Lazy Sundays

Aidan was still asleep when I took this picture this morning but how stinkin' cute are they?  Aoife's hair is a disaster every morning when she wakes up - who knows WHAT she does at night!!  Declan is finally starting to feel better and I think this is the first real smile that I've seen out of him in about a week!!  Emmy will ONLY wear nightgowns and the winter ones were in the laundry so she wore a summer one instead of winter pajamas.  sigh 

January Blah

I haven't been posting much - not because we haven't been doing anything. Well, maybe we haven't been doing much but I think it's more a case of end of deployment/january blah!  You know when the kids act up during that last half hour of a car trip - no matter how long it is?  Well, that's kind of the way it seems with this deployment.  It's not just the kids though.  We are all just tired and ready for Brendan to come home. 
Here are a few pictures that I have taken along the way.  I post most of the pictures that I take with my phone on my Instagram account and sometimes I forget to repost them here!  So here are some of the cute ones!

Here's Aidan and Declan playing with Aidan's new ipad mini - it has a front video camera and Declan was fascinated by the video of himself!

 Aidan got a new bunk bed!  Everyone loves hanging out up there!

 Declan loves the nerf guns and thinks he's pretty cool when he gets his hands on one!

 Declan ended up at the ER again on MLK Day.  He ONLY gets sick on holidays when the regular clinic isn't open.  Poor kiddo had an ear infection in BOTH ears and a cough.  I  now have the cough and it is terrible!

A Morning with Declan

 Since Declan is pretty sick still, we stayed home this morning.  I have been trying to volunteer in Aoife's class on Tuesday mornings and Emmy's class on Thursday mornings since I spend Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings at the gym.  (I joined a CrossFit gym here in Clarksville and I LOVE IT).  So far it hasn't worked out so well and I've only spent one morning in Emmy's class BUT it is only the third week in January!  I have a few months to do better!  I think I'm busier now than I was before Parent to Parent was shut down here at Fort Campbell.  I've been unemployed since 15 DEC and I haven't noticed an extra free minute - mostly because I've filled them all! 

So Declan and I just hung out this morning.  It's not something that we normally do and all of a sudden I had all of this guilt because Aidan and I did nothing BUT hang out together when he was this age!  So I got out the camera and took a few pictures.  Poor kid looks so sick and you KNOW he doesn't feel good when he won't let go of his blanket!  He usually leaves it in his crib but was insistent that it come downstairs this morning!  He also loved being able to play with the dogs!  He loves them and they are pretty gentle with him.  He would like to use them as a pillow but they don't really think that's a good idea!  If they are outside, he just stands at the door and watches them - it's the cutest thing!  Also I noticed that the dogs are really starting to look old.  Sully will be 12 this year and Murphy will be 10.  It's hard to believe they've been with us so long!!

A Winter's Walk

 We took advantage of the unseasonably warm and sunny weather to go for a nice walk today!  Even the dogs came with us!  We tired them out and then Aoife was able to walk them.  She loved it since she had never done it on her own before!  After our walk, Declan didn't want to go inside!  He wanted to stay out and play with the scooters.  Aoife and I stayed out with him - it was so nice to get some sunshine!

Missing Pop

Tonight the world lost a great man.  A man who lived for 96 years and saw many more changes to the world than we could ever imagine.  A man who grew up during the depression but embraced technology and learned to use an iPad in his 90s.  A man who never stopped learning, reading and enriching his mind.  A man who built a family and a legacy.  A man who had two sons, six grandchildren and eight great grand children.  A man who fiercely loved the world he lived in and took every chance to better the lives of those around him.  Even when his eyes failed him, he continued to garden and grow vegetables to give away to others.  Even when his body failed him, he continued to love and support his friends and family in anyway that he knew how.  A determined man who didn't know how to give up.  A wonderfully kind man who was beloved by all who knew him and who so many called a friend.  We were lucky enough to call him family.  There is a piece of him in all of us, urging us along and telling us to press on.  The ultimate optimist, he would tell us that our worst days are behind us.  Stand up, fight on - the best is yet to come.

Coincidence??

Brendan has been trying to convince me for years that he is allergic to mushrooms.  I have never heard of anyone else in my entire life who is allergic to mushrooms so I kind of chalked it up to him just really not liking them.  (Sorry Brendan).

Tonight I made a delicious meatball stroganoff - chock full of mushrooms.  Everyone thought it was delicious, especially Declan who could barely stuff it in fast enough!  At the end of dinner - well it BECAME the end of dinner - Declan looked at me kind of funny and then proceeded to throw up his entire dinner exorcist style.  It sent everyone else running from the room screaming - of course - because I have the toughest children on earth.  Hmmmm.  Anyway, I'm wondering if this is a coincidence or a reaction to the mushrooms.  I don't cook a lot with them out of habit of having Brendan around but I can't imagine that this was Declan's first experience with them.  I'm thinking I'll wait a bit and see what happens if we give them to him again.  All I know for certain is that he is going to be one hungry monkey in the morning!!

Aoife's Obsession with Frozen

 Aoife is completely obsessed with the movie Frozen and the character Anna - the younger sister, of course.  Santa brought this costume - which was declared the best present of the day - and she has barely taken it off since.  I have had to repair three seams already!  We secured black boots today at the PX and she is thrilled that her outfit is complete.  She insists that I braid her hair everyday and will sit completely still for the 10 minutes that it takes me to do it.  It used to be a challenge to get her to sit still for 30 seconds to brush it and throw it up in a half ponytail!  We downloaded the soundtrack to the movie and it now plays in a loop constantly - with Emmy and Aoife singing along - and sometimes Aidan too!  It's a good thing that the music is good or I would already be out of my mind!!

Happy New Year!

 We went to the park this afternoon!  It was so warm that it was hard to believe that it was the first of January!!  Declan is getting so big and getting so good at walking and it is fun to see him enjoy himself at the park.  He has always loved the swings but now he loves the slide and climbing up and down the stairs as well.  The other kids get such a kick out of him and they all had to take turns bringing him down the slide. 

In true KY fashion, it snowed on the second of January and it is still freezing out with no warm temperatures in the near future. Brrrrrrrrr!!!