Another day, another fender bender

So yes, the title says it all. My first accident was not too long after we arrived. I and the kids parked the car and got out, soon after someone side swiped the car and drove off into the sunset. A couple of days ago while going to our Italian friends house, I was following a man who appeared to be making a lefthand turn in a small Italian car. I was wrong. He was making a right hand turn (Into a large driveway) that a US truck driving would do! I went straight, he hit me. I still love it here! I still have a lot to learn though!

l made it to our friends house. Her name is Mima and she is a young Italian that lives at home with her Sister and her Mama. The kids and I were invited to her house, which is an honor when you're invited and to not accept would be extremely rude. I really like Mima so of course I said yes. We had such a grand time. Mima's mama can't speak a lick of English but somehow were bonded instantly. I had finally arrived! I walked into this typical Italian house, with Rosemaries and statues of Jesus and Mary. I loved it, I really did. We were given gifts as soon as we walked in! Pepper received a car and track set and Ava a barbie Doll. I was given a beautiful bottle of perfume. But the gifts did not compare to seeing the kids play with Mama yelling Umpa!! I missed my mom at that moment, and can't wait to see her.

Mima's sister is studying language at a local college nearby in Naples. She know English, Spanish, and French. She's a sweet girl, I think a little more "wild" than Mima appears to be!

I met Mima soon after I arrived in Italy. We were all sick for weeks and our insurance coverage here in the Us sucks so we tried to just wait it out. Finally Pepper got his normal ear aches with an extremely high fever. I trudged over to the hospital. $500 bux and a 4 hour wait made me shutter. A nice guy whispered in my ear.."go out in town, find a pharmacy with a Dottore they can help." So I did. I met Mima who looked in Pepper's ear, gave him some tachidol (tylenol) and an antibiotic for his infection. Moving to Italy was a big adjustment on our health, they call it the Naples flu. We were sick for a couple of months and often trekked to the pharmacy to see Mima. We became friends quickly and I'm so happy about it.

Today's craft idea

The kids and I have been doing crafts when we are home. We don't always go running around, sometimes it is nice to sit at home for a while! A friend on facebook suggested a web site for Chunk Crayons. Basically you take all those crayons laying around your house. you know the ones, the broken ones lying in the corner of the bedroom, livingroom and playroom. Get all of those crayons, peel the paper off and set aside. Take a cupcake tin and spray it with Pam, preheat the oven to 275. Take the crayons and be creative with the grouping. Break them into small pieces and put the in the muffin tin. We grouped one with red, white, and blue. Did another with Pink and browns. Cook for about 6 or 7 minutes. Take out and you can take a toothpick and swirl the colors if you like. I put my tin in the freezer for about 15 minutes, take it out and pop the crayons out ready to use!

The kids before sticking crayons in oven!

Ready to stick in the Oven!

All cooked and ready to draw with

Well folks, this is it in a nutshell...for today!

So...I'm starting my blog again! My adventures in Italy.

We arrived in Italy on May 5th, what a wonderful time we're having. I really love it here. Dennis and I decided to live on the Support site in Gricignano which is about 15 minutes away from Naples. Lots of things to do for families and kids here so we're happy with our decision.

We've had a few adventures so far and are adjusting well. I have a few theories about driving in italy. Although it is notorious for their driving skills, I love it! I say that if we all drived like Italians, passing whenever and wherever no matter the oncoming cars, beeping to alert you that they are planning on not letting you through, flashing their lights to let you know that you're not going fast enough! The driving has been an adventure in itself!

Our first trip was to Capri. What a beautiful Island in Naples, with water so beautiful and blue. Our friend Brian went with us. Brian and I visited the blue Grotto which is a cave on the island. You have to take a smaller motor boat to the cave. At the cave's entrance you get into a row boat from the motor boat. In the entrance of the cave you have to lie flat down to get into it and WOW...well worth it! The water was the most beautiful blue, with a small ray of sun shining in. It was a gift from God and I knew it. The island itself had beautiful homes and gardens and quaint shops that I bought a heart necklace from. I'd love to post pictures here, but left my camera in a cab and upon flagging him down it was gone. Another italian lesson learned!

