Day 5

I can't believe that we have sprouts on day 5 after planting the seeds!! The sunflowers, peas and beans are coming up quickly - I can't wait to get more going!

The Magic of Cinderella

Today was the first time in a long while that we watched Cinderella. Aoife and I are still recovering from nasty colds so Emmy benefits in the TV watching. Emmy loves Cinderella and we had watched it so much that I think we overdosed at some point. She pulled it out of the DVD cabinet today and asked to watch it. From the moment it started, Aoife and Emmy were transfixed. I think it was the quietest hour and a half that we have had in months. They sat curled up together on the couch with their eyes glued to the TV. Every once in a while Aoife would ask Emmy a question and Emmy would answer and then they would go back to watching. It is strange to realize that Aoife is getting old enough to understand things more and more. It was also really nice to see them enjoying being together!

Sleepy weekends

It's Sunday again. It's now been 6 weeks since Brendan left for Afghanistan. We are getting into a new routine and things are going pretty smoothly. I'm really proud of us. The kids are doing well considering everything. They love looking at pictures of Brendan and watching videos of him but have gotten so that they aren't sad throughout the day. Brendan calls once during the middle of the week and we try to Skype once on the weekend. Sometimes the kids want to see/talk to him and sometimes they aren't interested.

A few weeks ago Aidan told me that he wanted to talk to the guidance counselor at school because he was feeling really sad about Daddy being away. I set up a meeting for Aidan with her and since then she has created a little support group that meets weekly. Aidan likes going and he seems to be doing a lot better. They do things like coloring, bringing in their Daddy Dolls, singing songs and talking about what they like to do with Daddy.

Unfortunately, we have all come down with a bug during the past week. I thought that I was going to avoid it but instead I got nailed and have been really down for the count since about Thursday. This is not good since it has taken Aidan about 10 days to really seem better. Emmy got better more quickly but Aoife and I are still really sick. I feel so badly for poor little Aoife. She's having a tough time!

Here are the girls this morning - we stayed in jammies until about 10:30 when we got dressed so we could all go to the store to get milk.

Hiding!

Spring Planting

Since we've been stuck home all week with the creeping crud - now I have it too *YEAH*, we've had to find things to do other than watching endless episodes of Phineas and Ferb. I'm a fan but you can only take so much and you know it's bad when even Aoife is singing along with the songs!!
The kids love to garden and since it's getting warmer here and the risk of frost is 99% gone, I decided we would start our summer garden. We got some flowers and new mulch for the front flower beds and even bought some potting soil and seeds to start plants for the vegetable garden. Since the soil around here is 100% clay we will be doing container gardening - but it will still be fun. Emmy and Aoife picked out seeds at the store for beans, peas, sweet peas, pumpkins, carrots and giant sunflowers. The girls helped me fill the starting pots and plant the seeds although actually getting the seeds into the dirt proved to be more difficult than I had anticipated since Aoife kept trying to EAT them! Yikes!! We did eventually get them all planted and labeled. Hopefully we'll see some action in a week or two!

Visit from Grama

My mom came to visit us this past weekend. I had all these plans to have picnics, go on walks, go to the museum etc. The kids all got sick as soon as she got here. It derailed everything and we spent the whole time in the house dealing with fevers, coughs and lots of mucus. We did manage to get out of the house on Monday for a few minutes to go to the park. Although it was really nice for me to have an extra set of hands and someone to talk to over the age of 6 - it surely wasn't an ideal visit. I promise that if she comes back we won't be sick again!
Aoife's baby taking a slide:

Happy St. Patrick's Day - late as usual

I did take these pictures on St. Patrick's Day but I'm late in posting them - like always!
Emmy wore this to her St. Patrick's Day party at school on the 16th - I thought it was also pajama day - unfortunately I was wrong. Pajama day was Friday... *sigh*

Girls in the garden

It's really starting to look like Spring! The daffodils and the crocuses are blooming. The girls had a great time the other day playing on the front porch in the sun and looking at the flowers.