Fall Family Fun

When we returned from NY, we were lucky enough to have some very warm November weather. That worked out well for my dad and Dave who had millions of leaves to rake, and for Jen who came over to help. It also worked out great for Mairead who found all of these great big piles of leaves all ready for her to jump in!

I love this picture- it's one of my favorites of her... Nothing like being a kid and experiencing pure joy from jumping in a pile of leaves.


Jen showed Mairead how to hide in the piles.


And how to get out.

She loved it- and looked adorable. The hat was made by Mairead's Grandma, and the sweater was made by the grandma of one of my students.

Throwing leaves up in the air is fun, too. Even if Daddy and Grampy just raked them into nice neat piles.

Mairead loves to go down to My Nana's house to visit- but she was sleeping when we tried that day.

She also loves to play in the bird bath. She says, "Oh, here's your birds!"

We brought the boys out to get some fresh air for a few minutes.

As you can see, both wondered what the hell we were doing out there!

The kids are doing great- they are all feeling (and sleeping) SO much better in the past few days. That is great news for Mom and Daddy! Ben is a crazy crawling machine and now pulls up to stand. Lord help us- he is not very good at getting down, so that is a problem. Jack army crawls and occasionally gets up on all fours. Both are saying, "Mama" and I have heard a few "Dada"s here and there, too. They LOVE food and eat often. They also love zooming around in their walkers, trying to steal Mairead's markers, and playing together.

Mairead has a new favorite show- WonderPets. Yesterday, she started singing part of the theme song! It was really cute- she gets the intonation and tune right and everything! But it has already been established (by me) that she is a genius, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. She never ceases to amaze us!

Thanks for checking in!

Real Thanksgiving and Fakesmas

As you know, we make our own rules about celebrating holidays, so this past week we headed to NY to celebrate Real Thanksgiving and Fake Christmas (Fakesmas) with our NY family. The kids did a great job in the car- Jack and Ben slept most of the way there, though our girl was much too excited for that. She didn't close her eyes once! She was incredibly well behaved, though. We did have a bit of a diaper issue, but luckily that coincided with our stop at a rest stop, so it wasn't too disastrous. You haven't lived until you have fed and changed three kids under three at a rest stop on a holiday.

We had a great Thanksgiving dinner (on the actual Thanksgiving Day, this time) thanks to Grandma, with some help from others. Mairead ate turkey and rolls, mostly. The boys enjoyed some of Grandma's Squash Apple soup- so good!

I wasn't great about taking pictures since the boys still weren't feeling great and I was holding one or the other most of the time. But I did get a few.

This one was actually taken when we got home- Mairead was playing with her new Little People garage from Grandma- she loves it! She likes to make the cars go up in the elevator and then speed down the ramp.


While we were there, Mairead got to spend some quality time with Grandma. For example, they played 'Squish" (also known as play-doh) together for a long time. Then, Grandma gave Mairead's bangs a much needed trim.


When it was time for Christmas, Mairead discovered a giant pile of 'surprises,' which is what she calls presents. They were way over in a pile, so she took it upon herself to bring them into the living room where we could open them.

Mairead's cousin, Rachael, entertained us with her amazing reading skills. She read us Amelia Bedilia and even remembered to show us all of the pictures.

When we first pulled up to the house, Rachael came running out to the car. Mairead yelled, "It's a girl! Hi, girl!"

Aunt Ry had a lot of fun with the little ones. Jack was very happy on her lap.

I wish I had more pictures because we really did have a great time. It's hard to have fun with three kids AND get pictures. Maybe we should be on a reality show like Jon and Kate.

We hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We know how much we have to be thankful for, and that includes all of you. We are so excited to start celebrating Christmas with our kids. I LOVE Christmas and I hope that I can get Mairead excited about it. We are going to start Christmas activities soon and celebrate it the whole month long. I hope all of you enjoy the season, too!

Fakesgiving Fun

This past Saturday, we continued a Monaghan Family tradition of celebrating Fakesgiving. We celebrate Thanksgiving on a different day so that my siblings and I can spend the real holiday with our spouses'/boyfriend's/girlfriend's family. We have loved doing this for a few years and we always have a great day.



The kids looked adorable in their little Thanksgiving sweaters. We did, of course, attempt to get pictures with all three paying attention, but it will be a miracle if that ever happens! This is as close as we can get...





Our girl




Poor Jack wasn't feeling well that day- more on that later.



