Monday, May 28, 2012

Five Fun Days

We had a whirlwind long weekend of fun and friends!  It’s become a tradition to have Seamus’ checkups at DuPont just before Memorial Day weekend, and make it into a little mini-vacation!

Seamus and Ethan both had their checkups on the same day!  Here they are sporting their super-cool armbands after getting a blood draw.  Seamus got a thumbs-up from both Dr. Bober and Dr. Mackenzie – see them again in a year!

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We had fun playing on the playground before checking in at Ronald McDonald House.  Liam thinks Ethan is funny!

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The two lovebirds, Grace and Collin walking hand in hand….while their goofball brothers wrestle!!

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On Friday, we joined the Weissers at the Brandywine Zoo.

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There’s a tiger in there!

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After saying goodbye to the Weissers, we headed to Annapolis, where we stayed overnight with the Greenes!  We had lots of fun playing outside before our cookout.

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I’m so glad I captured this pic of Liam trying to blow a bubble!

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Four little monkeys sleeping in a bed….Seamus, Simon, Grace and Jude on their “camp-out!”  They had so much fun!

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Thank you, Greene family for letting us stay overnight!  We were all so excited for our trip to the Baltimore Aquarium on Saturday.  The kids loved the park on the walk to the entrance.  Simon showed us the cool instruments.

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Waiting for the dolphins…I was just cracking up at my littlest man hanging out with his hands in his pockets!

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Jellyfish!!

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We took a break from the aquarium for a little POLP meet up with the Swartleys, Raabs and Wilets for lunch!  The kiddos were so excited to see each other!

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After our fun day in Baltimore, we headed to my Aunt Maureen’s house in New Jersey.  We love going there and visiting the beach and the Ocean City boardwalk.  Sadly, this was our first visit without our Uncle Jon, who passed away last August.  It was not the same without him!

Enjoying a beautiful beach day!

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The beach wore everyone out, but after a nice rest and dinner, we were ready for the boardwalk.  Ready to ride the rides!

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It was a wonderful visit!  We had two nights with Aunt Maureen and our cousins Andrea, Tom, Brittany and Andrew before we headed back home.

Liam giving some love to Aunt Maureen!  Thank you for having us!

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It was a very busy and fun five days!  Liam was wonderful all those hours in the car – about 15 total after all of our journeys!  However, the rest of the time….his behavior left much to be desired, lol!  We had a great mini-vacation and we’re glad to be home safely.  Hope you all enjoyed your weekend as well!

Monday, May 14, 2012

New Kitchen

Finally, finally getting around to posting pictures of our new kitchen!  It’s been finished for some time now, however I kept waiting for the kitchen to be in an organized state before snapping photos.  Well, we all know that will never happen!  So I just took all the stuff and moved it to another room.  So no, my kitchen does not look like this in real life!

Here is the before pics.  These are a couple years old, but we basically were dealing with ugly white particleboard cabinets, outdated white appliances, and an extremely difficult to clean tile floor.

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Here is the after! Maple cabinets, new appliances, laminate flooring and granite countertops.

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Instead of opening to the backyard, the kitchen now overlooks our new dining area.

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We added two new sections of cabinets/countertop, one of them being 6” shorter with a shelf for a microwave.  This is primarily for the kids’ use and for Seamus to take over as his own as he gets older.

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We really love how everything turned out!  My talented husband did all the work except for the countertop installation.  It wasn’t easy living in the mess for a few weeks, but so worth it. 

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Devon and my father-in-law still plan to build a pull-out stepstool out of the cabinet in front of the sink, so hopefully Seamus will be fully independent in here.

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Thanks for checking out our new kitchen!

Happy Mama’s Day!

I hope you all had a wonderful day celebrating MOM!  I am so blessed to be the mama to these three kiddos.  We had a great day together. 

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One of my favorite parts of the day was being serenaded by Liam, with his new singing skills!

I just love having a day when I can be thankful for my awesome family, as well as my own wonderful Mom! 

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

It’s Baseball Time Again!

I’m admittedly not much of a sports fan, but one thing I LOVE is watching my kiddos play ball!  Grace is playing another season of t-ball and Seamus has moved up to the next division.

They are already having a blast!

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We love their teams and the enthusiasm of all the kids is amazing!  Looking forward to a great season!