HAPPY BIRTHDAY SOPHIE!

I can't believe a whole year has gone by already!  And I can't believe all the joy this little girl has added to our lives!

March 31, 2011 ~ Love at first sight!

April 2011

May 2011 ~ Mother's Day

June 2011

July 2011

August 2011

September 2011 ~ meeting Eóghan for the first time!

October 2011 ~ Baby Smurf!  Halloween

November 2011 ~ Thanksgiving Day

December 2011

January 2012

February 2012

March 2011

Later today we'll be going to Erik & Lori's for a celebration party and I'm sure I'll have more pictures to share!

I've been busy and away from blogging and visiting, and I hope to catch up with everyone next week.  I've missed everyone and I've missed reading about your lives.  And I thank all of you who have left comments on my blogs and on Facebook.  You're all so kind.

I was in the city on St. Patrick's Day with my friend Barbara, we had so much fun and I'll share about that in a post soon.  Also, I was petrified scared this week because Barbara was having a problem with her heart and needed to go in for a procedure where they 'shocked' her heart into a normal rhythm.  She called me yesterday and she is doing very well!  So I'm breathing again!

And we celebrated Ray's Birthday on March 18th, and I'll post about that along with St. Pat's Day.

AND we celebrated Baby Ray's Baptism last Sunday, so I hope to post about that soon too!  And next week we're all getting together for Easter Sunday dinner and a combined Birthday party at our house for both Sophie and Mia with extended family.  I'm looking forward to it!

'Hope you are all doing well!  'See' you soon!

Same Old Same Old

That was another saying my Mom used to say, if you asked her what was new, she'd say, "Nothing new, just the same old same old."


Well, there's nothing new going on here either, just the same old same old, but I'm not complaining.  I like the same old same old.


This past weekend Ray started cleaning out the back room (it becomes a storage room over the Winter), and he made a good dent in it.  It was cold though, so he had to work with a jacket on, and he was kind enough to tell me that I didn't have to help.  This weekend I'll be going into Manhattan with my friend Barbara for St. Patrick's Day on Saturday, and then Sunday is Ray's Birthday, so I don't think much cleaning out will be getting done, but hopefully, the following weekend will be warm enough for us both to finish the job Ray started.  I plan on bagging and boxing lots of things and doing a big purge from that room.


Other than that, we haven't been up to much lately.
I've been keeping myself occupied with this ~


Diane stopped by with this interesting little case:

And inside was this:

Now, I'm not very good at jigsaw puzzles, it takes me forever to finish them, but once I get started, it's like an addiction.  I stayed up late many nights last week working on this:

It was near impossible!  My eyesight is bad, so I had to resort to this for help:

Having a magnifying glass made all the difference!


The kids visited over the weekend and we had fun with our little "Irish" ones!  (They are actually all more Swedish, and Italian, and Puerto Rican, and Cuban, and there is a bit of German thrown in there too, but I like to remind everyone that they have a few drops of Irish in them too!):

Baby Ray looks like he's saying, "What's going on over there?"

Mia is such a good big sister, and such a good big cousin too!

Jayden was out at the park playing with his Daddy and some of the neighborhood boys, but I snapped this picture of him earlier in the day (much to his dismay, he does not like having his picture taken anymore!):

New hair cut!

'Hope everyone enjoys the rest of the week, and in case I don't get back here before the weekend ~ HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

Very Lucky In The 'Good Baby' Department! And Another Nice Weekend

I don't know how we got so lucky in the 'good baby' department, but I am thanking my lucky stars, and most especially the Good Lord above!
Brian and Flora had a wedding to attend so Baby Ray had his first sleep-over with us!
He is one very good baby.  I was afraid he might be lonely for his Mommy and Daddy, but he did very well.  I had the idea to put him in one of Eóghan's 'Magic Sleep Suits', thinking it might help him feel secure, but I forgot about the size difference in the two babies (one looks like a little Buddha and one looks like a little pipsqueak).

Eóghan's suit is way too big, but I left Ray in it anyway because I think our room is too cold.  He did very well!

He got up a few times during the night, but he either took his pacifier and went back to sleep, or he took a few ounces and went right back down.


At first he looked at me like he just wasn't very sure about all this:

I was thinking, "Uh-oh.  Here we go.  He's going to cry."

Then I just started talking to him and he got very happy!

And he stayed that way until his Daddy came to pick him up in the morning!




And we had another nice weekend with some family visitors:

Ray's sister and his Mom stopped by for a few hours to visit with the babies: 

And Mia had a play-date with a little friend, but Erik stopped by with Sophie:

And we had lots of fun with her too!

The Happiness Project And My Little Exercise Guru

I'm reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin (thank you, Jill [you can find Jill's blog HERE], for the recommendation [you can find Jill's book post HERE]).  I'm loving it! 


So far, for me, a few of the most notable things from this book, and the most significant to my life:


I had everything I could possibly want, yet I was failing to appreciate it.  Bogged down in petty complaints and passing crises, weary of struggling with my own nature, I too often failed to comprehend the splendor of what I had.  I didn't want to keep taking these days for granted.  The words of the writer Colette had haunted me for years: "What a wonderful life I've had!  I only wish I'd realized it sooner."  I didn't want to look back, at the end of my life or after some great catastrophe, and think, "How happy I used to be then, if only I'd realized it."


~and~


I needed to change the lens through which I viewed everything familiar.


~and~


...people have an inborn disposition that's set within a certain range, but they can boost themselves to the top of their happiness range or push themselves down to the bottom of their happiness range by their actions.


~ and what struck me most especially was this:


...people desire other things, such as power or wealth or losing ten pounds, because they believe these things will lead to happiness, but their real goal is happiness.


This book is helping me to appreciate my life right here and right now:
Such as watching my little exercise guru jump, and jump, and jump!
(I love this little guy's energy!)

Oh, this happy little boy!  Seriously, sometimes I feel like my heart could just burst.  I look at my grandchildren and I think, "It's not possible, it's just not possible to love someone this much."
This wonderful, joyful, heavenly, impossible, miraculous, "I more than love you" feeling ~ it must be the Spirit of God.  This amazing 'more than love' feeling is something that makes me very happy and I get to experience it everyday.