knot-them-again

Dresses and Dances

2012-01-14T17:32:00.000-06:00

Been a fairly normal week. Possibly the most profound words I can type these days! I went back to work. The girls went back to school. Routine looked a lot like....routine.

Besides the job, I also worked some more in the salt mine. The birth family food fund was completely drained with the extra holiday deliveries of food and gifts so I need to get the Etsy shop stocked!!

Have five more in various stages of completion (-:

The week ended with a new experience for us. Very happy to have 'survived' as I'm sure this experience will be an oft repeated one in the next few years!!!

It involved a group of teenaged girls crowded in a bedroom wall papered in Justin Bieber posters.

It involved a BUNCH of electric hair appliances trying to turn a

certain Maya mane into a fancy hair do.

There was pizza and salads...and chocolate rice krispie treats to steel the nerves!

Because Friday night was the 8th grade dance!!

When I look at this picture all I see are the

Homecoming and Proms racing our way

on the high school horizon that is quickly coming our way.

This trial run went pretty darn well (-;

The Salt Cure

2012-01-05T22:36:00.000-06:00

Well another good sign of our journey back to life is that I felt enough energy to get back into the sewing room!!

[aka salt mine as named by the hubby]

Made this for a little friend heading off to Disney World this weekend. I am thinking of doing up another couple in the other princesses to put in my Etsy shop since the fund for the birth family's food basket deliveries was depleted at Christmas!! The only problem is finding a fair price. It did charge my batteries back some...I have Mardi Gras outfits swirling in my head that are begging to be made....maybe there is something to that 'salt cure' of old after all! (-:

Taking Comfort...in food, what else???

2012-01-04T15:50:00.000-06:00

One of my reasons for being a bit unsure of just where we are on the spectrum of healing is this peculiar problem of food!! Yes, we are ALL happily self-medicating our emotions with food. Our waistlines are suffering mightily...but in my new 'Amsterdam perspective' I'd rather fight fat that some of the other self-destructive behaviors that are out there! I used to think I would cook when I was content and happy. You know, the nurturer doing her thing?!?! Lately I've been cooking...A LOT...because it is safe. It is something that takes my mind to someplace familiar. I know what I'm doing when I'm in the kitchen. I know where the cooking process is taking me. Eating together has been one of our safety nets.

So lately, and thanks to a new internet addiction to the Pinterest site, I've been itching to try out a few new recipes. I take this as a sign that the fog is lifting and I'm regaining an interest in the 'nurturing' side of cooking rather than the 'routine' of cooking.....at least that is what I'd like the believe! So today I came across a recipe that just SCREAMED to be made...and I had all the ingredients on hand...and a bit of comfort wouldn't be such a bad thing?

Sopapilla Cheesecake [a la Mahoney]

Upfront confession time- the 'a la Mahoney' means that AS USUAL I tinkered with the original recipe. I do that. ALL THE TIME. My family will happily regale you with the many flops that have occurred as a result of my stubborn need to make a recipe 'my own' but this was one of the many that worked. Quite well if I do say so myself! But it still needs a tweak...

...and a more experienced baker will look at this picture and know exactly what I'm about to say!! You see the original recipe calls for you to unroll a can of crescent rolls into a greased 9 X 13 pan and then add the filling. But we LOVE cinnamon sugar so I had to sprinkle a bit to up the flavor quotient. I will do that again next time too!! There was also this handful of strawberries left over from the weekend that were reaching their prime so, what the heck, I chopped them up and sprinkled them over the crust. There in lies the problem!!!

The next step involved spreading a mixture that was 2 blocks of cream cheese, a cup of sugar, and a teaspoonful of vanilla. A rather thick mixture. Over loose and soft strawberries?!?! Next time I spread the cream cheese mixture FIRST and then sprinkle the strawberries.

Then you unroll a second can of crescent rolls over the top and pinch the seams closed. Pour a 1/2 cup of melted butter {I would use less next time...yes, the butter addicted family would reduce the butter?!?!?} over the top and sprinkle a 1/2 cup cinnamon sugar over that and

bake at 350 for twenty minutes.

Can you say simple AND scrumptious?!?!??

The official baked goods taste tester added a bit of whipped cream...because it wasn't fattening enough as is I guess? He was so unsure of the quality rating that he had a second piece just to make sure it was safe to serve the girls...who also had two pieces...just because it was so warm and scrumptious.....and comforting!

It's a New Year....?

2012-01-04T02:21:00.000-06:00

We walked our way through the holidays. Not sure anyone but Julia really ever 'felt' the holiday. Not that there weren't plenty of feelings...just not that special awe inspiring emotion usually found around this magical time of the year. We made it mostly because we could all see that the darkest part of the journey we have been on of late is beginning to look a bit brighter.

We finally decorated the tree. Okay, Auntie Peggy finally finished our tree but it was while I was busy cooking a for a family dinner night. All the 'right' gifts were bought and wrapped and duly delivered.

All the family visited...we even hosted my Dad this year as our ranch style home was better suited to his ever increasing frailty.

I made and served two Thanksgiving dinners as well as Christmas and New Years. We changed up the Christmas 'tradition' a bit now that there are no more Santa believers.

Midnight mass followed by the gift opening marked the beginning of a new tradition.

....and we did all of this when what we really wanted to be doing was laying curled in our beds with the covers over our heads and hoping the phones would stop ringing. Depression, grief, anxiety, PTSD, SAD, menopause, and adolescence all ganged up on us at once and it sucked every last ounce of strength from us that it could. But we have been blessed with a loving family who came and propped us up and jobs that provide the benefits and income for us to seek the care and intervention of specialists. Together those helped us find the strength to get up and walk our way through the holidays!

We are walking a little stronger each day.

The dark is not quite so black. Not sure if we are just in a clearing or if we are on our way into the light? I suspect the first, especially since there is another adolescence racing towards us at a VERY high rate of speed.

But the family is still close and the specialists are on speed dial so I have to hope we will make the trek out into the valley on the other side of this mountain before long. Now to find the strength to take the tree down...sometime before Valentine's Day!!!!

Happy New Year!

Lost in Amsterdam...

2011-12-13T15:41:00.000-06:00

This is the way my Christmas tree has looked for a week now. It is a perfect illustration of the state of our family at this moment in time. If anyone even swings by the blog anymore then my apologies. It has been sooooooo long since I last blogged or even felt like blogging and a couple of you reached out recently to check on me so I figured I owed an explanation.

Long time readers know we are a family created by immigration and adoption. We are together by choice and not biology. Since we did not have the benefit of shared DNA and months of intimate gestation, our family ties need much more TLC to prevent knots or breakage. We've been struggling there......

Those of you with experience in special needs or mental health professions will be familiar with the reference in the title of this post but for those not familiar here is a short explanation. In counseling there is a story to try and redirect ones focus on the 'big picture'. Let's say all your life you have dreamed of traveling to Italy. So much so that you saved every penny, read every travelogue, and even took Italian lessons so you could order those delectable meals you read about in the travelogue. Finally you have the time and money and you book your dream trip....but the plane lands in Amsterdam with an announcement that due to completely unforeseen circumstances this is where your trip ends. There is not going to be an Italian dream trip...ever...not going to happen!

It is at this point that the counselor tries to show you how very much you will miss in all the grandeur of Amsterdam if you stay curled in a fetal position at the airport mourning your lost dream! In our case there are some variables we are still working through. Like how sooooooo very long we had to wait for the right time and money to book our way to Italy and how sooooo many family members that we are invested in have already reached Italy and insist on texting you constant updates on all the fantastic experiences THEY are having in Italy even as they know you sit stranded forever in Amsterdam!!!

Well I'm out of the fetal position. Partly because my intellect sees the benefits of embracing Amsterdam but partly only out of duty....what Mother leaves their children stranded at the Amsterdam airport while they have a pity party?? We are walking around checking out Amsterdam...but I must admit that I have in no way made an emotional connection with this new destination yet. The girls still think we can figure out a plan B that gets us to Italy so they are not very excited about our tours of Amsterdam either. Really, I am still pretty numb. Just look at our Christmas tree....we are going through the motions but there is no excitement...not joy...not emotional connection to the season...yet! I have hope we will make a breakthrough.....

We hear they do a might fine Christmas in Amsterdam (-:

Fantastic Fall

2011-10-31T23:32:00.000-05:00

Yes, minus the emotional quicksand bit, this has been a wonderful fall for those of us who live in the Chicago environs. The weather has really been decent. I guess 'normal' would be a fitting description of the slow and steady spiral downward movement of the thermometer and the leaves.

A few weeks back we harvested the garden. The potatoes, carrots, cabbage and tomatoes gathered that day were paired with a couple of pieces of corned beef and fed the ten of us who gathered for the usual Thursday family dinner.

The end of the harvest from our little city plot.

Peggy had the garden ....I do the baking...together we had a Halfway to St. Patrick's Day!

Dinner time craziness!!!

Tastes so good when it comes from your own garden!!

For the past two weeks I have been pounding my sewing machines to near death. Besides some Etsy orders there were costumes to be made for Halloween!! All were done and delivered by last Friday [<;

My Muerto del Titanic and Hogwart student grudgingly posing today.

Much happier to be heading off to collect candy with the friends than the sister!! She went Trick-or-Treating this year despite the homework assigned by EVERY teacher because the middle school decided that 8th graders are too old to celebrate Halloween!?!?!

The younger set happy to be together without those silly teens! Oh, and the grammar schools decided that Halloween night was a good time to assign homework as well!?!?!?! This Mom decided the teachers would reap the rewards of what they had sown...after Trick-or-Treating we did the homework....which resulted in a two hour delay in the usual bedtime....so they can suffer the behavior tomorrow of two sleep deprived girlies hepped on sugar to keep them from nodding off!!!

This is my version of an Angry Bird made for a friend's son (-:

And the view of his tail feathers.

The Tarzana costume and the ...ah...um...Fallopian Swim Team member are awaiting the promised pictures by the recipients!!! Yes, that would mean you Steven!!

We also prepared for November 1st , Dia de los Muertos by decorating our ofrenda...

...which included our plate full of sugar skulls made last weekend.

There are still plenty of leaves on the trees waiting for the cold winds to blow them down. We've only had a mild frost or two...unlike our poor friends out east who were slammed with snow. The weathermen are trying to scare us into being prepared for one heck of a snowy winter....I should listen and prepare...but I'm not ready to let go of fall just yet!

Sweet Times

2011-10-22T21:01:00.000-05:00

I'd suggest you'd better sit down because I've actually gotten around to posting on my blog...but I'd have to assume you are probably sitting at your computer! Anyhow, we really have been living a quite full and interesting life. I just have not found my mojo for blogging to be particularly ...motivating.

Halloween preparations are in full swing at our house! Costumes are cut and in various stages of completion in the salt mine. The 'scary men' are in place on the porch. Today we decided to try our hand with REAL sugar skulls for Dia de los Muertos!!!

We had a book with directions. We had the BFF/Cousin.

There was great surprise and happiness to find this required 'playing' with the sugar.

You mush and mash sugar, meringue powder, and a bit of water together.

Then you push the mush in a mold.

Teamwork is not a problem with these two.

Then we tried coloring the next batch orange...ended up more like apricot colored.

Sugar was sticking to skin like crazy....one enjoyed liking it off...the other not so much.

The skulls are lined up and waiting to 'cure' so we can decorate them tomorrow.

Proud confectioners!

We still need to decorate our ofrenda, buy candy for the trick-or-treaters, and finish sewing the costumes. There's a week yet!!! No sweat (-;

Long Weekend Fun

2011-10-10T01:44:00.000-05:00

Last year this time we were in Florida attending the Guatfest held at the Nick Hotel. They had 8 inches of rain this weekend in Orlando....while we had the most glorious Indian Summer weather one could ever hope for!!!!!!!!!!!! Kind of glad the finances kept us home this year because we got to be out in the sun and warmth all weekend. Not only out but out with the cousins!!! Just posting a random collection of the over 200 pictures we took of our Fall Break fun. I'm sure I missed a few that I meant to show but since sooooooooooo many of them turned out sooooooooo well it was hard to decide which ones to post!

Outing #1....back to our favorite orchard! In no particular order and with little commentary here goes...

In a rare appearance is Ethan...Andrew and Alyssa's baby brother.

The whole group with us this day.

He just had to have that perfect apple!

Yes, Julia is now as tall as Alyssa!!

As you can clearly see we are having superb weather given that the calendar reads October (-; You never know...we might get to sneak in one more trip before you know what comes our way.

Outing #2...a photo shoot with all the cousins at a local forest preserve which features a creek with an old mill. This is the very first year EVER that all 8 of them go to a different school so we thought we get some pictures of them wearing their school hoodies or spirit wear....which for this public blog I regrettably had to obscure for their privacy. It was a bit warm for the hoodies and long sleeved shirts....

Also in a rare appearance is Daniel, brother of Mairead and Deirdre!

Soooooo bored waiting for the adults to plan the shot.

Helping his baby brother down the river bank to get to the falls.

Wishing they could ditch their hoodies and go wading instead (-;

Only one more day off before we are back to the grindstone...can we only hope that this weather will last until Halloween?!?!?

Life Lessons

2011-10-02T17:45:00.000-05:00

Have heard from more than one person in the past two weeks about my blogging drought! As I alluded to in the past post, there have been some pretty impressive emotional storms blowing through this house in the past couple of months. When the gales subsided I had very little wind in my sails to handle day to day activities and work let alone enough to blog. I have some memories that need to be recorded for my girls' future though and so I am digging deep to rejoin the ranks of the blog world!

I am opening with the most recent event!! Pretty much EVERY weekend the BFF/Cousin Deirdre becomes the third Mahoney daughter. Auntie Peggy even calls her my youngest as in "Is your youngest daughter over AGAIN?!?!" But she and Julia are just so darn good together that it is a pleasure to have her here. Yesterday they did something they rarely do....they asked for my help. It seems they felt it was high time they learned how to SEW!!! Gulp....as flattered as I was to be asked I also had a wave of panic at the thought of those two set loose in my sanctuary! Together they had made a well conceived plan and after rummaging through my insanely excessive stash of fabric we began their first sewing lesson.