Ben

How cute are they all dressed up?

No one is looking at the camera, but at least they are all in the same picture and Mairead is not running away!

The boys loved having company

They had a race over to their uncle, Steve.

We welcomed two new family members to Fakesgiving this year-- Jen and Mike and Brian and Christin adopted puppies (on National Adoption Day, no less)!

This is Bean (named after Beantown) and she belongs to Jen and Mike.

This is Emmet (named after Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas).

The dogs were very well behaved- especially impressive since there were three little kids and 14 adults here that day!

Christin introduced Jack to the puppies.

You may remember that Jen and Mike gave Mairead a drum and tambourine a while ago. That had to be brought out for some noisy fun.

Then, things got a little out of control...

Always a lady, my daughter...

Maybe this explains it...

Juice, Mom?

We had a great day- an especially fun part was the game we created to guess the name of Katie and Steve's daughter, who should be joining us very soon! You could have three guesses for $5. If someone guesses right, he or she wins the money. If no one does, Katie and Steve take home the pot. There were some very 'creative' guesses, that's for sure! Katie and Steve told us that someone DID actually guess right- so now we just have to wait until she is born for the winner to be revealed. Whatever her name is, we can't wait to meet her!

In other news, the kids have been sick this week. It has NOT been fun, as you might imagine. If you have ever had a sick baby, imagine TWO sick babies (and a sick toddler). It's exhausting. They all had nasty colds and were just miserable. Mairead takes good care of herself- she sleeps late, drinks lots of fluids, and plays quietly. She has really not been any trouble- she even tells me when she needs a tissue- it's very cute.

Jack and Ben, on the other hand, have been miserable. They had 100 degree fevers, runny noses, coughs, and a little vomiting. Ben had terrible gas from all the mucus he was swallowing and was just inconsolable, which is SO not like him. Needless to say, there was very little sleeping going on here in the past few days. We are so lucky that we have my parents to help us out. Even with four adults, it was tough, we would have been in really rough shape if Dave and I were alone.

They seem to have turned a corner- there were a few uninterrupted hours of sleep last night and no one has thrown up in over 24 hours. Hooray for small victories!

We hope that our little ones are 100% better soon- it is going to be a long winter if they are sick often. Let's hope they stay healthy!

On that note- Happy Thanksgiving to all of you-- we know that we have SO much to be thankful for. Our amazing children are happy and healthy (overall), and with our experiences, we know that things could have gone differently and that they could have all kinds of health problems. Each of them is a miracle and we know how lucky and blessed we are to have them.

There is so much more that we are thankful for, but right now I have to go be thankful that Mairead is getting up after sleeping late, so I am off to bring her downstairs. She is yelling, "No bed!" over the monitor...

So... Ben found a marker...

Oh, Benjamin. I call him a little 'disaster' because he is ALWAYS into something. Or, he loses his socks. Or, his feet are stuck in the slats of his crib. He's a nut!

Strollin' Along

We have had a couple of firsts this week- Jack and Ben tried teething cookies for the first time. Jack only liked them if someone held it for him. He's yelling in this picture because my mom made him do it himself. It is pretty much the worst picture of him, ever.


For Ben, teething cookie = best thing ever. He LOVED it. Both boys are bothered by their teeth lately, so they were happy for some relief.

They enjoyed their cookies while tooling around in their walkers. They are getting REALLY good at getting around that way.

Speaking of getting around- check out another first- our first ride in the new in-line triple stroller. We bought it with the money Dave won while playing some game in a bar. See, kids? Going to bars is good for you.

Mairead can either sit or stand on the back while the boys are in their seats. It's a hassle to get all three in and out of it, but there doesn't seem to be any 'quick' way to transport three kids under the age of three!

I do still have the triple jogger and we use that for our walks. We go 2.5-3 miles three or four days a week, weather permitting. I am going to miss those walks when the weather turns! But, the jogger can't fit in the car with all of the kids, nor can it fit into a doorway. So this stroller is for trips to playgroups, the library, stores, etc. I hope it works out because it is huge and expensive, so I hope it is worth it!

The kids are definitely keeping us busy. Ben is crawling all over the place and Jack is army crawling right behind him. Ben is in to EVERYTHING. The other day I had to untangle him from the phone cord, and then take away the plastic chair (of Mairead's) that he was about to swing at his brother. Jack is a little thief and takes anything Ben has. Ben HAS been stealing things back, lately, but Jack is much better at it. He takes whatever Ben has, and then Ben cries. It's kind of funny, actually, because you can see Jack's little mind working and scheming as to how he is going to get Ben's things. They are so stinkin' cute I can't stand it.

