Sorry for the messed up paragraphs of the last post. I am still trying to figure out how this works.

The Day of Entertaning Shopping

Tuesday's are a great day. Izzi goes to a 2 hour play group Tuesday mornings giving Max and I time to do a little shopping. Well this past Tuesday we needed to do some grocery shopping. There is this store out here called Aldi. People have told me that it is a great, very inexpensive place to shop. So we thought we would give it a try. We walk into the store and try to get a shopping cart out. For the life of me they would not budge. They were all chained together, I tried twisting the chain, pulling, breaking. Nothing was working. So I asked someone how they worked. I had to put a freaking quarter in the shopping cart for it to release itself from all the others. What kind of ghetto place was I shopping in. Making you pay for your own shopping cart. I do have to say, once you returned the cart, it gave you back your quarter.

Second funny thing about Aldi is that they do not have bags. It's not even like Costco where they will give you a box. The cashier person, literally just throws, not gently mind you, all your tiny little items back into your cart. So by the time you get home all of your tiny little items are now all over your car. It was pretty awesome. They did have some great prices though.

The second place we had to stop was Dollar Tree. I am in need of about 8 pairs of little girl butterfly wings. We pull up and there are about 6 old people sitting right in front of the doors in their wheelchairs. These are not your nice old people either. These are the ones that are mad at their kids because they stuck them in an old folks home that takes them to the Dollar Tree to do their shopping. So needless to say, they wouldn't move from the doors. No need to say excuse me either, because they cant hear. So there they stayed, making people dodge

in and out out them to get inside. They were still there when I left, so I decided I better get a picture of them. The sad part is right when I pulled out my camera their bus pulled up to take them all back to Aurora Manor. Of course then they all moved out of the way.

Invisible Poisonous Gas

Ok, so I forgot the worst of all of it yesterday. This is more scary than funny I guess. Usually our mail comes at like 9 in the morning. I love it. Yesterday I had checked the mail early and it hadn't come yet, no big deal. Later on that day my neighbor was telling me what an awful, horrible, no good, very bad day she had had. A couple of hours after that, I saw the post man come down the street and deliver our mail. I go outside in the bitter cold to get it and as I am walking in our house I can smell gas. I thought to myself I better go see if our neighbor is ok, after a day like she had it made me a little nervous she might be doing something (if you catch my drift). I walk into our house to put our mail on the counter and I thought oh great the gas is seeping through our walls it smelled so strong. Then I notice one of my burners is on high with no flame. I start freaking out. Opening up all the windows, turning on all the ceiling fans to high. Izzi confessed to doing it. I think it had been on for about 15 minutes at least. We had a discussion about invisible poisonous gas. So I am very grateful for a very late mail man yesterday, or I don't know if I ever would have smelled it without leaving the house and going outside for just that short amount of time.

I caught Max in his favorite place to sit again today. That kid is quick. He also has a new smile he debuted last night. This is a picture of that.

Funny Days

So today was one of those days. Not a bad day, more of a funny one. It all started this morning when Max dumped a bottle of baby shampoo out onto our bathroom floor. Then as I was doing something at our table downstairs, I turn around to see Izzi sliding down the banister in her Cinderella dress. I asked her what she was doing and she told me "don't worry about it Pops (Grandpa) told me how to do it." So after that she got an electric Thomas the train engine stuck in her hair. I mean stuck we thought we were going to have to cut it out. While we were trying to get her hair out of the train wheels I can hear Max in our bathroom, I go in to se what he is doing and he was just sitting in the sink thinking that it was the greatest place to sit ever. Needless to say I put them both in bed. More for their safety than anything, defiantly not for my sanity.

It was not cold outside this day, but this is what the monkey wanted to wear. Even Max thinks it's funny.

Dave and Izzi went into the city one day by themselves. Dave taught Izzi how to hail a cab, ride the L and the subway. They went to Gino's for pizza, and to H&M for a sweater. They had a pretty fun day.

Annie and Izzi in Libertyville.

