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Winter Wonderland

We got about 2 inches of snow the other day (though the meteorologist predicted much more). This was plenty of snow for sledding. We have a few small hills (not even a real hill) in our front yard and up until yesterday, this was the closest the kids have gotten to real sledding. Yesterday (and today!!) I took them to a GIANT hill by our house. It is one of the best sledding hills I have ever seen. The great part is that there are different levels of steepness, so any age kid (within reason) can enjoy themselves. The boys loved it, except F who just hates being outside in the cold. It was so fun to sled with C because you could just feel the joy inside of him. He cackled, screamed and laughed his way down the hill each and every time. It was very cool. It sounds like the temperatures are supposed to rise this week, so we will most likely be loosing the snow soon. I am glad we had the weekend to get lots of good sledding in!!

Haircuts

I mentioned the other day about C and F giving themselves haircuts. I didn't do a good job of capturing it on film until one week later. Anyway, after one week's growth you can still see the little stripe F added to the front of his head. I didn't add C's picture, because you can't even tell anymore on him. His hair just looks really short.

A Christmas Miracle

If any of you know A, you know he likes to talk! That boy can ask more questions than any child I know. I have never known him to not have something to ask. Usually he slowly falls asleep at night in between questions. Last night as we were lying in bed he was going through his usual randomness of questions. "Dad, why were you pretending to be asleep downstairs?" "What part of the Earth do we live on?" "Why is the North Pole so cold?" "How come freezing rain isn't snow?" "Can I live at home while I go to college?"

Then as if the skies opened...he said..."I am all out of questions now."

I almost fell out of bed!

Ice Day

Schools are out today....for no apparent reason. A's school (along with all the others in the city) was cancelled last night around 10:00pm. This clearly was based upon meteorologist predictions, which like always, were wrong. We do have ice on the trees, but the temperature didn't fall below 32 last night, so the roads are fine. We spent the whole morning out running errands and there is not a spot of ice on any road!! Oh well! Any good ideas for cooped up kids?

Long time, No blog

Sorry for the long delay between blog entries. Sometimes, life just gets away from me here. Since I last wrote, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving trip to Texas. Susie and the boys flew down on Monday before Thanksgiving and I left in the car the following morning. It was great to see Cathy, Felix and Miles since we don't get to spend much time with them. The kids all got along great which was nice. We actually had some cold weather in Texas and it snowed on Thanksgiving!!

When we arrived back home, we headed down to our neighbors house to visit with our friends from Canada who were in town for the week. It was great to see them and their kids. Later that week we celebrated A's birthday party. His birthday was a couple weeks before, but with the trip and some other weekend commitments, we weren't able to dedicate anytime to it. He had about 12 friends over for a chaotic 2 hr Cars-themed party. Actually, they did really well. It was a nice change to have children who have attention spans and can concentrate on a project for 15-20 minutes (unlike Cian's friends who did their art-projects for about 2-3 minutes!). The day before the party, C and F decided to get into the clippers (again!!) and give themselves some nice haircuts. I had to shave them down to near nothing to make it look semi-decent, but F got his so short there was no making his look good!! Thank goodness we have boys and not girls!

We have also visited Santa at a few different locations (3) and the kids continue to be deathly afraid of that man. We were able to get C to actually sit on his lap for about 5 seconds at one place. Both A and C have told him on 2 occasions what they want (arts and crafts set for A and storm troopers for C), so they are pretty confident Santa will bring them the right thing! Poor F just doesn't get the idea of Christmas just yet, but that is okay for us because the longer we can pacify him with one or two cheapo presents, the better!!

Now old-man winter is really letting us have it here as we are expecting quite the ice storm tonight. I am fully expecting school to be cancelled tomorrow and us to loose some vital power source over the night. Let's hope for the best!!

Here are some pictures of the last few weeks...

Happy Birthday C!!

Today we celebrated C's 4th birthday. He wanted a "space ship" party and we delivered. He had 8 friends over and they flew their rockets to the moon, jumped on the moon walk, decorated U.F.O's, ate yummy cate and had a good time. This was the first real party we have had for C so it was a big deal for him. He had a hard time not playing with all the presents after they were opened, but overall he did pretty well. The inflatable moon walk was a huge hit and helped pass the time with nine 3-4 year-olds in our house. I can't believe it has been 4 years since we rushed to the hospital and Cian surprised us by arriving 7 weeks early. He was due on Christmas Day, so he was our best ever early Christmas present !