Our next grand adventure was to Bari Safari. What an amazing time we had. This is a drive through zoo. We took vegetables and fruit cut up for the animals in case we could feed them. Upon our arrival we were greeted by all kinds of deer. We saw tigers and lions and bears oh my! The kids were so excited to be able to feed camels, zebras, giraffes, and buffalo! What a great family outing.

That's it in a nutshell for today..more tomorrow!

Kids and their antics!

My kids are so adorable, but it utterly surprises and impresses me with the things they come up with, and sometimes even though it's not quite adorable, I still marvel at their thought processes and imaginations.

I'm listing some of things that I can remember that my kids have done and the things that I love about them

1. Pepper figuring out how to hook his CD player up to his TV so he can listen to it through that.
2. Ava and Pepper deciding that drinking pudding through a straw would be better than using a
spoon...it worked well and way less mess.
3. Pepper can clean his room very well when he wants to!
4. Ava imagines that she is a mommy and sticks a balloon up her shirt to act pregnant...where'd she get that from??!!!
5.Their ability to find fun anywhere, with a stick or box or whatever!
6. Pepper knows how to run the dvd player, and dvr. His thirst for knowledge is amazing.
7. Ava at 2 knew how to sing her ABC's
8. Pepper at 4 taught ava how to sing her ABC's
9. My kids will try anything and like the wierdest foods..Guac, hummus, they loooove crab legs, steak.
10. Maybe this isn't amazing, but it is to me, Pepper can draw people, and he gave us a picture of Den and I and himself and Ava, Den was holding Ava and I was holding his hand.

I'm sure there's more and I may add to the list as the day goes by, but if you have any lists of incredible things your kids do post them~

Ice Ice and more Ice and some cabin fever.

Well, It's Icy here. Dennis was supposed to have his physical today. The Dr's office called yesterday to tell us to call before we came in (at 8:45). They said that they would have a msg on the answering machine if the weather was too bad and they were not coming in. I called this morning and no msg, so Dennis drove over. No one was there, we waited a little while and still nothing. So off he went to work. I called the Dr's office again and they answered. I told them that we waited and they said "oh, we didn't come until 10" I said well we called to check the msgs and there was nothing on it that said you weren't coming in until 10. Luckily they got him in tomorrow at 8:45 as well. He has to have his physical in order to get his orders.

Unfortunately, it seems as though Ava and I and Pepper are all geting coughs that won't go away. I think it's draining them because they're tired all day long and grumpy.
On a better note though, we got a call from Nicole who is the girl that was interested in renting our condo. She has been sick as well, which I think she probably got from here. Anyway, she talked to her landlord and he had noooo problem letting her out of her lease. Her last day is April 1st and she will be moving in here. We are letting her move her things in early because we will be in PA for a couple weeks and Den will be staying with Drew and working on the condo.

Well, that's it in a nutshell....for today.

My snow Angel collage

Tasting snowflakes

IT's begining to look a lot like christmas!

Yes my dear friends, it has finally snowed!!!! I actually woke my kids up so that they could look outside and see it. I know I'm supposed to be used to it from living in PA and bored with it or whatever, but I remember how much I loved to play in the snow, sledding and getting cold coming in and watching the snowfall while drinking hot chocolate. I love seeing Ava and PEpper get that same excitement. And let's be honest, there is nothing better than seeing kids be so excited they don't know what to do first!
Here's a couple pics!

I hate when my kids are sick.

Well I didn't write anything yesterday because I was just too tired. We had a long day yesterday. We woke up pretty early (for us) 7:00. Dennis and Joe hauled a lot of garbage to the dump and we cleaned out all of our toys that we had under our deck. Then Den decided he would help Joe take his heavy large things to his new house, which is about an hour away. While Den was gone Ava got very cranky and ended up crashing in my lap. Dennis came home about 40 minutes after she went to sleep and when she woke up she had a fever. And so it began. I loaded her up with Motrin (it's the only thing that really works for my kids.) She was better in about 10 minutes. Den went grocery shopping and I went down with Joe and helped him get things packed up. Ava was pretty much ok, but we could tell she was tired. The medicine started wearing off, Den came home and we crashed! Luckily Ava slept thru the night, but woke up early this morning with a fever. I gave her some more medicine and she seemed alright. She was playing with pepper and then came up the stairs crying. I met her at the top of the stairs and said "what's wrong hunny". She put her arms up to me, and I bent down to pick her up and she threw up all over my shirt, face, and head. Then we both threw up, ugghh it was so disgusting. She took another nap today laying in my lap. She was so cute, but I hate it when she's sick.

