Seven Quick Takes- Blessings and Tacos

1. Both kids fell asleep early which means I was able to do all the things I am usually unable to do... like shower and read and eat and sleep. Sure there may be a large pile of laundry sitting untouched on the couch but I. SMELL. GOOD! Heck yeah bath salts.

2. I've haven't had to buy bread since Christmas thanks to my new fancy shmancy bread maker that my parents got me. Since I don't eat much bread anyway Kyle has been the main beneficiary of this gift although I get the immense pleasure of smelling the dough bake all day. Yankee Candle should really find a way to bottle that.

3. We are traveling to Houston next week to visit my in-laws. Since we haven't seen them since May it should be fun to show off my beautiful little girls to the adoring masses. If I do say so myself their cuteness has grown exponentially since May.

4. What won't be cute next week will be me when I come face to face with my long-lost love, Authentic Tex-Mex. (insert dreamy sigh here) It is not all together unlikely that I will have salsa stains on everything I wear during my trip. I've come to terms with this and I accept it. I love Tex-Mex.

5. I will also be hitting up the Catholic Bookstore while I am there in search of some tools to teach my toddlers. This store is amazing. Kyle gets a little scared whenever I suggest we go there... but he just has to deal with the fact that I majored in Theology and Catechetics and an obsession with anything written by JPII or St. Theresa of Avila is just part of the package he signed onto at our wedding. Just like he also knew that I liked to perform dance routines to popular hits from the 90s. I'm a complex woman and I love Catechetical material. It could be worse, I could be obsessed with shoes... oh wait....

6. Also, without a doubt on our trip I will hear in explicit detail what kind of plane we are flying on, how Southwest came to acquire it's fleet, something about Boeing, something about Air Bus A380s, something... something... something... I already zoned out. Once again, I knew what I was getting into when I married a pilot and the barrage of information has helped me win at "Battle of the Sexes" more than once.

7. I adore my family. Sometimes after the girls go to bed my eyes are too tired to focus on anything but other nights I just look at pictures of them on my IPhone and am in absolute awe of how my life has turned out. When I was growing up I was afraid of flying and I would take my rosaries on the plane and just pray that we wouldn't crash because I wanted to be a wife and a mother. The last time I flew it struck me that I have done those things, I have received the deepest desires of my heart. Of course, I still pray the plane doesn't crash (although I'm not particularly afraid of flying, you'll get cured of that really quickly when your husband takes you up in a little Cessna and forgets to shut your door.) but I also marvel at how wonderful my life is and how blessed I truly am.

For more fun go to http://www.conversiondiary.com/. God bless!

Vacation all we ever wanted

So this past weekend we got the chance to put all of my travel tips to the test as we jetted off to Steubenville, OH to see out foster mother (alma mater). I'm going to be honest... we are awesome at traveling. Even going standby, using my tips made us completely efficient and relaxed. Go us!

I mean, our travel savvy awesomeness means we schooled business men traveling alone when we went through security. We were scanned, baby food and all, with our shoes on before the guy four people ahead of us had even put his laptop back in his travel bag.



Kyle was in 7th heaven because his little miss mini me Madeleine was Ob.Sessed. with the planes. This was her first trip where she was really excited to be flying. The plane we were on had two seats on each side of the aisle (my nerd husband tells me it was an Embraer 190). Kyle and Madeleine sat together on one side and Juliette and I were across from them. Juliette slept the whole time and Kyle did a photo shoot with Madeleine. Since we were on JetBlue each seat had it's own TV and I was able to watch Criminal Minds and drool over Dr. Spencer Reid in peace.




When we arrived we got settled and heading to campus to pick up Hannah. Madeleine was freaking out. All week long I had been telling her we were taking a plane to go see Lauren and Nick and Hannah so as soon as we landed she started almost chanting, "Laun! Nick! Haaaaaan!". It was 9:00 pm but no matter! Hannah thought it would be an AWESOME idea to give her some of her mocha. This lead to my two year old running around the student center screaming, "MOOOOOOOOOCHA!!!!" at 9:30 at night.

We ran into some old friends and some people we had never met before who all ohhh and ahhhed over our children and then it was time to hit the hey.

Over the weekend we stayed with Lauren and Nick, the sickeningly cute newlyweds. Lauren is the resident homemaker and has turned her house in the Steubie projects into a master piece of Martha Stewart proportions. Madeleine is obsessed with Lauren and Nick but can't seem to tell them apart. We credit this to her obvious deep understanding that when they got married they became one person. She is a theological genius.



The weekend included a very fancy type date with my adoring husband at Casbah in Pittsburgh (thanks to Andrea for the treat and my sisters and brother-in-law for baby sitting), Lord's Day with Love of the Lamb, and watching Hannah dominate at tennis.

Now, for those of you who don't know Hannah and really all you know of her is that she has great hair and you only know that from reading my blog, she is an amazing tennis play. And has an introverted phlegmatic personality. Combine those two things and you get the most entertaining tennis match you will ever see.

I would hate to play against her because not only is she good but when she is beating you she doesn't even look like she is trying. Heck, she doesn't even look like she cares. You are running around and panting and she is checking her nails and YOU GET SERVED (tennis pun intended). I was a very proud big sister.

The last noteworthy part of the trip was our adventure into the Trinintine mass with our two little Behr cubs. It went surprisingly well. It was a beautiful mass and although I prefer Novus Ordo, it was nice to switch it up. The only hitch came not from the Latin but from the incense. It sticks to be a Catholic allergic to incense because not being able to breathe does not lend itself to a prayerful and peaceful spirit.

