Erin's Three Year Check-Up

Erin has taught me not to take "well checks" at the doctor for granted.  Not that she has been sick at all (thank goodness she has been extremely healthy, minus the heart defect).  It's just that her little extra chromosome has made the odds of having some health issues more of a reality.  Each time we pass through a screening test (she has many more than my other kids) with no red flags, we offer a prayer of thanksgiving. Yesterday was one of those days; she had her three-year well checkup.  I'm so happy to report that everything went very well! As a bonus, she did not even cry when she had her blood drawn in a vile as big as her head.  I seriously wondered if she was going to have strength to walk to the car after that much blood left her little body!  I have no idea why she did not scream because my memories of her last blood draw are vivid...we needed three strong adults to hold her down.  And even with three strong adults, it was hard to hold her still.  They missed the vein a few times.  I remember mumbling something about so much for low-tone during the last episode.  Whatever the reason, I'll take the calm, peaceful, child I saw yesterday, laying on the table watching the lab tech poke her little arm.  I explained the procedure to her the best I could, and told her I'd pick her up as soon as they were done.  She understood and was very brave. I was very proud.

She had the following tests: 

Thyroid (TSH and T4)
Celiac screening
CBC
Ear/nose/throat check
blood test for vitamin levels
Neck x-rays to check for Atlantoaxial Instability (AAI)

I think that's all.  The AAI was the big one, as the treatment for abnormal results could mean major surgery.  Thankfully, everything tested great....no problems.  Big sigh of relief. 

Oh, and she is sooo tiny, but growing.  She even gained in the percentiles since age two.  For height she went from 30 " to 32" (up to 18% on Ds chart).  For weight she went from 19.6 lbs to 23 lbs (20% on Ds chart).  So, that's about it!  I'm so glad to have that behind us :)

Star Wars Falcon

It came to my attention that Aidan has added a new Lego set to his "want" list.  It is quite some set!  You can see it by clicking here  Ahem....did you happen to see that price?  If not, just for shock value, I'll put it here:  $584.99. 

The conversation went something like this:

Aidan:  Dad, did you see the falcon set, it's really cool!

Mike:  Aidan, it's over $500

Aidan:  Well, it's on sale...(said very pitifully)

Mike:  For that price, it better fly to the moon and back (or something like that)

Aidan: I guess I could save my own money. (Long pause...) Oh never mind.  By the time I have  enough money to buy it I would be a grown man and I probably wouldn't play with Legos anymore.

Two Peas in a Pod

Awww, aren't they cute? (Eileen 15, Bridget 13)

Happy Easter and Happy Birthday Moira!!!

We hope everyone had a very blessed Easter!  We had a great weekend.  We not only celebrated Easter, but also Moira's birthday on the same day! 

The Easter cake (with a smudged nose)...


Here's the birthday cake, made by the sweet-deprived birthday girl herself.  Yes, it was really that loaded.  After giving up sweets for Lent, Moira thought she'd make up for it by adding every bit of sweetness she could muster up on this cake. It was a bit too much for most of us; even Erin spit it out and made a strange sound.  lol.

And if the Easter cake or birthday cake did not tickle your fancy, most likely this 8 lb chocolate bunny did (this bunny was gift from a generous friend)...

Now, of course our Easter was not all about sweets!  Mike and the older three girls went to the Vigil Mass at the Cathedral on Saturday night.  They said it was beautiful!  The little kids could not have lasted through the two hour mass, so Mike and I took the little kids to mass on Sunday morning.  But even before that celebration, we had a little egg hunt, bright and early Sunday morning....

Our quantity of baskets have grown over the years.....ha!  We're a big stop for the Easter Bunny!

It was a beautiful Easter day!

Erin giving kisses...

We all enjoyed the special day a little extra because it was Moira's 17th birthday!  Happy birthday Moira, we love you and are so very proud of you!!! 

