A day at the Pool

We are trying to stick to our "get outside" every day this summer plan, and yesterday we went down to the Crafton pool to get out in the sun for a little while. It was only in the low-70s so it wasn't super hot, but since it is supposed to be raining the rest of the week, we figured it would be the best day for it! This was Fionn's first time at a "big" pool and he loved it! He was literally, squealing in delight, when he got to walk around in the pool! He loved when I would swing him around, and we even went over to the "big kid" side of the pool and helped Maggie practice swimming for a little while. Fionn loved being over there and I held him up to float around for a bit! My children are def. water babies! Maggie starts her swim lessons next Monday at the city pool a little closer to our house. We had to run some errands yesterday so we ran down into Crafton instead. It's great to know that there are TWO pools within walking distance! We are going to try to head to the city pool on Friday if the weather cooperates!

Fionn decided to take a "goldfish" time out and was sitting watching all the big kids with squirt guns! He then promptly fell asleep in my lap, so mommy got to sit for a while and just watch Maggie play!

Maggie came over and declared that she was hungry, and that she wanted "you know one of those white covered things momma" me:"Ohhhh, a funnel cake, Mag" "yep" she says(as she digs out my wallet) and this is the happy smile I got in return after she finished her funnel cake! I love this one of her, it's a true picture of my happy "summer" girl...she loves, loves, loves the pool!!Fionn woke up from his nap and decided he was getting back in...until he went back in...then he shook his head "nooooooooo" and decided to sit on the edge and watch instead! LOL, silly baby!
All in all it was a fun day to be out and about!

Zoo Trip

We babysat for one of Maggie's friends, Christopher, yesterday and since he just moved here this past winter we decided to take him to the zoo. As you can see Fionn is waking more and more every day, and he tried to escape a few times at the zoo yesterday! Yep that's Maggie that he's trying to get to, and daddy was WAY off to the right of this picture. Fionn had walked pretty far by this point.

This is daddy helping him up the big hill by the Tiger exhibit. He was bound and determined to "go-go-go" yesterday!

Maggie has been mothering Chris since he moved here, but it doesn't look like he minds, not one bit! They had a great time yesterday. It was a great day, I'm glad they have so much fun together!

In front of the Tiger's...If you look closely, you will see the one tiger sleeping on the rock. He's right between the tree branches!

Mag and Chris with one of the elephants. On the weekends, they have one of them off to the side now, and for a $10 donation (to go to helping at the Elephant preserve here in PA) you can take your picture with her (or him) I believe this is Victoria. She is going to be nine this year. It's usually one of the two "older" babies that they have out there. I say that, because both Zuri and Angelina will be one in the next month! So Victoria and Callee are the two "older" babies! They both look nervous because Victoria was flinging the hay around as they were standing next to her! These pictures made Maggie's day! The elephants have always been her favorite at our zoo!!

And here we all are with her! Maggie has her eyes closed and her hand up, yes, to block flying hay! I think she thought she was going to get whacked with her trunk! But it's cool that it looks like she's touching her! Poor Fionn, he has NO CLUE what is happening! But he was excited about seeing her as we waited in line!

And that's all for today...we are OFF on today's adventure, we're going to the pool! Looks like it should be done, only 30% chance of storms! If it does, we'll just hit the library instead! Enjoy your Monday!!

Our "urban" adventures

My goal for this summer is to spend as much time outside with the kids as possible. I've mentioned before Maggie's love of downtown, so last Monday (the 15th) was the Parade for the Penguins Stanley Cup win. I don't know what in the world I was thinking, but I took the kids(alone) to the parade and on an adventure downtown. We had to get up EARLY to get downtown to find parking (we were parked and downtown two hours before the parade started, and it was already packed) and try to find a good spot for the parade.


It was HOT and HUMID, and there were supposedly over 350, 000 people there( i believe it) and it was just a mess honestly. You couldn't move, and honestly Maggie is the only one who saw the parade because she was standing up on a window ledge next to some other kids. This very nice old lady who helped me re-apply sunscreen to the kids literally passed out on the back of me during one point of the parade. Her husband was there with her, and thank goodness she was okay, because it was in the middle of the parade and I don't know if we could have gotten her any medical attention. I gave her a good deal of our water, and a white towel to cover her head with, and blocked her behind me so no one would trample her while she rested. It was just that crazy!
The closest we got to the players was after the parade, Maggie waited on the corner for them to get on the buses with their families and then drive by us. Maggie got Malkin to wave to her, which was the highlight of the parade for her.
After the parade we went and sat under a tree to cool off for a bit, then went and had some lunch. I surprised Maggie by going to the fountain at the Point after lunch. She has asked to go there for so long, but parking downtown is miserable and I hate going down there if i don't have to! The next collage is from the fountain. Fionn didn't quite understand that you couldn't go IN the fountain(either did the people IN the fountain) and got very angry with us when we wouldn't let him in! He finally fell asleep at one point! It was a great way to spend a couple hours! In the picture below where Maggie looks like she's giving a peace sign she's singing the song 1,2, 3, 4 by the Plain White T's. It should be playing now!