Since we've been back we've enjoyed some time with Kyle's household brothers in the New England area. Sunday we got off our plane at 8:00 pm and drove straight to the Johnson house where I won exactly half of the Apples to Apples games I took part in (okay, it was only two). Yesterday the boys did something involving beer and today we all went to see an old, old wooden ship. I think it's called Diversity? Then the boys came back to our place and ate and drank more beer.

One more day until Kyle goes back to work. I'm not looking forward to it but I've kind of gotten the kids used to having a home and eating food so I'm thinking we may need the money to keep that all up.

Busy momma hangover

I've never actually been hungover so I'm not entirely sure what it feels like but it's been described to me as the worst headache ever, nausea, exhaustion, confusion, and all you want to do is curl up in bed and eat a few dozen tacos. After the few weeks I've had that is exactly how I feel. I have a busy momma hangover.

It's been a great few weeks, don't get me wrong. More weddings, giving a talk at a retreat, Green Monster tickets, the visit of my best friend, but I'm pretty sure that my socialization tolerance is way down after all the time I've spent as a stay at home mom and now I am just... spent.

It makes me realize that I really need to find a mom's group, some place where I can just sit and "release the Kragons" (a phrase Kyle and I use when we wake up the babies) on a group on unsuspecting tots, and talk with other moms. Maybe then when we do these marathon weeks of crazy I'll be able to enjoy them with more gusto.

However today I have a busy momma hangover. Kyle took the kids off my hands ad I slept until 11:30. I woke up to both babies in the bed with me, jumping all over me, and screaming, "MOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!" I used to dream of having such beautiful babies excitedly calling me "MOMMMMMMMMMM!" I'm so glad Kyle let me sleep it off because now I get to enjoy a much more coherent day with them.

Juliette's pink dinosaur pillow pet arrived in the mail today and after Madeleine failed in getting her sister interested in it she decided to ride it. While I've been writing Juliette is crawling around the house looking for something dangerous to shove in her mouth and Kyle is following her saying, "Pet! No!" Every other minute. So clearly I have not swept in a while. Madeleine has taken this time of daddy being distracted to eat handfuls of his Corn Pops while he is not looking. It's still a crazy life but at least for today I'm able to enjoy it from the comfort of my own house. There really is no place like home.

It was a wonderful and exciting few weeks but I'm excited to get back to day to day life. I'm sure that in a while when I've recouped I'll crave more fun adventures and Kyle will convince me to use our flight privileges to fly to Pittsburgh or Baltimore or something. Today is all about having nothing to do except be with my family and I love it.

Recent photos of the girls

Madeleine's favorite way to wake up every day is by her sister being put in the crib with her. If the first thing she sees when she opens her eyes is her baby than she is one happy girl.




When Kyle and I were first dating we went to the drive ins to see the movie "Cars". The other week we took the minivan and both of our babies to see "Cars 2". It's amazing how much has changed.





For our anniversary we went to lunch in the North End of Boston at this amazing little Italian place.




We then traveled over to one of the famous Boston bakeries for a black and white cookie.




The day ended at Starbucks. Momma needs her coffee.




I'll put up photos from the wedding when they are published. Madeleine was the cutest flower girl ever so get pumped!

For the LOVE of Mommy's sanity... go to bed!

We spent last week on vacation to New Mexico to visit Grandmommy, my husband's mother, who is living out in Santa Fe for the summer. She needed a grand baby fix so she lured us out of our New England hole with promises of a hotel with room service and a prenatal massage for the very sore mommy.

It was a fantastic week, you know with the exception of the NINE HOUR emergency room trip where I was subjected to lots of large needles and forced to watch LeBron James: The Decision until they finally decided that I did not have blood clots. (Praise God!)

But other than that it was a fantastic trip.

The problem with traveling cross country with a one year old is usually two part. Part One: They are difficult to deal with on planes. And Part Two- JET LAG.

Now Madeleine has flown over 21,000 miles in her lifetime so as far as one year olds go, she is a flying champ. However, it took her a month to adjust back after we went to Los Angelas in March so I should have been prepared for what awaited me when we arrived back home.

Monday- Bed time at 11:30
Tuesday- Bed Time at 12:00
Wednesday- Bed Time at 11:30
Thursday BED TIME AT 12:45

I'm not entirely sure how to explain this. I mean, I admit that we let her stay up later than normal in New Mexico because she couldn't fall asleep well in the hotel room, so nine or ten Mountain Time is like 11:00 or 12:00 Eastern time. Also, my husband is probably slipping espresso shots into her sippy cup for lolzies. There is no other possible way a one year old could stay up this late.

It begins around nine when I try to cuddle her and give her a milk cup to prepare her for bed. She usually smiles at me, chucks the milk cup clear across the room, and then climbs off my lap and begins crawling away from me as fast as she can.

I believe in letting a child cry it out, but after 20 minutes or so, when they are still no where near sleep, it just becomes mean. When Madeleine is tired, she will sleep. When she is not tired there is no force on earth outside of narcotics that will get her to go to bed.

My plan of attack for tonight is to give her hardly any nap time and end that nap time early. This has been the only proven method of success for me yet. Wear her out to the point of sheer exhaustion and she will be in bed by nine. And mommy will take a bath and reread Twilight. After one or two days of this she should be back to normal.

But it could prove to be ugly. Today my happy little lady might be transformed into a crying beast. But I have to remember, this is all for her own good. I can't be one of those parents who doesn't do what is best for their child because they are afraid of upsetting them. Those children turn into beasts, not just for an afternoon but for life.

At least tomorrow I should have my sweet princess back to normal. Oh yes, and my sanity.