We've been having a problem with our computer for as long as we've had it since may. You can't connect to the internet thru a program that you have on your computer. It's like a firewall was blocking it, but we didn't have any. We've tried for a long time to figure it out but haven't succeeded. Today Pepper wanted to connect his leapster 2 to the internet because he had awards and stuff waiting so that he could download them onto his game. I couldn't get it to work. I finally got fed up and searched on the internet and figured that it was Norton. We had uninstalled Norton because it just SUCKS. But apparantly Norton doesn't really go all the way away unless you use a uninstall norton completely program. So even tho it looked like we had uninstalled it, it was still there. IT WORKED! We go the thing fixed and got PEpper's game hooked up. I can also track his progress online. I was amazed that on a game that taught multiplication of 1's 5's and I think 7's he had gotten them right 49% of the time. Now I know that's not a lot but that was within 12 minutes and for a 4 year old that's pretty impressive. Those leapsters are amazing, I would recommend them to anyone.

Well my day is done, I'm going to go do some reading and watch some shows.
That's it in a nutshell....for today

Good News

Another great day. For days I have been trying to get an insurance quote from Geico. I finally got a hold of them in Italy (you can't get a quote for Italy here in the states). They told me to email my info to them. So I did that. I was surprised that the owner emailed me back and said that it 11pm his time so he would get back to me the next day. The next he emailed me and said that their computers were down and he "promised" he would get back to me the next day. The next day came and went, so I emailed him asking about the quote. Another day went by. I emailed again and finally got a response. They are unable to insure us because of our driving history. DRIVING HISTORY???? So I emailed back and asked why. He said it was because of two tickets and two accidents, one of which was a hit and run, but since they had to payout they could still count it. I was beside myself, what the heck were we going to do. They did say however that they could MAYBE make an exception when we got to Italy, but it was going to be around 7-8 hundred A MONTH. OH MY! I told him that I was going to Geico and inquire because it just seemed a little odd to me. He said Go ahead, they will tell you to contact me, they don't really govern us. MEaning that the states Geico and Italian Geico although they have the same name, they aren't run the same. HE also told me that they were the only ones that insured over there. SOOOO I scoured the internet anyway. I came across several companies, but they didn't cover Italy. Then I found it.....Clements insurance. I called and didn't have much hope because they were located in DC and looked like just an independent company. They were so nice. The guy asked me if I worked for the government. I said my husband does. He said ok...asked me what kind of car and what year it was. Asked for my and Den's name. Then he put me on hold for about 2 minutes and came back with a quote. I said don't you need my social security number for my driver's record. He said no , I looked to make sure that your husband was employed by the government. He said we figure that because he works for the government he already jumped through hoops and had security clearances so we don't look at the driving record. Then he gave me the quote. $900 A YEAR! If he was standing in front of me I would have kissed him. I said wait are you sure that's for Italy, for both of us and you don't need our driver's records. He said no we are the government so we don't have the same underwriting that Geico has. I'm so excited. God has paved every way possible for us. This is more than we could have asked for.

Unfortunately Ava is grumpy grumpy grumpy. So I'm off to get her settled down.

That's it in a nutshell ....for today.

sick

Ava and I are sick today so I'm taking a sick day from blogging...see you all tomorrow...I hope

Feeling ever so.....moody....nostalgic...scared..worried....happy...excited

Today was just one of those days. Den's been home for four days straight and when he's on a mission there is no rest for the weary. We have to get so much stuff done and in the midst of trying to get stuff done I have feelings of nostalgia from all the crap we're digging up. I think a lot about the family I'm leaving behind which makes me so worried and sad. My nieces and nephews are going to grow so fast in the time that we are away and we don't get to see them enough as it is. I'm also scared because I have no idea what I'm about to get myself into. Thank goodness for the internet huh?!

Someone sent me something on facebook and it was that you were supposed to give 25 random things about yourself..I thought I would post it here, it really made me think about myself.