Mairead is also awesome. She learns something new every five minutes. The other day she correctly identified a caribou. She says words I have NO idea where she learned- it's amazing. She is incredibly sweet to the boys and plays very nicely with them. She definitely does some two year old stuff that I could live without, but we still consider ourselves lucky considering how independent and stubborn she is.

November is crazy for us. Between now and Thanksgiving, the kids and I have three play dates set up and I have a MoM's night out. I am also meeting up with grad school friends and their kids next week. We're celebrating Fake Thanksgiving with my family, we are having a few friends over for the night before real Thanksgiving, and then heading to NY the next morning to celebrate Thanksgiving there. More immediately, I am going to dinner with Katie tomorrow since that will be harder to do since I am going to be an aunt sometime in the next month! Also, I am getting my hair cut Friday for the first time in 7 months. Yikes.

The kids are over their colds, which is good news. I have to be the crazy lady who is nuts about germs, hand washing, etc. I had to tell a little girl at the playground not to touch the babies the other day. I felt bad about it, but I am not taking any chances on these kids getting sick. So I have to be 'that mom.'

I apologize if this is all very un-interesting mom stuff... Being a mom is my life now and I love it. Staying home with the three kids is the hardest job I have ever had- much harder than teaching, and that is saying something! It's also the best and most important job I have ever had. I don't want to go back to work, ever. I love what I am doing-- hopefully I am doing it right!

Thanks for checking in!

8 Months Old!

Hard to believe, but Jack and Ben are 8 months old today! Time is going by so quickly and they are growing so much! These hats have their names on them, and I bought them before they were born to help me tell the boys apart. The boys were so tiny, however, that they were swimming in the hats. Now, I can barely get them on their heads!

Ben and Jack


Jack and Ben

I don't usually dress them alike, but these little shirts say 'Best Buddies.' I couldn't resist. I thought about how nice it is that they will always have each other and always have a best friend. They are very lucky little guys! I do wish that Mairead had a sister because my sisters are so special to me, but she will have a special girl cousin very soon, so that is comforting to me.

I think they look so much alike in this one. Identical, you might say.

They are even wearing shoes now. Although, Ben is Shoe-dini and wears them very briefly. Then, he chews on them.

Do you know hard it is to get one picture with both babies even looking at me? Let alone smiling!

Ben and Jack

Jack and Ben ignoring me while trying to see the tv that is in the other room.

I took this one of Ben for a reason. When he was 2 1/2 weeks old and had just come home, I took a picture of him next to this same doll. That picture is below...

Can you believe how tiny he was? And this was at 2 weeks old when he had gained a lot of weight. Jack was tinier still! They have come so far, and while I still worry about them constantly, I know they are doing great and they bring us so much joy.

When people see that I have twins they very often say, "Oh, looks like Double Trouble!" and I smile and nod politely. Lately, however, the boys are living up to this comment. Ben is crawling all over the place and actually trying to pull himself up onto things... like the cable box, Mairead's little chairs, the footrest on my dad's chair... he is a daredevil and he is everywhere! Jack is another kind of trouble- he is so deliberate and goes after exactly what he wants. He is not crawling yet, but he can scoot really well and has a very long reach. He steals Ben's toys, grabs the jar of food during feedings, and always has this look on his face like he is formulating some kind of plan. We are in for it!

Their sister is handling them very well- she is very sweet to them. When one baby is in the swing, she goes over and presses the button to make the swing play music. She brings them toys (just not HER toys) and covers them with blankets. It's adorable.

She is learning so much, too. She is really into shapes right now, especially oval, for some reason. She has to tell us what color everything is, or what it is. Dave takes her to Hannafords and she announces the name of every item she can identify. I wish I had a video camera that I could use for the blog because the stuff she says is a riot. I am looking into getting a device to convert our camcorder videos to usable files, so we'll see if I can swing that.

We are so thankful for our amazing children. Thanks to all of you for checking in!

But Mom.... I had to check my email!

Yes, she is on top of the dining room table.
Yes, she opened the laptop by herself.
Yes, she is pressing buttons and making the screen change.
Yes, I took pictures before making her get down.

Yes, Dave and I have our hands full. In a good way, of course!