We did the prep work first...cutting fabric and ribbons to the correct sizes.

Deirdre worried from the instant this picture was taken that now she will be expected to do ironing duty at home!! They learned what Wonder Under was and how it works....and how NOT to ruin my iron with Wunder Uck!

There was a lot of waiting ones turn as there was only one teacher for the two pupils!

Oh, did I mention that the teacher was working while injured???

As bad as it looks it is really the result of a botched blood draw so while my arm ached from the pressure of the bruising it was still usable.

But everyone had their turn at each step in the process.

When we made it to the step where the sewing machine would be needed we practised.....

...and practiced...

...and practiced some more....

...and when they had several straight runs we were ready for the real projects!

They were all seriousness...

and determination!!

It took waaaaay longer than I originally thought but it is not all their fault as I neglected to factor in my chauffeuring obligations and then there was the impromptu family dinner at Portillos. There was the tiny interruption as Andrew, on his way to his first Homecoming Dance stopped by and I had to take pictures!! [Hopefully covered in an upcoming post!] What we started on Saturday was finished by Sunday which meant, of course, that Deirdre had to extend her sleepover!!!

Two uber proud sewers!!!!

Bad, bad blogger lady...

2011-09-13T23:39:00.000-05:00

Heard this comment recently. Guilty as charged!

Back to school this year did not hold up to the positive promise seen on the first day. As a matter of fact it has been excruciatingly painful. Not a place to discuss the details and no quick fixes looming so I may continue to be a "bad, bad blogger lady" for the foreseeable future )-: Life for girls with traumatic histories who have difficulty seeing the future sometimes gets too overwhelming...for the parents as well as the child!

We are working very, very actively towards healing and happiness. The 9/11 anniversary did not help matters....

On Friday, September 9th both of the girls came home from school rather upset at conversations and lessons that had occurred regarding the events of that day. I am a crier. Literally I can cry at ANYTHING!!! Olympic commercials, Super Bowl commercials, reality TV shows....you name it and I've probably shed a tear or ten. Soooooo, me talking to two distressed little girls about a horrific event would surely mean tears so I took a deep breath and made a HUGE decision............

There was no TV on at our house this past weekend. Girls played outside on their scooters and bikes until the sunset. We made a very conscious decision to avoid all things 9/11! In the exact words of "we are not strong enough at this moment to handle more sorrow or sadness" we all agreed to let this anniversary pass....without us....

So when Sunday morning dawned gorgeously warm and sunny we did what we do well...... TRADITIONS!!! Into the car we piled and off we drove to the ORCHARD (-: It is still a week too early to actually go out among the trees to pick the apples but the 'Barn' was open and we were looking for our Pumpkin Butter and cider doughnut fix!! Enjoy a few pictures from the day...

Auntie Peggy came with us too (-;

The girls even wore matching outfits and posed willingly for pictures!?!?

Auntie Peggy has some great ideas and the very wonderful results are still on her memory card in her camera because we have just been too busy to swap files just yet!

I mean, really!!! They sat touching each other...on rocks...and smiled!?!?! It was a day made positive ON PURPOSE by all who participated (-:

We started out the day with our cider doughnut fix.

They really, really, genuinely will put a smile on your face they are so darn delicious!!

The day was about as perfect as could be in the weather department.

One girl was still working on her new metal free smile (-:

I was getting in touch with my Mommy Dearest persona...no, not really!!!

A hundred times or more my littlest lady commented on how glad she was that we had decided to make the trek to the orchard...and I'm thinking the color Google image printouts I had on my sewing machine that night with "What I want to be for Halloween" printed on them were the result of browsing in the Barn's Halloween section.

Waaaaay inside joke here!!! {Hint, someone's first American food addiction!]

Julia with the smaller half of the haul...Mari had a whole bushel FULL of treats we just could NOT pass up but that would be one of the pictures still on Auntie Peggy's camera.

The cat that ate the mouse smiles as they watched the cashier ring up treat after treat!

More posing for pictures..

...and even more posing..

My favorite one of the day!!

Then I had this brilliant idea...let's stop by a corn field and take some pictures.... they cooperated beautifully if less than impressed with the brilliance of the idea!

Half of the fun of the day is being able to look at these pictures and realize just how the narrative does NOT match the recorded image! The lovely cooperative smile covering the clenched teeth as she hisses, "Hurry up! I don't want to get a tick...and there might be field mice by my feet!!!"

....and the "This is so dorky Mom!" said through a plastered on smile. Not that they were not genuinely smiling and happy...because they were!! It is just that at this age you get the running commentary offered ventriloquist style so they don't have to do any 'retakes'.

We will be going again in a few weeks. Still need our actual apple picking fix....WITH the cousins this time! Traditions have a wonderful duality of function sometimes. Mostly we use ours to create happy memories for the future. This time we used the happy memories of visits past as a balm to soothe aching souls and help us move forward...to make more happy memories to have in our 'tradition bank' to draw on should the need arise again. While some traditions just happily fall into place...sometimes you need to go to the conscious effort to MAKE the tradition happen!

Confessions of a undisciplined blogger...

2011-09-06T12:35:00.000-05:00

I've hinted once or twice that I am not particularly known for my orderly and disciplined virtues.....because frankly I do not have ANY! I am a bundle of ideas and the queen of getting the ball rolling...then I get my adult onset ADD and wander off to the next idea....

But dear reader...or both of you who are left these days, I have not purposely been neglecting you! I have been a flurry of business since school claimed my children back for the daytime hours. I have finally gotten back into the sewing room (-: I've got the Halloween batch up on Etsy and am working on more adoption themed outfits with my Christmas prints pulled out and in the queue. Here's a few of the things I've been playing with;

These and the fact that out of the blue my Guatlinda II dress was 'found' by a group of adoptive mothers on a FB page I belong to and overnight I had EIGHT orders!!! The account for the birth families food deliveries should be looking less sickly and none too soon with the holiday season approaching.

Now I did venture out of the salt mine once or twice of late. I would have been voted off the Mommy island if I did not keep this morning's appointment...

Yes, it involved Mari....and the last time you will see her smile like this!

Because today was THE DAY!! Brackets and wires were removed...

Ready to be disposed of and replaced by...

Well OF COURSE she chose pink and purple for her retainers!?!?!?

Seeing as she is still a teen we did opt for the permanent retainer behind the lower teeth and he has one on the upper...temporarily but today we begin the new phase! Can you hear me now...."Mari, where is your retainer and why is it not in your mouth???" ...because I pretty darn sure I will be saying that with a high degree of frequency!!

But today is all about admiring the new smile....

and more mirror action...

and more mirror action!!! If my camera had not been tucked safely in my bag at the moment I would even have a shot of her bent checking her new smile out in my side view mirror as we headed back out to the car....and the mirror in the elevator....and the front window of the post office...and the side view mirror again as she got out at school....

But wouldn't you if that was the gorgeous face that looked back at you from the mirror?!?!?

Fair Warning!!!

2011-08-29T21:56:00.000-05:00

Midwest drivers be alerted.....

....after successfully passing the exam and filing all necessary forms and fees...the State of Illinois has issued a learner's permit to cousin Alyssa!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Auntie Peggy is the designated supervising adult...and will be for the Mahoney girls as well as this Mom does not sit in the passenger seat...EVER!

[The above picture was edited for privacy reasons...the State of Illinois does not actually put cartoons on their permit applications!!!]

Consider yourself warned!!!

What the Cats do while the Mice are away!!!

2011-08-24T12:23:00.000-05:00

Right about now the average blog reader is coming upon post after post by Moms wistfully commenting about how emotional they are about their 'babies' heading back to school. As Julia would say, "NOT so much!"....nope, uh-uh, this Mom is no way in any shape or form upset to see the kiddos strap on the book bags and head out the door in the mornings!

We are a completely UNdisciplined family...Auntie Peggy can now go to get a rag to clean the diet Coke she just spit all over her computer...and that may even be a tad of an understatement. Routines...regiments...schedules...just don't seem to take hold here without an exterior force exerting pressure. School is a life saving exterior force that puts this family back onto a healthy schedule of sleep and diet and we are all better people when school rolls back around in the fall. Don't get me wrong!! My free spirit loves the haphazard happenings of summer break and I firmly believe we need time to just experience life as it comes BUT we also need the school year to make sure we learn the things we need to succeed in life.

So this Wednesday morning marked the 5th day of waking to alarm clocks and packing lunch sacks and ushering two little ladies out the door to school. Wednesday....almost every one had been spent at the lake house this past summer...Wednesday....the day our little community hosts the Farmer's Market which we had missed all summer as we swam in the lake! It is only a bit under a mile from our house and the day dawned glorious bright if a tad humid so while the mice were away the cats ......

...rolled their wheels out of the back of the garage and cycled their way to the market!

Longtime readers of my blog can clearly note I've been packing on the pounds in this past year. Frankly I was not even sure I was still in good enough shape to cycle! Last year's rides had been difficult and I had decided that my shoulders could no longer take a mountain bike...and I need to address this bulky body...so I'm now the excited owner of a good old fashioned cruiser style bike WITH A BASKET!!! It's the little things sometimes.Even the 4th of July garland that Patrick blissfully maintains on his cruiser compliments of the girls brings us a smile. The bigger smile was saved for the sense of accomplishment I felt when I pulled up to the bike rack with no fatigue!!

Seems they added a new feature for the tots this year! Can I say it is also not a point of sadness for me that I no longer had to take a toddler by the hand and turn AWAY from the jump house in order to head into the market!

Okay, this is a Chicago suburb so the 'farmers' are not exactly next door neighbors and the stalls are more in the craft fair mode but the wares...

are real ...are fresh....

...are irresistible!!!

I love our little farmer's market (<;

Patrick loves the 'good old produce' like from his childhood on the farm BUT not really convinced on the need to pay a premium in price to get fresh and organic just yet.

We both love walking around and catching up with the news from neighbors we meet there.

We both love the baguettes sold by the French speaking nuns.

Today was bread, cheese, apples, and....

tonight there will be roasted BRUSSELS SPROUTS!!!

The cats really enjoyed uninterrupted discussions to and from the market.

The cats enjoyed not having to fend off plays by the mice to buy more.

The cats savored the moments with the breeze blowing in their sweaty faces as they rode home.

The cats enjoyed the fruit, cheese, and bread brunch.

The cats enjoyed the chance to curl up on the couch and nap....

because at 3:00pm the cats start chasing after the mice again!!

"Fair to middlin'..."

2011-08-21T15:22:00.000-05:00

Grandpa is famous in our family for 'having sayings'. You know the type? The one who will tell you they are hungry by saying, "My stomach thinks my throat's been cut!" Well one of his sayings when asked how he is doing is "Fair to middlin' and on my way to medi-achin'...how are you?" Frustrating to very literal little girls but getting more humorous as we age. This morning if you were to ask me how I was doing I very well may have popped out with Grandpa's come back!!

It was only TWO days with back-to-school alarm clock wake ups this week...felt like forever. This first weekend was simply not long enough to recover. In a feeble attempt to yank back on the reins of two wild, sun swept fillies I rolled out of bed ~~kind of~~ early this morning and began making those annoying 'Mom wants you to wake up" noises. The clang the cabinet doors as you drag out ingredients kind of noise...the turn Mom music on the radio kind of noise...talk to Dad in full voice kind of noise...it worked (<;

What was unintentionally evil is they dragged their sorry tired behinds out of bed because they were CONVINCED that the cabinet door slamming was a pancakes for breakfast signal! Tricked them! It was the Mom has two zucchini that need to get cooked cabinet door slamming!!!!!!!!! So while one bailed in favor of cleaning the bathrooms so she can collect this week's allowance before school on Monday, the other became the baking assistant.

Standards are not high this weekend....she did not dress or brush her hair but helping out Mom always earns you bonus points.

[For my photographer friends -pictures involving people are coming out grainy lately. Did clean my lens after this mornings photographs and reconfirm my settings for 'portraits'...could it be my memory card getting old?? Why just shots with people in them and not my food/landscape shots?]

Now before you raise an eyebrow or check your calendar, the shamrock cupcakes where in honor of the BIG GAME! You would be pardoned if by remembering my youngest daughter's fascination with the University of Notre Dame you thought I was referring to the opening game in their 2011 season because that would not be THE big game in our life. Today was the semi-final match in Irish football between arch-rivals Kerry and Mayo....what you missed this tidbit?!?!?!?

Things are VERY American in this house! Only in America would two Guatemalan born girls be able to tell you why their Kerry born dad went off to work whistling a hornpipe. Only in America will two Guatemalan born girls be up early on a Sunday morning in two weeks to see whether Kerry will be playing Donegal or Dublin in the ABSOLUTE ONLY GAME worth anything to their Irish born father...The All Ireland Football Finals, OF COURSE!

The baking did show signs of having been conducted by a baker not on her A game....

at the request of the junior baker I added butterscotch chips to one batch of the zucchini muffins. Then, forgetting that a less than alert senior chef FRIED the microwave on Saturday by running it empty....because she thought she had set the kitchen timer function instead of the cook function...we miss set the old egg timer and upon seeing the molten chip eruptions quickly snatched them from the oven...without inserting a test pick...leaving us with a dozen semi-solid sweet dough balls!!

We are fair to middlin', thank you!

Back to the Books!

2011-08-18T21:31:00.000-05:00

Today was the girls' first day of school for the 2011-2012 school year. ~~Suppressed screams of delight inserted here~~ We were all filled with excitement! Earlier in the week they each had a 'meet and greet' day where they could go set-up their lockers and bring the haul of supplies from the 'list'! Now Mari is simply too ~~hormonal~~ cool and mature to need her Mom and I willingly stepped back and let her handle the whole process with her friends. 8th grade is nearly full grown don't you know?!?!?

5th grade is a different story...so far! Julia is still very cooperative with the whole picture taking expectations. She is very up for this year as she got the teacher she had hoped for all summer long!!

Largely based on the fact that he is a renown Scooby-Doo fanatic just like Julia!!

I am happy just to still have one who isn't too old to walk home from school with ~~the old lady~~ Mom!

Today dawned bright and warm and we took pictures...

