The blue bike

A few random pictures of our last week. We found another park a 5-10 minute drive from our house. It is now known as the airplane park.

Jordan has taken up the passion of wanting to take pictures with my camera(kind of dangerous. I'm worried he'll break it.) This picture of me is one that he took.
I am starting to piece together an awesome lattice quilt for my bed. This is the middle section. I don't get very much sewing time, so it's slow coming. But it's fun to know I've done something.
This bike is one that we found outside a garbage bin. It works great. The next best thing to a good deal is something for free!!!! At least it was Paolo that was garbage digger and not me. :)

Nothing makes me happier than a good deal. I found a second hand store here. They aren't very common around here. I found an old blue bike for Aaron. It has awesome breaks, and the right amount of rust to be just perfect. As I watched him go up, and then come down I had a very scary realization that I desperately need to go buy a helmet and pads for this kid. We'll get that this week. Deal of the week: 12 euros! That'll lift anyone's spirits. :)

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Italian Thanksgiving 2011

We celebrated Thanksgiving on Friday evening with friends from our ward in the ward building. We celebrated on Friday because it's not a holiday here, and it was easier to get everyone together on a Friday evening instead of in the middle of the school and work week.



Paolo cooked the turkey and I made the rolls. A little ironic since he's the baker, and I'm the American.
Young single adults, and 2 american families that ate with us.
The Smith's brought home made pumpkin pie. They made it all from scratch, including cooking and pureeing the pumpkin. Pulled it off well.
At the end our bishop dropped by. I handed my camera to one of our friends to take pictures for me. This is one that I found on my camera.
Aaron and Jordan were reasonably well-behaved considering they were up way past their bed time (my kids are in bed by 8 p.m. or earlier if I'm really lucky) and had more sugar than they get in a week. Aaron did get a bloody nose towards the end. After seeing this picture it's no wonder why.

Well, happy Thanksgiving to all my friends and family. Know that I LOVE YOU!!!! Missed all of you.

Enjoy to the End

We just started an English sunday school class in our ward because there are students here that go to Johns Hopkin University. The teacher made a comment that I really liked and made me want to make it for my motto for a while. Instead of saying that we need to "endure to the end", his wife likes it a lot more to say "enjoy to the end". It seems less heavy.

My husband told me the other day that I need to be more positive about all of our changes that we're going through. I didn't realize that I was coming off so negative. So I've been trying to look inside a little and see why I was told that. I realized I haven't been my happy, positive self lately. So I'm going to try to "enjoy" through the struggles of life.

On a good note, physically feeling a lot better. Within a few hours of Aaron getting sick and vomiting, I started with it too. All better and it was contained to just the two of us. No longer cracked and bleeding. I'm very grateful for that. I've even needed to eat less chocolate this week.

rough day with tender mercies

I've been fighting a mastitis on one side for a while. I got half a persciption of amoxicillin from the pharmacist that ran out yesterday. Today I have body aches, headache, loss of appetite, etc... On the other side I've been cracked and bleeding everytime I feed on that side. Isabel has been having black stools from it. I think I'm getting mastitis on the other side now and can't remember the last time I felt this bad.

So I don't have my VISA yet which means that I get to go to the ER for any medical care I need, and since it's not urgent I'll probably have an 8 hour wait.

So we decided to go to Paolo's doctor to see if she'd give me a perscription. Time was running out for the office to close (because it's only open 9:00-11:30 a.m.) Trying to get out of the house the kids through tantrums, undressed and ran away multiple times, etc. I was going to walk 5 minutes to the office with the kids and Paolo was going to meet me there. As we are walking up the drive way Aaron announces that his tummy hurts and he needs to poop. within seconds he was vomiting multiple times. See photo above. :)

Blessing: Paolo went to his doctor, explained my situation, and she was nice enough to give him a perscription for me even though I wasn't physically there to show my cracked and bleeding and hard breasts. Thank you for someone nice and understanding! I think it was zithromax that she gave me, but I'm not sure.

Aaron is still vomiting and I'm just praying that it doesn't get passed to Isabel (since he loves to kiss and lick her, and I can't always stop it).





Sometimes something happens on a really bad that reminds you that you're not alone in the world- that there is a God and that He loves you very much. Today my little reminder was a package from my friend Kati. An unexpected package with material and patterns. You have no idea how this made my very bad day! I don't think that it's a coincidence that it happened on a very hard day.

I'm excited to use these fun colors!

I don't know how Kati knew that I was dreaming about having this card with all of the Kona solid colors on it. So that when I have a need to splurge and purchase on-line I can see if the color is really what I want.

Thanks for a pick-me-up on a bad day!

3 months old

I can't belive that our little Isabel is 3 months old! She smiles, coos, and squaks like a chicken to get your attention. It's so sweet to see her light up when she sees her brothers. They shower her with kisses. Aaron's also taken to licking people lately so she gets her faced washed sometimes too.

She gets her hands in her mouth sometimes. So close to having a baby that self-soothes, yeah!

fall leaves

Yesterday was a suprisingly nice day here in Bologna. Our neighbors had some leaves that were very red and orange. So we raked a few leaves so that I could take pictures of my kids and let them jump in a pile of leaves. Unfortunately just barely starting this fun project Jordan wet his pants (something he hasn't done for a long time).

So that's why Jordan is crying here.

Aaron is wanting to hold Isabel all the time. In the leaves was no exception.

Proud parenting moments

Aaron drew a picture of the family the other day. It's one of those pay-back moments that I love after all the hard work and sleepless nights. From left to right there's. Isabel, Mom, Papà, Jordan and Aaron. I like that all the proportions of family members is right.

Halloween in Italy

Halloween is just starting to get foot here. Apparently it's just the teenagers that go trick-or-treating around here. So we asked our 2 neighbors and family members that live next to us if we could come knock on their door. Apparently I did't explain trick-or-treating well to neighbors. At the first neighbor's house they gave the boys 2 handfuls of candy each, and the one after that a whole bag of candy each. I was a bit embarassed that I had asked my neighbors to buy a bag of candy for each of my kids. Anyway, they got more candy than they would of at home.

The next day after Halloween we had a halloween party in church that I was in charge of. I only expected 7-10 kids. We ended up having a good turn out! The boys were THRILLED to go dressed up as baseball players!

This is a picture of the kids that came. There were a lot of adults too that aren't in the picture.