Strawberry Picking!

Today was a beautiful day to go strawberry picking! We always head to Sam Mazza's farm stand. They have pick your own, and they also have a cute store and tons of beautiful produce for sale. They also have a little playground with some random animals for feeding and petting. We've been picking strawberries there since Connor was about 2. I remember my first time picking I was 9 months pregnant! (good times....). We've also gone with Siobhan as a tiny 1 month old in the Bjorn!

This time, however, I had bigger kids able to actually pick and help out. What a difference that makes! They were all able to pick good ripe ones. They were also able to refrain from eating their weights in strawberries.... =) Dad was up for a few days so he came with us too. A nice treat!

Siobhan munching away!

Obviously the coolest picker there....

If you say to Siobhan "Let me take your picture", this is what she does.
I am not sure if it means she has a future in modeling,
or in dorky picture taking...but there it is.
We brought a picnic lunch and ate there.
(A picnic for me means purchasing sandwiches at Subway;
you didn't think I actually had time to make a nutritious meal, did you?)
We then had some time for my animals to visit with the animals there.
Connor loved feeding the animals. The kids hung onto their apples from their lunches and fed them to the horse. Then they managed to clean me out for all of my quarters so they could buy those little pellets.Connor was right at home.
Aisling is generally more timid around animals. She was a trooper though and fed the animals with my hand under hers. She was super cute and I was very proud of her. Siobhan wanted nothing to do with feeding them, and who could blame her really; the animals were mostly bigger than her!
By the end of the afternoon, Aisling was feeding this little guy all by herself.
(Of course it helps that this was a tiny little baby, but still!)
I had heard there was a pregnant goat at Mazza's.
While I am no expert on goats, I may be an expert on being pregnant;
having been so a few times... you know, for over 2 years when you add it all up....
Anyhoo.... I can be relatively certain this was indeed the pregnant goat. I also will wager a bet that there are two babies in there.
She and I had a little chat about how miserable it is to be pregnant in the hot summer.

We came home from picking strawberries and jumped in the pool. Correction, the kids jumped in the pool. I am a water wimp, and anything below hot tub temperature does not appeal to me. I now am off to cut strawberries for our home made strawberry shortcake for tonight! =)

Shelburne Farm

I actually had an opportunity to hang out with the kids today. It was awesome! We went to Shelburne Farms. We have been there so many times in the past and it's one of our favorite places! We opted to go today because Siobhan's preschool class was having a field trip there. We ran into her class, but only visited with them for a few minutes before we ran off to do our own thing.

It was neat today to see the farm through Siobhan's eyes. I've been with the other kids so many times, and they know the place like the back of their hands. But, this was the first time Siobhan could really go and comprehend what she was seeing. It was so fun and exciting to watch her take it all in. It was even more fun and exciting to watch Connor and Aisling interact with her and explain all of the animals to her!

Busy

Are you seeing a theme here?!
I am LOVING my classes and my new job. Love doesn't even seem like strong enough a word. I am doing what I was meant to be doing and it's awesome and exciting. It's also overwhelming and terrifying and exhausting. My classwork has added at least 15 hours of work to each week, if not more. Add that to the fact that I am suddenly working full time for the first time in ten years, and, well, you get the idea. The big kids both played baseball this spring as well as maintained dance lessons and scouts. I am so glad they are able to do this stuff, and it definitely is making them well-rounded kids, but it makes life a drain sometimes. Al and I hardly see each other on a daily basis anyway, but add all of this into the mix, and, well, days go by before we are able to have a conversation. I am hoping that when I finish this classwork (next April) that this speed slows down a little bit. I hope that in the meantime people understand why we may not be showing up to every social event offered. It's not you, it's me; I swear. ;)

Understand, however, that this is the choice we've made. We have had conversations with people multiple times who ask us things like: Why do we still have Wyatt? Was Siobhan an accident? What were we thinking? This is the life we have chosen, and we have talked very seriously every step along the way. I wouldn't change it for anything. Wyatt is here because we love him and at this point could not picture our lives without him. When his presence is no longer feeding our souls our our children's' souls (or his soul) well, then we will discuss his moving on. Siobhan was absolutely not an accident. We always wanted a big family, and, through the grace of God, we have that.

It often feels like people are "worried" about us. I understand that, I do. Sometimes I do question the choices we've made. But, don't worry about us. We're fine. (We could sometimes use a little help with some babysitting.... if anyone's interested!) ;)

I just felt the need to get that off my chest. Continue to stay tuned for updates on our life. I hope to be adding some pictures soon of trips we've taken recently.

Thanks for all the love!

Siobhan is 3!

