport applications for me, Toddler K and Baby M. We are most likely going in the late summer/early fall of 2008 for Brother B’s Solemn Profession of Vows. Exciting.

Other then that, not too much is happening. We are done with training and doing our job now. It is challenging but lots of fun. The kids are getting big. Toddler K is running around making those monster noises again. His papa has been teaching him to make animal noises and he is pretty good at him. Next time you see him ask him to make an elephant noise!

Hope you are all having a Blessed Easter! Christ is Risen. Alleluia!

…well sort of. We have moved. Have you ever moved with at 14 month old and a 2 month old? Wowsers, talk about busy times. Toddler K (14 months old) kept helping by either throwing tantrums or packing away fresh produce in to boxes. (I hope we got all the onions out of the food boxes.)

Of course, in keeping with some anonymity, I won’t say were we moved to, but I will say that we work together and our employer pays for housing. (No this isn’t the witness protection program.) However, when we got here, they didn’t have our quarters ready yet. Not a problem, we would sleep anywhere but a hotel. (See first paragraph but substitute moving with staying in a hotel.) They put us in another house for the time being so we are living out of our suitcases and dealing with not knowing what is where. Not too bad. Toddler K hasn’t noticed his toys haven’t been unpacked yet. Baby M is perfectly happy using her swing, bouncy seat and has discovered the joys of watching the ceiling fans.

Our job is going well. We are in intensive training with a few other people. It is a ton of information but lots of fun. It is nice to go to training classes that are well laid out and presented. I hardly have time to fall asleep and the instructors have great wit in addition to being very encouraging.

Today we ventured out to the stores around here to pick up some stuff that we needed. I needed pants. (Pregnancy does wonders for a ladies wardrobe. I have pre-pregnancy clothes, maternity clothes (both early and late maternity), post pregnancy clothes (about 4 sizes bigger then normal) and clothes that I can’t stand the thought of parting with even though my hips will never move back to the position they were before Toddler K came along!) We also needed more storage tubs and some stain stick and colour safe bleach. (We recently discovered how awesome that stuff is!)

So off we go. First of all, I, the navigator (compliance) missed the turn that would take us to the clothing store we were heading to, so we had a 10 cent tour of the FAR FAR western suburbs. Nice little area. We finally made it to the road that has quite a few stores on it and after revising our plans (I couldn’t find the clothing store we started out going to), we went in to Meijer. Meijer Sucks. Plain and Simple. We got to the “Home Storage” section. A whole aisle of wonderful plastic storage tubs. Two (2) (1+1) price tags. So Husband J went to seek some “customer assistance”. He found 2 associates standing together trying to locate another item. He stood where he could be seen. He was prepared to say “Excuse me for interrupting, I have a quick question…” A manager type person came up (so described as said person had keys) and joined in. All the time, J was ignored. Nice. We left after that. Didn’t even look at pants, stain stick or colour safe bleach. So off to Target we went.

Target smelled of something interesting, I say puke. J said he didn’t notice anything. I found the clearance rack and picked out some pants. Target also has some nice linen pants too. I grabbed a pair of those and headed to the dressing room. Baby M started crying just prior to getting to the dressing room. Toddler K decided it would be fun to stand on his seat in the cart. I decided that I wasn’t going to be “that woman” and so I said, lets go.

I went back to Targhetto this evening. Found EVEN better things on their (different store) clearance rack and got the tubs, pants, stain stick and colour safe bleach. I also bought raisins, cheese crackers, cereal bars, off brand Triscuts and off brand peanut butter Ritz Bitz. And to think, Meijer could have had all that business IF only they had acknowledged J.

One more thing about Target. The tubs that I did buy were not marked. No UPC code to be found. What is up with that? So Troy, the wonderful and very polite cashier requested customer service AND Dustin the wonderful head checkout dude came over used the little walkie talkie thing and got the sticker for the items. Great job guys!

Oh and one more thing, (not having to do with Target or Meijer). The reason I had to go and purchase new pants today. Well, this post pregnancy thing is insane and nothing fits me right now and I am TIRED of wearing maternity pants. Two weeks ago, Sunday, I ordered a few outfits from a company online. I paid for “expedited shipping” meaning I would get it in 3-4 days. Just prior to pulling out for the big move on Saturday morning, I stopped by our post office to check our box (in actuality, I should have received it on Thursday, Friday at the latest). Nothing. I emailed them when I was able to get to a computer this week. They preferred to be contacted via email. I sent them an email stating that I hadn’t received the package and that I have now moved and the reason I requested “expedited” shipping is so that I would receive it before moving. (I was/am looking for a refund on the extra shipping cost) Their reply back? They sent a whole email (very poorly formatted I might add) of their shipping and handling information. So now my outfits are in mail limbo as they probably sitting at our old PO box and we have forwarded our mail to this address.

Alas, things have been going well though. Baby M gets to meet her God-Father this Friday. We are so excited for that. He was in the Holy Land when she was born and Baptized so we look forward to seeing him and hearing about his trip. He even got to spend some time with Toddler K’s God-Father in Italy. We are hoping to get to see him in the next year or so. (Prayers would be great on that one! Oh and if anyone knows how to fly to Italy fairly cheaply, feel free to leave a comment!)

One more thing, our internet has gone from High Speed to Dial Up. (Cause we actually moved back in time.) So my updates may be slower at coming but please keep checking back. Don’t forget about our picture site: pictures.catholicmumma.net.

Have a joyous Lent and God Bless you all!