Maggie had fun taking Pictures of Fionn and I and boats on the river while we were there!

We finished out our big day of adventures by walking to the "subway" and taking the train back across the river to our truck. Maggie didn't even want to take her eyes off of everything to even take this picture, she was just loving it! It's awesome to me that something as simple as a train ride makes her day!
We've been on MANY more adventures already in the last week. We didn't take the camera for all of them, but we will be sure to keep posting all of our summer fun!

Not enough hours in the day

How many others feel the same way?

Everyday I have a list of things that I want to accomplish and I rarely get them ALL done! Am I making the list too long, or am I going about my list the wrong way? The only thing it seems that ALWAYS gets lost in the shuffle is time for me to work, alone time with the door shut! I know all you other moms are laughing right now, alone time, what is that? I consider going to the bathroom with just ONE of my children coming into the room as an accomplishment! I feel like I am the queen of multi-tasking, but where do you draw the line? How do all of you get YOUR work done??

I LOVE being a stay at home mom, being their sole care-giver most of the day, BUT it's hard to run a business that I also LOVE at the same time! Between the housework, kids, and everything else life throws at us, things always get missed in the shuffle, and yes sometimes they are important things. Paperwork, bills, dr. appts., calls to return...you name it with our hectic life, something ALWAYS gets missed! Fionn and I are just in a funk today I guess, this is the first morning without Maggie since the end of school. He's been in one thing after another, just to get my attention! So here's my (mini) version of Not Me Monday:
It was NOT ME who looked the other way as my son dumped the dog's water all over the floor, just so I could do the dishes. It was NOT ME who watched him transer the dog's food back and forth from bowl to bowl while sitting in the pile of water. It was NOT ME who just put him in his crib for his SECOND afternoon nap so I could fold laundry(in my defense, he was tired) and get a little work done...
Okay it was short but sweet, but that's all I'm fessing up to this week!

So in honor of yesterday being father's day, I thought I would post a couple pictures from the last week. We celebrated Father's day with Greg's family last Sunday since Pop-pop was headed out of town.

This is a shot of the 3 generations!

Yesterday we celebrated by taking daddy to I-hop after Mass, and then he and Maggie came home and washed the truck before we took her to meet Mema and Pop-pop! Since all of daddy's shirts(home shirts) are sleveless, she decided that she needed to cut off one of her t-shirts...this is her getting ready to wash the tires!

And last but not least, is her helping daddy wash the truck itself!!
We hope you all had a GREAT day with those special daddy's in your lives!!!

Best Daddy Ever

Happy Father's Day Daddy, we love you!
Love, Maggie and Fionn

Family Day

This week was on vacation...sort of. He had surgery on Monday, and had to teach Wednesday and go to class on Thursday, but Tuesday and Friday were ours! We decided to take our chances with the weather on Tuesday and headed over to the zoo. We LOVE the Pittsburgh zoo and recommend it anyone visiting our fine city! I do warn you in advance, it's kind of hilly(but what part of Pittsburgh isn't?)
Fionn is just getting to the point where he's actually checking the animals out, and it's GREAT! Maggie has parts where she just wants to breeze through because we're there so much, but with Fionn every time we go, we notice him noticing more, so we make her take her time! Our kimono dragon was on display again finally now that it's warm enough so Maggie took Fionn over to check him out.
It's a miracle in itself that the dragon was out, let alone that BOTH my children are looking(and somewhat smiling) at the camera!!

We read a sign that said the zookeepers for the Lions were coming out at noon, so we were sitting and waiting for them while checking out the sleeping lions. This is Maggie waiting(sort of) patiently. Those are her new sandels that she HAD to have. I won't lie, she normally lives in her crocs and she could have cared less about them this week, after she got these. The only fight we had was silver or gold, and I'm glad she chose silver!!
Our Aquarium at the zoo is awesome and we have two tunnels under the polar bears and the new shark exhibits that are so much fun to play in! They just opened (in 2007) this whole new "water's edge" exhibit and it's just beautiful! The polar bear enclosure is HUGE and add on the fact that they can swim right over your head, it pretty much makes MY day when we go! The polar bears are on your way in and then the sharks on your way out. The sharks are new, just in the last few months.

This one is Maggie running, watching one of the sharks swim over. I love the look on her face. This one is just a little blurry, but she thought it was cool that they just swam back and forth above us! The bottom one is one I caught and really liked! I wanted to post tonight about our Parish festival(and the fact that the PENS won the Stanley Cup) but i'm just too tired to do that much work! We're leaving in 4.5 hours and I've yet to sleep, so im signing off for now!! We hope everyone has a great weekend!!

Little Sluggers!

I know that I happened to mention that last weekend we had company, okay A LOT of company, but we loved every minute of it! This is only the 2nd trip Mikey has been to our house in Pittsburgh, and were thrilled that Bill and Shelli came down! On that last vacation that Mema and Pop-pop took they brought the boys home matching rompers. We "attempted" a quick photo shoot while Mema and Pop-pop ran to the store Sunday night, but you all know how well my son cooperates for photo shoots!! The boys successfully had their first fight, over Aunt Shelli as a matter of fact, but we got some adorable pictures! We tried, that's for sure, but those boys were on to what we wanted, and wanted NO PART!!

