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.