We made it safely to Wisconsin and have been having a great time. Mitchell is the cutest little baby, and Gracie is a perfect big sister. The boys and I (mainly I) have been watching them the last 3 days while their mom and dad work and go to school. It's been a lot of fun! More on our trip later.

I had this post done a few weeks ago, but never hit publish...oops. So, until I can upload pictures from our trip and tell about that....

A few weekends ago the boys went to a birthday party for one of their friends. This was a birthday party to beat all other birthday parties. It was held in the kids gym at the YMCA, there were snacks galore, pizza, cake, and a cape making station. It was super hero themed, so the boys went dressed in their best Spiderman costumes and had a great afternoon running wild and eating pizza and cake with their friends and 20+ other crazy kids. There were so many kids running around dressed as super heroes, but the real super heroes were our friends, the mom and dad, who put this shindig on for their little guy.

We took a half day off from lessons yesterday. I had errands to run and the boys were just needing a break, so after reading lessons, we got our shoes on and headed out the door. We went to the mall and wandered (purchasing nothing), then walked around Target picking up toothpaste, mouthwash, etc.. We were out walking around in public for about 2+ hours.

It wasn't until I was putting my bags of toothpaste and mouthwash into the back of the car when I realized something just wasn't right with my outfit. I bent down to pick up the reciept that I had just dropped and I saw this:

 

That's right, I was wearing one red shoe, and one pink shoe. They are the same shoe, just different colors, so they feel identical on my feet. I found this shoe and it is very comfortable, VERY affordable, and comes in all different colors. Maybe I should pay more attention to what I look like before I leave the house, instead of being so concerned with making sure the boys go to the bathroom and wash their hands. I guess it could have been worse, I could have had a red shoe and a turquoise shoe on. At least these 2 are both in the red family. Upon thinking about this, I can't even remember which shoe I meant to put on. Was I trying to wear red shoes, or was I trying to wear pink shoes? I don't know. 

Today the boys and I sat down with construction paper, scissors, glitter and glue. We were all ready to make Valentine's Day cards. I thought I had a great idea when I pulled out 2 small boxes of the, always classic, "Sweethearts" candy hearts. You know what I'm talking about...the small hearts that are pastel colors with sweet Valentine messages, printed in red, in the center of the heart. Or, at least, that is what they are supposed to look like.

I thought we could get a few Valentine sayings from the candies and enjoy an afternoon treat at the same time. Well, that didn't work out as planned. First of all, Russell's box had 5 pieces in it, and Max's was filled to the top. Luckily Max was more than happy to fill Russell's box to the half way point so they had an equal amount. Secondly, all the words were printed off center so we had no clue what 80% of the hearts said; not too helpful when we were counting on these candies for words to write on our cards. Finally, the only hearts that printed clearly said, "TEXT ME" and "TWEET ME". These are not sweet words that I want to hear from my valentine, and the boys had no clue what they meant. Does the cyber world really need to get involved in everything?

What happened to "LOVE ME", "BE MINE", "YOU'RE SWEET" and "HUGS AND KISSES"? Were people really writing the Sweetheart company asking them to include "TWEET ME" on a candy heart? I doubt it. Maybe I'm annoyed by this because I don't really know or understand what twitter is, but come on!

Our card making afternoon lasted about 15 minutes. Russell was only interested in cutting up the paper and drawing cartoon characters that make you think of anything but Valentine's Day, and Max wrote his name over and over on a couple of hearts and then wanted to make glue mountains and cover them in glitter.

Maybe I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed today (who me?!) but I threw in the towel on card making after these 15 minutes. It was one of those days when we fight to make it through our lessons, I found a stash of dirty clothes under the bookshelf that no one would claim, and I feel like I want to let the dishes pile up because all I want to do it grab a warm blanket from the radiator and watch a mindless movie. Maybe we will try card making tomorrow, but I'm not holding my breath on that one.

Today was not a fantastic day. Today was not even a good day. Today is not one I would want to do over. It's days like this when I need more pictures like this:

What is that? It's Max squishing his nose into mine (what we call a "snuggle kiss") while he takes a blurry picture of it. Bad days are few, but they happen, and they pass. Maybe tomorrow will be a snuggle kiss day, not today, and I'm ok with that.

I had accepted the fact that my sister was going to have a baby very soon and I would not be able to see her, or the new baby, for several months. With hopes of a move coming, we have been saving every penny possible and tightening up our belts in all areas of life/spending (as if we could do this more?!). So, needless to say, buying 3 plane tickets was out of the question (I say 3 because RC has too much going on to make a trip, so it would be just me and the boys.) The thought of this made me sad and angry since I so badly wanted to see the baby and help out my sister in the first part of being a mother of 2. I was bummed to say the least.

But not anymore!

Just a few days ago I got a call from my other sister with news that she could score 3 plane tickets to anywhere in the U.S., but they had to be booked the next day. How could this be? Free tickets? THREE free tickets?

Well, it's true. It just so happens that my sister has a friend, who has a father in law, who works and racks up points to be redeemed for airfare. The father-in-law was not going to use the tickets he has acquired so he offered them to my sister's friend (his daughter-in-law). My sister's friend was not going to use them so she offered them to my sister. My sister thought about coming here with my mom and dad, but then had the wonderful idea to offer the tickets to me so that I could come and see the new baby. I called my sister's friend to get all the details and give her our info and she booked the flight and had our flight info for me within hours of me hearing of this deal. What a great chain of events! I am so thankful for people not being able to travel so that these tickets would funnel down to me, and so very thankful for kind people who would not just say "eh, forget about these tickets, I'm not going to use them, so no one is going to use them."

