Danny's Confirmation

Tonight, we went over to our cousins' house to celebrate Danny's confirmation.  It was nice to see everyone!  Before those pictures, though, I just have a couple from when Lily last came to visit.  How nice it is for all of the kids to be so close... Nana can play with all four of them on the swingset!

 It is really fun to watch the kids together.  Lily has SUCH a personality.  She is still calling me 'May-ya' and the boys are 'Jackandben," always one word.  She calls Mairead 'Raid' and the two girls are so sweet together.  Ben is still a little jealous.  When Lily arrived today, she was looking for me and then ran over.  Before she could get to me, Ben sat himself on my lap while glowering at her.  He's definitely my baby!

Mairead wore a new coat today and she loved it.  She gets more excited, now, about getting dressed up.  She asks to look in Nana's mirror (it is full length) and when I ask, "How do you look?" she says "Beautiful."  That's right, little girl... I hope you always think so!  The coat is from Jimmy and Jessica and it's so pretty.  I'm happy that it is just a bit big so that she can wear it longer!

Ben and Lily created a great game at Danny and Katie's-- ringing the doorbell and banging the door knocker.  Pretty exciting stuff!

Jack conned Mike into sitting and reading him several stories.  These kids get treated pretty well by their uncles and aunts!

For dinner, the boys had... cupcakes.  Eh, what are you gonna do?  They pretty much ate only the frosting, and they used forks to do that.  Whatever floats your boats, kids.

Mairead had a great time socializing.  The dress she is wearing was mine when I was younger.  I don't know if it's the dress or not, but she looked so much like me tonight!

The next few pictures were taken during The Hokey Pokey.  Mairead loves it and was very comfortable performing for everyone, which was really nice for us to see. Lily was a little confused by what was going on, but when the time came for clapping, she was thrilled.  She is really big on the clapping.

 Judy even got in on the fun!  I love moments like these because they remind me of the fun we had when I was little.  We treasure the great times we have with our family.   I hope my kids grow up with memories of fun, laughter, and all the good times we have together!

Playdate and Pumpkin Painting

One rainy day, we met up with Katie and Lily at an indoor playground to get some energy out.  The kids had a great time exploring and my boys spent most of their time in the bouncy house.  They love it in there!

I don't know who that other child is-- he just kept saying, "Cheese!" and getting in the pictures.

Lily is a nut.  She is one of the funniest kids I have ever met... and boy, does she know it!

As a pre-Halloween project, I thought it would be fun to paint pumpkins like we did last year.  Mairead thought this was a fantastic idea and the boys thought it would be much better to just paint pictures of... you guessed it, Thomas.  Either way, they all had fun.  Mairead was psyched because she got to paint all three pumpkins instead of just one!

The kids are all doing and saying so many cute things lately.  Just a few...

When I took the boys out in the stroller- Jack told me, "We going for a walk in the countryside."

Along the walk, there was a police detail at some construction and the policeman came and said hello to the boys.  When we got home, Jack said, "who is my cousin?  Rachael!"  I said, "Right!  Who else is your cousin?"  "Policeman." 

The day after Trick or Treating (which had been post poned due to the snow and massive power outages), I picked the boys up from school and in the car, Jack said, "We can go for a walk, Mommy?" I told him we might go for a walk later and he said, "A walk when it's dark out." Ben chimed in with, "And trick or eating!" So sad to break the news that 'trick or eating' happens only once a year!  I loved that Ben knew exactly what Jack was talking about!

Mairead is still in love with her Halloween costume.  She calls it her favorite pet and sleeps with it at night.

Mairead learned at school that there "is a skeleton inside my body and it's made of bones."  She has been marveling over this fact for two days.

The way Ben says 'restaurant' is just about the cutest thing ever.  It sounds like 'yestanot.'  Adorable.

Mairead had a bruise on her face last week and my mother explained to her that it was called a 'bruise.'  Later that day, she told me, "I have a booze on my face."

We go to a weekly playgroup and every time we go, Ben finds a certain Thomas toy, and Jack finds the same toy but it is Percy. Last week, Ben found Thomas right away, but Jack didn't find Percy and so moved on to a different toy.


Ben was going through all the bins of toys and then ran to me all distressed- "Jackie can't find Percy! Where's Jackie's Percy?" I found it, gave it to Ben, and he ran to Jack SO proudly to give it to him. Jack said, "Oh Ben, you found my Percy! Thanks, Ben!" Very sweet.

I know there are so many more things that I want to write down so I am sure to remember these moments, but I just can't remember them all!

