What do you mean it's Thursday already?

There is no way that today can already be Thursday! It seems like we JUST walked back in the door Sunday night, and it's already Thursday, wow! It was another busy weekend, and we have lots to share, but like Fionn, I just want to go snuggle with daddy!
There are big changes being discussed for our little family, and we are still taking them to the Lord and praying for wisdom as we decide which path would be the best for us. I will say more in the coming days, but for right now we just ask for prayer. Prayer for our family as a whole as we possibly embark on a major life change.

Immediate Prayer Needed

Some of us have been there, some of us have not. But not knowing what the day is going to bring for your child is the most devastating feeling a parent can have. Sweet Stellan has been in SVT since Friday and things are not going well. My friends, pray, pray will all your might for this beautiful little boy and his family. Pray that God wraps himself around them all to ease their pain today. Pray for the Great Physician to show his earthly Physicians the right course of action to bring Stellan out of this immediate danger. Have I asked you to pray enough times? I am crying this morning as I write these words, just pray...

Beautiful Brianna

This week my BABY cousin came down to visit us. We've been talking about this trip for a long time, but this week it finally happened. We took her SENIOR pictures! Ohhh...does that make me feel old! Mother nature didn't quite want to cooperate with us, so we did what we could, worked around a couple rain storms, and used Tuesday and Weds. to fit everything in! Thank goodness I live on a cute brick street and have great flowers all around my house! We had planned a trip downtown amid the chaos for Tuesday but instead just played in the rain around my house. We did end up going downtown for more pics on Weds. but here is some of what we got just on Tuesday! I told you, she's beautiful! I just cannot believe that she is old enough to be a senior in high school already!! I still remember going to her house, when she was only 6 weeks old and babysitting her back in...well you don't need to know that, just it was a long long time ago now. Congrats Bri, we are so proud of you and all that you have accomplished already!

Not MY children...

I wasn't going to do this today, mostly for lack of time, but I think that in the midst of me losing it right now, this is going to help calm me down!
I've been TRYING to clean all day, and well honestly, they have been trying destroying the house.
Right now my bed is torn apart, with all the linens in the wash because IT WAS NOT MY CHILD who a) grabbed my coffee and laughed as he dumped it all over my sheets then while I was cleaning that up b) managed to get his diaper off and pee on my comforter...yeah, def. not MY child.
It was not MY child who, while I was cleaning up messes a&b who climbed up furniture and stood on his tip toes to grab a whole container of puffs only to rip off the lid and throw them all over my house. Nope, not MY child.
It was not MY other child who ignored my pleas for help with her brother because she was too busy destroying her room while under the guise of "playing" It was also NOT that same child who, after I told her to get dressed, was still running around in her underwear two hours later, complaining of not knowing what to wear...
Upon realizing my anger at her state of undress, it was not MY child that threw her underwear in the dirty clothes and paraded happily around my upstairs with her little brother following along behind her laughing....nope, definitely, NOT my CHILD.
MY children would NEVER ignore me, get into candy and destroy their bedroom, only to sit in the middle of destruction and ENJOY their tasty snack, nope not MY children...

They would most definitely, NOT share a pack of m&m's among the disaster they created...and then they would NOT go right back to playing instead of cleaning it up...not MY precious, loving, children...
And last but NOT least, they would NEVER tease each other, NEVER, EVER, EVER...especially, while grinning about it while the other one cries and runs to mommy....NOPE, not MY children...


and on that note I feel slightly better...back to cleaning up the destruction, lots to do today! I do have one tiny little not me for today though...

I would NEVER let Fionn run aound putting Maggie's headbands on his head, nope, not me...I would never ignore that fact, OR take pictures of him with it on....nope, NOT ME!

