5 Mos. Old

Olivia turned 5 mos. old on Monday. She is growing quickly, a little too quickly for me as she is my last baby! She is healthy weighing 13 lbs 13 oz. and measuring 251/4". She has changed a lot in the last month. She can now move about two feet and around in a circle. She gets her bum up and head down and kind of wriggles along. She also can sit, although shakily, on her own. She is starting hold her own bottle and had solids recently for the first time, which she really enjoys, although is still getting the knack of. She loves the jolly jumper and loves when her siblings talk to her. Her whole face lights up, even when she's crying. She's even moved into her own room, out of her bassinet and into a crib. That's longest, out of all my babies, that one has stayed in our room. Mommy's hanging on. All in all she'd doing great. Her are some pics of her and one of Lochlan with his special friend visiting from preschool, Jefferey. We have to write about their activities together. I'll write more later but we are having some computer problems at the moment and I'm just hoping that this will work. Cheers! L

Happy Birthday Miah!

Miah turned 2 yesterday. She is starting to look more like a little girl and less babylike. She stretched up while we were in Ireland She talks a mile minute and likes to dress up, colour, draw, read books and "make tea". She is an extremely loud and vivacious little girl and we love her to bits! I had a birthday party for her yesterday morning with some her little buddies from the rec. centre. They played, "fished" for prizes and had lunch and cake. She was a little shy at first but got into the grove and really enjoyed herself in the end. I think she has a better realization of what a present is all about now too! Daddy skipped home for a bit of extended lunch and joined/aided the festivities. I think Lochlan was probably the most excited about the party as he was asking about it days before. All in all fun for everyone and a big mess for Mom and Dad:). Here are a few pics of the birthday girl and some from the previous week. L

Back from the Emerald Isle (is that how you spell Isle?)

Hello all! Long time no blog... we just got back home from our tour of Ireland and wanted to provide you with a few snippets of our trip. Our itinerary was a bit ambitious given we were driving with 3 kids, so we modified it and ended up skipping Northern Ireland; still, we managed to see and learn a lot about Irish culture and history.

We were really surprised at how diverse the towns, topography, accents, and you name it differed from county to county. I (Mark) was expecting a big version of Cornwall, but did not expect snow capped mountains or rocky plains. And I didn't think that Guinness would taste better in Dublin, but it did!

A few highlights of the trip:

- Kilmore Quay (Quay is pronounced "key"), where Laura's Ancestors (the O'Neills) orinated. Best chowder on the trip.

- The mountains in Killarney, near Muckross house/lake

- Irish stew made with lamb... my God that was good

- Many very ancient sites... one (Newgrange) pre-dated the pyramids by 500 years

- Trinity college library and the original Irish harp (national symbol) - Road over Connor Pass on the way to Dingle Peninsula - The Guinness Brewery tour - Northern Wales... absolutely beautiful

Some funny things that happened on our trip:

- We dragged all 3 kids to the top of Blarney castle. I carried Miah, Laura carried Olivia and Lochlan walked up the steepest 11 stories of stone spiral staircase I have ever seen. At the top, it was basically a salad bar of places where the kids could step off to their certain deaths. I don't remember much more than being in a constant state of terror the entire tour (must have missed the chapter on safe parenting in the manual...)

- The one time we didn't bring the diaper bag, Miah had a huuuuuuge poop... she was commando as we checked out Ross Castle, and kept doing squats for some reason...

- A guy was sitting beside us on the ferry. He looked OK, although it was pretty rough. Lochlan started to puke big time, and for some reason this same guy had to run to the bathroom...

- In a simulation of a winter solstice solar lighting of Newgrange, they first turn off all the lights. In the silence that followed, Miah loudly stated the obvious... "I can't see!"

If you do feel like looking at a few more photos, we have some extras posted at:

Ireland Trip 2008