Fall

You know Fall has hit our yard when we start picking up the massive amount of leaves that cover it. I think last year we ended up having 44 bags of leaves. So far we have filled about 13 bags and you can't even tell we have raked!! Atleast the kids are enjoying it!

Happy Halloween (a little late...)

We had a great Halloween. The kids headed down to the local shops and filled up with candy. We were very lucky to have Grandpa and Grandma Ross in town and lots of family over Halloween night to celebrate with us. It was a strange night with the time change not occuring until after Halloween. It seemed oddly strange being so light outside while the kids were treat-or-treating. Here are some pictures...

Wet pumpkins

This weekend we attempted to go to a Fall pumpkin patch party, but the weather did not cooperate. We ended up going anyway and walked around some shops. We watched a muppet show and had some ice cream. Since the whole event was rained out, they were giving away the pumpkins for free. Even though Susie had taken the boys to an actual pumpkin patch last weekend, they of course could not resist free pumpkins. Now we have 7 pumpkins at our house and I think that is more than enough. The boys are asking daily when we are going to carve all of them. We will be lucky if we get one or two done! Anyway, Laura and Evan came with us, so even though the weather was a bust, it was fun to hang out with them!

Costume invasion

As we have been getting all of the Fall/Halloween decorations out, the old costumes have come out too. I wish I had a picture on the computer of A where this same outfit when he was 11 months old. It's a bit small on him now. That is F in the Spiderman outfit (which is C's costume this year.)











No costume here, just a cute picture of F.

Busy life

I haven't posted in awhile as we have been very busy. Susie's parents were in town for the weekend (last weekend). We went out to eat Friday night and had A's 1st soccer game Saturday. Sunday we had Evan's baptism and a lunch at Laura and Eric's house. Dave and Jane stayed until Tuesday morning, so Jane and Susie did some shopping and got some fabric to make drapes for our den/play room. Susie then finished those this week. This weekend Susie went to the plaza art fair with some neighbor girls. When they got home I was dragged out to a midnight poker game with the husbands. It turned out to be lots of fun, but little sleep! Last night was our parish Fiesta. It is essentially our school's carnival, but the proceeds benefit our sister parish in Latin America. It is lots of fun for the kids (inflatables, carnival games, face painting etc) and little fun for adults! It didn't help that I was there solo because Susie was working. This is Susie's last weekend of working nights though so that made it okay. I am so excited to have her on a normal schedule. She will continue to only work 2 days/week, but it will be during the week and some occasional weekends. This is also elimate our need for daycare so that will be nice. Hopefully this will improve her perpetual fatigue! Today we are laying around and going to watch the Chiefs lose their home opener...should be fun!

Thanks Cathy and Felix

F received his present from overseas. The boys have all been enjoying it and riding around the house. I have not seen a bike/toy quite like it. Thank you so much!! F loves it! Tell Miles thank you too.

Soccer

A had his first soccer practice yesterday morning. We were able to get cleets, socks, shin guards and a ball at the sporting goods store all in a package deal. He looks very professional now.

Done

The whole swingset/play area is finally done with the addition of the mulch. The pile arrived yesterday morning and was as tall as me! Here is the final picture....
I think it looks really nice.

Happy Birthday F!!

We celebrated F's birthday on Thursday night a had a nice party for him. We had his cousins, Madeline, Griffin and Evan over and some neighbor friends, Ella, Audra, Cooper, Sophia, PJ and Mario. We learned that F DOES NOT like to be the center of attention. He was not excited when everyone was singing to him (as you can see). Susie made enough food to feed an army, so her and the boys will be eating briskit for the next month!

Nearly Completed

The swingset is up and complete. We are still working are the surrounding area before we will be done, but we are pretty close. We were able to finish the swing set on Monday (very Labor Day for us!). Today we added some landscape timbers around the area to separate it from the rest of the yard and killed all the grass with some super toxic spray. Tomorrow we will have more mulch than we can possible use delivered to our drive way. We will fill in the whole area around the playset with mulch and hopefully it will look really nice! The boys are absolutely loving it and A keeps thanking us for building it. We spent the entire past two evenings relaxing on the deck while the kids played in the yard. It is great!

