Our three little monkeys have been upgraded to five this week. My brother and his ladies are here visiting for the week. All five little monkeys are having a grand old time playing in the mud, befriending bugs and frogs, and eating lots of food. Christopher and Angelica are inseperable little buddies.

The plan was to go to the Fiddler's this weekend, but the rain kept the weak and pregnant (Anna's prego, I'm weak!) away, so we went to the Bistro instead. We were warm and dry and had some great conversation. We missed the music, but sometimes warm is better!

On Sunday the Hatke's went off with the Hatke Majors while we Antonio's headed out to the Thistle Byre Farm to visit with the lovely Rider family. What a great time! Their farm is beautiful!! The kids had a really nice time running around outside and playing with the other young children. The grown ups had a wonderful visit and ate lots of yummy food fresh off the land.

Normal mothers would rejoice and enjoy the peace when their yound child took a nap on her own. Not me . . . I freak out and call 911. Gracie entirely covered herself with the pillow shams and fell sound asleep on her bed. In the shams, she was completely out of sight, save one timy lock of hair. Christopher and I called and called through the house for her, checking every nook and cranny. We searched outside, employing the help of some kindly strangers, I called my dad, got the neighbor . . . I was in full flip-out mode by the time Rita found her sleeping peacefully. I feel like a dope, especially since the police man had to come in a check on her, but adventures such as this make you realize just how much you children mean to you, and that is a good thing.

Speaking of peacfully sleeping children, little Zita, stark naked, is snoring at me feet!

I spent the day at odds with my sewing machine. Seems the darn thing has decided that it is angry with me. Probably mad because I have neglected him for so long. I can't blame him, but really, does he have to be so mean?

What a busy wonderful weekend!! Saturday was Father David's ordination, which was fabulous. It was such an amazing ceremony. It was not the first time that I had attended an ordination, but I don't remember the other one being so ceremonial. The reception afterwards was great too. I got all the kids clean and dressed well, and of course we were late. Grace fell asleep in the car, so I scooped her up to go inside, only to discover that she was not wearing underwear. I about died. Thanks be to goodness, for some reason completely unknown to me, there was a clean pair in the car. (See, it pays to have a car that looks like you live in it!!).

Father's Day was a wonderful day at the river. The Weeks family came up to join the fun. The kids had a great time -- the river level was perfect! The girls got a bunch of muscles and cooked them on the fire. Then tried to eat them. In all the many years that our family has been going to the river, never once have we tried to eat the muscles. (Although Ben and Denver did eat crawdads once). I think the girls prefered the s'mores.

This is hilarious!!! What kids doesn't want a live in playmate?

Every once in a while, Christopher goes on a special "date" with my sister, his "Nana". I am so glad that they get this time together. Christopher can be a sensitive little man, and being the oldest of three so close together, he needs one on one times to remind him how special he is! And whenever they have these dates, he remembers how much he loves his Nana andwants to spend the whole day with her! So today, after their breakfast date, Nana came to swimming lessons and then to the park with us. I am certain that we wore poor preggy Nana to exhaustion!

Later in the afternoon, my mom picked up the kiddos so I could get some things finished (my house is clean! It's a miracle!). Later we went swimming at the Reifenrath's. Christopher is getting a little too confident in his "swimming" abilities! He paddled on his little noodle all over the deep end of the pool! And Grace, the princess, just let Jack push her all over in her raft. That's my girl!

The Corpus Christi celebration at St. Boniface was a HUGE success. Mainly due to the fab food, I am sure (kidding!). The procession was the best yet, I think. Beautiful Mary Grace Rudolpf, having celebrated her First Communion that morning, sprinkles rose petals for Our Lord as we took him into the streets of town. All of the kids of the parish waved banners for Jesus and were SO EXCITED to be doing so! It was great. We were doing exactly what we should have been doing in order to celebrate the magnificent gift Christ gave to us. It was a perfect balance of prayer and reflection coupled with feasting, dancing, and just the right amount of alcohol!! It was a wonderful Catholic celebration. I am sure that God was happy and the Church Triumphant was rejoicing with us!

My little kiddos have been going to swimming lessons this week. It is one of the first times we have done any organzed activity, and the very first where I can not be right there with them. They are doing a wonderful job. Especially with Christopher, I can see the "attachment parenting" paying off. He is sweet, confident, and obedient. By the end of the two weeks, he will be swimming, I am sure.