Ones together....

Ones alone.....

Good moods prevailed...

...and according to all reports the new 5th grader "made points" by wearing her new Scooby Doo top.

Don't want to jinx anything...but all the signs are pointing towards a great school year.

Darn Little Buggies...

2011-08-14T21:24:00.000-05:00

Summer vacation is going out with a whimper....

Mari is a day or two ahead of Julia with a virus that renders them achy in body and throat! Low grade fevers and mucous flowing like waterfalls have laid them low. The only positive thing I can say about this bug is that I'm glad it came early enough as to be cleared up before the first day of school!!!!

Mari has been a tad...shall we say moody of late. For a couple of days I was forbidden to take pictures and especially forbidden to post any pictures of her to either Facebook of the blog! Teens being teens means that the moods ebb as quickly as they peak and I was asked to PLEASE take some nice shots of her....so she could change her profile picture on Facebook....HAH!!!!

Trying to figure out all the lighting quirks! Facing her into the sun to get her face out of the shadows gives me funky squinty eyes....so I'm going to play with these in Photoshop and see if I can do anything with the shadows.

This would be the kind of picture that gets me into trouble with her these days! Just thought I'd give you a peek at just how my lady survives at the lake house. While we were out on the end of the dock trying to figure out the whole fishing thing....she rode up on the scooter and plunked down in a chair and pulled out her phone to catch up with the gossip!!!!

As usual the 'family' garden up at Auntie Peggy's has become...

Auntie Peggy's garden!!

Our saving grace it that she cannot eat it all by herself!!

Bragging

2011-08-11T23:51:00.000-05:00

Parents are always complaining about how their children are such 'picky' eaters. I would NOT be one of those parents! So far this month my girls have eaten at Guatemalan, Ethiopian, and Japanese restaurants...and they don't order the Mac n' Cheese either! Today we closed up the lake house for the summer [sniff, sniff] and we marked the occasion with one last cook out.

Grilled rib eye steaks with Montreal Steak Rub crust.....yum!

Even BETTER with mushroom and onions drizzled with garlic flavored olive oil and seasoned with lemon pepper and baked in a foil packet!!!

Made perfect with Roasted Brussel Sprouts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You read that correctly! Today my girls did not even blink when I set the tray of roasted sprouts on the table. They did ask what they were. They did ask what the white flecks were. [Parmesan cheese] They did ask if one ate them with butter and salt like cabbage. They DID just dive in and EAT them!!

I do not know just what I did differently or how I lucked out to have TWO epicurious daughters? I may have said once or twice that "I do not make or serve poison so open your mouth and eat!" I may have said more than once, "Tough luck, this is your choice take it or leave it!" I may have said more than a few times that "Dessert only comes when the dinner is eaten!" But I have friends who have said the same kind of things and their kids still only eat chicken nuggets or mac n' cheese!?!?!

Yes, I'm bragging! C'mon, my kids LOVED brussel sprouts!?!?!?

Kicked the Bucket....

2011-08-11T00:05:00.000-05:00

Remember my 'epic failure' at zip lining I mentioned in a post a few weeks past? Those moments of pure panic really did a number on my psyche! Now the summer has been emotionally draining for a million other justifiable reasons but that one incident has trampled my self-confidence to its core and left me feeling like a very old and un-hip Mom! It was with a sense of duty that I dragged my sorry, pitiful, woe-is-me self out of town and back up to Aunt Agnes' lake house so the girls could have one last 'Hurrah' before summer officially ends with the 'First Day of School' next Thursday. In one last act of desperation to engender some "My Mom is so cool" vibes I convinced Patrick that we needed to head on over to Lake Geneva and hire a speed boat.

You remember?!? My raised on an island but terrified of the water husband!?!? Who sat safely in the back of the boat with his life vest securely strapped into place the whole time we were out on the lake, husband!?!? But I also know I've mentioned a time or two how much the man adores his daughters and SPOILS all of his women so of course he agreed. There was a couple of runs at trying to stay on shore while we went but I TOTALLY pulled the whole guilt trip thing on him and he went "for the sake of the family memories".

I did mention ...spoiled, right?

Actually we all stretched out in the sun and enjoyed the ride!

Did I forget to mention that we had also arranged for the speedboat to have a tube on board?

Mari, it can safely be said, has a well hidden dare devil side to her that makes one heck of a wicked appearance once strapped into a live vest! My hates nature and worries about everything lady finds tubing to be the most fun thing she has ever done and the driver tried every speed and maneuver to see just when she would cry 'uncle' or fall off the tube. At one point he even was shocked as we unexpectedly hit some wake waves generated by a huge sight seeing boat and she bounced so high in the air we thought the tube may take off like a kite....but no, she landed back down on the water still hanging on tight!!

Would have posted one of Julia showing off with her one handed, fish tailing maneuver but her face was in such shadows and I don't have the skill or time to edit one tonight. She is usually my dare devil but was more than willing to let Mari take the lead on this activity. Did not take long however before she too was pumping her thumb up in the air which is the signal for the driver to pick up speed!

Darn cloud cover just as I finally had them in the viewfinder! May I also add that trying to take pictures of a bouncing tube from the back of a speed boat is a bit of a challenge?!?!?

So to get to the point of this post, which I am notoriously bad about doing in any kind of succinct manner, I must now break one of my personal photography rules....

I must show myself in a swimsuit...ugh!

Just like our expedition out to the zip-line course, I donned all the necessary gear to go tubing. With a fierce determination [and my omnipresent competitive nature] I was not going to let another panic attack stop me from sharing a waaaaaaaay cool experience with my daughters!

And then this is where I have to admit I again failed.....

NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is really me out on that tube and those are actual waves splashing up at me!

See, double proof !

Now I can say I've been tubing! I can feel a little less old and stogy than I have been feeling of late. My girls now have another memory of their Mom being 'cool'.

Now all I have to do is be super clever in how I pop the ibuprofen all day tomorrow for my aching arms and shoulders.....

Rebel in pants!

2011-08-07T15:21:00.000-05:00

Part of our Family Dinner Nights is story telling. Usually they are stories that involve incidents with the cousins when they were babies. Sometimes they are stories by Patrick of life growing up on an Irish farm in the 1950's. Occasionally there is even a story or two about Auntie Peggy and I as children!

One of the stories that has had requests for repeated retelling is the "How Mom and Aunt Peggy Were Rebels in Pants". Short version...we were born in the early sixties...very early sixties...okay I was born only THREE months into 1960!!! In the late 1960's and early 1970's, in suburban Chicagoland, girls did NOT wear pants to school PERIOD! As a matter of fact, in our school district it was against the 'Dress Code'.

What, you may ask, about our brutal Midwest winters? Can you say snow pants???? Ugly, stirrup legged, scratchy wool things that you had to try and gracefully pull off from under your dress as soon as you can in the building and again....at recess and final bell there was the gyrations trying to pull them back up without flashing anyone!! Well one particularly frigid winter week when I was in 6th grade, my mother had had enough and she sat down at her sewing machine and made Auntie Peggy and I each a rockin' stylish wool plaid JUMPSUIT!!! The morning after they were finished we found them laid out with darling new turtleneck sweaters waiting to be put on for school. Even though we were both excited to have a new outfit there was some bit of trepidation at the thought of being 'rule breakers'................okay, so Peggy had the trepidation and I was ALL IN for the ensuing confrontation!!!

Funny thing happened that day. Two other girls from my class showed up in pants as well! Now you would suspect a parental conspiracy....except they were the two 'popular' girls one of which was my arch-rival for academic supremacy of the grade. We were all called into the hall by the principal and I could detect Peggy's near nervous breakdown. So once told that we were NEVER to show up in pants again I boldly said, "My mother said to wear this and she is in charge of what I do so you will need to call her to discuss this matter."

I was always a bit cheeky.

You might even say bold.

Exclusively related to my insanely competitive nature, of course! I've known for ages that I got that from my Mom. She took the principal head on.

The dress code....well let's just say I wore pants everyday from there on....(-;

So, I'm over at my Mom's last night putting away groceries and I come across this picture laying on her kitchen counter.............

This would be my grandmother in the middle, my Aunt Vonnie on the right, and YES...that would be my mother on the left in her navy inspired ensemble!!! She's guessing about 1941 ish. Wearing pants...in the 1940's....on an outing to downtown Chicago...the ORIGINAL rebel in pants I guess??

Found time!

2011-08-06T23:53:00.000-05:00

I love 'found time'! That is the time that was originally committed to some errand or appointment that suddenly gets given back to you by a cancellation. Last night I had 'found time' and I had a chance to turn it into a Mom & Me outing!!

Julia and her BFF/Cousin decided to extend their play date which became a sleepover at my house into a double header ...but this time at my sister's house. Friday is my day to check in on my Mom and bring her dinner. It is the way we try to help Uncle Peter, who is her primary care giver, from getting worn out. I restocked her fridge and picked up her prescriptions. Mari and I arrived with loaded arms and worked quickly to put it all away and get her dinner served up. We expected to stay and visit...but my Mom was engaged in a lively telephone conversation and she waved us off saying she was fine.

So we took advantage of the 'found time'!!!

Sorry for the quality of the picture but since I wasn't expecting the lovely evening out with Mari I did not have my camera...or my cell phone!?!? I had left it at home on the charger. So the dinner photos are courtesy of Mari's cell phone. Miso Seared Scallops and a Mango Margarita for Mom (-;

Sesame chicken and spring roll for the Me...aka Mari! She's a whiz with the chop sticks. Guess all the ethnic dining experiences are paying off as she asked what country was going to be our next Mom & Me date?!?

Then a funny thing happened on our way to the theatre!

Neither of us cared for a single offering!!!

So we decided to curl up on our own couch and watch a classic...

So who can name this movie???

Mari had NEVER seen it before and it made me feel a bit old.

Especially as she scanned over the DVD case and informed me that I was 3 years old when it was released! Funny how different it is to watch this movie that I can practically quote whole scenes from through the eyes of my 13 yo daughter who not only has never seen it but who did not even know who John Wayne was by name!! She kept calling him "that guy Grandpa likes to watch in McClintock"....sigh....sigh...feeling very, very old!

Well we have one last week of vacation before we head back to school. Guess where we will be most of next week???

The lake of course!

Hoping for a campfire every night!!!

Full Throated Rant!!

2011-08-04T01:59:00.000-05:00

I try to keep this blog mostly as a memory journal for my daughters future....BUT today I am so peeved...no it is actually a stronger emotion than peeved for which I cannot quite put a name that suits ...about a discussion that is in full flames on one of the adoption forums of which I am a member!
It all started with the publishing in US papers today about the ruling made by a judge in Guatemala regarding a case that has been brewing since November of 2006. A ruling in which the Guatemalan judge ordered an adopted child returned to her biological parents by her Missouri adoptive parents.....

To say this is every adoptive parents nightmare would be such an understatement! Except that the article left out A LOT of details. It has been known since at least 2008 that this adoption had 'irregularities' as the jargon calls possible negating factors. Ah adoption jargon....

Back when Patrick and I decided to pursue adoption as a means to have a family we were so NAIVE! We just wanted to be parents. Then came our first adoption....can you say emotional train wreck?!?! After weeks of jumping through every hoop the social workers and birth mother asked we were handed a beautiful little girl in the nursery of the hospital where she had been born only moments earlier. We spent a blissful week together and then reality crashed through the glass ceiling and we found our selves driving to an attorney's office to hand her back into the arms of her birth mother who had found it just too impossible to complete the plan she had initiated. Our hearts and souls were so scarred that we backed away from the idea of adoption...until our social worker with an extremely well known and 'reputable' agency lulled us back with promises that seemed like a perfect solution.....international adoption....where the birth parent rights are already terminated and the adoptions are closed before you even go to meet YOUR CHILD....this big brown eyed innocent looking back at you from the computer screen! Yes, the agency always uses that irresistible hook...YOUR CHILD is waiting for you to come and bring her home. Safe and above board especially because Guatemala and the United States required the birth mother to present at a lab to give a DNA sample to prove she was willingly placing her child for adoption....UGH!!!! You cannot even imagine the number of times I told that to friends and family who questioned why we chose Guatemala and if we were sure we weren't getting a "stolen baby"!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'd like to think the vast number of Americans who elected international adoption were like myself. Scarred victims of failed fertility and adoption attempts who put on blinders so we could focus on that beautiful child in the picture who was going to fulfill our dream for OUR CHILD....who with the tincture of time and an level of intellectual curiosity was able to see the murkier edges to the sunny adoption landscape. By the time we were in process with Julia's adoption we had personally met and knew of children adopted from Guatemala who's "stories" were very clearly just that STORIES. We tried as best as we could with the knowledge we had to authenticate our daughters' stories. I cannot exactly say just what it was about Patrick and my upbringing that put us both on the same page but we both knew that we would have to return a child or end an adoption that was not moral or ethical. But how are naive Americans to really know all the right questions to ask or how to ferret out the deceitful answers from the truth? Were these two women who claimed to Guatemalan social workers that they were too poverty stricken to raise another child...really just poor or were they being coerced by money or threats?

The little girl in the news story today...was kidnapped at 2 years of age from her family's front yard!! Her birth parents have been pursuing her and the kidnappers from moment ONE. The adopting family have known this adoption was not right from the moment the DNA test came back as not being a match in 2007...and they looked the other way while the attorney took the child to a 'friendly court' and had her declared abandoned and the US Embassy accepted the court finding and let them bring her home in 2008. The family took the gamble that the birth parents were too poor or too incompetent to find the child and when it was made very clear to them that there was a very likely chance that their new daughter was a kidnap victim how did they respond??? They refused to have her retested by the DNA labs suggested by the Guatemalan authorities OR the ones encouraged by the US government and they went to ground. She was THEIR CHILD who was assuredly 'better off' with her wealthy [by comparison] American adoptive family than with her poor Guatemala birth family.....sigh.

