New York, Part II

As promised, here are more pictures from our trip to New York. I still have one more set, but this group covers our day with family and friends at Grandma and Grandpa's house. They were generous enough to host a BBQ for us so that all of the cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents could get together. It was the first time that the twins met most of their New York family, so that was pretty exciting!

We had a gorgeous day and it was so great to see everyone. Thanks to all of you who took time out of your busy summer schedules to spend the afternoon with us!

Mairead loved playing in the 'puddle' with her cousins.


This is Noah- believe it or not, he is not even a year old! He is super cute!



Cousin Rock spent some quality time entertaining the twins.


Mairead found Grandma's Friendship Garden that has millions of rocks to play with.

Mairead and Noah taking a leisurely float.

Nathan and Noah discovered each other's toes!

Aunt Sue was a big hit with the babies. They were laughing their heads off at her.

Mairead showed Grandma her coloring skills.

Then she practiced a little more on her own. She LOVES coloring. She asks all the time, "color? color?"

The boys were incredibly well behaved and very social for the day.

Mom spent some time blowing bubbles with Mairead and Emily.

Again- thanks to everyone who spent the afternoon with us- it was so great to see the next generation of cousins playing together.

4 Month Appointment

Last week, the boys had their 4month checkup at the pediatrician, and they looked great! According to the scale in the office, Ben edges out Jack at 14lbs even. Jack was 13 lbs 15oz, so he is only one ounce behind! Not bad for a baby who was an entire lb behind his big baby brother at one point! They are in the 25-27 percentiles for height and weight now... they still have a way to 'grow,' but at 2 months they were in the 12-15th percentiles, so they are doing great! The doctor was very happy with their development, too. She said she would never even think of looking at them on the preemie developmental/growth charts- they look and act like 'normal' 4 month old boys. Great news!

Just a few recent pictures-- Jack is modeling the cute little pirate outfit that Ms. Pat gave to him.


And here's Ben in his matching outfit. Cute, huh?


And here's more fun with cereal and fruit. Ben has much improved the whole act of keeping food actually in his mouth, so that's good.


Jack LOVES eating. He laughs and shrieks at us the entire time we are feeding him.

I guess all of this eating is paying off- we're so proud our our little preemies! They are a long way from 4lbs 9oz and 5lbs 3oz!

Trip to NY- Part I

We had a great time on our trip to see our family in NY, and I have so many pictures that I need to spread them over a few posts! Our drive out there was relatively uneventful and the kids were awesome. We were so relieved that no one had a meltdown on the Mass Pike. Jack got hungry about 10 minutes before we made it to the house, and he made that fact very clear to all of us, but other than that, it wasn't too bad!

Let me preface this story by saying that there are only two shows that Mairead watches- Miss Spider and Blue's Clues. But, man, does she love those shows! Anyway- on our first night at Grandma and Grandpa's, Mairead kept walking around saying, "A clue! A clue!". We couldn't figure out what she wanted since Blue's Clues was not on tv, and she wasn't asking to watch her show, etc. She just kept repeating it. Finally, we saw that she was looking at Rachael's vet set- on it is a blue paw print, and most of you moms know that a blue paw print signifies a clue on Blues Clues. We thought it was so funny- she was trying to tell us that she saw a clue and we had no idea what she was talking about.


Mairead LOVED Grandma and Grandpa's house- mostly the fields and all of the fun things to explore outside. She had a great time running all over the place, enjoying her freedom. You'll see that several of these pictures are just the back of her head because she was constanly on the go!

Ry, Dave, and Rachael came over to play and we all had a great time with the bubbles and bubble toys.

Is this what pure happiness looks like?

This expression came right after she dumped the bottle of bubbles on her pants.

Grandma and Grandpa's house has a little puddle to play in and Mairead wanted to jump right in. This child has NO fear. Pros and cons to that... Anyway, she loved the puddle and the ceramic frog that sits nearby.

She was so happy to be able to run without someone trying to hold her hand and make her stay in one place. She did fall a few times but she is such a good sport. She falls down and says, "whoa, whoa." Then, before she stands up, she asks herself, "You ok? You alright?" And then answers herself with, "Yeah." I love it- it is my favorite thing that she is doing right now. The other day, someone on Miss Spider fell down and she said the same thing. "You ok? You alright? Yeah." Love it!

Grandma has lots of flowers at her house. Mairead likes to sniff them all- whenever she sees flowers she just sniffs and then says, "ahhhh." So funny.

Daddy was a trooper during our trip as he spent most of his time chasing after Mairead, trying to keep her out of the puddle, and later taking her in the puddle even though he was freezing. As I said, we do have a ton of pictures, so I'll post more in the next couple of days!