1. I've been married for 11 years, but we've actually been together for 21.
2. I'm scared of the Dark
3. I hate being in crowds of people and I'm always paranoid that they're staring at me. (which actually they're probably staring at me, because I am at them)
4.I secretly or maybe no so secretly wish I could still have a baby, and if I could I definitely would be pregnant right now. And that feeling kills me inside sometimes
5. I spend most of my time in PJ's or comfy pants as I call them
6. I love love love to knit
7.I regret enormously not getting to spend more time with my brother and it makes me cry to know that I don't know him well anymore
8.I look up to my husband (don't tell him his head will swell)
9.I think my mother is the wisest woman I know (dont tell her either)
10. I worry constantly about the job I am doing as a mother
11. I make sure to pay special and individual attention to my kids...and I obsess over it.
12.I find myself becoming more and more like my mother
13. I like to stay up at night, I call it my me time.
14. I have very few "good" friends that I hold very dear, but those that I do have I would give my right arm for.
15.My sister-in-law once told me she didn't get her tubes tied because she wanted to make sure I could have kids first.....I loved her more in that minute than I ever had before and consider her my best friend.
16. God is my hero and literally my saviour
17. I hate bra's
18. I have a crush on Conan o'Brian
19. I named my daughter after myself..AVA= A VAleta
20. I have many people that pray for me.
21 I named my son after the greatest human being I could think of ..my husband.
22.My niece gave Ava her middle name (Marie) which is also Alyssa's and my sister in laws name
23. I am addicted to second hand store shopping
24. I am a two month breast cancer survivor and I will also be a 30 year breast cancer survivor
25.I love to fish in the bay and then call my bro and nephew to brag that I caught more.
26.I have a passion for decorating cakes
27. I ask for discounts at every store ...even target and walmart, if they don't give it to me, I don't buy it.
28. Dennis and I have a great sex life
29. Unfortunately I know all...way too much about my mothers sex life
30. When I was younger I used to steal my sister in laws keys and car and go "cruising" almost every night when they were asleep...HAHAHAHA


Post your list so I can know some random stuff about you!

Lighthouse in the bay

The lighthouse we see when

we are boating in the bay.

Ava and Baldy Mommy

she's way cute

Another one of Pepper's smiles
Having a good time with his best school bud
Nathanial

My Funny Man

~We tell him to smile and this is what we get~

Ava and Pepper love to jump on my bed.

This is a picture of Ava in midair!

She is always full of fun and laughter

and wins my heart everyday.

Ava and her animals

My Princess

Happy Martin Luther King JR day!

Well, here we are again another MLK day. Pepper knows all about him! It's amazing how his preschool can teach these things and it actually sticks with Pepper. He's been Hearing Dr. King's name on TV and every time he does he starts to tell the story. He's has a little piece of paper that briefly tells the story and Den reads it to him every night.

Den finally went and got the boat back in order so that we can sell it. Our good friend Drew is actually going to sell it for us, which is good because it's one less thing we need to think of YAY! Autumn is back with us this week. It's kind of nice because the kids haven't seen her in a while and they are playing nicely with each other.

Nothing else to report today...oh except one thing. I saw that they had a sale at Michaels today on yarn. My stinking mother has gotten me hooked on knitting. I LOVE IT! So Den watched the kids and I got to go shopping by MYSELF!! It was so great, my hubby is the best!

That's it in a nutshell....for today

Lazy Sundays ...and Good News

We had a great day today. Ava woke up around 6:30 but Den got up with her and got her settled back down so I got to sleep until 8! Den decided he was going to paint the living room today, and I decided to go get Ava a new booster seat. Got a deal at Babies r US. I got 15% off of a sale seat just because I asked for it. Ask and you shall receive!
I came home and Dennis was painting away. I went upstairs and did some laundry and got a phone call from the girl who is thinking about renting our condo. She wanted to come and see it in and HOUR!! We rushed around and picked up what we could. Mostly just boxes and other things waiting to be packed. She did come and she loved it. She lives in the basement of someones house, she doesn't like it there so she's so excited to move. So good news, looks like we have ourselves a renter, as long as she can get out of her contract. We should know this week. Wow that would make us feel so much better! Not much else to report.