Today the forums were filled with adoptive mothers vehemently supporting the adoptive families actions! One woman even went so far as to say she would "Go Branch Dividian" to hide her child from Interpol [whom the judge has called upon to find and return the child to Guatemala] because "I am the only mother he has known since he was a baby and he is MINE now"....really? I cannot even believe the number who are of the opinion that the grief of the biological mother at having her child kidnapped was NOT of equal value to the grief they would feel at having the child returned. REALLY?!?!!? How long can you keep your head in the sand? How long before you open your eyes and see the number of children kidnapped to satiate the desire of wealthy foreigners? More so, at what point do you EVER acknowledge that just because a birth mother showed up to court and DNA appointments is not an absolute assurance that she was WILLINGLY participating in the adoption? I can state with personal knowledge that at least TWO children of which I am more than just an acquaintance were placed by birth mothers who were blackmailed into completing the steps...at the threat of having bodily harm done to family members! Yet countless adoptive parents deny the possibilities and claim absolute rights to THEIR CHILD.

What to do now? I'm no King Salomon...but I do know that an adoption that starts with such a crime as its foundation is forever flawed! Everyone is a victim to varying degrees...but we adopting parents do really have to face the fact that just because we sat through hideously invasive psychological testing, FBI background checks and fingerprinting, life savings and world wide searches does not always mean we get to claim the full rights to call them OUR CHILD. I am in an uncomfortable place right now on this topic...we have found Mari's birth family and have been assured by BOTH birth parents that while they adored their daughter they just could not see any scenario by which they could raise her and they willingly made the conscious decision to place her for adoption in the hope that she could find a family who could raise her.....but we have yet to find Julia's birth family so we wait....with our hearts very near the surface hoping against hope that we hear the same assurances. Even as I try to stuff the fears down deep I simply CANNOT justify any adoption that comes as a result of kidnapping....PERIOD! Knock on wood, prayers to St. Gerard, and every other possible actions that we do not find this with our Julia BUT I could not deny another mother's grief in deference to my own and I would sincerely hope that I would have the support of friends, family, and mental health workers to sit down with this other scarred heart and find a path that we could walk together that would really be in Julia's best interest....and not just my own while 'claiming' it was for Julia.

I am no longer the naive adoptive parent....and I still have much to learn I'm sure but I am the parent of a teen and a tween and I do know they can Google their own name and read! How can any adoptive parent hope for a solid loving relationship with a child who reads that they have biological parents who have been begging for their return and that they took actions to hide you from your first family? How does this child develop any self image...any sense of who they are, could have been, should have been when so much was done in deceit? For those that believe in a God and a here after....just how do you stand before him knowing that you could have righted a wrong and you chose to be selfish instead?....and this is only today's story....there are 17 children from Vietnam now living in Italy as a result of fraud and kidnapping that was in last week's news...the stories of Ethiopian adoptees kidnapped and placed for adoption are mushrooming...karma is strong stuff...just saying...

Now to reward the reader who made it through that whole convoluted tirade I offer the following visual treats....

They seriously grow up too fast!!!

Who needs Disney World when there's a lake, a dock, and enough fishing poles for the both of you?

Wet and Wild

2011-07-29T14:20:00.000-05:00

Another week of heat...this one just has come with a nightly bout of thunderstorms with oodles of rain leading to an even steamier next day! We continue to spend Patrick's days off of work up at Aunt Agnes' lake house as a way to survive this summer heat and develop a comfort level with Mother Nature for the girls. Well, girl....Mari is still very hands off....so much so that she has been moved to over come her separation anxiety issues [which is a HUGE accomplishment] in order to stay home...or with a friend....with Auntie Peggy....well I'm beginning to think just about anyone who would save her from the 'wilderness'!!!!!!!!!!! Now she has 'dealt with it' a couple of times so the plan is not a complete failure. I'm just trying to bring myself to realize that my Grand Canyon dream vacation might have to wait until we can afford the hotels in the area! BFF/Cousin Deirdre is just fine with Mari's nature aversion because it means she gets to take Mari's spot in the car!

After another night of heavy rain and thunderstorms, these two found an interesting little spot in Mother Nature. What are they looking at??

Rain water run-off!!

Practicing her creek crossing skills (-; The lure of the water was, of course, too strong to resist and I did have a set of muddy shoes and play clothes to wash!

I must admit I was a tiny bit tempted to join in the leaf races and pebble tossing that seems to go hand in hand with rushing water....but I really, really hate walking in wet, squishy shoes. While I ran the load of wet muddy cloths in the machine the girls bathed....

....in THE LAKE!!! The funny thing about being 'regulars' up at the lake is that none of the grown-ups mind if you use their boat as a diving board. This is a good thing for a family who has no boat!

Boy, I've really been trying to get her to stop holding that nose.....

Wondering what caused her to make this face?

Yep, at least one of my girls is fine when Mother Nature gets up close and personal!

She tried catching these tiny toads that hop around the woods up here but those buggers have proven to be SPEEDY. BFF/Cousin Deirdre is a nature lover as well so they spend hours tromping through the underbrush in search of adventure. So far they've watched two fawns frolic in a glade and found and old abandoned house over grown with vines....besides the toads ...and mosquitoes!!

Lake Livin'

2011-07-24T11:08:00.000-05:00

Never been one of those families who "did the lake" every weekend. Patrick was raised in the cool,wet bogs of Kerry and I was a Southside Chicago pavement pounder and we both came from huge families with no financial flexibility!

Fast forward to 2011 and the summer from Hades...literally it has been as hot as ...well you get the idea, right? This week was particularly extreme. We started the week with a trip into the city to meet up with some friends at a Guatemalan restaurant.

I got the camera out in anticipation of getting pictures of the event but then the conversation took off and the heat crept up and up...

Notice how shiny Julia and little miss D's faces are in this picture? The little window unit over the doorway just could not keep up with the 100+ degree heat!!!

Didn't stop little miss D from teaching Mari how to download "mad chickens" AKA Angry Birds onto my phone though!!

By Tuesday we were so ready to flee the heat! All summer we have been taking Patrick's days off as a chance to head up to Aunt Agnes' lake house in Wisconsin. While it was every bit as hot in the Lake Geneva area where the 'cottage' is located there was....

THE LAKE!!!!!

BFF/Cousin Deirdre was with us, of course! But this week Auntie Peggy and Alyssa decided to join us "at the lake house". Funny thing about traveling with Auntie Peggy...she's a born nurse...I mean she had the nurse's gene from birth and there's a funny thing that happens with nurses....they have this kind of OCD like thing with cleaning!!

She just could NOT help herself !?!? Even Mother Nature has 'issues' she feels the need to correct....

Everything in its place and it seems, in Auntie Peggy's opinion, that aquatic vegetation does not belong in "the swimming hole"! Now looks can be deceiving. She felt the need to clean up these plants not out of a lack of sensibility to the balance of nature but out of a gardener's sense of clearing the the driveway of grass clippings...gathering the pulled weeds...

cleaning up after the water weed wacker thing!!!!! The things a city girl never knew about lake living...like how the lake has to be mowed regularly!?!?

Surviving the Sizzle!

2011-07-17T11:07:00.000-05:00

I should not be sitting here typing this at this moment in time.

We were scheduled to be on the train heading into Chicago right now.

There will be no water taxi ride for us today.

We will not walk the streets of Chinatown taking in the sights, smells, and most importantly the tastes at their annual street fair.

Today is one of those days when Mom plays the difficult role of spoil sport.

Today is supposed to be 100 degrees!!!! At 10 AM we are already marching steadily towards the 90 degree mark so I believe the meteorologist.

Instead, today we will be watching the USA play Japan for the Women's Soccer World Cup....and may even try a repeat of yesterday's cooling off measures??

Might have another noodle fight with your cousin?

Might goggle up and go for full pool immersion?

Might just float happily on a bed of foam?

Or not? We'll just have to play it by 'air'.......conditioning!?!?!

On cousins and chefs and...comas!!

2011-07-15T17:49:00.000-05:00

Been a crazy kind of week around here. Power outage, work, heat, cheer camp, pool parties, city trips...so today I decided we needed a nice quiet afternoon here at home. I called it "getting back to normal". BIG MISTAKE because a 'normal' Friday around her routinely includes a certain 3rd daughter's arrival for her weekend visitation. I caved........

It is really easy to 'cave' when it comes to having BFF/Cousin Deirdre over at our house. Besides her whip smart wise cracks, Deirdre and Julia dive into imaginative play from the minute her bag is dropped in the vestibule meaning little to no 'work' for me!! One less voice whining "Moooooooom" a hundred times a day (-;

One of their on-going games is their 'Paris Plan'. These two characters have created a very elaborate story of how they are going to live together in an apartment in Paris where Deirdre plans to study art and theater while Julia studies to be a chef when they are "grown up". Often very messy craft projects are involved...because a budding artist needs a stocked studio with in progress projects!?!?! Today it was the chef's turn. I was thinking they would be excited to work with the first vegetable we harvested from our own garden this week...

...that would be a big NOT!!

Again I caved. The two girls were given carte blanche [because I've been informed that I need to learn French so I can come visit them!!] in my kitchen to create a "kid friendly" dessert. So here are the two new sweet treats!!

CHOCOLATE MONSTER!

by Deirdre Norton

1 1/2 scoops of Nutella

5 Hershey Drop Candies

3 scoops of chocolate chips

4 crushed Oreos

2 cups of Hershey Syrup

Strawberry spray frosting to garnish [or now quoting the chef, "Any flavor frosting the kid likes that the Mom has on her baking shelf!]

The chef also provided the following warning at the bottom of her recipe page......"BEWARE, BEWARE, AT RISK OF SUGAR RUSH...or sugar koma(sic)! Deirdre Norton is NOT RESPONSIBLE for high sugar rush!!!!

WINNIE THE POOH MIX UP?

by Julia Mahoney

(copied as written!)

5 spoon full's of peanut butter

A cuple hand full's of chocolate and butter scotch chipps

9 big squirts of honey

Mash it up and stir it up!

The chef's notes were..."Warnings!!! For people with diabties, clostrol problems, and sweet tooth it can give coma, discomfort, uncantolable eating, tummy ackes, and throuing up."

Really? Who would possibly get a 'tummy acke' or 'throu up' after eating such magnificent desserts?

52.....

2011-07-14T00:18:00.000-05:00

hours of living in Little House on the Prairie!!! Took the local power company FIFTY TWO hours to figure out how flip the right switch....seriously....we had no downed power lines from fallen trees...no flooded power vaults. Sigh....they claim it was a necessary move to prevent the "grid from crashing"...wouldn't mind sacrificing for the good of society EXCEPT the school building across the street HAD POWER even though they are CLOSED for summer vacation!?!?!?!?

With nothing much else to do we decided to breakdown two sets of bunkbeds, moved one set to the garage to be taken at a later date up to Aunt Agnes' lake house, moved the second set from Mari's bedroom into Julia's [because it was newer and had a trundle + bunkbed = 3 beds], went and picked up a queen set for Mari's room [thanks to cousin Alyssa who 'handed it down'] and set it up....all in 90+ degrees with no power. The sweat flowed...everyone was miserable...but we worked as a well oiled machine...and two little girls were distracted by the prospect of 'new' beds so the lack of power turned into just another family story about the day Mom and Dad had puddles of sweat in their glasses (-; Despite showers all around for hot sweaty bodies and a brief rain sprinkle which brought in cooler weather there was precious little sleep last night due to the block of generators roaring in backyards...which led to an irony...tonight we have LIGHTS....turned off by 9 PM because everyone was crashed into bed sleeping in the humidity free, air conditioned, climate controlled mid-century modern home!!! Pioneer women rock, I kneel in awe at their fortitude, I am profoundly blessed to have been born in the USA in the 20th century!!

Now it is a 'derecho'!?!?!?

2011-07-12T02:15:00.000-05:00

Well, we had another weather incident. This time the 80 mph winds were caused not by a 'microburst' but by a 'derecho'.....do I really care the technical difference when the net result is the same!?!? Net result....17 hours without power so far and it has been warm and humid as heck....wouldn't you know that the Mahoney luck(less) in wishing for summer would come to pass with such a vengeance!

The generator is running smoothly during the day but for fear of it running dry ...or exploding ...I must now go out and turn it off and grope my way to the basement where it is almost cool enough for me to hope to sleep. Did I ever mention how in awe I am of my ancestors tenacity??? I cannot even fathom my gr-grandmothers in their long skirts and petticoats on a hot, humid Chicago July day as they cooked over flames.

To spare my nerves the girls have been packed off to Auntie Peggy's where power resumed after a 'brief' 8 hour outage....I just couldn't take one more request for me to use a powerless appliance to ease their hunger pains and sweaty brows since the whole concept of what electricity actually powers in our daily lives has been clouded by their pampered lifestyle to date. Must admit it was fun watching Patrick trying to microwave a mug of tea this morning....you'd think of all of us he'd be the most nonplussed about being electricity deprived. Thank God for laptops with decent battery life (-;

The Plus of Minus!

2011-07-09T01:12:00.000-05:00

There was another major celebration in our house this week besides the 4th of July. It involves vision...a rather important sense in our family!

You may remember from past posts that Patrick has worn corrective lens since...well FOREVER! He is basically blind past his fingertips without his glasses. Thus he is very attentive to the care and keeping of his glasses especially after an extreme incident in his childhood when one pair went missing!

I, on the other hand, had beyond perfect vision until Mother Nature decided to celebrate my 45th birthday with the gift of presbyopia....the fancy medical terminology for loss of elasticity of the lens...another fancy way to say since your arms can't grow longer to help bring writing into focus you need to invest in reading glasses!! I fall into the buy them in bulk from Sam's Club and keep them everywhere category.

Mari failed her 3 year old pre-school Vision/Hearing screening conducted at the school....but we all somehow convinced ourselves that it was due to her recent arrival and language acquisition level that had interfered with her ability to correctly identify which way the E was pointing. We were wrong! She had superior language skills by 4 year old pre-school and still couldn't answer which way the E was pointing!!! Felt like a complete slacker when we picked up her first pair of glasses and she looked up at the TV screen in the mini-van on the car ride home and said "Wow that picture looks so good now!" She has never been enamored with the fact that she must be seen by her peers in glasses and literally puts them on in homeroom and takes them off as the final bell rings. She has had one pair break and has lost several cases but managed not to ever lose a pair....yet.

