Thought I better check in again, but I should be going to bed, so I'm not going to have a chance to run to everyone's blogs tonight :( I'm reading your comments, though, and appreciate all of them.

David's room turned out nicely so far. I got it blue, with a pale blue ceiling and a bright white closet. I didn't get to give the trim the fresh white coat it needs and I didn't get to the water for Lake Michigan, but those can be done in shorter spans without moving him totally out. David loves it....especially since I happened to find Cars sheets while he was gone, too :-)

Since then, I've started potty-training and am hosting a baby shower this Saturday, so life has stayed busy. The potty-training got off to a good start, but I don't feel great about it yet and the shower has taken over, so we're having to take a break. I wanted so badly to just focus on that, but we don't seem to have a time to be that single-minded. Oh, well. I just keep telling myself he won't get married in diapers! If I stayed laid back about it, I'm hoping it will continue to go well.

I'm excited about this shower, but it took my home to a whole new level of decluttered. I like that a lot! Amazing how things like this are so motivating to make us want to change things we had gotten so used to.....

Well, Tim is stalking me requesting I go to sleep, so I better obey :-) Love, Amanda

Well, this is going to be a very unique week. David went home with my mom on Saturday, so Tim and I are enjoying an easy road for now. Funny how one kid used to seem so hard.....we keep saying we wish we could skip ahead and figure out how to feel like two kids is easy...or raising a toddler is easy :-)

Anyway, while David's gone I'm going to paint his room. It's pink, poor boy. That's the color it was when we moved in and this is the first chance I've had to do anything about it. I'm really excited! It's going to be a Chicago room. This week I'm painting all the walls a very pale sky blue and using a metallic blue to paint Lake Michigan on one wall. Later, I'm hoping to get someone artistic to paint the skyline somewhere....and maybe a Wrigley Field sign, an El train....and something to do with music, since that seems to be David's true passion. We'll take it a step at a time. I'm really excited, though. :-)

I miss David like crazy, but he's having a blast at Grandmama's. He talked to me on the phone tonight for a couple of minutes, then said "I'm done." :-) On the other hand, I got some very special time with Nora this evening. She belly laughed more than she ever has at a sitting playing "This little piggy."

Thank you for all the explanations of the groups. I'm looking forward to exploring them as I can. It's so nice to have such easy contact with Christians.

Well, we went to a minor league baseball game on Friday night. It was quite an experience. A ton of fun, very exciting, and very memorable. It was David's very first big baseball game (he sees little league fairly often as Tim umpires). There was a lot going on...minor league games seem to be more entertaining than major league....special activities between every inning and a sound effect guy with a really fun job :-) David was pretty much in shock for awhile and then settled into the swing of things.

They had zooperstars performing. Zooperstars are very large characters....actually actors in very large balloon costumes of animals dressed like superstars. The costume legs go to the actor's knees, but the rest of the costume body is as big as the rest of the actor's body knees to head. Then the costume head is HUGE, kind-of wobbling around above the head of the actor (whom you can't see at all, of course). Anyway, they make a very funny sight with their short little legs and huge heads. They dance and run around causing trouble. We saw Elephant Prestley (sorry if I misspelled that), Lebronco James, Harry Canary, Dennis Frogman, and Clammy Sosa. Clammy Sosa will forever be remembered in our family. He is a very large clam with tiny legs. The actor was able to put his hand through the Clammy's tongue, so that he could play catch with a ballboy. David loves this, until Clammy got upset and ATE the ballboy! What actually happened was the ballboy jumped into the costume head first, legs kicking in the air until he disappeared. Tim and I were dying laughing, but David was terrified. He was totally red, tears running down his face, sobbing, shaking....it was horrible....and yet even funnier! We finally calmed David down and said, "Look, Clammy will spit the ballboy out." David was watching for this anxiously.....until Clammy spit out the ballboy's hat! Then his shoes, his jersey, his glove.....oh, boy! David just lost it. It was awful....and yet Tim and I still couldn't stop laughing. The ballboy finally did jump out, but David wasn't quite as humored by the zooperstars after that. Sigh.

The fireworks after the show thrilled David, as did getting to run the bases after the game. He continues to ask several times a day to "go bay-ball game now." I guess he's not scarred for life. :-)

I've been invited to four groups that I don't know much about....
Keeping up with IL
Mothering
Parenting
Married women

Can someone tell me about these? I figured out the FC97 group, which is fun. I'm assuming that one is all on the blog. The IL group doesn't seem to post on the blog, so how does it work? And the others?

OK. I've spent some time running around other people's blogs. I thought I might tell everyone what's going on with us before I log off.

Tim and I live in the Chicago area....not too far from Midway airport. We LOVE having company....whether you're here to see us or just need a place to sleep and save money on a hotel :-)

Tim works downtown and really enjoys his job. The commute is long, but he doesn't seem to mind. He sleeps on the train and enjoys his IPOD.

I'm home with David and Nora. David is almost 2 1/2 and Nora is 9 months. David is really taking off vocally, especially in song. He is very much like his Uncle Ben, who loves music and coffee. No, he's never tasted coffee, but he's obsessed with it nonetheless! We enrolled him in a little music class this summer....for me to meet area women as much as for him to enjoy :-)

Nora is just now crawling/army crawling and started feeding herself peas and carrots a couple days ago. She's jabbering (sp?) all the time....which is especially hard in worship! She's a mommy's girl, but learning to be more independent now. She is much more active than David ever was, which makes me think she'll be an athlete....but that's to be discovered :-) She and David are already "wrestling" together....and it's not at all one-sided!!!!

We work with the church in Bridgeview and feel very blessed there. My sister Abby lives up here and worships with us, which is WONDERFUL. We surprised ourselves in finding out we are "city people," but we are. We LOVE Chicago and intend to stay here unless and until the Lord directs us elsewhere.

For anyone who has visited us in the past, we did move about a year ago. The beautiful old house we had just wasn't big enough for 5-6 kids, which is our plan (but NOT our commitment yet;-). We found a house that is great for a big family and entertaining and not too far from where we were living. It doesn't have the character the old house did....and it isn't our very first home....but I love it for its space and practicality. Since we moved during my last trimester, we had to settle in pretty quickly. The study was the only neglected thing and we're digging into that now.

I think that's it. I'm really excited about catching up with everyone else. There are so many people I think about and wonder how they're doing. If you're out there and you know me, don't hesitate to speak up. I'll be glad to hear from you! In Him, Amanda