That's it in a nutshell...for today

water water...NO WHERE

Another day in the life of the Kelley's. Dennis got up early to go to the bathroom this morning at about 5:30. He came back in the room at around 8 to tell me that the water was not working. It was so cold out that the pipes froze. This isn't the first time that this has happened, but normally we shake the pipes, turn up the heat in the house and they unfreeze. Not today. We tried shaking and heating and heating and heating. We had the house temp up to 85. Granted it felt pretty good, but water would have been better! We tried blow drying the pipes. We tried putting a heater in the water closet..still nothing. We finally got a hose hooked it up to our neighbors faucet and pumped hot water through while I pushed it against our faucet. It flooded our bathroom, didn't realize the water was coming out around the towel..BUT..it finally worked we melted the ice enough and finally got water back at 7PM tonight!

I felt useless all day, couldn't do laundry, I couldn't do dishes. It's weird how much water is used in our daily lives! Well I'm happy that it's back on and now I'm exhausted from having no water and not being able to do any chores all day..HA!

Well that's it in a nutshell...for today.

Just Chillaxin

The kids and I had a nice relaxing day inside today. Way too cold to venture outside! We just watched some tv, cuddled on the couch for a little while and giggled the day away, well, some of it anyway. I was so happy that I cleaned the house early I was done by 1:30. I rewarded myself with the perfect cup of coffee and watched Ellen while I knitted Ava a quick belt.

Our plans for Italy are coming together quite nicely. I'm amazed at how God works in my/our lives. I can see clearly how he has put into place plans for our Italy trip before we even knew about it. For instance, our hairdresser Renee and I have become good friends. She was there throughout both of my pregnancies. Now her daughter Nicole is potentially and probably going to rent out our condo. She's living in a basement now with no windows and pays more than we are renting out our entire condo. That's a huge weight lifted off of our shoulders. From that right down to a small thing like our phone! We switched to Vonage before we found out we were moving. When we found out we were moving we also realized we could pick up our vonage box since it's through the computer and move it to Italy. We will have the same phone number and everything!!!!!! So people can still call us as if we were in the states. I know it seems small but I can honestly see God's workings in each little aspect of my life.

Some of you know that our dear friend Stacy is also moving to Italy. He has left today and we're excited that he'll be there to welcome us when we FINALLY arrive!

Well that's it in a nutshell....for today.

My poor parents....

I started off the day rushing to get Pepper to school. My wonderful mom played with the kids and I got to sleep in until 9AM!! I took pepper in, came back and got my mom and dad off to the airport. I dropped them off at about 11AM, at 2PM they called to say that their flight was totally cancelled and that they had a flight at 5PM to Dallas and then to Guatamala tomorrow. THe airline said that they would get them a hotel in Dallas. Well at around 5 mom called to say that the flight wasn't going out until 6:30. She has just called me again to say that the flight was cancelled again and the airline was getting them a hotel here in DC next to the airport and they are going to fly out tomorrow at 7AM. They have been sitting in that airport all day. I asked her if they had dinner or if the airline offered them some food. She said NO. I told her to go ask for vouchers before they went to the hotel. She asked and they gave her a voucher for anything they wanted to eat at the airport restaurant, so she's eating steak!!! Good for her.

Speaking of airplanes, let me just take a second to say how wondrous God is. Those 150 people that left LaGuardia on a routine trip and landed in the hudson surely have seen God's power. The pilot, what an outstanding and quick thinking guy to be able to land that plane with no panic and NO INJURIES! How many lives he saved on top of the people on that airplane is amazing. And the fact that those water taxis were right there to save them and pull those FREEEEZING people out of the water was phenomenal!

Well off of my soap box....that's it in a nutshell...for today.

Success!

I am pleased to announce that the entire Kelley family has applied for their passports...SUCCESS! It is a bit of a funny story. Given our recent events of not getting to the correct place last week I thought I would play a little with Dennis. When we got to the post office. I said "oh no, did we need our driver's license?" knowing full well that I brought it. Dennis was a little annoyed and I played on for a minute, then I grinned and said no, see I have it right here...and I went to pull out the license and.....I really did forget it. I had the wrong jacket on! UGH, now he was a more than a little annoyed. But he drove back home, we got the passports and now we are on our way!!! YAY...finally.

Now he's picking up mom and dad in Breezewood and then he'll be back home. Meanwhile, my children are totally wound up, running all over the house, knocking things over, yelling and simply asking to be put to bed REALLY early ;) I know they're tired; they went to bed pretty late last night and had to wake up early so that we could get our errands done. Hopefully they'll go down and give me some peaceful time to myself!