So this is where the reader may surmise I now introduce Julia in her new pair of glasses???

That would be a big NO! The optometrist says if he had many patients with as good a vision as Julia has he would be broke.

Maybe it is Alyssa who now wears glasses? No, she has worn them for years and comfortably alternates between frames and contacts. Auntie Peggy used to be as bad as Patrick but she was one of the RK pioneers...as in back in the day when they still did it with scalpels and not lasers!!! Was absolutely the most impressive, life altering thing when she had it done. The very day she had the first eye done, as I drove her home, she turned to look at our local grocery store as we passed and gasped at her new found ability to SEE the advertising signs hanging in the windows!

Gratuitous shot of fireworks now inserted to mark the big announcement!!!

As promised, we let Mari get contacts!!!! For several years she has been campaigning HARD to be allowed to ditch the frames...for purely VAIN reasoning. I decided she needed to be mature enough to handle the care and keeping of contacts herself and set 8th grade as the spot on the calendar when we would allow her to switch over. With a date now on the calendar from the orthodontist for the removal of her braces and the contacts she is now heading into a new school year with renewed confidence.

I'm beginning to see the confidence in her body language...can't you?? Who would have guessed that there would be such a 'plus' when you subtract a pair of glasses and a mouthful of metal?

Happy Birthday to us....

2011-07-04T13:38:00.000-05:00

Busy, busy, busy week culminating in two straight nights of celebrating!! Warm summer weather finally arrived in time for us to get outdoors to celebrate a good ole 4th of July....on the 3rd AND 4th!!! As a matter of fact I should be preparing for tonight's picnic and firework party but just thought I'd give a shout out to say Happy 4th of July to all our friends and family!!

Nice thing about our 'small' big town are the friendly neighbors! We choose not to pack in with the thousands of others in the local polo fields to watch the concert and fireworks every year in favor of a local business park with plenty of parking and no restrictions on food and toys you can have amongst your supplies. A very friendly neighbor joined our celebration this year.....

...a little 'friend' who found our 'big' girls to be far more fun and interesting than her family!

Especially when she discovered our little girls [that she called 'the big girls'] had a waaaay cool toy....one that flashed fire and popped loud when you throw it on the cement!

Meanwhile, our big girls sprayed themselves down and headed off to rollerblade through the fields of parking lots while waiting for dark to fall.

Auntie Peggy is already bummed at how much taller Mairead is than the rest of us...but add a couple more inches from rollerblades and she's really not happy!!

Did I mention that my creaky old cell phone went for a swim in the toilet earlier this week and that the blow dryer and rice tricks failed? Auntarie brought a book to read while waiting for dark and just as she thought she'd have to pack it in due to the dark, the big girls informed her that my new 'smartphone' had a 'flashlight' app...who knew?!?! I am scheduled to go back into the phone store this week to take lessons on how to use this Ferrari of a phone I now own...meanwhile my girls have already taken it around the track a couple of times while I'm still trying to figure out how to start the engine!!!!

As we watched Mother Nature's light show....

All the girls...including the newest little girl...settled in to snack and crack out the glow sticks and watch the spectacular display of fireworks while shouting out "Happy Birthday America!!"

As I head off to prepare for fireworks round two I thought I'd let you see a couple of shots I managed to catch as I practiced with my firework setting on the camera that I'm still student driving....

Don't blink!

2011-07-04T02:29:00.000-05:00

Or you may miss this post that attempts to cram a bunch of the past week into this limited space!! Between Auntie Peggy and myself we have hundreds of pictures from this past week and I have had no time to edit or play with them in any manner....I also just grabbed a quick selection which may or may not include some of the 'best' shots taken this week. I apologize to Auntie Peggy in advance for just slamming some pictures up without first previewing and tweaking them!!

So here we go! Remember I left you in the last post at our family picnic...and I mentioned that my uncle had brought his family up from North Carolina to attend? Well it was also their summer vacation!?!? Being the 'make memories' kind of girls that we are, Peggy and I packed up my cousin, his wife, and their three children to see THE city!

Seeing as how it was a warm day during the midst of the annual Taste of Chicago festival, we headed to the train! Trying to find affordable parking downtown on a day as busy as this one would surely be was nigh on impossible!

Then we caught a water taxi to circle us around the Loop...

...with three little girls hanging on the front railing watching all the sights as we pointed out the many historic buildings and unique features seen along our route. They now know that the city of Chicago has more 'draw bridges' than any other American city and they witnessed several raising to let tall masted ships pass down the river.

First we took in the sights on Navy Pier!

We even popped for the group picture they take before you board the ginormous ferris wheel....

...where they got to see our beautiful city from the air!

They also road some of the other rides and we even splurged and did the fun house maze!

On our way out of Navy Pier we took in the Crystal Gardens....where someone played fast and loose with the rules regarding playing in the jumping fountains (-;

Train to a boat to a cab to a ferris wheel to our own two feet....

...as our journey next took us to Millennium Park where we....

...showed them the sculpture the artist calls Cloud Gate but us Chicagoan's just call The Bean [due to its amazing resemblance to a giant jelly bean!!!].

By this point we were ready for a cool down, so we took them down to the 'fountain' to splash in some cold water....

...which is not only allowed but ENCOURAGED by the city planners!!

Now soaking wet and bone tired we caught cabs back to take the train home because the next day we had plans!!!....

...with a bigger group of the cousins to go to Brookfield Zoo!

It was such a warm day that most of the animals were found near their watering holes!

The kind of soooo very warm day that put cups of Dippin' Dots into the hands of everyone...even the Aunties who took in the sights from their electric carts!!

In an effort to cool off we also headed into the Living Seas exhibit where it turned out to be feeding time for the penguins..yeah! Except we were NOT the only ones with that plan but thanks to my making the big splurge on my camera purchase...

I could still see the show!!!!

As we were leaving the zoo for the day Julia just insisted I get one last picture....

...don't know why I thought it might have been one with all the cousins when this was a choice???!?!?!

Favorite Foto Friday

2011-07-01T17:52:00.000-05:00

Just call me difficult! Going off script again with my FFF post. Mostly out of pure laziness. Since I have sooooo much to catch up on I'm using this post to play some catch-up!!

So as you can see my Dad is in town and behaving maturely...wonder where I get my irreverent streak?!?!? He's here for two weeks because it is family picnic season!

Brothers and nephews along with in-laws who like to call themselves outlaws....

Children and cousins big and small....

....men...

...women...

..and children gathered together to celebrate the fact that they are FAMILY!

Auntie Peggy really enjoyed it this year since she passed the baton of Picnic Organizer off to another family member.

Most really just enjoyed the play time.....

...while others enjoyed playing catch-up! My mother's brother brought his family up from North Carolina for this year's gathering and while it was hard to see my mom, aunt and uncle as the ONLY three from their generation to feel up to attending this year it was nice to see the three of them together. Who knows how many more times that will happen?

3 different generations as well as 3 different families at a single table is no big deal at our picnics....

...where the family tree has grown so big that we now must run it as a descendent list minus the 'out-laws' and it still is 44 inches of single spaced names!!! I was so busy visiting that Mari stepped in and took over some of the photo journal duties and ended up with my FFF!

I can still see you smiling behind that burger Ethan!!!

Sooo not fair!

2011-06-25T09:42:00.000-05:00

You cannot even begin to know the number of times I have heard that phrase since becoming a mother. I'm not sure why they keep saying it because for years now my response to that phrase has been, "Show me where on your birth certificate it says welcome to a fair world??" These past two weeks have heard those phrases uttered at a higher frequency than usual...because BFF/Cousin Deirdre was gone on a two week vacation that included a sizable stop at Disney World! Now I just recently mentioned how Patrick and I have put a moratorium on trips to the mouse's house in Florida and be assured the girls are very well aware of our stand. Kids being kids....when Deirdre came home and saw the pictures of Julia doing the zip-line she wailed, "Soooo not fair!!! I cannot believe you did that without me?!?!"

Well since we were going back up to Aunt Agnes' lake house.....we let Deirdre come too!!

The BFF/Cousins simply share EVERYTHING!

I even managed to get my camera settings coordinated to catch her as she whizzed by my position!

But then a funny thing happened on the way into the landing tower......

...even Deirdre found humor in the situation....as she sat waiting out in the middle of the zip line ....

...for the crew to come and TOW her in since she had NOT made it all the way to the landing tower when her slowing speed caused her to gradually stop and then slide BACK DOWN the zip line!!! Another memory sure to make the dinner table highlights many, many times (-: I'd post the video of Mari and I laughing like fools as we realized Deirdre was not going to make it to the landing tower but my system takes forever to load videos!!! Amazingly, she wants to go again.

It was a good day for me and my camera that day as I also managed to coordinate the settings and zoom to catch one of our frequent visitors up at the lake house....

...made me happy with our Disney moratorium when I discovered that neither my husband NOR my children had ever seen a bluejay before this week!?!?!?

FFF- Our Choice

2011-06-24T19:29:00.000-05:00

Good thing Nora let us choose our own Favorite Friday Foto because I would probably have been going rogue yet again! This week's photo has no technical merit. I have no actual photography skills to speak of but I have a camera that helps me out that way (-:

So how do BFF/Cousins who were cruelly separated by the two week vacation of one family spend their first night back together????

TOGETHER...like joined at the hip, sharing a single blanket on a single recliner together!!!

Tomorrow's post....Anything you can do I BETTER GET TO DO TOO!!! But until then go check out Nora's blog for more FFF posts.

PowerLESS

2011-06-23T22:52:00.000-05:00

Had some electricity for a while during the night but we're back in the dark again! Power company had to turn us off so they can get at some of the countless power lines dragged down by trees uprooted in the weather 'incident' of Tuesday night. So I did go out and take a picture of our damage that we have not gotten cleared as of yet....

This last picture keeps reminding me of the Shel Silverstein book....

....Where the Sidewalk Ends!

Limited battery left on the lap top, so sorry for the brief drop in posts)--: .....but good news is Auntie Peggy is done playing Little House on the Prairie...she has power back...for now anyhow!

Micro-burts VS. Straight line wind

2011-06-23T11:00:00.000-05:00

...really does the definition matter??? Just a note to say that my suburb had a weather incident Tuesday night that resulted in hundreds of trees being uprooted or losing limbs that took down bunches of power lines leaving us powerless. Fortunately for us, our home is located in a high priority zone because it includes a school and hospital and we had our power back after 24 hrs. Auntie Peggy is not faring so well...her generator is still roaring in her backyard and it may be another day before the giant old elm trees that fell across her street are cleared allowing her to get her car off her cul-de-sac!

Luckily the cooler weather that drove the storm our direction is holding so we can be outside with our chainsaws running full time without discomfort. But my Dad is arriving tomorrow from Florida to attend our family picnic and he is scheduled to stay with Auntie Peggy. We had a similar storm last year this time and he was at her house with no power too!!!!!!!!!!!! I'll be taking a break from limb removal to clean and rearrange the girls' bedrooms because I think I may be having company this weekend......

Didn't take any pictures as we were too busy working but there has been some good discussions about this week's "This is ME Challenge" given the circumstances. Might have it ready to post later tonight!

This is ME Challenge #7- Numbers

2011-06-22T10:39:00.000-05:00

Trying to 'catch up' with some of the life history challenges in the next couple of days. Today I'm tackling 'My Life in Numbers'.

1] The number of husbands I have and ever will have! One is also the number of males living in our house now that cocker spaniel Kelty has gone to live with Auntie Peggy due to Julia's allergies.

2] Mari and Julia, the only children I have and will ever have!

3] My sisters Peggy, Anne Marie, and Jennifer.

4] The number of homes I have lived in my life so far.

5] My brothers David, Peter, Bill, John, and Steven.

6] My brothers-in-law Frank, Jim, Denis, Mike, Tom, and Martin.

7] The number of different schools I've attended in my life!

8] My shoe size...and as a teen it was veeeery convenient that it was also the same shoe size as Peggy and Anne Marie!

9] The age I was when I first moved.

10] Number of years I worked in a private dental practice before moving to public health dentistry.

11] Number of years I have been a Mom!

12] Number of nieces and nephews I have.

13] Age of my eldest child.

14] The number of homes my husband has had in his life!

15] Years we've been married.

16] Number of windows in my current home. [know this because we recently replaced the 1956 era windows!]

17] Number of times I've been to Florida since meeting my husband.

18] Age I was when my parents let me take my little sister to Colorado on my first solo road trip!!

19] Number of nieces and nephews Patrick has.

20] Number of sewing machines I have personally owned....so far!

22] Number of years I went to school.

36] Age when I got married.

39] Number states I've visited.

Sure there are many more numbers that could be included but this seems a respectable stab at the challenge! If you too want to try and record your life history in a fun way check out this blog!

Unbelievable Milestone....

2011-06-21T01:18:00.000-05:00

Not a post for the weak of stomach...consider yourself warned!

Once upon a time there was a middle aged couple who traveled to a far away country and came home parents. The toddler girl in their arms was a wary and watchful child who most often chose to stand wide eyed and questioning at new events in her life. As she mastered the new language and developed a sense of security in her position in the new family she began to join in group play....slowly, gradually, ever so carefully. Her cousins enveloped her in their love which allowed her competitive little soul to blossom and by school age she was a dancer and soccer player on par with her peers....except for one little detail...she NEVER fell and scraped ANYTHING....EVER! There was a RARE bump resulting in a bruise and there was the one incident when a tussle between cousins competing over a Pokemon card resulted in four stitches in her eyebrow but NEVER a skinned elbow or knee! She is a hesitant and cautious lady until she masters a situation. Her training wheels stayed on until she had well mastered balancing and pedaling a bike and on the rare occasion when the bike got the best of her she would leap from the bike so as to land on her feet. The new mommy never had to try and wash dirt from road rash nor ration band-aids or even chide a child to stop picking at her scabs!! Of course you know where this post is heading????

My kids used to groan at my Mom's favorite expression of "Too much laughing leads to crying!" When Mari called the family nurse to report the 'crisis' and get a second opinion [because Mom is not to be trusted??] and the question of just how the injury was incurred was asked she responded with, "Well the too much laughing leading to crying worked!" Oh, and when she goes about skinning her first knee she does it all the way...