We are so glad the Slabaugh's are out here with us. It has made the transition rather nice. The kids have so much fun together as do Jenny and I.

I am sure all of you with kids can relate to this. I was on the phone for literally 10 minutes, watching him the whole time destroy our kitchen.

Pops and Izzi at a cemetery by our house.

Labor Day parade. I love the picture of Max it looks like he was at the parade when JFK was assassinated. Maybe I shouldn't love it for that reason. Well regardless it still makes me laugh a little.

Over Labor Day weekend Naperville puts on the Last Fling. It is a huge carnival with games and races, concerts and contests. It is a ton of fun. Actual carney's run the whole thing. I don't think I thought that they really existed, but they do. They are um... just a little different. This is were I had my first funnel cake. If you have never had one I highly recommend it. They are very delicious. They had cute little rides for kids and games you couldn't lose at. Who wouldn't have fun?

Izzi on the train into the city

After the Jazz festival we went to get some of Chicago's famous deep dish pizza at Gino's East. This is Izzi signing her name on the wall. Deep dish pizza is not my favorite. It is very ooey, gooey, and the crust is not all that great. The sickest part about it, if you order a sausage pizza it is a disk of sausage. I mean it is coast to coast sausage on your pizza. No bite is sausageless. Dave on the other hand loves the disk of sausage. I prefer thin crust, though deep dish is growing on me.

One of the great things about living so close to a big city is you get to experience all the great things it has to offer. We were lucky enough to be able to go to Chicago's world famous Jazz Festival. It was so neat to just sit on the lawn of Millennium park and listen to the music of famous Jazz artists from around the country.
Jazz fesitval
Walking through Chicago to get to the Jazz festival.

Max's first train ride.
This water slide is so much fun. Izzi couldn't get enough of it. It is so nice to have a place to be able to do things like this.Ann is truly one the of best bread makers I know, so she was helping the pirate make her own little loaf of bread.

From the Beginning

Well I guess we will start this adventure from the beginning. There were are a lot of tears leaving my family and a lot of fears flying with my 2 kids by myself. In the end it all ended up being ok.
The pictures start from the time we landed. Izzi was walking down the long hallway in the airport dancing to jazz music and skipping. She was soooo excited to see Dave. If you don't know what the picture is of the dog wearing the hat, then you need to come visit us. It is Portillo's, home of the best and I do mean best Chicago dog ever. It was our first stop in Naperville. We went straight from the airport. That is how good it is.

Chicago

One day I will get all my pictures organized and onto the blog, but until then here are some pictures of the kids and Dave.

Hello from the Windy City!

This is going to be a quick little update. We love it here so far. It has been wonderful. Izzi has a big primary class, she gets to do a playgroup every week with 5 other little girls in our ward, she has a friend across the street and Dave is here. Max is Max and just loves having more room to destroy things in. I will do a post with pictures later. I just need to figure out how to get them off my phone.

We need a really big magnifying glass

While I was typing out my last post, this is the conversation I had with Izzi...
Izzi: Where does Jesus live?
Me: In heaven.
Izzi: He lives up there (as she points to the celling)
Me: Yes
Izzi: Well I can't see him
Me: I know we, only get to talk to him and feel him around us.
Izzi: Well, maybe we can get a really big magnifying glass and we can see what is going on up there.

President Monson was conducting our Sacrament meeting

So my cute little blue eyed monkey is now in primary. She loves it, and we love hearing about what she has learned. Yesterday was a pretty good lesson. Izzi was so excited to tell us that she had learned about President Monster. Both Dave and I looked at each other and said "who?" "President Monster" she said, as she proceeded to show us his picture. We tried to tell her that his name is President Monson, but it didn't seem to work. When we got into Sacrament meeting about 5 minutes later and one of the councilors was conducting, Izzi leaned over to Dave and said "look there he is, there is President Monster." Dave tried to tell her that it wasn't and explained who it was, but she pulled out her picture of him and said "yes it is dad, look".