As I mentioned awhile back runnerdave and Leann (I never am sure if I am spelling her name right, please correct me, Dave) will be getting married this summer. Many of you have offered congratulations, but those have often been offset with the question. "Who is Leann (or is it LeAnn?) anyway?"
Well here's your chance to meet her:
When: Saturday, April 26 at approximately 7:00 PM (or is that midnight? oh wait daylight savings maybe it's 11:00) You are welcome to arrive anytime for the party. Although I would prefer not more than three days early. Runnerdave, you need to be here early!
Where: The Maurer house. If you don't know where that is, email me.
Also, you are all welcome to stay the night Saturday night. I am thinking maybe we could take a trip to the zoo Sunday after church?
Please pass this information on to any interested parties.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Kathy beat me to the punch!
I was going to title this post "Happy Easter!" But that was already taken.
There is so much to say, it seems that it has been ages since I've really posted. I apologize for the lack of Lenten reflections this year. There has been a great deal of sickness in the family lately, which makes for a pretty chaotic lifestyle.
Right now Paul is playing Candy Land with the children ("Andy And" according to Isaac). The children are pretty good game players. Although their attention spans are pretty short.
At dinner tonight Isaac stood up in his chair pulled his pants and diaper down and went potty all over the floor. It was hard to keep a straight face when I told him not to do this, and to tell us that he needs to go potty. Potty training is hard work!!!
Our Easter has been very Uneasterlike. I am slowly recovering from the flu (the actual influenza virus) and the others were showing signs of starting to get sick, so we made the very difficult decision that it was best to keep everybody home. Paul got up, took a shower, drank a cup of ginger tea, and went back to bed. Ginger tea is amazing stuff in the battle against influenza. Seriously, I started recovering immediately when I started drinking it yesterday morning. You might be thinking "placebo effect", but if that was all it was you'd think the sudafed, robitussin, ibuprofen combo would have been enough. But actually, I looked it up, and there is a substance in ginger that has been found to actively fight the influenza virus. So today I made ginger popsicles and ginger jell-o for the kids. I also ate two tubs of salsa (the really good stuff) plain to drain my sinuses (not all at once). Then later in the day I got my mother to use her physical therapy lymphatic drainage stuff on me. It's amazing. I asked her to teach me how to do it so I can use it on my children.
Grandma Linda sent us very nice Easter baskets. There was just the right amount of candy (a few Hershey kisses per child). There were also raisins and veggie crisps (yummy!). The boys got a couple little trucks. Abigail got some stickers and a couple of necklaces (she only pouted a little about not getting any trucks). Paul got some chocolate covered pretzels and some new dockers and best of all ONE SOCK. It was actually a sock we had left behind on our last trip. I got a cool Pair of socks. A new smiley bandanna. And a pampered chef spatula thingy. I believe "spatula thingy" is the official term.
Naomi has reached the age of Spoilability now. She can switch from crying to cooing in an instant. She was in the living room this morning while the rest of us were in the kitchen. She started crying. Sammy entered the living room and she started cooing. Sammy left; immediately she was crying. Sammy returned; she was cooing. It was really pretty neat. And it made Sammy happy that he could make his sister happy. After a few minutes I came and got her and put her in the exersaucer in the kitchen. Then she was perfectly happy.
Paul and I have been watching Numb3rs a lot lately. We have the first three seasons on DVD. We've almost completed the series. It's a nice thing to do together after the big kids go to bed and Naomi is still wide awake.
Paul made dinner tonight. It was very nice. He has also been washing the diapers lately. I haven't even had to ask him. He just does it. He is such an amazingly good husband, God has truly blessed me through him.
Paul has been thinking about going to graduate school. He'd like to get a masters in electrical engineering with a focus on robotics. The two most likely possibilities are Purdue and Carnegie Mellon. He's hoping that he might be able to get an educational leave. It would be an adventure.
He wouldn't start classes until fall of 2009.
But all that might be affected by how much potential I might or might not have (Monica at least should be able to guess what I'm referring to).
:)
There is so much to say, it seems that it has been ages since I've really posted. I apologize for the lack of Lenten reflections this year. There has been a great deal of sickness in the family lately, which makes for a pretty chaotic lifestyle.