I cannot believe it, but my baby has turned 3 years old! I always seem to have such a hard time when my babies reach odd numbered ages. Not sure why that is; but 3 just seems so much older than 2; and 5 seems light years away from 4. Strange, I know.

Here's a snapshot of Siobhan at 3 years old:

-she loves to color. She will literally sit for an hour with crayons and a coloring book and color. Not only does she love it, but she's a perfectionist at it. She can color slowly and take her time like nobody's business. She does not scribble.
-She LOVES to dance. She would wear a leotard all day if I let her. She goes to dance class once a week and love it. She dances constantly. It's awesome.
-She has very strict definitions of what's appropriate for boys and what's appropriate for girls. This cracks me up, because she obviously did not pick this up from our home. But, she will adamantly tell you that pink is for girls, blue is for boys and boys do not do ballet. (Don't worry, we're trying to break her of this!)
-She will not wear pants. If I want to put pants on her it can be a physical struggle! She is a skirt wearing/dress wearing diva!
-She is a talker. She will tell you word for word what she did during the day at school. She will also talk with her hands.
-She can turn it on and get when she wants when she wants it. She could get anything she wanted out of her older brother and sister. This makes this behaviorist of a mama pretty frustrated!
-She is a love. She is a snuggler and a lovey girl. She loves to snuggle with a blanket at bed time (blanky blank).
-She is totally excited for pre-school! She is so excited about school. She asks for help in tracing her name and is eager to learn.
-She is loved. Happy birthday dear Siobhan!!

Here are some pictures of her birthday party.

Sitting in the special present opening chair!

Opening a special gift from Connor and Aisling!
A new matching dress from one of her best friends Genevieve!
Thankfully she found some shoes to go with it!
Hooray for princess cakes!

Playing with her friends. This was the first time Siobhan really had friends over.
She was in heaven!

Here is a video of Siobhan enjoying one of her favorite birthday gifts.

(Note the wardrobe change!)

All in all it was a fantastic day. Her godmothers came over for dinner (Siobhan's choice of macaronis and cheese and hot dogs!) and more cake. Of course they also spoiled her with gifts!

Happy Birthday to my sweet baby girl!

Connor

Connor's been a bit busy too!

Connor has been working on his personal project for third grade. This is essentially a project where he chose something he wanted to learn more about, and then decided how he wanted to learn about it, and then how he wanted to tell his class about it. A pretty cool concept; although for this step by step mama it was a bit to wrap my head around!

No worries, Connor decided he wanted to learn more about ham radio. Since I can't help him there, he and Al were on their own. (For this control freak mama that was a bit challenging too!) As you can see, he's been interested in this for a while:

(circa 11/2005)

They did some exploration with electricity. We bought Connor a kids' circuit building kit. (This one, in fact). Connor had an amazing time with the kit from the moment we brought it home. It was the perfect thing for his busy and inquisitive mind. He was very excited to build the different circuits, and I think we've found a new toy category for him!
Once he finished exploring, he also needed to figure out what to present. He did some research this morning with Al, and created a great presentation. In fact, it's so great that I don't understand any of it!

I'm proud of the work he did on this. It wasn't without struggle; he's such a stinkin perfectionist! (No idea where he gets that from....) But, in the end I think he did great and learned a lot. I'm also glad he and Al had an opportunity to work together! He's excited to present it tomorrow, so that's great too!

Aisling

Aisling's been busy lately!

In February her girl scout troop took a field trip to Auntie Annie's Pretzels. Aisling learned how to make a pretzel! She did a great job, and I can attest to the deliciousness!
She also got to sample the smoothie!

YUM!

Also, she participated in an after school gymnastics camp. She had a total blast and wants to take gymnastics class now!

A little about me!

I don't usually post about myself here, as I really consider this blog to be about my kids. But, I thought I would explain my lengthy absence from the blog. (You know, for the five readers who noticed). I've recently begun taking classes toward becoming a BCBA. (Board Certified Behavior Analyst). I need to take 15 months worth of classes followed by a test. I am also required to do a few months of supervised internship, which I can do through my job. This is something I considered doing when I was in grad school. I opted to get my special education certification instead, but always wondered if I had made the right choice. I am so thrilled to have the opportunity presented to me once again to work in the field that I really love so much. I'm so excited about the opportunity, and cannot believe how much I am enjoying working once again with children with behavioral difficulties.

Anyway, basically this classwork entails about 2 hours per night of homework. It's an online class, based out of Florida Tech, so it's all self directed. But, it's a lot of course work. Right now I have a quick two week break between classes, so I have some free time to update the blog. When classes are in session, no time at all!

So, over the next few days I will try to post some updates about what the kids have been up to. We'll see how much I can get done!