Wordless Wednesday...2nd in the state! Yes please, Nice job girls!!!!!!

Summer time and closure

I figure I need to write to have a bit of closure from our summer.  

I know I have said it before, probably a thousand times how busy we are as a family.  Between baseball, Irish dance, Seann coaching, play dates, birthday parties and day to day stuff I often don't know if I am coming or going.  Throw in the fact that we started the summer with two puppies and well...crazy town.

Unfortunately, we closed out the summer with only one pup, Ninja.

We had a tragic event that ripped Chance from our lives and taught the kids a lesson about dogs.  Some dogs are good, some dogs are bad...we met a "bad dog".  But I really don't think it is fair to call her bad...she is a dog.  Her name is "Tiny" and she is a pit bull who happened to escape her yard.  She was out exploring the neighborhood when we got home from the store.  Chance and Ninja came out to greet us with Seann.  Unfortunately, Colin and Meghan were out of the car and watched her attack Chance.  I am eternally grateful Caitlyn was still in her car seat, otherwise she may have been holding Chance when it happened.  The attack lasted for what felt like forever.  Seann and I went on the defense. I sat on the dog and Seann started hitting and kicking the dog.  Colin and Meghan were screaming the whole time.  Our neighbor Jeff heard the kids and came running over.  With his helping Seann, I was able to take Colin and Meghan into the house and call the police.  It was twenty minutes before I could remove Chance from the dogs mouth and another twenty before the police arrived.  The whole time Seann and Jeff held the dog down, waiting. The dog was taken away and we wrote our statements.  We will be served, we will have to go to court, we will have to work through the grief with our children, we will have to find comfort and safety at our home again, we will have to bury Chance, we will have to tell everyone, we will have to live with this the rest of our lives. To top off the whole tragedy Seann walked away with a broken hand.  His first ever broken bone at 35!  He had to have a pin inserted/removed, he had a fiberglass splint the rest of the summer, but he is whole again and healed.

We have amazing family and friends.  We buried Chance at a dear friends farm.  The kids can go and talk to him anytime.  The kids have really dealt with their feelings about the whole incident.  They miss Chance and talk openly when they feel moved to.  Sometimes it catches me off guard and I tear up but our feelings are real and my kids know how I feel.  I am OK with that.

The court labeled Tiny a "dangerous animal".  That means only her owner can walk her, with a muzzle and the title will go with her even if she moves.  She still lives across the street.  The kids are cautious but no longer as scared.  Unfortunately the days of the kids playing in the front yard without an adult are pretty much over. Which is hard when Colin loves to throw the ball against the fence to practice pitching and Caitlyn has learned to open all the doors.

This was a really hard summer and we are still healing as a family but each day is getting easier.  So we are looking to all the change we have had and hoping it is all for the better.  Pray we made the right choices, please.

Long time...no update!

It has been a long time...all summer since I have written anything.  There have been so many changes I don't know where to begin....how about little doses, one topic at a time.

CHANGE

Let's start there...

I have once again changed my job.  Coming full circle this year, it only took 12 years!  I have found a home in a Montessori school again.  I am using all the tools I have acquired since working at Franklin 12 years ago in my new school home Butler Montessori.  I am the Administrative Coordinator and the School Health Tech.  If you ask the students what I do...9 times out of 10 they will tell you I run the school.  

This is where I work...

And the kids get to go to school here too!

The school uses 23 acres of the 65 available on our campus.

Here are some more amazing places on campus at our new school.

A creek to play in,

A pond to fish in, 

An equestrian program and amazing horses to see everyday,

(there are chickens, gardens and coming soon bee hives)

Outdoor learning space, all the way through 8th grade,

A terrific summer camp and pool,

A ropes and challenge course built for some extreme learning and team building!

I am counting my blessings lately and this is near the top of my list.  To be able to be at peace in my adult career is finally happening.  To be able to give my children a new way to learn that they are thriving, and happy is an amazing feeling as a Mom.  And to continue to grow and learn as a Mom daily is the biggest blessing to this Mama!

Wordless Wednessday...Our new family members!

Ninja and Chance(with the white nose and spot on forehead)

Sleeping together on the couch.

New member to our family!