Right now Paul is playing Candy Land with the children ("Andy And" according to Isaac). The children are pretty good game players. Although their attention spans are pretty short.
At dinner tonight Isaac stood up in his chair pulled his pants and diaper down and went potty all over the floor. It was hard to keep a straight face when I told him not to do this, and to tell us that he needs to go potty. Potty training is hard work!!!
Our Easter has been very Uneasterlike. I am slowly recovering from the flu (the actual influenza virus) and the others were showing signs of starting to get sick, so we made the very difficult decision that it was best to keep everybody home. Paul got up, took a shower, drank a cup of ginger tea, and went back to bed. Ginger tea is amazing stuff in the battle against influenza. Seriously, I started recovering immediately when I started drinking it yesterday morning. You might be thinking "placebo effect", but if that was all it was you'd think the sudafed, robitussin, ibuprofen combo would have been enough. But actually, I looked it up, and there is a substance in ginger that has been found to actively fight the influenza virus. So today I made ginger popsicles and ginger jell-o for the kids. I also ate two tubs of salsa (the really good stuff) plain to drain my sinuses (not all at once). Then later in the day I got my mother to use her physical therapy lymphatic drainage stuff on me. It's amazing. I asked her to teach me how to do it so I can use it on my children.
Grandma Linda sent us very nice Easter baskets. There was just the right amount of candy (a few Hershey kisses per child). There were also raisins and veggie crisps (yummy!). The boys got a couple little trucks. Abigail got some stickers and a couple of necklaces (she only pouted a little about not getting any trucks). Paul got some chocolate covered pretzels and some new dockers and best of all ONE SOCK. It was actually a sock we had left behind on our last trip. I got a cool Pair of socks. A new smiley bandanna. And a pampered chef spatula thingy. I believe "spatula thingy" is the official term.
Naomi has reached the age of Spoilability now. She can switch from crying to cooing in an instant. She was in the living room this morning while the rest of us were in the kitchen. She started crying. Sammy entered the living room and she started cooing. Sammy left; immediately she was crying. Sammy returned; she was cooing. It was really pretty neat. And it made Sammy happy that he could make his sister happy. After a few minutes I came and got her and put her in the exersaucer in the kitchen. Then she was perfectly happy.
Paul and I have been watching Numb3rs a lot lately. We have the first three seasons on DVD. We've almost completed the series. It's a nice thing to do together after the big kids go to bed and Naomi is still wide awake.
Paul made dinner tonight. It was very nice. He has also been washing the diapers lately. I haven't even had to ask him. He just does it. He is such an amazingly good husband, God has truly blessed me through him.
Paul has been thinking about going to graduate school. He'd like to get a masters in electrical engineering with a focus on robotics. The two most likely possibilities are Purdue and Carnegie Mellon. He's hoping that he might be able to get an educational leave. It would be an adventure.
He wouldn't start classes until fall of 2009.
But all that might be affected by how much potential I might or might not have (Monica at least should be able to guess what I'm referring to).
:)
Happy Easter!
The "bunny of the opera" courtesy of my youngest sister's bunny collection. She decorated the kitchen, living room, and bathroom with most of her collection.
May you have a blessed and happy Easter!
Thursday, March 13, 2008
NAKing practice
So I've tried to start some outrageous number of posts. I'm not very good at NAKing though, so I usually don't get very far. But here's some updates:
Isaac is talking a lot more. It's often difficult to understand him, but I love his little phrases like "um tuck" for dump truck and "edder" for together. It's hard to believe that he'll be two next month. He really keeps me on my toes. He already managed to get into the medicine cabinet and take a bunch of acidophilus tablets (praise God it was only those).
Sammy has become much more active and has put on quite a bit of weight. He's starting to count fairly well, and it working on his ABCs. One of the cutest things he does, though, is to hold up two fingers (one on each hand) and ask what number it is. Of course, people tell him it's two. But he insists that it is eleven.
Abigail can write her name now. Her G is usually sideways though. She really likes connect the dots puzzles. She also has developed the hobby of cutting papers into really tiny pieces. I make sure to save junk mail for this purpose. She is an excellent big sister.
Naomi, we have discovered, is allergic to everything. Okay not really everything. Life has been much more peaceful, though, since our discovery that she is allergic to rice.