The too much laughing??? A water fight between cousins!!! Trying to make an escape she very uncharacteristically tripped over....THE HOSE!!!!

The crying??? Mari in pain, Julia and Deirdre in both sympathy for Mari and fear of Mom's reaction to the drenched clothes, and Mom for the pain of seeing the raw naked flesh which reminds me of how vulnerable a human being she is down under the careful, wary persona. No fear this lady will pick at her scabs but we've gone through a copious amount of Neosporin Plus ointment and band-aids in the few hours since the 'incident'!!! Thank goodness the dance recital is over.....

This Is ME Challenge!

2011-06-19T13:18:00.000-05:00

Those readers that have been following my blog for any length of time know how passionate I am for 'making memories' with and for my daughters. My latest love of genealogy has brought to crystal clarity how important it is to get these memories recorded! If only my Scottish great-grandparents had their stories written in a journal...then I wouldn't be struggling so to find where Hartsible Livingston was born!?!

Well over at http://thisismechallenge.blogspot.com/ she has begun a series to help focus those of us procrastinators. Each Tuesday she posts a 'challenge' designed to get you thinking about yourself and then getting those thoughts recorded in some form or another. Bet you are thinking to yourself, "But today is Father's Day?!?!" Well it all comes together because as I was in the kitchen this morning with my girls cooking and assembling a SPECIAL breakfast for the best Dad in the whole wide world, we started discussing the first challenge. [She's up to 10 or so so I'm playing catch up here!]. As Mari chopped the honeydew melon, Julia set the table, and I fried Irish sausages/bangers we decided to put a piece of paper at each place and have all four of us draw up our own lists! The challenge is to name the 10 modern things you would just HAVE to take back with you if you were sent back to live in "the olden days".

As we buttered toast and peppered scrambled eggs the discussion got very lively! Mari's portable DVD player was met with a challenge of "where would you get the electricity"? This led to a definition of just how "olden" the days would be because her answer was classic, "But Grandma lived in the olden days and she had electricity!" and then we discussed just where these "olden" days would have to be spent. The merits of Ireland, Guatemala, and Chicago were passionately debated but we settled on a Colonial Williamsburg model. We also decided that the debate about how you would provide adjunctive support to things like "my laptop" would be dropped since the goal for our family is to try and identify those items that seem so important to you that you could not live without them.

So here we go.....

Julia's Top 10 are;
1}Electricity,
2} TV,
3}Our Car,
4} My toy box,
5} Hot showers(after Patrick's story of washing up in a bucket),
6} toilets,
7} Our house,
8} My bed,
9} Modern clothes,
10} My asthma medicine

Mari's Top 10 are;
1} Portable DVD player with Never Say Never DVD,
2} Kerosene generator,
3} TV,
4} Lifetime supply of bottled water with fluoride,
5} Toothbrush and REAL toothpaste (after hearing Patrick's story of using twigs and baking soda!),
6} Our own car,
7} Our own safe, modern food,
8} My own bed with my own sheets (again, after Patrick's tale of bed sharing as a child in Ireland)
9} Modern clothes,
10} Antibiotics (after hearing me justify why it was going on my list)

Suzanne's Top 10 are;
1} Antibiotics,
2}My Merck's manual and medical book library,
3}Lifetime supply of non-expiring sunscreen,
4}Washing machine and dryer (they count as one, right?),
5} My stove (I have no intention of relearning to cook over fire!!!),
6}Lifetime supply of diet Coke,
7}Refrigerator to keep it appropriately cold!,
8}Tampons and pads! Even as I need them less and less I have two daughters to get through this stage and I would absolutely gag at the old rags method described by my Mom and Grandmother!!
9}My laptop with internet access (with the assumption that I could borrow the electricity from my daughters to keep it powered and that sufficient others chose to bring theirs so we could still read each other's blogs!),
10} My camera and photo albums not scanned onto my computer!

Patrick's Top 10 are;
1}Modern plumbing,
2}Electricity,
3} My car,
4} My glasses,
5}My modern trained doctor,
6} My family......and that's all I need because I lived in the "olden days" already and family is all you really need to have a great life!

AMEN, dear Patrick! AMEN! Thank you for teaching us what is really important in life and for being the best man a girl could ever have in her life!!!

What a Week!

2011-06-16T23:19:00.000-05:00

At a very serious risk of mutiny by Julia, I have yet another post featuring Mari! She is on a roll this week. We packed up and headed home from the lake house because she has a very busy weekend!! This afternoon she was in her element ...at the salon! After some indecision, Mari had her first eyebrow wax job. This was in anticipation of the weekend's activity.....

It's dance recital time!!

Tonight was the rehearsal which entailed a LOT of...

...waiting around to dance.

There was the required photo shoot as well.

Tomorrow begin the performances. It is times like this when I find myself wondering just how she went and grew up so fast?!?!?

Talk About Backsliding!!!

2011-06-16T01:19:00.000-05:00

So I left my readers yesterday with a comment about not wanting to erase any of Mari's gains by trying to 'force' more camping skills should the predicted rain appear. I believe I used the words 'back sliding' to describe my fear for her progress? .......rest of post said with head hung in shame and embarrassment.......

We discovered a huge zip-line tour operating about 5 minutes away from Aunt Agnes' lake house and everyone [except Patrick that is] decided that it would be a fantastic substitute for our planned swimming and boating which the weather [cold and misting] had squelched. We all suited up...

...and we all hopped into the transport jeep for the trip up to the tower.

We all climbed to the top of the launching tower....

....but only two of us came down the zip-line!!!

You just had to know that our gutsy girl Julia made the trip!!

The mega-grin is your clue to the other brave soul!!!!!!!

Eh hem, cough, cough....standing on the top of that tower watching my precious babies link onto the line as the breeze swayed the tower I began to feel quite...um quite...um PANICKED!!!!!!!! So fast and so hard did the panic attack come on that I seriously thought I just may be having a bona fide heart attack! The accompanying nausea even kind of escalated my sense of being mid-myocardial infarct! Much to the guides credit, he tried to assure me that the panic would pass and I would forever regret my decision to bolt back down the stairs but all I heard was the pounding of my heart. I did have to look at my daughters with their fingers formed in the letter L held against their foreheads just a couple of times today. I earned it. I had really thought with my love of roller coasters and no particular fear of heights that I could do this! I underestimated the extent to which I have become dominated by my need to be in control. When it came time to relinquish control and trust in the rigging...I lost it.

So here and now I bow down in awe at the incredible women that my daughters are becoming. Young ladies who had fears of heights and the unknown yet placed their trust in the rigging....THREE times they made the decision to jump from the tower and glide high above Terra Firma....and they had the time of their lives!!!!!! We will be returning to this zip-line course because they now want to take the two hour tour over the lakes and forests of Wisconsin. Just maybe I'll conquer my fear of losing control and make the jump off the tower so I can be like those brave young women you see above?!?

Decided at the last minute to wait out the interminable upload time for a video so you can see one of their rides!

Sloooooooow immersion.

2011-06-15T01:07:00.000-05:00

When the girls first joined us in the US, we did FIVE Disney World trips in 3 years. Then for a couple of years we just did a day at Disney when we would be down for winter or spring break. About 4 years ago we decided to have a Disney moratorium...there is so much more of America they NEED to see?!? Last year we did a mini-vaca to Amish country. This year we are planning a mini-vaca to Memphis so a certain Elvis fan can check Graceland off her bucket list. Sometime in the next two years we hope to be able to do the grand national park tour....you know, like Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon.

One tiny problem with our long range plan...unless or until we win the lottery this trip will require some 'rustic' accommodations. Might I remind the reader about my eldest daughter's love of Mother Nature? The child who won't eat out at a picnic table in our back yard because there are bugs...who won't use a latrine...who whines for air conditioning when temperatures hit the 70's...our princess in pink who has made it very clear that camping is simply not "an option" in her book?!?!? Sigh.

So today we headed off to Aunt Agnes' lake house in Wisconsin for the first stage of Mari's "Nature Desensitization Therapy". Patrick and I have designed a nice slooooooow process of bringing her highness gradually closer and closer to "the country" in the hopes that our rigid and very linear thinker can learn to embrace the new, the untamed, the "rustic"....okay, so she'll stop freaking about the darn bugs!!! Aunt Agnes' lake house is hardly rustic but it is a bit closer to Mother Nature than our suburban abode. We are not gluttons for punishment...we know better than to try and head straight for a campground. Though to hear the lady whine on the car ride up here you'd think we were taking her to Mars. For once I bit my tongue and the look on her face when we pulled into the drive was PRICELESS!!

She raced up onto the deck saying, "It is a house with a deck and a grill and everything!" Seems she had decided in her agitation that we were dragging her to a log cabin in the woods. But I did have a plan in place to keep her from hiding in the air conditioning while texting a mile a minute...

I wasn't born yesterday! Hooked her with one of Aunt Agnes' toys to get her out in the fresh air....

Oh, Julia was on this trip too but is not afraid of much of anything as you can note...and one upping her sister on the scooter to boot!

While I worked with the girls on step two of "Meeting Mother Nature", Patrick paid our rent! One of the 'costs' of using the lake house was to mow the lawn which could not have made him happier since it involved reliving his youth...behind the wheel of a tractor (-:

Step two involved getting the 'oven' started for dinner.

Again, not a problem for Julia who tried to 'catch' smoke.....

...and relished the privilege of using fire tongs!

Being fair to Mari, she did do her fair share of tending the foil packet dinners I had INSISTED we make as 'practice for camping'...even though I'd eat them anytime (-:

We did a chicken version tonight that turned out delicious!!

Even a thumbs up from Mari who especially enjoyed it considering I let her eat it inside. Baby steps here folks, we're taking baby steps.

Dessert had us back outside at our 'stove'. Since they were too impatient to wait for that treat in the foil 'baking' under their marshmallows, I did let them move on to roasting the fluffy treats. In the foil was To Die For Banana S'mores...can you say CALORIES in the guise of being 'healthy'?!?!?

Ummmm, and YES that would be Mari sitting outside eating!!! Baby steps...

...or it may have something to do with sugar???

Julia decided today that she really just needs a toasted marshmallow for her dessert!

But incinerated is a bit too 'toasted' for her her liking (-:

Mari joined us a couple of short times at the campfire tonight as well. She couldn't quite bring herself to sit on a tree stump just yet but we are miles ahead of where I was hoping we'd be after our first 'therapy'. Supposed to rain all day tomorrow...I might have to bag our second day plans in order to avoid back sliding. Can you say Old Faithful and Mari in the same sentence? Someday soon it looks like...someday soon.

You know it is summer when.....

2011-06-12T22:42:00.001-05:00

the family picnic season begins!! Today we started with the Mahoney Family picnic...

There were new girls....

and new boys....

and even a new couple or two!

The senior members basked in the sun...

...while the juniors played the day away!

There was talking...

....and more talking....

...yep, more talking....

...in full Kerry brogue ...

...ditto for the Mayo brogue...

...it is an IRISH crowd you know!?!?

Even last years babies know how to chat!

We did do a bit of eating...

..and of course there were spuds at an Irish picnic!!

The American contingent did see to the dessert!!!!

After a bit of exploring the pavilion floor..

and a bit of exploring the woodland paths along the picnic grove...

it was time to go GLOBAL! Pinatas are everyone's favorite, right?!?!

While the cousins dove for the sweets....

Julia was all about the horses...of course.

FFF- Summer Vacation

2011-06-10T18:26:00.000-05:00

One of the most lovely things about summer vacation is that the time I get to spend with the girls is now relaxing. No nagging about homework or gym uniforms. No begging them to eat breakfast or wear hats. No pleading with them to brush teeth and wash faces. Summer is a time for us ALL to recharge.

Yesterday one of us....

REafirmed her loves.

One of us...

REcreated.

One of us...

REdefined herself.

All thanks to an afternoon spent giggling at the salon...instead of groaning over the desk!

Welcome summer vacation!!!!

To see more FFF visit Nora's blog here.

Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better!

2011-06-09T12:17:00.000-05:00

There was a time in the lives of our 1997 triplets....cousins Mairead, Andrew, and Mari....when they used those words as their guiding philosophy. When Mairead became potty trained it was suddenly a race between Mari and Andrew to see who would be next! When Andrew learned to ride a two wheeled bicycle, Mari and Mairead buckled down and took off their training wheels as well. When Mari wiggled out that first tooth the tooth fairy was suddenly on a regular route between the three houses.

Then the inevitable happened...poor December birthday girl Mari stood on the sidewalk and watched Andrew and Mairead march in the school door without her. It was crushing to the competitive little soul to watch them with their backpacks filled with new crayons and pencils embark on a experience to which she was denied! But it really was for the good. Mari needed a bit more time for social reasons and the triplets needed to begin the process of individualization.

Now, eight years later, they are three very different individuals!! As she sat through her second 8th grade graduation ceremony, Mari was envious but no longer 'crushed'...

...and the 'triplets' are still there for each other as Mari and Mairead sat front and center for Andrew's graduation!! [Note: Small town feature of our big town suburb...the woman sitting two over from Mairead was featured in my last post...Julia's 4th grade teacher there for her son's graduation as well!!!]

And graduate he did!!! Unlike over achieving cousin Mairead, Andrew is of the 'lunch and gym' school of thought. You know...as in "My favorite part of school is gym and lunch!"

But Auntie Peggy was not one to let him slack! If only her kitchen table could talk [hmmm possible future post as her kitchen table was originally our great grandmother's table!!] it would tell of many, many nights of Andrew bent over his books with Auntie Peggy leaning from the chair next to him urging him to "just get it finished!".....not because he struggled with the material!! Far from it as he is extremely bright!! It's just that he comes with that darn Y chromosome which causes boys like Andrew to devalue anything that doesn't involve a ball or stick.

Grandma was having a good week as she made it out to both Mairead's AND Andrew's graduation!

She even made it through the decidedly less intimate ceremony given that Andrew went to a school with 5 times the number of students than Mairead.