Grace is enjoying her self. She is younger and a bit more shy that her brother. I think that if they were in the same class, she would have no problems. As it is, she is enjoying herself and that is all that matters!

After lessons, we stopped at the shop for a drinks and to say hi to the WONDERFUL and LIFE SAVING Cynthia!! Thank goodness for wonderful friends who need jobs!!

Yesterday, someone told me that wine at Meijer was only two dollars. So of course, being a self proclaimed wine-o, I made a beeline for Meijer. It was probably only the second or so time I have even been in this store. Why would anyone want to drive fifteen miles into no man's land for some pseudo WalMart? The real one is bad enough. Anyway, I went to Meijer. For the last time. They have taken our technologically dependent, material driven culture to a whole new level -- grocery carts with televisions. I am not making this up. Oh how I wish I could be so creative. For only one mighty dollar, you can "hire" a grocery cart to babysit your child as you blissfully glide through a mecca of sweat-shop made crap. I honestly wanted to vomit. It was the most disgusting thing I have ever seen. What is our society becoming when we cannot even break from our TV induced stupor in order to restock our beer supply? We can't even put up with our children long enough to buy their diapers? Oh no, toss them into the cart and sedate them with the TV. I can just see the whole senario. Kids watching TV at home, Mom needs more frozen pizzza so she throws kids in the car, turns on the DVD moniters attached to the back of the driver's seat, cruises to Meijer, "hires" a TV cart for only one dollar (what a steal!) . . . you get the point. The media is infiltrating and taking over every single aspect of our lives. You can no longer get away from it.

It just makes me sick that their is no escape. We try so hard to shelter our children from the evils of the world, but we have to buy groceries! Any thoughts?

In other news, Farmer's Market was this morning. A cheerful reminder that we are not alone in our quest to raise our family with the best of the simple life. Like the happy Thistle-Byre family in their matching green shirts. My wonderful hubby bought me an adorable purse from some girls who make cute "clutch" purses and sell them at FM. And the kids ate enough flavor ice to last another week.

Happy 30th Birthday to my

Big Brother!!

Silence. Not something you hear to often in a house full of monkeys. I wonder how long it will last? All three kids and Andrew are sleeping. We have had a full weekend and everyone is mighty tired. One of the best things about summer is that the kids play out side almost all day long and then they sleep as hard as they play.

Friday night we went to the Klein Brat Haus the see Annie and Kim play. It is always so fun to go up there. I just love the local, laid back atmosphere. Jerry gave us these cute drinks called "Little King". It is a type of beer, but in super cute mini bottles. So neat!! The kids loved dancing to Nana's music and climbing all over Uncle Mart. (I think they should start calling him that.)

Saturday was the farmer's market. It must have been a hundred degrees out. PeterXavier played in the drink cooler the whole time and the nice man from Cleaver Farms (Mr Cleaver? I don't know his name.) kept us cool with flavor ice. And I bought some cute little plants for my sorry attempt at a garden. I planted it when we got home and let's all pray that something actually grows.

Good night!

We had a fanastic weekend with a "faux camping" trip to the cottage. We cooked on the fire, played in the river, and slept in real beds. The weather was perfect and the kids had a grand old time. I took tons of great pictures, but of course I left my camera at the cottage. You could have seen Christopher asleep on Andrew's head on a raft in the middle of the river, but now you can't. YOu also could have seen the kids unplanned summer hair cuts. The ones they gave themselves. I guess we'll have to go back to the river this weekend to retrieve the camera (and Andrew's watch and wedding ring!)

Today we went to he Brown Bag Concert. Always a great time! Wes and Rita showed up, which was wonderful. It's always nice to have friends to visit with while the kids run around playing.

Tomorrow is strawberry picking and possible jam making (or maybe Friday for the jam?). Picking strawberries is always fun, but I think it is the hottest, sweatiest job in the world. But anything is fun when you get to eat the product as you work!

Who'd a thunk this ol' chicken would have ended his days with a beer up his arse? I'm sure glad he did, though, because it was delish!

My parents came over last night and helped Andrew get started on our new "play yard." I am SO excited to get rid of the nasty weeding backyard! A few years ago, we tore up one side and paved it, but the other side has just been dirt and weeds since we moved in. Andrew put down that anti-weed black fabric stuff and a bit of pea gravel this evening and tomorrow I will order a load of gravel, so by tomorrow night, we should have a happy nice place for the kids to play. And I am hoping for a sand box as well!!