Good Friday

The Agony in the Garden

The Scourging at the Pillar

The Crucifixion by Molly Grace

The Crucifixion by Aidan

The Crucifixion Scene by Aidan

Children's Museum

We are so fortunate to have the best neighbors.  Our neighbors who live two houses down have three children who are such great playmates for our younger kids.  Our older girls have been their babysitters for years. It is charming to see the kids move back and forth between our houses, setting up elaborate pretend play themes.  Sometimes they play house. Many times they produce theatrical productions that seem to have several continuing acts or chapters.  These acts evolve over weeks of play. There is a high comfort level among the kids at each others homes.  Little Tyler will check out our refrigerator to see if there's anything worth snacking on; my kids will wander over to ding their doorbell at the crack of dawn (or at least try to before we catch them in their tracks).

Last Friday we all went to the Appleton's children's museum, The Building For Kids, and had such a great time. 

Here's Teresa, Morgan and Lauren cooking up something in the restaurant...

Aidan, Lauren, Tyler and Morgan manning the air traffic control in the cockpit...

Tyler and Molly Grace

Captain Aidan

Erin was completely enchanted by the entire day.  She went shopping...

She played musical instruments...

She pondered her smallness in contrast to the grand universe....

And when she came up missing, we found her reading books.  (I should have known!)...

Seamus was content in the stroller.....

For about 2.5 seconds.....

In light of Seamus and Erin's needs to run, climb and hide, I corralled them into the toddler jail play area while my friend Debbie took the older kids to various fun places.  The toddler area had short walls surrounding it, which the little two did not even contemplate scaling.  That would be because there was no place on the planet that they would rather be at that moment....

There were big, plush three-dimensional shapes to climb on...

There were chairs set up near tables filled with toys and puzzles...

And last but not least, there was an iiiiiide (slide) for Erin.  At the top of the wide stairs she climbed (in order to reach the slide) was a gigantic carrot.  Erin would sign carrot when she got to that point, which is probably my second most favorite sign she does (it is done by pretending to hold a carrot in your hand while taking a bite.  Erin makes a giant crunchy bite sound when she makes this sign.  It's cute.)  The giant carrot was follwed by the best part of all: sliding down the celery.  I don't know the sign for celery, but Erin enjoyed sliding down it about six dozen times...

It was interesting that with the exception of one cute little boy, we had the toddler area to ourselves.  That one cute little boy's name was Seamus!  Not a common name.  I had a good time talking to the other Seamus' mom.

So, after a few more interesting exhibits and lots of time spent in the art center, we packed up and headed home. Thank you, Pagel gang, for such a fun day!

Testing New Template..

We have a springy new look for our blog....hope you like it.  The old template was a stretch (extra wide) and some people with smaller monitors had to scroll back a forth a bit to read it. Thanks to Tiziano at Delicious Design Studio for helping me find a new template that worked better, but still enabled me to keep my larger photos.  Whew...so glad I didn't have to go in and edit the size of many pictures!

Wassup?

We are really focusing full-time on our schoolwork, in hopes that we can all be done with our school year by the end of May. The end is in sight!  We know life is going to get busier this time of year, so hopefully we can stay on track. Upcoming events are: Aidan's First Holy Communion April 25th, choir recital (Eileen and Bridget) and Irish dance recital (all four older girls) both on May 2nd, at overlapping times (haven't figured that one out yet!) and the sacrament of Confirmation on May 22nd (Moira, Eileen and Bridget).

I'll post some highlights of late...

Let's start with Molly Grace's latest poem.  Kindergarten is the year to memorize several poems by Robert Louis Stevenson.  I love him!

The Moon

by Robert Louis Stevenson

The moon has a face like the clock in the hall;

She shines on thieves on the garden wall,

On streets and fields and harbour quays,

And birdies asleep in the forks of the trees.

The squalling cat and the squeaking mouse,

The howling dog by the door of the house,

The bat that lies in bed at noon,

All love to be out by the light of the moon.

But all of the things that belong to the day

Cuddle to sleep to be out of her way;

And flowers and children close their eyes

Till up in the morning the sun shall arise.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Scratching oneself with a pencil must help with memory work...Ha! Molly Grace is also the first student to complete a subject for the 09/10 school year.  Math book is done! 

