I knew it would happen

I always get caught up in circumstances. I just do. When I was home for Christmas break, I loved being home and had a hard time wanting to go back to work. Now that I have been back for 2 weeks, I am all business again. That's not entirely true, I have been making a real effort to pick the kids up as early as I can, but I have been working really hard at school and find myself thinking about it all the time when I'm not there. This week has flown by so fast! Brian is recording his cd with Dallas and Bethany at night, so here is what an ...ahem... "average" night looked like this week:

Come home, cook dinner, clean up dinner, after dinner activity (teach flute lessons, go to the grocery store), give baths, read stories, sing songs, get water, Brian leaves for the night, CRASH in front of the TV. We skipped swimming both nights this week, and I am actually not sure that we will go back. Are we quitters?! I signed Elijah up for lessons for something to do in the evenings when it is dark early and cold outside. Although it doesn't appear that we need anything else to do.

Saturday is our friends' baby's baptism and we are her godparents. This is very exciting to us! In the Orthodox faith it is taken very seriously to be someone's godparent in the helping to raise them in their faith. For example, we try to think of our kids' godparents as a part of our family--they are invited to birthday parties and have pictures of them in our albums, etc.

It is important to us to be a part of this child's life and love her in a special way. May God grant us grace to do that.


One last ramble...I bought a calendar on amazon last night for FULL PRICE. I was so frustrated with myself. We have this wooden calendar frame in our kitchen for a Lang graphics calendar. Well, we usually get one shortly after Christmas at 50% off from Borders or Barnes and Noble. This year I waited too long and they were sold out. SO I had to decide what to do. We actually do use it for at least looking at the dates--especially with Elijah (not really so much for writing things down on), so I didn't want to just re-use the old one for the pretty pictures. And it has 2 giant nails holding the frame on the wall, so taking it down and leaving 2 big nails or 2 big nail holes in our red kitchen walls doesn't seem like a real option to me. I have been just hoping that I would find one for cheap, but I haven't. So I bought one on-line. For full price + shipping.

Random Thoughts

I risk babbling like an idiot without a real topic to write about, but feel somehow drawn to write something because it's been over a week since I've updated.

Last weekend we drove to Michigan to celebrate my grandma's 75th birthday. We stayed in a hotel, swam in the pool, did lots of fun things and yet I did not take a single picture. We also got to visit with some wonderful old friends, Scott and Melissa, who were Purdue friends who moved to Ann Arbor, which is just a 20 minute drive from my grandparents' house.

This week I am trying to scale my life back. We skipped swimming lessons tonight to stay home and relax. Elijah has discovered chapter books: we started reading Charlotte's Web and he can't get enough. It was very quaint how we all layed in our big bed and Brian and I took turns reading. My goals this week are to pray more and enjoy my children because they are growing up so fast.

I just thought this was cute

I had to share this picture because I needed to remind myself of what I look like when I am relaxed and enjoying my life (it was taken when we were in Cleveland for New Years'). I already feel so frazzled after just one week back at work. I am glad to have a 3 day weekend this weekend to try to wash the dishes and get my lesson plans caught up!

It's back to the grind

Okay,
So I guess I don't have much room to complain since Brian and I both just had 2 weeks off together and we had so much fun and we got to see our family and we got to relax and we got to do some work in our house...BUT...I don't wanna go back to work tomorrow!!

I am sure once we go back it will be great. I love my job! But being home with my family was such a treat. I am really thankful for this time and for all the memories we made this year with our family and friends. It actually seems like we had a much longer break because of how many fun things we did.

Brian and Elijah built this cool loft in Elijah's room to give him some floor space for playing. I'll post some pictures later this week after we get the new dresser put in. Brian worked really hard to make it safe and easy to use.

Elijah also starts swimming lessons again tomorrow. He said to me today, "Why am I taking lessons? I know how to swim." What he meant was, "I am not scared of anything and I'll take flying leaps off the diving board with my water wings on."



I can't beleive I haven't done this yet--Elijah got a digital camera for Christmas. These pictures are a few of the highlights of Christmas morning through the eyes of a 4 year old.

VACATION!!!

Brian and I both commented that this might have been our best family vacation yet. We stayed at Brian's aunt and uncle's house in Cleveland. We always spend New Year's Eve there, but this year was special because it was also Aunt Nancy's 50th b-day. On New Year's Eve we celebrated with most of her family. If you look closely at the picture with the people all standing you will notice that they are holding their shoes. At midnight we celebrated the Italian tradition of tapping everyone on the booty with a shoe and you say "Out with the old and in with the new." Uncle Al is Italian--like real Italian. His mom and dad came from Italy and his mom still speaks it. So we always do thing the Italian way when we go to Clevelend, which Brian doesn't mind because it usually includes some kind of salted cured meat and stinky cheese that you can't get here.

Other than the big party we did a lot of sitting around watching movies and eating. It was really fun and relaxing. Thanks Al, Nancy, and Sam!!