I made tortillas for dinner this evening. They were so easy and super yummy. Gotta love the King Arthur Flour cook book! I just noticed on their web site that they have a cooking with kids video. I'll have to check into that. The kids love to cook with me.

That's all for now!

Dear Uncle Ben,

When you come visit, please bring your spiderman suit home this summer so that we can be big and little Spidey.

Love,

Christopher

PeterXavier's birthday party turned out really well. The whole fam gathered at the park area at Prophetstown for a cookout. It was fantastic because I didn't have to clean the house to have everyone over AND the only cleanup involved was dumping everything into a big trash bag! Great party planning on my part!

I have inadvertantly started a tradition of making ugly cakes for the kids birthdays. This years attempt was a pirate ship. It isn't nearly as bad as some of my efforts and the best part was that the kids helped me make it. They got a kick out of coloring the sails and putting them on. When it was time to light candles, we put them in the sides like canons. It's hard to see, but our ship was complete with gold bountey and beer kegs.

Look who's turning ONE!! I can't believe that a whole year has flown by! Today we celebrate the birth of the smiliest happiest little monkey in the world! I can't believe the laughs the this little guy has brought to our family. Happy Birthday PeterXavier!!

We have been running around like chickens with our heads cut of as of late. Sunday we hosted the Zuzolo First Communion party at the shop. It was great! It was the perfect big Italian family celebration (with the wrong food though!). We pushed all the tables together and put my huge table cloth on it so that we had one huge table for everyone to sit around. And the entire Zuzolo family is just so nice. It was really a fun time.

On Monday we found out that Molly, the girl that works at the shop for us, and who has really become our friend, was in an accident on her moped. The moped that she got Thursday. She got out of ICU yesterday, so I went up to see her. She looks pretty bad and could use any prayers you want to toss her way. I have been working at the shop now that she can't -- so if anyone needs a little job . . . .

Also, TAKE NOTE!!! We are having a cookout on Thursday before Blue Jacket. Bring a side dish if you'd like, bring your kids if you have them, everyone is invited so call anyone who isn't cool enough to read my blog! I guess Thursday is only tomorrow. Sorry for the late notice.

Christopher and Grace fell in love with this little baby raccoon that Uncle Johnny found. They really wanted to take her home with us. And really, if they were just a little older, I would have let them keep her. She was really cute, but I was afraid that they would be really sad when we had to let her go -- I mean, you can't keep a raccoon forever! And since she is SO young, I was afraid that we night accidentally kill her. Besides, she already thought Uncle Johnny was her mother. He should keep her.

He found a raccoon den out on his property, so he is going to put her their and hope that that Mama adopts her.

While the little raccoon baby was the highlight of the day, we did some other fun stuff too. We had our first Market of the season and that was great. I got a few cute flowers to plant and some fresh asparagus from the Cooleys.

After Market, house and year work, we took the kids for a picnic at the park. They love to run around and play outside -- unfortunately picnics don't really inspire them to eat. Well, PX ate a great deal of sand, but that isn't very nutritious.

If, after reading this and this, you are looking at me as if to say "you're next", then all I have to say to you is "NO I'm not."

This time, I am sitting back, nausea free, and planning my position as the doting auntie.

Thank you very much.

I found a morrel mushroom growing out of the edge of the neighbors driveway this morning! I don't think Andrew has ever had a morrel before (poor deprived California boy!) so I will fry up this lonely little mushroom for him tonight. I sure wish I had more!

Farmer's Market sarts tomorrow!! That must mean that it is officially summer! We will be out with the cart serving up all kinds of yumminess. I can't wait to see all of our "market friends" that we never see in the winter time. 99% percent of the maket people are just so wonderful (we all know the other one percent. He is evil.).

Last night we all (us, Annie and Martin, Mr. A. and Margaret) went to my parents for dinner. It was really nice. Their patio just got finished so we sat out their and the kids could just play and have fun while we ate. Andrew got out the kids little pool and handed Christopher the hose to fill it up. Bad idea. Christopher, in all his four year old innocence, would kink the hose and sweetly ask someone to come and help him figure out what was wrong with it. Just as you bent down to help him he would unkink it and spray freezing hose water in your face.

That's all for now. I have a mountain of laundry to attend to. My dryer vent was broken and the laundry piles up. Now that it is fixed, I have some major catch up to do. The worst part is that I had been SO on top of it, and now that is all lost.