So, myself, Russell, and Max will be making a trip to chilly Wisconsin to see our new nephew/cousin (and family!) in the next few weeks. It will be a quick trip, but one we are so very thankful for.

And finally.....

 

 A cute little baby boy, Mitchell, was born February 2nd!!

This week we have been taking a Twister break during our lessons and yesterday I thought I would capture a bit of our twisted fun on film.

Last weekend we made another trip to NYC. It's so hard to say no when the school offers bus tickets for super cheap and there is still so much to see and do in the Big Apple.

Once again, I turn to bullets...

• Max did NOT want to wake up! He was angry up until we walked out the door, then we was happy and excited...but boy was that 20 minutes of getting dressed and eating breakfast while crying ever long!
• We bundled up with extra layers because it was a very cold day. When we got in the car to go to the bus it was a balmy 8 degrees and the high during the day was 25 degrees. Due to the cold, and the difficult time we had waking everyone up, I was a bit concerned with how attitudes would be, but no one complained of being too cold the entire day. We talked about being cold, but no one whined or complained...nice!
• We began our trip with the bus getting a flat tire and we had to pull off the interstate several times during the trip. We lost time due to this, but some how we managed to make all that time up, and then some. We got off the bus an entire hour earlier than we had expected!
• There were some students sitting behind Russell and I on the bus who were trying to be cool and get a rise out of the kids by yelling "beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, etc...."(those "beeps" are all the colorful 4 letter words you can think of.) over and over and louder and louder. They were obviously doing it on purpose. I turned and gave them one look that was supposed to strike fear into their little freshman-in-college souls, but it didn't work. My next move was going to be to shove a bar of soap into their mouths, but due to the fact that I didn't have a bar of soap in my purse (let alone several) I was stumped as to what to do next. That's when I saw my kind, gentle husband raise out of his seat, stare with full force and the hooligans, and (to make a long story short) told them to quiet down.
• Our first stop was MoMA. Years ago we got the boys the book "Seen Art" which is all about MoMA and the different works of art that can be found there. It's a great book if you have little kids...or if you don't, you could still read it (I won't tell). We spent several hours walking the halls of the museum and seeing everything we could. Both boys loved the special exhibit, which was Tim Burton drawings, painting, clay figures and short movies. Russell also LOVED finding a painting by Salvador Dali that is in said book. He found it and walked as quickly as he could to it and just stared and smiled. Max was taken with Roy Lichtenstein, Girl with Ball painting. 
• We took a break half way through the museum to head outside for a hotdog on the sidewalk.
• Next up was a walk down to The World Trade Center Site. It was strange to be there and think about what happened on 9/11 and the chaos that filled the streets that day. Actually being there and seeing the exact spot these events took place made it seem all the more scary and strange. 
• Wall street was next. We saw the New York Stock Exchange and Federal Hall on Wall Street, where George Washington was sworn in as President in 1789. 
• We found beautiful "old New York" where buildings were only 2 stories high, streets were narrow, and there was an old pub on each corner. It was quiet too. If felt as if we had just walked into another country and another time.
• From there we walked to Battery Park to see the Statue of Liberty a little closer than we had before. We were disappointed because it seemed about the same distance as before and we were all super cold, so we booked it back to the warmth of the subway as we made our way to Chinatown. In Battery Park we found a turkey, a live turkey, but the boys didn't think it was real because it didn't have its "gobble", "beard", "whatever that red hanging thing is on a turkey". In Battery Park I had to smile and laugh because it was the first time we had ever been approached by someone with a ,"psssst...psssst! You need a Rolex?" I love it! People really do that, it's not just in the movies.
• Whoops! We forgot to get off the train at Chinatown so we decided to skip it.
• We walked the streets until we came to KATZ Deli, where we were meeting a friend for supper. We enjoyed a DELICIOUS (words cannot describe how good this sandwich was!!!) pastrami on rye with mustard and some house made pickles. This deli is a favorite of one of my favorite chefs, authors, travel channel face, Anthony Bourdain, so it was great to be sitting in a deli where he had been and still (so he says) loves to go when he is in NYC...along with almost every other celeb, politician, true New Yorkers, etc.. This is also the famous deli where "When Harry Met Sally" was filmed. We had a great supper chatting with our friend and admiring all the famous people pictures on the walls. The boys were not interested in the sandwiches (too bad! more for us!) so we took them to get a slice of pizza and they were happy.
• We walked the streets of the East Village on our way back to the bus pick up location. 
• Max saw a live rat crawling on some steps and thought that was the coolest thing ever.

Once again we walked the entire day, except for a few subway rides, and the boys never once complained. Max gets the "trooper" award for this trip. That little guy is a great walker, but due to the cold and the distance we were going, R.C. and I both offered him a lift a few times, but he declined each time with a, "you don't have to." Although we did pick him up a few times just to show our appreciation for his great attitude and willingness to walk even though he was tired. Russell is 7 now so he is expected to be a good walker and he does not disappoint. I've said it before, and I will say it once again (although I'm sure it won't be my last), I love the excitement these boys get from museums and they are great kids who know how to behave so I never fear taking them to places where things could be fragile. I'd take them anywhere!

*Stay tuned for super exciting news in the next few days! The boys and I are taking a trip and we will see a new family member soon...well, soon as in a few weeks, but sooner than we thought we would get to...