April Already and Almost Ten Months Old!

Claire and Ronan update:

They are on the move!  As the following pictures will show, they are sitting, crawling, and pulling up.  Ronan even took a trip half way up the stairs yesterday, much to my dismay!  They are doing very well and recieved a clean bill of health at their 9month doctor visit.

Ronan weighs in at 18lbs 7oz, 30inches, and has a 44.5" head circ.  I would have thought the head circ would land him in a higher percentile than 40th...some kids must have some seroiusly huge heads!

Claire comes in at 17lbs 11oz, 29.5 inches and has a 44" head circ.  Not sure about the accuracy of all this, especially the head circ because anyone who has seen Claire and Ronan knows that his head is more than 1/2 inch bigger!

Barf Spray!

I have already told this story to many of you who will read this, but it has to be officially written in the blog.  Tuesday morning I packed up the kids to take Thomas to school.  It's a quick trip, 10 minutes round trip, maybe 15 with incuding the actual drop off.  We were "rockin' out", as the kids say, to their new favorite song by Black Eyed Peas "Imma Be" and all was happy and well.  THEN...about three minutes from home Lauren starts complaining that she might throw up.  I rolled down the window and told her to take a couple of deep breaths and that we would be home in a minute.  In what I can only imagine was an attempt to stiffle the barf she put her fist up to her mouth and let out a kind of cough...Claire, who sits facing Lauren was SPRAYED with barf!  She starts wailing.  I tell Lauren to turn to the side.  Instead of turning to the window side as I had inteded for her to do, she trurns to Connor who is strapped into the seat next to her and lets it rip on him!  He started screaming hat Lauren "spit" on him.   I just had to laugh and utter the words I utter often.."you have got to be kidding me".   Anyway, we had a morning of showers and baths and washing clothes and stripping car seat covers.  Not how I intended to spend my morning, but the good news is that 10 minutes after this all happened Lauren was dancing around in her underwear and begging for food.  Kids...go figure.

Happy 5th Birthday Lauren!

Lauren made us a family of four a few days before Easter 2005.  As you can see the dressing up started very early for Lauren...I blame my sister Tammy...only she would put coconuts on a three month old.  But the clown hair was all me.  I am so glad Lauren has a kindred spirit like Tammy to indulge her girlie side!

Lauren hopped right on to her first ride on toy that she got for her first birthday.  She never has been one to hold back.

In this case I actually feel like saying FINALLY she is five.  We were getting some pretty funny looks when she would tell people she was four. She has seemed at least five years old for a while now.  Of course every now and then she will stop her foot and pitch a fit just to remind us of her true age, but overall she has grown in to a wonderfully articulate little lady ready and eager to begin elementary school in the fall.

Is it me or does she still not look her age in this picture???  But she does look pretty in her new Cinderella wedding dress!

Happy 7th Birthday Thomas

SEVEN!!  I can't believe it.  I am sure I will say that every year.

Seems like yesterday that he was born, was making funny faces at me in the bathtub and we were celebrating his very first birthday.

Snowy Spring Break in Durango

We left spring behind us over the break as we headed north to Durango.  Someone told be recently that instead of saying we are on vacation we should say we are on location because after all it is really only a change of scenery!  But what a nice change it was.  There was a ton of snow up there and we all had a blast romping in it.  We went sledding (and sent Thomas over the intended stopping point and into the street), dug a tunnel under the snow, had snowball fights, went on a sleigh ride and soared down the mountain on innertubes!  In the evenings we enjoyed sitting by the fire and caught both of the Lobo games on television that took place while we were up there.  For T's birthday we had lunch in town and did the innertubing thing.  Then we had dinner and presents back at the cabin.  It really was a great time...the only thing that could have gone better was the babies sleeping.  I think we need to go on location more often!

Spring has sprung!

     Aside from the random snow storm last Saturday on the official first day of spring (also Thomas' birthday) we are pretty sure springtime is upon us.       We snapped a picture of the adorable baby lambs on Target Rd the other day and bought our baby chicks! We are now the proud owners of 8 soon to be egg-laying hens. Their names are Rosita, Jumper, Flyer, Peanut Butter, Jelly, Marsala, Nugget, and Curly.  Don't ask me which is which, but the kids know.

     We have dug out the bed for our garden (which looks like a grave site) and are hoping to plant some cool weather veggies soon.  Oh!   And check out the "grass hair people" and clovers that we managed to grow!  Maybe it is a sign that our garden will work afterall!

     And then there was daylight savings time change...also known as one of the two most annoying days of the year for parents of young children.  Here isConnor (who doesn't sleep well anyway) snoozing the day away in OUR bed on that first day of the time change.  Oh how I wish that was me.

 

     We have started soccer again, which is also a pretty reliable spring indicator.  Luckily the games have had fairly nice weather...the practices have been a different story, but we are enjoying reconnecting with our fellow soccer families. 

     Let's not forget St. Patrick's Day...a McCarthy family favorite.  The kids got to pass around a Guiness and we took one token picture of everyone in their St. Paddy's apparel (I forgot to dress them in green, so they had to acsessorize).  Lauren was the only one brave enough to actually taste the Guiness.  Thomas and his friend Will spent some time building a leprechaun trap.  Thomas discovered on St. Pat's morning that the little green guy had gotten away, but left behind a scrap of his clothes and some gold covered chocolate!

     If the wind is any indication of spring in NM, and I think it is, then it was definitely spring yesterday.
     Today we are planning yard clean up and bike and stroller prep...that means Brian has to get all the tires on everything in tip top shape (sticker proof!). Looking forward to more spring time activities...Easter is always fun at our house!