A Fun Father's Day Project!

Mairead made some very special Father's Day gifts this weekend, and had a great time working on them with her dad! We had a lot of fun with this project, and we have many very high quality paintings to display.






Obviously, there was a very long bath immediately following this project! Mairead loves any time she spends with her dad, but they both particularly had fun doing this. She is such a lucky little girl to have such an amazing dad. He is so in love with her, and it shows. I know how lucky I am to have a husband who is so involved and such a great partner in this whole parenting thing. We love you, Daddy!

Exploring

Lately, Mairead has been exploring every inch of the house. Today, it was underneath the kitchen table.


Also, she is getting her top teeth, so gnawing on the chairs seemed like a good idea.



It's tough to see it, but in this next one, she is just about to stick out her tongue. For most parents, this is not a good thing, but since Mairead had that tongue surgery, we have been waiting to see if she could do it. Turns out, she can! She has been sticking her tonuge out at us the past 2 days, and we are actually pretty excited about it!


And then it's back to eating the furniture.


We'll have teeth marks on all our chairs!

Musically Inclined?

After checking out her friend Will's blog the other day, Mairead and I were inspired to try a new activity. Dave plays the guitar and Maghan plays the piano- will Mairead play the drums?

Family Resemblance

Mairead has always looked like her dad, but as she gets a little older, there seems to be more of her mom's side in her. Maghan's Nana pulled out this old picture of Jen when she was little, and there is a very strong resemblance between her and Mairead. Mairead took a minute to admire the picture before chomping on it. She and Jen also have that same mischievous look sometimes-- so there is a family resemblance in more ways than one!



I don't have a lot of pictures from this past week because I was so busy with the prom and graduation. Thankfully, both are overwith and both went well. It was definitely a stressful week and I didn't get to spend nearly enough time with Mairead. Dave brought her by the high school on Saturday so that I could see her for a minute before heading out on to the (96 degree) field. We graduated 908, and there were 1,153 at the prom, so there was a lot to be done! I'll definitely post more pictures soon- especially since she looks so cute in her bathing suit!

10 Months Old- and a new game!

It may be hard to believe, but on May 29th, Mairead was 10 months old! These 10 months have been amazing and we are loving every second with her. She is so much fun and is really developing her own personality. Turning 10 months old means that turning 1 whole year old is not far away! We will be throwing a 1st birthday- belated housewarming party at our house on Saturday, August 2. We'll send out more information later, but we hope you can join us to celebrate and enjoy food, drink, friends, and our little girl!












Today, Mairead discovered another new game. The wind was blowing the curtains, so she investigated and found that they make for a great game of peek-a-boo!

Hide & Seek and other new tricks

Remember when I said that Mairead is doing something new every day? Well, here are some photos of her latest tricks. For one, she likes to get into things and try to hide. It could be anything. A storage bin, for example, works well.


She is also working on feeding herself. Mostly, she just likes to play with her food, but she's getting there.



Here's more hiding... this is the bottom of her changing table. In looking at these pictures, I think it's pretty funny that every time she does something she is not supposed to do, I stop and take a picture before moving her to safety.






This one isn't really a trick, but when Connor came over this weekend, he sat in her walker and she used it to pull herself up to play with him. They are so cute together!

Like Mother, Like Daughter

Mairead may look more like her dad, but she is already showing some signs that she will be a lot like her mom. She already likes baseball, for one thing. That sweatshirt is from St. Michael's College, and was mine when I was little. My dad graduated from St. Mike's just after I was born.


Then, her Grampy made pancakes in the shape of her initials. He used to do this for Maghan and all of the Monaghan kids when we were little.


Mairead loved the pancakes, and especially loved eating them all by herself.






Now that she has mastered the skill of crawling, she is ready to move on to bigger and better things, like climbing up steps.



And she loves to feed herself those little cereal puffs.

She is definitely going to be an independent person, which is both good and bad. We want her to be a strong and independent person, but we can already tell that the word 'no' is not going to be one of her favorites! Hmmm.... maybe she is actually more like her aunt... She is definitely fascinated by Jen, and she seems to have inherited her mischievous expressions. We could be in for a lot of trouble!