Tomorrow is F's 2nd birthday!! I can't believe he is already two...the time has flown by us. We still think of him as a baby. It is weird to think that both A and C had a younger sibling by the time they turned two and I can't imagine us with an infant right now. We are having our family over Thursday to have a dinner party for F because tomorrow was too hectic for everyone's schedules. Here are some pictures of the boys today. You can see why we love the fact that C has started school, because this picture could be taken of him every night after school by about 6:00pm.

New Swingset

About 9 months before we moved out of our old house we purchased a very nice, very big wooden swing set and built it in our backyard. It was a great deal of work and we were very proud of ourselves after completing such a large project. Unfortunately we just didn't like that house or its location so we moved. The swingset was huge and there was no way we could move it, nor did we have the space in our new back (side) yard. The boys have been begging for a new swingset ever since we moved in, but we were dragging our feet. Anyway, we finally gave in and got a smaller one than the previous set, but it still needs putting together. We have been working all week on this "4 hour" project and are nearly finished. The kids are so excited!! All we have left to do is all the bar that holds the swings. The fort part of the set is complete. Here are some pictures of the progress. Hopefully our labor will pay off this weekend and we will be done!!

We had a near miss visit to the ER tonight. Susie called me as I was about to leave work and said "stay there I am on my way!" C decided to throw sand at F using the play shovel and ended up hitting F in the head, cutting him right above his left eye. Susie wasn't sure if it would need stitches or not, so she wanted to bring him down for me to look at him. Thankfully it looks okay and we were all able to turn around and head home. C can be such a sweet kid one moment and a real handful the next. What a challenge!!

Quiet Days

Life is settling down nicely now that school schedules are in full swing. There is a predictability to everyday, which has been kind of nice compared to the on-the-go summer. Aidan continues to love school after his first full week. He even asked if he could go over the weekend because he was having so much fun. I'm sure that attitude will not last for long, so we are really trying to enjoy it! Cian had a more difficult time last week than we were expecting. He is becoming very sad as we drop him off and really having a hard time keeping his emotions in tact. Thursday was much better then Tuesday, so hopefully tomorrow will be even better.
The boys and I spent the weekend at the lake as Susie work all three nights again. (It really stinks when she has to do that!) We had a nice quiet weekend and hung out with my cousin Jared, who was in town for a few days. Jared has decided to join the priesthood and leaves tomorrow to start his journey. He is joining the Legionaries of Christ order. Jared is an amazing person and a joy to be around. He exudes happiness and peacefulness. It is bitter sweet for our family as we know how dedicated and happy he is with his decision, but his family will greatly miss him. During his first two years of training he can have little contact with his family. It will be a tough road for his parents and siblings, but one well worth it in the end. Please keep him and his family in your thoughts!

Service Project

We had a busy day today and a busy/fun weekend all around. Friday night we went over to a friend of mine from high school's house, Serena. She and her husband Brian rececntly had their second daughter and another friend of mine from high school, Carrie, was in town so we all got together. It was great seeing them and I always have a great time around them all. Unfortunately Susie and Fintan we both under the weather so they couldn't make it. At the last minute Aidan was invited to a birthday party that night so he didn't come either. It was just Cian and I, but we had a great time. Some other KC high school friends (Maria & Fred and Kevin & Kristin) also came over. Saturday was kind of a low key day. We did go out and price a wood swing set for our backyard. The kids have been begging for a swing set and we have been dragging our feet. Right before we moved to this house we spent some nice change on a very nice swing set from Costco. It tooks us weeks to put together and we were very upset to have to leave it at our other house. We made the decision that we wouldn't have a swing set at this house because we are surrounded by nice parks and our back yard (side yard) is not very big. BUT, we find that the kids don't have much to do in our yard on the occasions that we want to sit outside on our deck. We have decided to look for a playset, but weren't very hopeful because we remember how expensive our previous one cost. Luckily we found a great set at Sutherland's and it will fit in our yard. I think we are going to buy it this week and hopefully have it up and running just in time for the nice fall weather to set in!

