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!

5 Years, 3 Kids, 2 moves, and 1 Happy Family Later...

This weekend, Dave and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary.  It's funny- sometimes it seems like just yesterday that we shared that amazing day with our family and friends, and sometimes it is impossible to think of life before we were married and started our family.  We have faced a lot of unexpected challenges in these five years- more than we could have imagined on our wedding day.  But we have had so much to celebrate, too, and we are blessed and lucky to have such wonderful people in our life.  Because we have endured so much in just a few years, we know that we can always overcome the 'for worse' part of our vows.  Hopefully, we will only see the 'for better' part for a while!

We thought it would be fun to take some pictures in the same spot where we took some of our favorite wedding photos.  A huge thanks to Jen for taking the pictures and to Mike for entertaining the kids.  We also want to thank our neighbors, the Costellos, for letting us use their yard so that we could get some great pictures with 'the purple house' in the background.

These pictures can look very small on your screen, so if you would like to see a larger image, just double click on the picture.

I really love this next picture... I would love it more if I got to wear my dress again, but I'll take it...

Ben

Jack

Thanks, Jen, for some great pictures!

Things to do in Lowell When it's Raining

We had a few rainy days in a row this past weekend and had to postpone planned trips to the zoo and to apple picking, but the kids managed to stay entertained.  They found lots of things to do!

1- wear Mom's bra on your head.  What's on your head, Mairead.  "Boobs."  Awesome.  I am Mother of the Year, for sure.

2- Check out what's new with Thomas the Tank Engine while trying to use the potty.  They are completely disinterested in taking this next step to being big boys.  They keep telling me, "I not a big boy.  I a little boy. I can't go the potty."  Hard to argue with that logic.

3- Help Nana clean the floors (this is Ben).  I hope they like cleaning as much when they are older as they do now!

4- Paint a masterpiece.

5- Help Daddy put the groceries away while yelling, "Heave!  Heave!"  This is Jack, by the way.

6- Go to Friendly's and take the world's worst picture of Mom.  They were really well behaved, though!  Mairead was helping Daddy take the picture, though, so she was not in it.

Even though the age of two comes with a lot of whining/protesting, I am really enjoying this stage with the boys.  They are always saying or doing something new and they are just so stinkin' cute.  I love four, too!  Mairead's language and understanding is really coming along, and we are seeing so much more of her fantastic (albeit stubborn) personality.

She is doing really well at school, too!  She has all but dropped the "I don't want to go to school' thing, which is SUCH a relief for me.  Some days she does protest a little, mostly when she is really tired or if we have had a fun morning at home, but that's understandable! I got a great report from her teacher at our first IEP meeting of the year.  Her teacher and Speech Therapist (who is also the team leader) were so incredibly helpful and supportive.  I felt like I was in bizzaro-world. The SLP was suggesting things to me and asking if it would be ok for her to push for more services. Um, I'm sorry, what? You mean you actually want to GIVE HER MORE SERVICES? I must be in the wrong place...


I couldn't believe it. All we did at the meeting was put it in writing that there will be another eval and that the SLP and classroom teacher feel strongly that she needs SpEd Academic support and at the very least, an OT/PT eval, with possible additional support throughout the day (teacher initiated peer interaction, adult prompting for things like lunch in the cafeteria, gym, recess, etc in order to try to get her to engage in a back and forth conversation with a peer).

As she walked me out, the SLP told me that she really hopes to be able to help Mairead, and she said, "I just want you to know that I am going to fight for Mairead with you on all of this." I teared up (as I usually do at IEP meetings, but this time in a good way) and told her how much it meant to hear all of this. To know that I am not crazy and that what I see with Mairead is real, and warrants attention and stupport- it's just unbelievable.  We are concerned that she will test 'too high,' but the SLP says she is going to provide evidence to the SpEd dept to prove that the test is not measuring M's areas of need.  Let's hope this leads to even more support for her so we can really see her shine!

Her teacher says that while she is still not conversing with others, she is responsive to other kids.  If they ask for a toy, she always gives it to them.  When they tell her to run or follow them, she does so happily.  She is very good about listening to the teacher and is happiest when they are singing or dancing.  It was hard to hear about the things that she really struggles with, but just to know that she is generally happy and that she is a good kid during school made me really happy!

The boys are doing great at their 'school,' too!  They are so cute holding hands and walking into school together.  Jack wears his backpack himself but Ben insists that "only Mommy can carry it."  They are excited to go and can tell me the names of all the kids in the class and what they do each week.  It's so great to see them enjoying it so much!

Last week, while the Patriot's game was on, Mairead was sitting with Dave.  Whenever he would yell at the tv, she would imitate him.  It is so funny to hear your four year old yell (with perfect inflection), "Oh, come on!" or "You have got to be kidding me!"

Jack is talking non-stop, seriously, non stop, lately.  Mostly, it is to tell me what he wants or how something should be done.  He is also getting a little too smart for his (or my) own good.  About a week ago, he fell and hurt himself, and he was really upset. So I said, "Let's get blanket and watch Thomas so you can feel better," and we sat on the couch for a bit. Now, at least once a day, he runs over to me pointing to some part of his body and saying (in a very convincing manner), "Mommy, I hurt. I hurt." I ask, "are you ok?" He says, "I needa watch Thomas and feel better." He's two and a half... he is going to give me a run for my money.

Ben is Jack's protector and baby brother at the same time.  If Lily sits in Jack's chair, Ben demands that she move.  "No!  That is Jackie's chair!  Don't take Jackie's chair!"  He follows his older brother everywhere and agrees to pretty much every activity Jack suggests.  If Jack isn't in the room, Ben wants to know where he is.  It's very sweet.

Jack looks out for Ben, too.  We were at the playground the other day and Ben (of course) was on the highest part of the climbing structure running across a bridge and Jack was yelling, "Be careful, Ben!  Be careful!"

We happen to have a large cut-out of Tommy Heinsohn's face.  Ben saw it and said, "Look!  It's Grampy!"

In addition to Percy, the Thomas series has a train named Falcon.  Just what two year olds need to be saying.  Oh, and Sir Toppham Hatt?  Sounds like "Topless Hat." 

The other day, something about Jack made him look just like Brian.  I said, "Oh, Jackie, you  look just like Brian today."  Mairead said, "And I can be Christin!"

Lately, the boys have been watching a (really awful) movie called "Thomas and the Magic Railway."  There is something in it about gold dust, how it's magic, it's important, etc.  Today, while they were supposed to be napping, they were saying:

Ben   I can't find my gold dust, Jackie!
Jack   You can't find it?  Where the gold dust go?
Ben   I don't know, Jackie?  I needa find it!
Jack   Here you go, Ben!  Here's the gold dust!
Ben    Oh, thank you, Jackie!

I love them.