Peaceful until the children contracted a Coxsackievirus virus. It's the same virus that causes hand, foot and mouth disease. Not to be confused with foot in mouth disease which I have contracted a time or two (the closed mouth gathers no foot). The children have bumps that are similar to chicken pox. Naomi has been screaming most of the time for three days.
Life with four children is really quite amazing though. There are so many moments where I am just overwhelmed by how truly blessed I am. I can only pray that God will give me the strength to train them up in the way that they should go.
Well Naomi is done eating, so I guess I'm going to disappear again.
Isaac is talking a lot more. It's often difficult to understand him, but I love his little phrases like "um tuck" for dump truck and "edder" for together. It's hard to believe that he'll be two next month. He really keeps me on my toes. He already managed to get into the medicine cabinet and take a bunch of acidophilus tablets (praise God it was only those).
Sammy has become much more active and has put on quite a bit of weight. He's starting to count fairly well, and it working on his ABCs. One of the cutest things he does, though, is to hold up two fingers (one on each hand) and ask what number it is. Of course, people tell him it's two. But he insists that it is eleven.
Abigail can write her name now. Her G is usually sideways though. She really likes connect the dots puzzles. She also has developed the hobby of cutting papers into really tiny pieces. I make sure to save junk mail for this purpose. She is an excellent big sister.
Naomi, we have discovered, is allergic to everything. Okay not really everything. Life has been much more peaceful, though, since our discovery that she is allergic to rice.
Peaceful until the children contracted a Coxsackievirus virus. It's the same virus that causes hand, foot and mouth disease. Not to be confused with foot in mouth disease which I have contracted a time or two (the closed mouth gathers no foot). The children have bumps that are similar to chicken pox. Naomi has been screaming most of the time for three days.
Life with four children is really quite amazing though. There are so many moments where I am just overwhelmed by how truly blessed I am. I can only pray that God will give me the strength to train them up in the way that they should go.
Well Naomi is done eating, so I guess I'm going to disappear again.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
March comes in like a lion...
... or perhaps more like a polar bear. As in a white March. It had looked like it was going to be a busy weekend with meetings, a retreat with the young Catholic adult group I'm involved with and visiting the family.
Instead, we got snow. Amazing how crystallized water (or I guess water in any of its states) can really rearrange a person's schedule.
This evening, I came home from work, had dinner, then went out and shoveled the drive. At the beginning of the winter I was a lot better at doing this in a timely fashion. This past week or two (or is it month?) I slacked off a bit. In part because it would snow, then get warm enough the snow would melt and what's the use of shoveling if it will just melt in a day or two anyways? So now there is a layer of ice under the layer of snow. What was I thinking, that spring would come to Cleveland in March? I should have know better.
Looking out the window, in the morning I will have to shovel again. On the bright side, I will hopefully catch up on my sleep and housework this weekend, since it doesn't look like I'll be traveling. I've already taken one nap. Hmm... maybe I should double-check the local Mass times. Hopefully though, the roads will be clear enough to visit the family this weekend.
Well, I hope everyone is staying warm and if the road conditions are as awful where you are as they are where I am, hopefully you don't have to travel anywhere anytime soon.
Instead, we got snow. Amazing how crystallized water (or I guess water in any of its states) can really rearrange a person's schedule.
This evening, I came home from work, had dinner, then went out and shoveled the drive. At the beginning of the winter I was a lot better at doing this in a timely fashion. This past week or two (or is it month?) I slacked off a bit. In part because it would snow, then get warm enough the snow would melt and what's the use of shoveling if it will just melt in a day or two anyways? So now there is a layer of ice under the layer of snow. What was I thinking, that spring would come to Cleveland in March? I should have know better.
Looking out the window, in the morning I will have to shovel again. On the bright side, I will hopefully catch up on my sleep and housework this weekend, since it doesn't look like I'll be traveling. I've already taken one nap. Hmm... maybe I should double-check the local Mass times. Hopefully though, the roads will be clear enough to visit the family this weekend.
Well, I hope everyone is staying warm and if the road conditions are as awful where you are as they are where I am, hopefully you don't have to travel anywhere anytime soon.
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