That is right, you read correctly!

We have a new member of our family,

This is Ninja!

She is a toy poodle and she is 9 weeks old.

We never saw her coming!

We have been deflecting questions, and begging & pleading from the kids for a while now about getting another dog.  We even restocked the fish tank with beautiful salt water fish that we stare at each evening.

A co-worker bread her toy poodles for a family project.  She thought there were only 3...but there were 4!  She found homes for a almost all the pups.  Ninja needed a loving family.  She has lots of energy and a great personality!  The kids love her, as do Seann and I.

We also never thought we would be small dog people.

She may be a small dog but she has a BIG personality!

So she is now a Pelkey!



Wordless Wednesday...D.C. St. Pat's Parade

D.C. St. Patrick's Parade

Meghan had her first performance.  It was a parade!  That's right, my dear sweet girl marched, skipped and danced through the streets of Washington D.C.  She did an amazing job too!  Not too much whining.

Above is a picture of all the dancers from her school.  

They all were pretty awesome!

I found a really a really cool hair style for her!  It's a shamrock!

We had to wait for a VERY long time but, they all did really well waiting!

Finally we got to step off!  Super HAPPY!


We had a great time for our first trip to D.C. for the parade and hopefully
this will become a new family tradition!


We also got to know the rest of the dancers a little better!  Fun time all around!

Mom of the year!

So this weekend I earned my Mom of the year award again, I am sure!

Lets see, I will start with Colin...He received his first ever E grade on a report that he turned in early.  He totally earned the grade he got too!  There were parts missing, horrible spelling and grammar, his handwriting was illegible in many spots.  I think the only thing he had going for him was he actually read the book.  He will be re-doing this report this week and somehow it is my fault.  Hey, I went with the I'm not going to double check him this time and let him earn the grade himself approach. Epic Fail!

I was horribly mean for insisting he do his chores Saturday so he would have a day of rest Sunday.  Instead he got two straight days of a nagging Mama.  He was also a few minutes late to baseball practice because I couldn't get myself together and get everyone out the door.

Meghan had a pretty good weekend minus the whole chores battle.  she even got some quality "girls time" when we went to the grocery store while Colin was at baseball.  She was happy!

Now here is the real reason for the M-O-T-Y award.

Caitlyn, dear sweet Caitlyn is SO TWO!  She "found" with maybe a little help from her sister, nail polish and proceeded to paint her hair.  Have you ever tried to get nail polish out of hair, yeah me neither.  Turns out you HAVE to use nail polish remover.  Lucky for me, the last bottle I picked up was non-acetone.  Lucky for her it worked.  She had about 5 dread locks of paint in her hair and one pretty good size dab in the baby wispy hairs in her hair line.  It was painful for both of us as I dabbed and slowly combed each section out.  The worst was the spot where the baby hairs were.  She cried, I cried but we got it out and I hope this never happens again.  Meghan has put away all of her make up and polish.  I am sure she feels as badly as I do, she sat outside the bathroom door for a bit while I worked it out.  I could hear her crying as well.  But we talked it out and I hope this is a lesson we can chalk up to being learned.

There may or may not have been another M-O-T-Y moment with Tylenol this weekend too.  But I plead the 5th!  Here's to a less challenging week but with these 3, who am I kidding...

Wordless Wednesday...Baby Guinness

Monday...UGH!

Monday...ugh! I just can't get it going today.  It is hard to go to work and try to keep your personal life personal.  It is hard to listen to children whine about not feeling well when you yourself are not feeling 100%. 

Grief is a tricky thing...it gets you when you least expect it.  I personally hate the whole process but it is life.  My biggest struggle is helping to teach my kids how to grieve.  I have a feeling I need to make a trip to the library, I have been told about some great sounding books to help the kiddos.  Who knows maybe they will help the mama too! 

I don't want to just write my complaints because everyone has to go through this but I needed to vent a little.  If any of you readers have any suggestions on books or how to remember your pet please feel free to share we are trying to come up with a way to celebrate his life.  Thanks!

Our good boy!

A lifetime ago, literally, Seann and I fell in love.  For my birthday we found and brought this amazing dog into our lives.  He was the best present I had ever gotten at that point in my life.  He was instantly our family start. I knew Seann would be my life partner and Guinness would be there for a large part of that life.