My girl

Every summer Maggie wants to do some fairy or princess pictures when the flowers are in full bloom, and who am I to say no?? This year she decided no crown, no princess dress, just her little green tutu and a shirt. She loves her tutu's, and I love them on her! We were just in our side yard, so really there was no need for pants, according to her. It's a good thing you can't see in our yard! She brought down one of her favorite pair of fairy wings from the 3rd floor(the playroom) and out side we went. She let me curl her hair today, and let me tell you, the curls were beautiful, but already falling out by the time we started shooting! Her hair is just like mine, it just will NOT curl! Oddly enough she had curls when she was a baby though, not quite as crazy as Fionn's but there were curls!

Every year I say to myself, how in the world did she get to be this big already? It's not any different this year. SIX, my goodness, we are quickly approaching six! And entering first grade! I know that I blubbered for weeks on end last year about 5 and Kindergarten, but whoa, six! This picture IS my daughter. Those eyes have been staring into my soul since the day she was born. I just look at this picture and want to cry at how grown up she looks. Where did my little girl go?

I know that one day she'll hate this one, but oh do I love her in tutu's. This was her outfit choice, I just showed the world! Seriously, is there anything cuter than a girl in a tutu? I think not.

Oh to turn back the hands of time, or just to freeze it. Maggie and Fionn are so much fun, while so much work all at the same time! The older SHE gets, the older HE gets and my oh my, won't I be a mess then??

Do your children's birthday affect you all the same way? MY birthdays don't even have this affect on me! We are still a month away from her birthday and I'm already starting to blubber! I think it's a combo of the losing of all the baby teeth, shopping for new uniforms and some raging hormones all packed into one big ball tonight! Throw in lack of sleep, and *poof* you get me blubbering! I promise to be back to somewhat normal tomorrow, and I may even get to put up a post!

The little things...

It may be a little vase filled by little hands, but the love that it symbolizes is bigger than the whole world. The flowers in it change, at first they were dandelions and buttercups, but now it's whole "little" arrangements that change weekly as the flowers slowly wilt. It may seem trivial to some, it is after all, just a little vase with flowers, but it brings me so much joy to know that they were all picked just for me.
I know one day soon she will be off doing her own things, or just "too busy" to do something as trivial as pick momma some wildflowers, so for now I enjoy every minute of it, every minute of our summers together. Thank you God for a daughter that brings me so much joy, just by the little things that she does!
I don't think I could ever tell her enough how much I love her!

Catching back up...

I thought last week that it would be a great idea to try to drive home at night, you know so my children would just sleep...LOL...silly mommy! That works fine and well when we've worn them out in Erie and we're driving home. Their little eyes never open when we tuck them into bed. But GOING to Mema and Pop-pop's, well...that's a whole different story. The picture above is Fionn, at 1am last Friday night. He didn't get the whole "stay asleep" memo, or even the "go back to sleep" memo. In my grand scheme of things, we were going to get there, I was going to unload, the kids were going to sleep, I was going to pack up and get everything ready for the next morning, and then shower and go to bed. We got there, I got unpacked...then Fionn threw a wrench in plans. He decided that he was awake and wanted to "help" me get my equipment ready. Seriously, I'm pretty sure I was asleep before he was, but he was snuggling me and his eyes were closed, in my defense. Saturday dawned bright and early and I headed out the door for an all day wedding shoot. This was my first solo wedding, and even though it was a long day, it went well. While I was gone my children had their own agenda with Mema and Pop-pop. They had fun going to a party, and then just playing with Mema and Pop-pop all day!

Sunday I was off to another session, but this one was NOT all day, so I got to go back and enjoy some time with our family before heading back home.

Let me back track a bit now...Friday night I ran away for an hour to get my nails touched up, and I get this frantic twitter from my husband that I NEED to see this pic of Maggie...That's right, she lost BOTH her upper teeth this time. They were both wiggly and she's been asking me to pull them for a few days(she's afraid she will swallow them) but I told her to wait. I leave for an HOUR and she convinces daddy to do it! So here she is, our little toothless wonder, LOL. God bless her for being brave enough to just let daddy pull them. Remember when your parents would want to pull out your wiggly teeth? I do, and it terrified me! Daddy's one response to me was..."what, i gave her a local anastetic...chocolate ice cream!"