Grandma's Visit

Recently, Grandma, Aunt Ryane, and Rachael made the trip from NY to visit with us and the kids had a great time!  They love seeing our NY family and they especially love Rachael.  It's so cute to see how they just adore her.  They showed her all of their toys and had a lot of fun showing off for Grandma, too.

They even showed everyone all the things they can do on Daddy's ipad.  They are pretty good at navigating through the games and stories they like.  Mairead is getting to be a pro at using the ipad and the PC... she can navigate through the sites she likes, play games, and use the mouse really well!

 Mairead loved showing Grandma her Halloween costume.  She still takes it to bed at night and even put it on this afternoon just for fun.

 Hard to tell who is who in this one, but Jack IS older, so he is the big brother!

  After playing for a bit and a trip to Target for the bigger kids, Grandma took us all out to dinner and all four kids did really well.  Rachael is so great with Mairead and I know that Mairead loves having some 'girl time' with her older cousin.  We are looking forward to seeing everyone again at Thanksgiving!  Thanks for a great visit!

I Can't Keep Up!

As usual, there is just so much going on around here that it is hard to keep up with the blog.  One exciting project was when the guys (My dad, Brian, Dave, and Jimmy... and Jimmy's 'assistant,' Junior) spent a weekend re-doing the walk down to Nana's house.  It turned out to be a much more time consuming project than anticipated, but they did a great job with it!  They enlisted my cousin, Danny's, help for clean up and managed to get it all done in two days.  "Mary in the Woods" is very pleased with how things came out and the walkway is much more smooth now.

Unfortunately, Mairead had a pretty nasty cold and sinus infection two weeks ago and she was pretty much sidelined for a week.  Dave and I took the boys to 'Touch a Truck' on Saturday and they spent pretty much the entire time clinging to us.  They are in a weird 'shy phase' right now, so they didn't even want to touch or sit in the trucks.  We did eventually convince Jack to try out the fire truck.  He looks a lot like my brother in this picture.  He kept telling us, "You hafa shut the door.  I driving a fire truck now."

Today, Jimmy came by to show us his new car.  It has a removable top (t-top, maybe?) and can either have a real roof or be a convertible.  The kids loved climbing all over it. Jack made himself comfortable in the driver's seat.

Mairead is a nut.  She was rubbing her cheek on the car and saying, "Oooh, it's so smooth!"

The car is parked here, but doesn't it look like he has the wind flowing through his hair while cruising along?

These are cell-phone pictures from last week when the kids 'helped' Dave to clean up the dirt piles left from the Mary's Walk Project.  Nana is also 'helping.'

Random cute stories--As many of you know, I work from home, so I spend a lot of time at the computer. Jack has been trying to capitalize on this fact. When he wants to do something I am probably not going to allow, he points to the kitchen (where I usually work) and says, "No, Mommy. Hafa go do your work!"

I was working downstairs and Mairead was up sitting on her bed with her stuffed animals. She was reading aloud, "The Biggest Pumpkin Ever" and telling the whole story from memory.

Then, Jack cried, "Mommy! Help! I not beautiful anymore!" He had somehow gotten a thread from his shirt wrapped all around himself and he didn't like how it looked, so I had to make him 'beautiful' again.

Ben then said, "Jackie is beautiful now? Oh, thanks, Mommy!"

We had a great visit from Grandma, Aunt Ry, and Rachael today... I will save those pictures for a separate post about our day together!

NVMoM Halloween Party

We have several Halloween activities planned this year and the first was the annual Halloween Party thrown by the Mothers of Multiples group to which I belong.  Though the boys were incredibly and suprisingly resistant to wearing costumes, we were finally able to get them dressed.  Is this the cutest/saddest looking little fireman you have ever seen?

Mairead, on the other hand, was beyond excited.  She has been talking about going to this party all week and kept asking, "It's Saturday yet?"  She was an adorable dalmatian, even though the head part of her costume kept falling down... we'll have to fix that before the real thing next week.  She had a fantastic time at the party making crafts, dancing with the big kids, and looking at all the little baby twins.  We were all impressed by my friend, Renee, who had her triplet boys dressed as the three little pigs, and even decorated their wagons- one with straw, one with sticks, and one with bricks!  Their big brother was the Big Bad Wolf.  Ben pointed to one of the babies and said, "It's a pig."  He noticed the others and said, "It's a more pig!"  Even twins are impressed by triplets!

Dave's dad was a firefighter, as was my grandfather, so we think it's especially sweet and appropriate to see the boys in their fireman 'gear.'

Yeah, safe to say that we will not be using these shots as Christmas Card photos. 

Thanks to Kelly O. and the rest of the ladies who helped set up a great party!  We were all there very early this morning to get things ready for nearly 100 people, including some 60 kids!  Everything looked great and the kids had so much fun.  Happy Halloween!