This was his first day at home.  He melted all of our hearts, including Papa Dave's whose foot/slipper he is destroying in this picture!  Thus began a very expensive shoe fetish that took some of the mama's favorites!

By the time Christmas came 5 days later he was already home.  And I am sure he thought all of these gifts were for him!  He spent lots of time under the tree that year.

He always had a beautiful smile and was always ready to play.

But would settle down when you were ready for a break too!

This is Black Rock Mill.  His absolute FAVORITE place to go.  We could still be a mile or more away and he knew where we were going.  He would stand, pace and just smile with the excitement of what was coming.  This was taken on his last trip.

My favorite memories of our boy include these hikes and swims.  He loved us and we loved him.  Some of the best memories I have of him are when I was pregnant with each kid.  He always knew and took good care of mama.  He also loved them fiercely once they came home to him.  He would let us know before we could hear the kids crying.  He protected them and loved to play with them.  Even as he grew in age he still smiled when they would lay on him or tug on his ears.  His ears perked up every time one of their little voices called for gigi.

This is our last walk with our boy!

We were followed on this walk by a red cardinal, which really shouldn't be out and about at this time in Maryland.  But there he was along the trail.

See him up on the wall...this is at the humane society on the other side of town...after I walked our boy inside.

We believe it was our little angel looking out for us and waiting to help Guinness on his way to heaven.

It is very quiet in our house today and tears are flowing freely as we remember and grieve for our dear friend.

We know however that he is at peace and that he is in heaven with Papa Dave and his good friend, Bailey.

My thoughts this Thursday...

So a while back I wrote about my girl and our struggles.  I am happy to say....we are doing much better.  We have (fingers crossed) gotten over the hump of regression.  I think our biggest challenge was just getting into a real routine.  We are blessed to have a permanent childcare provider.  We are blessed to be healthy.  We are blessed with so many things in our lives and hopefully she is realizing just how blessed she is.

Lent...and not the bellybutton kind!

So I come from a family that has always been very active in their church.  I mean Dad is a pastor.  We aren't catholic, which is how Seann was brought up.  We are (shhh, dirty word for Catholics) protestant.  I joke but, in the grand scheme of churches to me they are all similar.  It is finding the right community and core beliefs that make each church unique.  Most churches celebrate the same church calendar as each other but each one judges the other.

Growing up my parents had "quiet time" with us before bed.  Basically what that entailed was reading from the bible a verse or a story and then talking about it.  Talking about how we can strive to be more "God-like", not in a creepy, preachy way but, in our everyday actions.  They also taught me how to pray.  Pray from my heart, be truly grateful, make humble requests and truly mean what I say.   

For about a year now I have not been able to commit to my spiritual growth. And that has left me feeling empty lately.  I also feel like I am letting my kids down somehow because I am not emulating my faith and beliefs.  So instead of giving up something for Lent like I usually do, I am adding something to our evening routine for Lent.  I am bringing back "quiet time".  We had our first experience with it last night and they were surprisingly very receptive.  Now I just need to to keep it up...40 days will make it a habit in our lives...right???  I may not be able to take them to church but I can still help guide them into our faith community.

Caitlyn is TWO!!!!!

I can NOT believe this little girl...

has turned into this little girl, in two short years!

Here is what Sesame Street looked like at our house for her party!

A big THANK YOU to all our family and friends who helped us celebrate!

Wordless Wednesday...Party planning/crafting

Thank you Pintrest!

This is going to be an exciting trip to Sesame Street!

Wordless Wednesday...Sheer JOY

Could possibly be the best picture I have of the two of them yet!

LOVE them both with all my heart!

Take two....

I haven't written about our struggle to keep a sitter/nanny because it was kinda personal.  But I need to vent a moment.  I call this take two, but it is more like take 4 or 5.  When I went back to work only a short year ago...yes it seems like a decade.  My wonderful neighbor helped us out with childcare.  Running Meghan to school, making sure Colin got on the bus and entertaining Caitlyn while the rest were away.  Then I got help from  our dear friend Roxanne.  Who was amazing and I didn't want to let her go...but she needed benefits for her an Tyler so,  tear....she got a "real" job with benefits.  Our next sitter was super fun too, Kelly.  She had two girls about Meghan and Caitlyn's age.  BUT boy did Meghan give her a run for her money.  Meghan tested every which way she could and the summer could not come soon enough.