Moira is busy studying medieval European history and just completed a paper on Saint Thomas More.  Besides that, chemistry is getting easier; Algebra 2 is getting harder...

Eileen is plugging along with the most challenging grade in our program - 9th grade! She just completed a paper in oceanography on marine exploration, among other things, and next week will begin her final unit in science, studying weather. 

Bridget is plugging along with math, Latin (with Eileen), earth science, Acts of the Apostles, and the study of Greece, Rome and Shakespeare.  This is the first year that longer papers have been required of her.  She wrote a lengthy paper on the Greek Gods. This is not a problem for Bridget because she has been known to write emails to her sister Eileen that have word counts in excess of 1200.  (Bridget loves to write stories and does so in this format).  At least she's getting her typing lessons in! LOL

Teresa's favorite poem she memorized this year was America For Me, by Henry Van Dyke.  She has been reading, retelling, copying and illustrating Old Testament bible stories (David and Goliath was her latest).  She is also studying birds.  Here is the good ol' robin that thankfully, we are now seeing in our yard on a regular basis ...

Aidan is completing his tasks, although he would much rather play outside, build Indiana Jones adventures with his Legos, get his teeth pulled or read all about whales, dolphins and other sea creatures.  He is learning that life is all about balance : )...work a little, play a little.  His latest memorized poem was Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost.

Erin just keeps us smilin'.  She is such a joy...and a busy bee!  She loves loves loves ousiiii (outside), now that the weather is warmer.  She especially loves the weeeee (swing), and giggles the whole time she is in it as if she is being tickled.  She is saying many words and/or word approximations now, including two word phrases, which is exciting!  She is learning signs to the letters of the alphabet and can say many of them (thank you Signing Time!).  She is walking up steps, rather than climbing.  She goes down the big slide with no hesitation. She could read books all. day. long.  Loves them!  And she is still completely thrilled to see her baby brother Seamus every morning, as if he just joined our family for the first time. After nine months, he's still a novelty to her!

And as for the Seamus....not surprisingly, he's on the move.  Crawling, pulling up, pulling things out of drawers, baskets and bins and all the other busy stuff babies his age do.  As I type, he is trying to scale the book shelf.  He has been nicknamed on a few occasion, Seamus the Shyster. Let's blame that on the teething.  But he is, of course, adorable and everyone finds his big, cheeky grins with the big brown eyes irresistible...even when he's in his big sisters' pink stroller.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

We had such a beautiful day! Saint Patrick must have been praying for us!  The temperature was in the mid 60's, perfect weather for our first annual St. Patrick's Day parade.  We had prepared for sweat pants, turtle necks, gloves, etc..to be worn under the girls' dresses, but none of that was needed. Mike's parents came for the day, which is always a treat!  We all walked along the riverfront for the parade and then met up at the City Deck for a little talk by the major, and others, followed by a dance performance which all the girls participated in.  I'll have to gather some pictures from other people to post because I was too far back to get any good pictures of the dancers. 

As part of our celebration for the day, we made sure to include a few treats :).  This is always very welcomed and remembered by the little ones because St. Paddy's Day usually lands sometime during Lent, which is typically sweet-free for us.

Thanks to a thoughtful client and friend of Mike's, we had extra fun, special treats for the day ....

This is the only picture that turned out at the parade...(I'll get more later)

After the parade we had two more performances.  Moira and Eileen went off to the east side of town to dance at a county club and Bridget and Teresa danced on the west side of town at a Hibernian dinner. Lots of fun!

And last by not least, these picture just say it all, don't they??!!

Good Day Wisconsin

Moira and Eileen were up bright and early for this little promo for our St. Patrick's Day parade.  The dance surface was covered with dew, making it very slippery!  Thankfully, they did just fine, with no falls :)  Moira has a short little intro with the TV correspondent and Eileen is right next to her. (If you want to see it expanded, you have to click the image)