Yep, it was a milestone to be celebrated by all the cousins...and a few aunts and uncles! The fact that cousins Mairead and Deirdre were only hours away from catching a flight for their summer vacation, was no reason to miss Andrew's big day...families work that way!!

And in this family, ice cream is always a good way to end a special night!

Been an 83 year tradition as a matter of fact (-:

Next year we start a new phase in the life of our 1997 triplets. Andrew and Mairead head off to their respective high schools and Mari moves to the top of the hill as an 8th grader at her middle school. The race to grow up is still being run....but they are no longer all in a pack trying to beat each other...they've found their own events, their own specialties within the meet. It's just nice to know they still love to be on the same team ...cheering each other on!

Playing Catch Up!

2011-06-08T12:36:00.000-05:00

I owe myself and my readers a couple of posts here! So over the next couple of hours I am going to try and get my computer to cooperate with a huge photo upload and do a series of posts. Starting with Julia's end of the year class picnic!

Parents are invited to join the 4th graders outside for a picnic lunch organized by the Room Mothers and PTA.

It is a chance for the class to present their teacher with a group gift....

....and attempt a class picture....

...and even attempt a picture of all the 4th graders together!!! While I would love a bit more racial diversity, we are so pleased with the decision to move Julia to public school. Not even counting the extraordinary efforts her principal and teachers have put into bringing her back on target in Reading there is the life lesson of learning in an environment where those with special needs are treated as treasured members of the class. Julia has been especially complimented by the staff on her kindness and friendship with those children in her class.

I'm not too proud or anything (:

Okay, there was some fun and games as well!!!

FFF- FREEDOM!!!

2011-06-04T01:19:00.000-05:00

Okay, I'm going totally rogue with the FFF theme!! It was supposed to be "Junio/June" but since I have a huge backlog of pictures I'm combining FFF with today's pictures. School finished for the year at 11 AM this morning!!!!!! Only caught Julia's happy escape...

since Mari was over at the middle school which let out at the exact same time!! [Wouldn't dream of 'embarrassing' a new 8th grader!!!]

Three weeks ago I was wondering if I was ever going to get to say this......

POOL IS OPEN!!!!!

Chicago has finally decided to think about letting summer come for a visit this year. After an afternoon birthday party jumping herself into dehydration at a trampoline bash, Mari was begging for an inaugural trip to our public pool. Julia was in total agreement.

I cannot even begin to tell you how nice it was to watch Mari frolic in the pool!! 7th grade has been a VERY difficult year to say the least. Her peers, her hormones, and her math teacher all converged into an emotional super storm which we can only pray has moved on... leaving 8th grade to occur on smoother waters!!!!

Texting....what else could drag her out of the water?!?! But it was good news!

Two more besties had texted to say they had decided to come to the pool as well. 'The Survivors', as she now refers to her clique, reconvened for the third time in one day!!

...and the frolicking resumed!!! As the night came to a close her besties challenged the very apprehensive Mari to open her summer with a bang...

..or a jump to be exact?!?! Mari finally got up the nerve to mount the stairs to the high dive and take the plunge (: Sometimes peer pressure can be a good thing!!!!!!

Now this is where I'm supposed to say "Here's my favorite picture of the day/week" for FFF. But I am finding it very difficult to decide this week!!!

There's just something about this picture that screams JULIA to me!! Left alone to open the pool without her BFF/Cousin Deirdre [who boarded a plane today for a two week vacation...gasp how dare she abandon Julia for that long?!?!?] my easy going littlest made her own fun. Add the fact that I'm amazed that I actually caught the moment on my camera and I'm conflicted !!!

....because there's also this one!!!!!!

Sigh, my life can be so nearly perfect on days like this one has been.

To see more FFF posts head on over to Nora's blog [where you might actually find people who cooperated with the announced theme!]

Beginnings or endings???

2011-05-26T09:35:00.000-05:00

This end of the school year gets to be quite a busy time!! Sorry to be shirking on my promise to be a more diligent blogger. As a quick peek at one of the things that has kept me from blogging I present....

Our newest graduate!!!

Mairead's graduation ceremony was this week. Andrew's is next week!!!

As mentioned in a previous post, Mairead is one of your classic overachievers! She ended up being called back up for several academic and music awards but the biggest surprise was winning the CCW's scholarship award!!!!!! Sure will help towards the tuition at her very costly high school (:

Proud parents with the graduate. Prouder Mom since Mairead was admitted to her Alma mater. Mairead will be traveling into Chicago to attend a historic Jesuit academic power house...trading her blue and gold for the classic maroon and gold! Oh, and while she's studying with the best of the best, she will also be putting that beautiful smile and dance training to work on the sidelines as a cheerleader....when she's not playing the flute with the band that is...did I mention over achiever??

OF COURSE this was a family event!!!....to be repeated next Thursday with Andrew (:

I'll try to keep up these next couple of days as we wrap up Louisa May Alcott projects, multiplication speed timed tests, division speed timed tests, softball games, field days, class picnics on our way to the end of the school year! At which time we will have two new FRESHMEN starting out on their high school career and one more eighth grader about to finish her grade school days.....sniff, sniff....thank goodness for the about to be 6th grader and two soon to be 5th graders to balance the 1997 triplets who are making me feel very old about now!!!

Location, location, location!

2011-05-21T14:05:00.000-05:00

Back when I married Patrick, I moved from my 'hometown' into THE CITY. Now, this was the same big city where I was born and lived my first eight years but it never assumed that spot in my heart reserved for one's 'hometown'. The suburb I was raised in is really more like a small town. I know it seamlessly fits into the megalopolis of Chicago but the social structure is very like a small Midwestern farming town. Patrick was reluctant to move here until we came for a street fair one summer night and I moved from person to person chatting and catching up with high school friends and old neighbors....it reminded him of his Irish hometown and suddenly he couldn't get us moved out of Chicago fast enough!! The problem was our timing....right at the very peak of the housing bubble!!!! This little suburb was extremely desirable and houses were often sold for many thousands of dollars OVER their asking prices and within hours of being listed. We looked and looked and tried and tried but it was beginning to look like our new little family would have to stay in Chicago..............

During our search, assuming we would be moving here soon, I had enrolled Mari in the local private school's pre-school program. One day as I pulled in the parking lot I saw the for sale sign that had popped up in the lawn of a cute little brick ranch across the street from the school. I sighed to myself and thought, " how perfect but I bet there is already a contract pending on that little house". A week later our realtor called and said she thought she had a possible property for us....yep, turns out a house across the street from a school was 'not desirable' and our little house had not yet been snapped up!! Not only not snapped up but open for negotiation on price!!! We were in!!!!

Many wonderful memories have been made as a result of living across the street from our church and it's attached school. Like last night for example!!!! My sister and her husband were scheduled to celebrate their wedding anniversary at the same time Mairead was to be at her 8th grade final dance. Mairead was dropped off at our house early so they could negotiate the Friday night rush hour into the city!! We had fun curling her hair and pushing her out the door to go Hula the night away. Then I looked out my front window and saw this....

Usually I don't butt in...but Anne Marie was MISSING this final fun picture moment!!!!

I mean there were other Moms there so why not me?

But I must admit to being grateful for my new camera with it's great zoom ability so I could stay a respectable [according to the teen definition] distance to record the happiness and camaraderie for posterity!

Because next Tuesday this group of friends will mark their last day together after eight years ....spreading out into 6 different high schools...making this one priceless picture!!!!!! Who decided that a home across from a school was an undesirable location??????

FFF- A good 13th!!!

2011-05-13T23:07:00.001-05:00

Most of the world spent today looking out for possible bad luck or paranormal activity. A Friday the 13th, the most superstitious day on our calendar according to lore. I'm not a superstitious person. Friday the 13th is just another work day. Nothing extraordinary.

Except when it is Friday, May 13, 2011!!! Nope not bad luck...just extraordinary. 65 years ago today a scrawny baby boy was born in a small whitewashed farmhouse in the middle of County Kerry! The 5th baby born in 8 years and the 3rd of three born barely a year apart, he was ailing from the effects of a malnourished and fatigued mother who was about to become pregnant with a 4th baby in four years. There were more than one relative who thought that this new little boy had a bleak and short lived future. So sure that he was one of the babies not destined to make his first birthday, he was baptized with only a first name! The patron saint of Ireland had different plans for his namesake....

In the United States he would have been labeled as a 'failure to thrive'. But waves of rickets, measles, mumps, and chicken pox came and went and little Patrick pulled through. Not exactly thriving but determined to hang on to his little piece of mortality! He finally shook the rickets that delayed his walking for 3 years and had kept him housebound. He loved his little white cottage and was not 'keen' to travel the lanes that led away from his mother's hearth but school was a must. Precious pennies were gathered to buy him the glasses he so desperately needed to see anything beyond his fingertips, like the teacher's slate in the front of the little one room schoolhouse. His little class of nine held only one boy and four of the eight girls were first cousins!

There was the traumatic time when the precious glasses, set carefully aside to protect them from the rough housing of boys, were lost in the tall grasses along the path home from school. The long search well into the darkest of night for them leaving a life long scar and creating a very careful nature in the man who was forming. There were the countless tumbles with six brothers that not only created a strong as an ox musculature but a genuine peacemaker who avoids confrontation at all costs. A gentle soul who spent many a day in the company of his female classmates absorbing the skills of a gentleman who would go on to worship the women in his life...treating them as royal princesses every moment of their lives!

As loathe as he was to leave the warmth of his little cottage, the reality was that there was not enough farm to be shared by eight siblings. Like the many aunts and uncles who made their way to America in the generation before because of poverty, these siblings were raised knowing that they would need to emigrate. Every summer brought visits 'home' from the 'Yank' relations who came bearing the second-hand clothes so coveted by the children who wore them proudly...because as you can see in the picture above clothes were worn to threads...LITERALLY!!! I cried the first time one of the American cousins produced this picture she had taken of my Patrick and he remembered the day clearly...as it was older brother Denis' confirmation day and they were in their 'church' clothes and feeling very dressed up to meet the visiting 'Yanks'! I cried after we were married and I discovered that there were no pictures of my Patrick as a child as his family was far too poor to have a camera! He supposed that there were some in vacation albums of an aunt or two as they had often posed for the visiting 'Yanks'. The result of my written plea to his 'Yank' cousins are these two precious snap shots...that's all! Up until my marriage I had felt I had been 'raised poor'.....

Then around his 15th birthday his uncle came riding up the lane looking for one of the older brothers to come help with the spring planting. Needing as many able bodied workers as he could himself, Patrick's father sent his scrawny 4th son off with the uncle. While anxious to be leaving home, Patrick left with some high spirits as he was heading to a childless home where there would not be two other brothers fighting for space or covers in a bed or fighting over the few spuds served at dinner. Here he would be fussed over by a favorite aunt making the prospect of doing spring planting worthwhile! After a warm welcome and generous hot meal from his beloved aunt he was ushered into a fresh bed which she had carefully placed warmed stones for his shivering skinny body and he fell into the first heavenly sleep of his life...where at midnight he was shaken awake by his uncle informing him that the aunt had died!! He never went home again...he worked alongside the grieving uncle that year and then he headed off to try his fortunes with the Quaker Oats Company in London, England. As brother after brother ventured off to join the "Chicago cousins" he longed for the camaraderie of family. He decided that if his fortune were to be made outside of Ireland it might as well be made in the company of his family. So he went back to the little cottage and with a very heavy heart made his good-byes to his parents and boarded a plane for O'Hare airport.

I sometimes suggest that he take a middle name. For all of his life he has been that steady soul who makes sound decisions and could always be counted on for emotional and financial support in your moment of need. He should be Patrick Peter O'Mahony....the rock of the O'Mahony clan. I am so not a rock. I am so not a peacemaker. I am so not a steady soul. I often ask him just what was he thinking when he asked me for that second date??? [first date the result of matchmaking sister-in-laws(: ] I often ask him what he was thinking when he decided to become a father when retirement had almost been in sight?? I often ask him why he is so very patient with a hot flashing wife and moody adolescent daughters??

His quiet simple answer, "I always wanted my own little cottage filled with my own kit and kin."

Well our hearts are yours our Irish saint!

Happy birthday and many, many more!!!!!

[to see more FFF posts visit Nora here]

Plop, plop, fizz, fizz...

2011-05-12T01:41:00.000-05:00

Oh what a relief it is to finally reach the end of Julia's State Report year!!!!!!!! In our district, the fourth graders are assigned a state near the beginning of the year which becomes the focus of a lot of their lessons. When it was time to learn the concept of area in Math...they figured the area of their state. When they studied government, they studied the structure of government in their state. When they studied economy, they studied the economy of their state. Slowly, bit by bit throughout the year they compiled note cards with these tidbits of information about their state...and in the last two weeks they had to turn those into a 10 page, double spaced report with bibliography. Ummm and yeah, there was the "Make a food from your State" lunch pot luck, the "Make a T-shirt of your state" assignment, and the ~~ever so impossibly time consuming~~ "Tri-fold with interactive display" for State Report Night.

Last night was "State Report Night"....FINALLY!!

The night started with a short concert in which they sang...

...and danced to a lovely selection of American songs like the National Anthem, Oh Susannah, The Drinking Gourd, and Route 66. It was held in the gymnasium. The fourth graders on risers in the front quarter of the room followed by HALF of the gym floor blocked off for the dancing portion with a TRILLION parents, siblings, and other extended family members crowded into the remaining quarter. It was another 90 degree day today [because we don't get spring in Chicago...remember?!?!} and as the performance progressed I had an overwhelming urge to stand up and scream, "I'm meeeeelllllltttting" like the witch in the Wizard of Oz. I refrained but there was no hiding the growing sweat rings! Then we headed of into the ~~cafeteria~~ Multi-purpose Room to tour the country...they had attempted to crank the air up in this room but the body count overwhelmed the condenser.

Proud Michigan 'expert' in front of her ~~impossibly time consuming~~ "interactive tri-fold display" and binder of a bazillion facts on the Wolverine State.

Her 'interactive' portion was a complete the map of Michigan challenge.

They all wore their state t-shirts. [The original notes home advised that they should all wear blue jeans this night. Tuesday's homework agenda had a change of dress code note...due to the sudden appearance of summer!] Then, as mid-westerners can relate, the heat storm decided to visit...just as the night's festivities ended!!