Oh, and in case anyone wondered, I finished Ava's hat yesterday. Unfortunately I drop a stich when I got to the crown part and then Ava who HAD to have it in bed last night wound up pulling a big loop out of it. Ah well, it was my first one at least now I see what I have to do differently.

well....that's it in a nutshell for today.

Mommy time!

Today was a spectacular day! Pepper went to school this morning at 10AM. When we came home Ava and I raced cars, made a choo choo train and played hide and seek. We had such a good time. Around 11:30 she disappeared upstairs to get her baby who also was just dying to play hide and seek. After about ten minutes I went up to check on her, figuring she had gotten distracted with something else as 2.5 year old normally do! When I went up I saw baby neatly tucked into her crib and my sweet little girl asleep! I watched her sleep for a few minutes, she's so gorgeous. Then....MOMMY TIME!!

I got the kitchen cleaned, the mess we had made in the living room picked up, some laundry washed, folded, and put away. I even started dinner all before 1PM! An hour to go to pick up Pepper. Not only that but I started a hat for Ava and got it a good portion done, only a few more stitches to go!

I picked Pepper up from school, which I love to do. His whole face lights up and yells "MY MOMMY!" I'm so proud to be his mommy. He looks like such a big guy with his book bag on his back. His preschool is fabulous. They had a big Christmas party and I volunteered to help out for it, they always ask me to bring Ava. The incredible thing is that they include her in everything. They have projects ready for her to do and everything. Well they had a Santa Claus there and they had all the kids bring in stickers to exchange then they sat on Santa's lap. They took pictures of each one including Ava. Today they gave us the pictures on a card. It was so pretty and cute and had one for Pepper and Ava. When we came home Ava was infatuated with the picture. I'm so happy that I chose Lakeridge for Pepper's school. I'm a little sad because I planned on putting Ava in the same preschool. I pray that the base will have such good and caring teachers.

Now I'm home, the kids are playing nicely together and I thought I would blog out my day. Can't wait for Dennis to get home so I can cuddle with him in bed on this cooooold day!

That's it in a nutshell.....for today.

Boxes? Or houses?

Today was a pretty fun day! The kids and I got up around 9AM, always nice to snooze in a little. Got up had a little coffee and then took the boxes that were supposed to be for packing and made them into......HOUSES! Now I've officially decided for Christmas this year the kids are getting boxes. These brown boxes were the key to my sanity and quietness for the good portion of the day. The kids drew on the outside of their "houses" , drew paintings on the inside, took blankets and pillows and talked to each other from their windows. They were so cute.

Ava and I had some good quality time tonight, Pepper went to bed pretty early and Ava came in my room and sang to me while I was facebooking! I love having kids they are so precious to me. Pepper is my heart. He is such an old soul. He even thinks so. We recorded him playing with his cars and we played it back to him five minutes later he said "was that me when I was a baby?" "I look so small there!" He is my little helper. Today he rinsed all the dishes for me and all I had to do was put them in the dishwasher.

Ava is my light. She brightens up everyone with her funny antics and sweet disposition. She loves to sing to EVERYONE and she can make you giggle no matter how mad you are with just one of her little finger points.

I am the luckiest woman alive.

That's it in a nutshell......for today

Ava is only about a month old here and her Godmother got her these little hair bands, Pepper was bent on having one on him too...he is such a good big brother!!

It's a small house, is there really this much stuff

YIKES..poor Dennis is overwhelmed again. Today we saw a pipe that had burst again in our water closet, and the house has quite a few things that need fixed still. Dennis decided he was going to paint the living room and put up the floor board today, but then discovered that his very specific RED painting handle adapter thingy (that can be replaced with a broom handle that also screws into a roller) was gone. He was so upset. Luckily he found a deal later on the floorboards so that made him in a better mood.
My goodness I can't believe how much garbage is going out of this house. Why did I keep this stuff for so long if I didn't need it. It feels great to be throwing stuff away. I went through Pepper's stuff today in his room and got rid of so many old toys it filled up two and a half construction garbage bags (the great big ones). I had to have Dennis take them out because they were so heavy. I wanted to get them out before the kids came in and started pulling stuff back out of them! I'm tired now though, It's only almost three and I'm ready for bed!!!
Thanks to everyone who have been praying for us to get through this fairly unscathed!