We thought we would try to use the bench...

we solved the "ball crisis" and got them each their own!

and they're were OFF! But it's so stinkin cute, who cares!!

Chicago

What can I say, Chicago was amazing! I went with TWO awesome friends and loved every minute of it! The conversation and laughter was just as easy to love as the city!
On Friday we all met at the airport and rode the train in to our hotel. We decided to go "wander" until check-in, with no real destination in mind. We happen to wander down to the Art Institute and went inside to check out the prices. The admission was a little steep, but we saw that it was free that evening so we decided to come back. Just as we were getting ready to go back out, this nice older woman comes over and tells us that she can take 3 more people in on her pass, so to come with her! How amazing is that?? Just out of no where! So we, in shock and amazement, made our way through the beautiful exhibits, and yes, almost had a panic attack when we learned that ALL the pieces are indeed, the real thing! The Institute truly took my breath away!!
After a while our hunger got the best of us, so we headed back out. Buckingham fountain was right there so we went in it's direction. We had fun there, simply by getting rained on from a clear blue sky and chasing pigeons and climbing trees in the park! After that we found our way back to the hotel and then out again for dinner and some more browsing. We got stuck in this bike "parade" i guess you could call it called Critical Mass, which shut down the WHOLE city at rush hour on a Friday night. Motorists were NOT happy, but it was fun to watch. HUNDREDS of Bikers were out riding around the city!
Saturday was more of the same. We started with a boat tour and just wandered from there. Millennium Park was so much fun, that we had to practically run across town to get to 5pm mass at St. Patrick's! It was hot and we were tired when we got there, only to find that mass was canceled due to a wedding!! So off we went back to our hotel to get ready for our trip up the "l" to go watch the Pens game!
Sunday morning came bright and early and we had to say good-bye to Amanda way too early! Lauren and I aimlessly wandered around the "Loop" and headed back to Millennium Park with the great plans of a nap in the sun. We were quickly caught up in the gardens and a couple great shops we had missed the day before. The great lawn was amazing and we spend the majority of our day there, people watching!

Some of the great flowers in the garden!
Amanda did a great job compiling her a slide show that I'm about to share with you of all of our pictures together. Make sure you follow that link and go over and read her accounts of Chicago, because she has done a much better job blogging about it than I have!! Here is the link to the slide show she made, I cannot even begin to tell you all how much I LOVE it!! If this link doesn't work, follow the link above to her blog where the link DOES work!!

From Videos

Dance Recital

Sorry I have not had time to post much but things are starting to slow down again now, just one more hectic weekend to get through, and then things should slow down(as much as they can when it's summer) Last Sunday was Maggie's big dance recital at Carnegie Music Hall and she did GREAT! Mema and Pop-pop, Aunt Shelli and Uncle Bill(and Mikey), and Aunt Sharon and John Mark all came down to see her recital. She was in THREE numbers and looked so adorable in all of them!! Here is a little video of her tap number, we have the other two as well, but I LOVE this one! Sorry about the people getting up at the beginning!!!



Here are a couple pictures from the big day as well!!This is Maggie in her tumbling number...in case you can't tell she was a munchkin from the Wizard of Oz!

Maggie with her Entourage after the show!!

Mema telling her how proud she was of her!

Are your eyes open?

There has been so many things happening lately that I've barely had time to stop and take a breath, let alone post. But these have all been great, beautiful things and I can't wait to share them with you all. Chicago was AMAZING and I cannot wait to go back!! Even though I'm still exhausted(probably from laughing so hard) and not at all the walking for pretty much the whole weekend, my soul is rested. The two women I went on my trip with have been in my life for less than a year, but it's obvious that God put them here for a reason.
So many things have happened in the last year, that I'm sure if I hadn't been looking, I would have missed them, all the little works of our great Father. So many people say that they can't see him, they have never seen God...well my friends, if that's the case for you, are your eyes open to HIM?? Don't search him out, just watch his great works unfold around you. Those little "coincidences" -yep not so much coincidences, and more like works of our great Father!!
So many great things happened on our trip to Chicago that I cannot even begin to tell you about them all. There is however a few little things I want to share with you.
I met Amanda when I was working on a little surprise for Howard and Kristy for Asher's Birthday this year. Asher's birthday is 2/22/08. Remember that. Amanda helped me out greatly while working on that surprise for them and we connected and have been talking ever since! So yes, we met through Kristy. Kristy JUST gave birth on Monday(coincidentally my birthday) to her beautiful baby girl HOPE Amelia. She was born at 2:22pm. Isn't that great...well here's where it gets GREATER...This is a gift that Amanda made for me, and gave me while we were in Chicago. NO, we did NOT know that Kristy was going with the name Hope either. Isn't that beautiful? Here's the back!This is just ONE instance of god's amazing works. There have been so many lately that my head is spinning!! Thank you God for these great friends and for a brand new little girl to adore!!

(and yes Kristy, the orange was on purpose...just for you!)