That brought me to Carly.  Who as a college grad with a psych degree who had no idea what her next move was.  She landed a wonderful "big girl" job as I like to call it, in Baltimore working with children with autism and their families. Super proud of her!

But that all happened as we lead into Christmas break.  I looked and I asked around but I just couldn't find the right person.  I then had to start looking at centers.  Which made my skin crawl, and that was just the price alone!  I then took to the internet...care.com, sittercity, craigslist, parents of multiples...

Care.com was my hero!  I thought I found a good fit.  Great interaction through email, on the phone, we met up and the kids really liked her.  All her references checked out, along with the background check.  I hired her....she called out her first morning and hasn't returned a call since.  

HEARTBREAKING!!!!!!!

So back to work I went at looking for the person who would fit with us.  All the while my dear, sweet, lovely neighbor has put up with the kids bickering, fighting and whining the morning away.  And has toted Caitlyn to drop off, pick up and run her errands like she has an almost two year old of her own again!

Saturday we found our person and she started today!  And you know what, I think she is going to stick with us for a while...I hope!  I am very grateful to have Kym now become an extended part of our family!  And the huge weight lifted off my shoulders.  The kids are super happy, so that makes the mama super happy too!

Wordless Wednesday....my kiddos

Breathe

It has been one of those weeks.  The kinda week that just opens up around you and you don't know if you are coming or going.  That was this week for us.  After a wonderful week with family last week and an eventful New Years Eve(more about that later) we had a very LONG drive home to Maryland.  It snowed more than half the way home.  With each hour confined in the car I could feel each of the kids coughs getting worse and the germs crawling all around us.  I knew I was going to be into the doctor the next day.  What I wasn't expecting was Strep x 3 kids, a UTI for Meg and pinkeye for Caitlyn.  So two days home for the big kids and day three Caitlyn had gotten worse.  So back into the doctor we went and Cait was graced with an ear infection on top of everything else.  In the mean time, I have been cleaning and scrubbing trying to get these germs out of our lives.

I am so grateful to have sick leave so I can be home with these sick kiddos.  To be able to snuggle, bathe and love on them has been great.  Monday we should be back to our normal routine.  In the meantime, I am going to breathe and pray they continue to get well.  AND clean this house!

Thoughtful Thursday...Meghan

This darling little face is going to be my downfall.  In a nut shell, she is me.  The good, the bad and the ugly.  Currently our ugly consists of her testing her limits.  One area in particular has me stretched beyond my limits.  She gets lazy and doesn't always "go" where she needs to.  You see, she is still wearing pull-ups at night.  NOT because she is a chronic wetter or anything but because it is more convenient for me in case she does.  It is maybe once a week that she needs them.  The part that has me fuming is she refuses to take them off unless she has to go to school.  If she is home(like this last week on winter break) she will wear them until I physically take them off her myself.  By the time I can get them off her she has already peed in them.  The other issue happened again last night.  She gets ready for bed and still has 30 mins with the family before we go up to tuck in.  She poops in the pull up because she doesn't want to get up and go.  I am so confused.  Some days she flat out tells me she was just being lazy and others like last night, she says she can't feel it.  I am so confused!  We have been to the doctor, as far as we can tell with limited, non-evasive testing there is no physical reason for it.  When she was doing it after Caitlyn was born, I chalked it up to regressing.  But Caitlyn will be two next month, I can't believe that could still be the reason.  Each child gets 1-1 time before bed from both parents so I can't believe she would be feeling slighted or left out.  I don't know...I guess I will continue to pray a leave it Gods hands...for today at least.  I will take a deep breath and just breathe and let her be herself.

Wordless Wednesday...BIG hugs!

Some good ol' family time!

This was taken New Years Eve.  My three little munchkins and my two adorable nieces!

It was a great week together and the kids made some memories.

This is just one of the many shots we got as they played together! 

LOVE THEM!