Well..that's it in a nutshell...for today

Passport distress

What a night, that lasted into this morning! The kids woke up all night long. Ava was singing and singing all night, Pepper woke up a few times, probably due to his Sissy's singing. The kids were so tired as was I, but we needed to get up and go get the passports this mornig. We woke up and Dennis asked that I wake the kids up and get them ready while he input all the passport info into the forms online. That's when it all started. Den was upset that I hadn't done it last night and cranky to boot from the kids being up (Yes we actually both get up with the kids a lot of the times when needed). Anywayyyyy, we have this huge folder of all the info that we need and Den pulled everything out, then proceeded to get angry when he couldn't find anything in it's place..just like a man huh!! Oh I love him more than anything he's a good man, but a man nonetheless!!! After finally pulling everything together we finally got out the door, about an hour later than we should have. We get the kids into the car stand in a thankfully short line at the post office while the Ava whines "up up" and Pepper literally lays on the floor. We get up to the post office guy and Dennis says "we're here to apply for passports" The guy looks at us and says we don't do that here, you need to go to the other post office in woodbridge and they aren't open on Saturdays. Poor Den, he looked on line to see if our post office did it, but must have looked at the wrong one. So, we just came home and he took my mom to breezewood to meet my dad. I looked online and found one closer to his work so the kids and I can come during the week and get it done. I hope this isn't just the beginning of things to come, I just want to get our stuff and get gone!!!!!

Luckily the kids are now sleeping so I have a little time to myself....I think I'm getting addicted to this blogging stuff, it's really going to come in handy when I need to pen out my frustration in ITaly!!!

That's it in a nutshell .....for today

Pepper, the Tv, and his new cd player

I walked into Pepper's room tonight around 9PM becuase I heard some comotion. I went in to find him with his earphones on. He just got a new CD player. Anyway, the input/output wires that go to tv's was stretched from the tv to his bed. He had found a second set (already has one plugged into his tv from his dvd player) and attached it to his CD player and essentially used that cord as a extension cord, because he had his earphones plugged into the CD player along with the cord and was listening to his tv. I was amazed that he could figure out what hole to plug what into, even got the right colors. He definately takes after his dad...boy are we in trouble!

His sister isn't stupid either. Den took away some marker caps that she was using as "fingernails" and put her to bed. She went upstairs gulped down her drink then came into our room and told us she needed a drink. She went down and asked Grandma that she needed a drink but instead of handing it to her she threw it down so Nonna would pick it up and ran to get the markers. OF COURSE Nonna let her have them, but didn't tell us about it till the day after....hmmm I wonder why their so spoiled rotten!

That's it in a nutshell...for today

This is the very first time Pepper saw Ava, and he knew right away even at the age of two that she was his sister. He's taken care of her ever since.

Beginning the blogging adventure

So, here I am caught in the blogging fixation...finally. Mostly I'm doing this so that family and friends can see what's happening with us in Italy. But for now, while we're still in the states I guess ya'll will just have to be bored, but read on anyway!

Today was a bittersweet day for me (I think). As most of you know I pick Autumn (a little one I watch each day) from school. Her (real) mommy will be picking her up next week and then they are off to a new home in a different town. Why bittersweet? Well......I love her to death, but it gets hard to pay full attention to my own little ones and I sometimes feel...scratch that...a lot of the times feel that I'm not giving them the attention they deserve, and if you know Autumn then you know why. She won't see much of the Pepper and Ava cuz we're off to Italy in March anyway. They played hard all day so that was good it wore them all out. So they are sleeping already!
Speaking of sleeping already, Pepper has been staying up until 11PM which is a nightmare, ecspecially on days that he has to get up early for school the next day. He's so overtired that he gets completely wired and drives me insane! Luckily for me Nonna (italian for grandma!) has been visiting for the past week, poor woman I know they are driving her insane! She's such a big help, she came and forced me to get the house packed up and organized and we did YAY! Now I feel like I have nothing to do, so I've plunged head first into learning Italian. It's the only thing I can do, everything else is all on Den's shoulders.
Tomorrow we head off to get our passports, it's all so exciting and scary at the same time. I will miss my family terribly, but I know it's such a good opportunity for all of us. I've made really great friends here in VA, ecspecially since Pepper and Autumn started school. I'll miss my good friends Tanya, Fan, and Michelle the most, but we'll be back in a few years (I keep telling myself that!)

That's it in a nutshell for today.....