Today we had the Finucane Service Project at Rockhurst University. My great-uncle was a Jesuit priest and spent much of his time at Rockhurst. When he passed away they started a service project and named it after him. It is incorporated into Freshman orientation so all the members of the entering class must participate. It has been going on for about 14 years and my family has been helping out from the beginning. It is a really great thing and a fun thing to do! We did have to duck out of the project just a little early because we decided to have an impromptu gathering of some of our friends for dinner. Susie was off work tonight (which is rare because she works every Saturday and Sunday night) so we decided to have 5 families over for pizza. It was a lot of fun to talk and hang out and the kids had a blast. Makes us wish she was off every Sunday so we could do things like this more often! The above picture is of Aidan two of his buddies...they are all in Kindergarten together.

Cian's turn

Today Cian had his turn to be a big boy and go to school. He will be attending ECLC (early childhood learning center) two days a week. This is part of the same school Aidan attends so that makes it really nice. We have been very happy with the progress we have seen in Aidan the past two years so we are excited to see Cian starting. He did really well today and it was more emotional for Susie than for him. As she was dropping him off, she gave him a big hug goodbye. In the middle of the hug Cian said, "stopping hugging me and leave." I guess he is definately ready to get out of our house. His teacher said he had a good day, but he did ask for "mommy" quite a bit. He didn't have much to say about the day other than he had fun going down the slides at recess. Ahh those were the days!

School Days

Today was Aidan's first day of Kindergarten. It was very exciting for all involved. He did really great. I wish we had on video the difference between today and two years ago. What an improvement. I guess that's what growing up does for you. He had a really great day and told us about how he met two new friends, but of course he doesn't know their names. Names are optional when you are five. It has been a little weird thinking that Aidan has started his school career. Tomorrow is the first day for Cian in preschool and that will be very interesting. Based on his behavior during back to school night, he will be fine. He are the pictures of Aidan this morning. (You can see Finnie crying through the window in the first one because I wouldn't let him come outside in his pajamas while we took the picture!) We will try to take some more tomorrow in his classroom.

Packet Pick-Up Day

This might possibly the most exciting day of the year (not really!). Today we went up to school to pick up the boys school packets. Most importantly we found out what teachers they have. This wasn't too exciting for Cian because there is only one 3-4y/o preschool teacher, but it was fun for him that it was his first packet day. Aidan was put in the "new teacher's" classroom. There are three Kindergarten classrooms and last year two of the teachers left the school. The previous preschool teacher filled one of the spots and then a new teacher was hired. This is the teacher that Aidan will have. We don't know anything about her, but I am sure she is great. We have found out some of his good buddies are also in his class so that will make it better for him. I am very curious to see how these first few days of school turn out. Cian was confused as to what we were doing today and he thought today was the first day of school. He started freaking out and screaming that he wasn't going to go!! Now we are really worried that this might not go as well as we thought for him. Hopefully it will just be a day or two of sadness when we take him. I think Aidan will do fine, though we says he is nervous. One more week of summer for us!!

August Adoption Update

Really nothing new that concerns us, but I will try to mention the adoption stuff atleast once per month as referrals come out. Referrals arrived on 8/2/07 and they covered all the families who were logged-in from 11/15/05-11/21/05. Remember that we are logged-in 5/29/07. So we have a long way to go. Hopefully soon they will start to speed up and give out more than 7 days of log-in dates per month. This is completely out of our hands, so all we can do is wait!

Weekend Review

We had a very nice weekend. I went up to the lake with C and F. We had a really good time. It was kind of nice being alone with my parents because I felt like the boys got a lot of one-on-one attention from them and it was a pretty peaceful weekend. We got in some good skiing and some even better lounging. Susie stayed home to attend a self-defense class. There was a horrible attack and murder of a college aged girl a few years ago in our area. The killer has been caught, but it still left the community feeling vulnerable. The victim's father has a saying..."Benjamin (killer) picked a fight with Ali (his daughter) and I'm finishing it." The have a foundation and part of it is offering free self defense classes to women. What a great way to bring something good out of a horrible situation!!

A is still enjoying his time in Texas!! He has done loads of swimming, ridden a train, gone to a Star Wars exhibit and probably hasn't stopped talking since he arrived. We miss him terribly, but he is having the time of his life and doesn't miss us one bit (which we are very happy about!). Susie and the boys leave tomorrow to pick him up and stay for a week themselves. I really wish I could go, but poor me has to stay and work :( Let me pity party begin!! Since I haven't been snapping any photos this week, I will post the ones we were sent of A.