Santa Nicky

Nicky's Birthday

Snow Fun!

Jackson's Birthday

Little Gymnasts!

Maggie and Nicholas are each taking a gymnastics class one morning a week and they are really enjoying it. Maggie loves the rings and the bars and Nicholas's favorite is the trampoline and foam pit. Here are some pictures of them in action.

Halloween 2013

 As the kids are getting older and bigger and more opinionated about their costumes, Halloween was becoming increasingly complicated and expensive. This year I bribed the two older ones to come up a costume out of something we already had. Francis wanted to be a rubix cube and in exchange, I bought him and eight dollar rubix cube. Jackson wore last year's costume and in exchange I bought him a $14 rainbow loom. I definitely came out on the winning side of that deal, since they had both been asking for $50 costumes.

Nicky wanted to be Leo the blue ninja turtle, which I actually had in my shopping cart in his size at the beginning of October and put back, thinking it would go on sale, only to spend the next three weeks frantically searching for it. After 3 trips to target and several failed attempts to order it online, we found one a size too big and decided to go with it. A lesson to all: if your child wants to be something you think may end up being popular, buy it when you see it. Otherwise you may end up with the choice of buying the wrong size or spending $100 to order it off ebay....

As for little Maggie, you can see her in the bottom picture, dressed up as one of her favorite characters, Dora the Explorer. Her costume consisted of a pink shirt she already had, orange pants from target and a Dora "backpack" toy ordered at the last minute from Amazon.

We had some friends over for dinner, trick or treated around the neighborhood, ate candy until they were nearly ill and brushed teeth and went to bed. All in all a great night!

Jackson and the Bees

Here are some pictures of Jackson and his Great-Aunt Cathy tending to her bees. He loved it and came home with lots of honey and no bee stings, although his Aunt Cathy did not fare as well..... St. Ambrose, Patron Saint of Beekeepers, Pray for us!

Franics and his kite

As I explained in the Halloween post, Francis came up with and then made his own costume this year. He used a box and some construction paper and it came out really cute. He had the chance to wear it for a Halloween party and a cub scout Halloween bowling party and won each time for "most creative." His prize for the last one was this kite, which he was pretty excited about. Here are some shots of him flying it and one of the winning costume.

Jack Connolly Memorial Golf Outing

This year the golf outing had to be postponed due to storms, so it was rescheduled for September. Casey took Jackson and met his friends Dylan and Jeff  there. Here are some pictures of the team: Pay particular attention to the signs....

Man on Stilts

Nicky confronts Grandpa on stilts . . .

The Many faces of Miss Maggie

Maggie never fails to entertain us. I am not sure if it is all the attention she get from her brothers or just her nature, but she is a total ham. She is super friendly and every time we come within 20 ft of anyone under the age of 6 she starts screaming "Hi baby, Hi!" and waving emphatically. She loves to imitate things her brothers do (a blessing and a curse) so she can already count to ten and is trying to potty train herself. She will also growl and loves to use the expression "oh, yeah!" She is obsessed with the color pink and points out every pink thing we walk by, usually at the top of her lungs. She still loves music and loves to dance. She loves animals, cats (meow, meows) and dogs (woof, woofs) in particular. She is immediately drawn to anything girly and Minnie, Hello Kitty and Dora are her current favorites. During the day she is my little shadow, following me around helping with Nicholas and picking things up. She is also the world's best napper! My boys were horrible nappers. They wanted to catnap 45 minutes here or there and you could never count on it. This girl would sleep three hours mid-day, if you let her. Unfortunately, we rarely do let her, because we have boys to drop off and pick up every couple of hours. Anyway, she is a little doll and has made adjusting to a girl so easy and fun.