Last month when Maggie went to stay with Mema and Pop-pop for a week, she decided that she and Pop-pop were going to make a bird house. So she planned it out, and waited all week. She picked out all the colors and told him what was going to be painted what color, and when he came home Friday night, they set out to make it...

At first I wasn't so sure about the red and green next to each other, but it grows on you. I have to say that this is the BEST bird house I've ever seen. And the back, priceless!!

So that's what has happened in the last week. I can tell you honestly that my camera has been sitting here idle ALL week. I know, shocking, right? I have been so bogged down with work that my mom came down for the week to watch the kids so I could get everything done. Can you believe that it's the middle of July already? I can't! I've not even bought Maggie any of her required uniforms yet, and school starts in a little over a month. And the next couple weeks look just like this one. I am not complaining, my cup runneth over, but WHOA, I better get on the ball! Anyone else suddenly feeling pinched for time?? Wasn't it JUST the last day of Kindergarten?? Looks like we're headed to the library this afternoon after Maggie's LAST day of swim lessons. Time to catch up on her summer reading list. Yes, she has a summer reading list, isn't that crazy?? Going into first grade, and I've made her work all summer, poor girl!

What a week!

**I wrote this last week, and had trouble uploading, so ya'll just had to wait***

The kids and I are packing up for a big weekend home to Mema and Pop-pop's but before I go I thought I would take the time to show you all where we've been this week.

Between Fireworks for the 4th...(fireworks over downtown Pittsburgh)

(maggie learned about sparklers this year)

and Fionn's first Haircut on Sunday...to swim lessons starting on Monday...we have had a BIG week and have been on the run daily!

Idlewild

On Friday we braved(once again) the gloomy skies and headed to Ildewild Park. I won't lie, it was NOT the best day to take our kids to an amusement park that they've never been to before, but hey, it was our ONE day with daddy, so off we went! This was all of our first visit, and let me tell you, if you're ever around Pittsburgh, and you have kids, this is worth the hour drive!! Storybook forest is great and they LOVED it! We did NOT love the rain so much, but we dealt with it!
We are of this morning for Maggie to start swim lessons, so here are a couple pictures from Storybook Forest to entertain you until I have time to write up a full post! We hope you all had a great 4th of July weekend, and can't wait to show you our fireworks pictures, but for now...OFF TO THE POOL...

lol, she cracks me up!

my big boy, look at him trying to pull out that sword!

"Peter, Peter Pumkin Eater...had a wife and couldn't keep her"...Greg thought locking us in the pumkin would be funny...so there's our rendition of being jailed in the pumpkin!! And I think, my personal favorite!! Yep, this place is just magical!!

Crafton Celebrates Parade

TODAY is a big day, we are taking the kids to Idlewild as a SURPRISE! I'm sure there will be pictures, if you check our tweet updates over there on the left, you may just see some of our fun while there!! While we're gone we thought we would post some pics of all our "fun" from the parade the other night.As per tradition, it always RAINS for the parade, but we took our umbrellas and braved it. It didn't start raining until RIGHT as the parade came down over the hill. We had two umbrellas and our fabulous jogger has a built in rain guard in case it really started coming down, we could have just tucked Fionn in there!It's not a big parade by any stretch of the imagination, but boy did Maggie load up on Candy! (my purse after the parade-this is just SOME of it)

There were more fire trucks than we knew what to do with, and Fionn wasn't sure about ALL of them, but he seemed to perk up for the older models! It was great seeing some of our friends from St. Philip's in the Parade, and the men from Shriners were there on their little scooters, so it made for good entertainment! Don't forget we can't get enough of the bagpipes!By the end of the parade Fionn was waving to SOME of the fire trucks...but he still wasn't sure about it all!

It was a nice little parade though, and can't wait until next year when he chases all that Candy WITH Maggie! He already knows he wants to eat it though. We caught him going through my purse this morning and digging out any pieces still in the bottom...He tried to eat one piece, wrapper and all!

Did I mention he is stubborn? More on that to come...