Guess who got the privilege of dashing through the bolts of lightening and pounding rain to bring the car around?? I'm smiling because the rain nicely provided an excuse for the sopping wet blouse... because Mom's who sweat "are gross"...so I've been told!!

As quick as it came, the storm left and in it's wake we were treated to a rare rainbow!

As we headed into the local ice cream parlor [hello I was meeeelllltttting!?!?!] the rainbow pushed onward across the sky until it was a complete arc. Julia was convinced one end was by our house so we had to rush home to catch the pot of gold!!! Yesssireee.....I will be going to work tomorrow as usual.

Same old complaint!

2011-05-10T11:56:00.000-05:00

Every year I get caught up in the depths and lengths of our Chicago winters. Every year I long for spring. Every year I long for spring. Every year I long for spring. Every year I long for spring........but in Chicago there is no spring!!!

Saturday, MAY 7th and Julia needed a thermal long sleeved shirt under her jersey!! See her BFF/Cousin watching on....in her North Face and Uggs!?!?

Aunt Anne Marie and cousins joined us in the stands that day to

cheer for Julia [and her team]...Mari kind of sums up how

we all felt!! One simply should not be regretting having

left the mittens and scarves home in MAY!!!

Proof of our true love for each other!!

Frozen to the bone and an ailing back are no excuses for

a Mom when her anxious, about to pitch her first ever inning,

daughter asks for help to warm up her arm.

[..and yes my AP readers- at 13 years old, Mari still

likes to be within arms reach if at all possible!!]

Coach......or team Mom?!?!?

Wonder what the teams that have men as coaches do

since during our last game we had two time-outs for

shoe tying and two for visor/pony tail issues?

It is MAY but Andrew is just fine with cold and ice!

[blog break to brag that this is him in his first game as a member

of his high school's team...even though he has

3 more weeks of 8th grade!]

Alyssa, on the other hand, would love some warm sunny days! She has dutifully worked as a volunteer at a therapy riding center EVERY Saturday for over a year now and has earned the reward of a FREE hour of riding at the end of the day. I'm pretty sure the horses would rather some warm SPRING weather as well!

Soooooooo Chicago being Chicago means that summer pretty much starts today! We are going to be in the mid-eighties just three days after having what I hope is our last frost warning! I'd move to Florida but they don't seem to get spring either...just summer year round! Then again....when you seem to get winter year round....is 365 summer such a bad thing???

Opened the door...a bit...

2011-05-07T19:15:00.000-05:00

As the parent of an adopted teen daughter who blogs, I walk a very fine line of just what I can post about her life. There are the controversies among parents over who controls the rights to any part of the child's story and then there are the vagaries of discerning the opinions of the child herself. I would not be going too far out on limb if I say here that Mari is smack in the middle of that hormonally driven period of self-identity questioning! Details on particular peculiarities are forbidden as a general rule but broad stroke descriptions may or may not be allowed depending on the day of the week or even the hour of the day...while this post was approved I just may have to take it back down again tomorrow!

Right now it has been deemed 'allowable' to relate that she has reached a level of maturity on the matter of her adoption. As a toddler she waffled between being oblivious to the 'difference' in her family and proud of the 'difference' in her family. Then all of a sudden I was forbidden to mention to ANYONE...even doctors...that she was an adopted child. I stood firm on the doctor for obvious reasons but I did step back as she entered middle school in an effort to lessen some of her anxiety about being 'different' from her peers. She has spent the most part of two school years hiding [as best one can given the particulars] the fact of her adopted status from her peers!! Kills me as I had been doing everything I could glean from writings of adult adoptees to try and make 'our' adoption a relaxed and open 'fact of life'. It is taking this control freak a long time to accept that every child reacts in their own way no matter how well you try to guide them....

Anyhow, as I write this post I am listening to a crowd of 13 year olds giggling and squealing up in Mari's bedroom after having a rather sleepless sleepover. She had been very guarded anytime any of her peers had suggested they might come over to our house for any reason...they would surely find out her 'secret' the minute they stepped in the door and saw our family portrait hanging on the wall!?!? Then last week I was asked the question I thought would never come, "Mom, do you think I could have some friends over for a sleepover?" When I asked about her 'secret' she said, "I guess I can't hide it forever and besides, if they are my friends they won't care!" When I asked how she would handle it when the friends talked about it at school she said, "It's middle school Mom! They talk about everybody! Might as well let them talk now and get it over with." When I complimented her on her decision to face her fear of being 'different' she said, "I'm a teenager now you know?!?!"...........sigh, oh I know alright!

Sun & Sunflowers!

2011-04-30T22:28:00.000-05:00

FINALLY!!!!!!!!!

Julia finally got to play in her first ever softball game! Game after game has been canceled due to rain and she was beginning to despair of ever breaking in her new uniform. This morning dawned sunny. Windy and brisk but sunny. Her game was scheduled for 6 pm. Promptly at 3 pm...the clouds rolled back in and a drop or two was felt. But praise be, the occasional droplet was all the clouds could muster and the game was played!

One very happy girl was tucked into bed tonight (-:

She hit a double...

nearly had a double play...

and took a slide into third that was quite the crowd pleaser!!

Tomorrow is the team picture day...

I will delightedly be up tonight washing the mud streaked uniform.

Now, a new font to denote a new topic...

Hmmmm, herbal sachets you ask?? The unrelenting gloom of our sunless spring has taken an emotional toll. May 1st has been a small beacon of light on our calendar.

Remember?

We've been busy making our seed 'bombs'. A bit of potting soil and a couple of seeds on a tissue paper square tied with a bit of twine and we are armed and ready. Remember why yet?

Tomorrow is May 1st....International Guerrilla Gardener's Sunflower Day!!!

We are setting out to brighten the summer vistas

with these happiness inducing blooms.

Vistas not usually pleasing to the eye.

Our hope filled souls will soar

with each seed 'bomb' tossed tomorrow

Winter is finally being batted back by a tender spring,

our weather weary hearts await a sunflower filled summer!!

Chasing our Tails!

2011-04-26T20:59:00.000-05:00

Periodically our family falls into a cycle of just moving from obligation to obligation hoping to hang on until the end of the ride. Now would be one of those cycles! Since one of my New Year's resolutions is to be a more reliable blogger, I am trying to stay on top of my photo documentation. It's just the publishing that is running behind this train. So, here in a very un-prosaic manner is the rest of our holiday weekend photographs. Unedited is anyway. Just thrown up on this bulletin board for all to see how my beauties are growing!

We have this 'tradition'...a picture taken on

Holy Saturday evening posed with the basket of dyed eggs.

I guess I'm glad the days of pouting and crying for pictures has passed...

but now we are in the silly stage!

The "pretend you are listening to Mom" stage even as you bounce around!

The "Mom gives up" and just takes a boring old pose phase.

The 'traditional' basket now filled with candy shot....

not taken a bit seriously!

The "I want sunglasses" pose.

The "you want us to stand WHERE?" pose.

Back to the sillies.....

The "okay, I'll be good for a minute" pose.

The "if my sister was good then so will I" pose.

The "I still want sunglasses and NO I won't hold hands" pose.

The "how's this for stunning" pose!!

The "we can do flowers" pose!

The "just one more piece and then we'll smile" pose.

The "let's be cheesy' pose that Mom turned into....

"quick zoom and catch the shot" pose!

We had a lovely day with family but those pictures would be on Auntie Peggy's camera...

and YES, Julia asked for me to buy that dress...

and YES, she WANTED to wear that dress for Easter services!!

Maybe, oh maybe the tomboy stage is subsiding?? Not influencing any decisions on her choices ... except

I did buy the dress on the spot the MINUTE she asked me so maybe she has an inkling of how

happy I am to see the 'inner girl' peeking out from under the t-shirts and jeans??

FFF-............

2011-04-23T10:19:00.000-05:00

All I'm saying is it has been this kind of a week....my FFF picture shoot was on Thursday and I'm posting them on Saturday.

Get the picture?

Reading the directions before the clamoring crowds

were assembled would have

probably been a better option!

One of the only times of the year my bottle of white vinegar gets pulled from the pantry.

Imagine that little party colored cups can hold so much interest?!?

Well, interest is a matter of degree....when you are a teen

who is not quite ready to let go of a childhood tradition.

Or a teen with a sweet tooth? Mari dyed a whopping ONE egg!?!?!

While cousin Daniel held his attention long enough to do a whole TWO eggs

which is a HUGE accomplishment for him!

Was not really into the photographer mindset this evening but liked how this shot turned out.

Deirdre's creative juices were flowing and she made several artistic eggs....

one of which Auntie Peggy dropped!!!

Mairead came late due to the fact that she was an altar server at Holy Thursday services

but we saved eggs for her to color!

The conversation was a colorful as the eggs and it

continued over a game of Clue...

and over the first night of an impromptu sleep over

at the Mahony house...

and the SECOND night of the sleep over marathon!

But since the challenge is to post a Favorite Foto here is my choice..

My sweet Julia with her 'Love' egg.

To see more FFF posts check out Nors'a blog here.

FFF-Growing

2011-04-15T11:54:00.000-05:00

Funny thing about this growing business....

my Shamrocks planted WEEKS before St. Patrick's day...remember?

Well they finally decided to fill out and look like Shamrocks last week...too slow for sharing on the holiday ):

But here are our Zucchini seedlings waiting for our midwest weather to settle down into a proper spring so they can be transplanted out into the family garden.

So sometimes it is the seed that goes slow,
and sometimes it is the weather that goes slow,
but somehow this .....

has moved to this...

at warp speed!!!

And this....

flew to this...

at the speed of light!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My Mom handed down a saying when she would take note of our rate of growth,
"I want to put a brick on top of your head so you will stop growing!", said with a deep, exaggerated sigh.
I took to using it as well!
Unlike my generation that would groan and walk off...
my daughters and their cousins just grin and say,
"You can't stop God's power!"

To see more FFF posts on growing check out Nora's blog here!

Lament of an Adoptive Mom

2011-04-14T19:53:00.000-05:00

Oh magnificent, world-renown, chair of your mega-university department, multiple doctorate neurologist may I kindly suggest that the next time your intake nurse hands you a new patient chart that you actually take a few moments to review it's contents?? I know your day is packed from dawn to dusk...I waited weeks to get this appointment...but a brief scan of a file surely wouldn't be too much to ask, right?

And even if it has been a day that has spun out of control and your schedule has been turned on it's ear leaving no time to read the intake histories....could you take a deep breath and actually LOOK at the patient sitting before your eyes? Could you notice her age and maybe construct your questions to acknowledge her presence? She really could have told you her birth date and age....which were also in the chart that you did not read. She would have been happy to explain why we were sitting in your examining room. But, okay I get the wanting the adult to provide the information so I'll cut you a break on that point....but I CANNOT cut you slack on persisting on your line of predetermined questions about pre-natal, post-natal, and milestone achievements when our answer to the very FIRST in the line of questions was, "She was adopted at three years of age from Guatemala."

Several doctorate degrees and you don't get...what? The concept of adoption? The concept of a known history beginning at THREE years of age? The concept of obtaining accurate records from a third world country? I speak a fairly competent level of the English language. Did medical school teach you that by repeatedly re-framing and repeating the questions in a louder, more enunciated manner magically unlock the mysteries of the universe?

I am in awe of your neuroanatomical knowledge. I am impressed by the diagnostic testing you conducted. I'm pleased with the proposed treatment plan. But I seethe at your deplorable 'bedside' manner with an older, international adoptee. She is already acutely aware of the loss in her life. She is acutely aware of how 'different' she is from your other patients. No matter how or how often you ask her age at first roll or age at first sit she will NEVER know those answers! She UNDERSTANDS ENGLISH!! She can HEAR what you are saying to me. She can HEAR your questions. She can HEAR your opinions. She is a real live, walking, talking, breathing, FEELING human being who, if you had taken the time to read her chart, was adopted! It's pretty early in the dictionary...A.D.O.P.T.E.D........maybe you can find a minute between publishing one of your many studies to read the definition? She probably won't be the last adopted patient you have in your illustrious career so for their sake, read up since you seem to have too big of an ego to listen to an earnest bit of advice offered by a lowly unaffiliated single doctorate Mom.

The Consequences of Cabin Fever!

2011-04-11T22:47:00.000-05:00

Every year it happens. Give us just one warm day in April and we go berserk! Fresh off a week of warm Florida weather we had made a serious dent in our Vitamin D deficiencies but the depressing chemical effects still linger. So, as often happens here in Chicagoland, we go from 30 degrees to 80 in about....a day!! Eager to to shake the doldrums we rush out into the first hot day....and proceed to completely OVER DUE it!!!

Julia's softball 'career' has begun. Soccer is now a thing of the past. Time to break out the mitts and bats!!!

How very providential that the first practice fell on our first sunny and HOT day. She has quite the arm....

and you see this correctly, Julia throws righty and bats lefty. As the only left handed batter on the team, Julia garnered a bit of attention from the assistant coach and a batting coach who were pleasantly surprised to see her connect with 3 out of 5 pitches.

Mari patiently hung out at practice. She even willingly posed for a picture for the blog!

But there was an ulterior motive in her congenial nature......

There was the new 'cousin' to go visit!! Dear old Belle's 15yo frail frame finally laid down for her last time and after a week of grieving, the cousins brought Dolly J home from a local shelter.

After a nice meet and greet with the canine cousin, the sun stroked our snow weary brains and planted the seed of a thought....

What better weather to work in the garden could one hope for??

Now, the sun did not turn us into mad dogs or Englishmen...and we know better than to plant any seeds this early! But the soil could be turned...

and amended with peat, compost, and manure which we.....

raked in to the stories of the lives of pioneer women and the debates of just what we would grow this year.

When the day was done a fertile 'field' lay waiting for the rows of tomatoes and potatoes, the cucumbers and chives, the peas and beans, and the frost free weather needed to bring them to life!

When the day was done we were also WORN OUT!!

Hmmmmm, maybe Mother Nature has a method to her madness??? These cooler, rainy days that follow the first hot day might be her way to prevent us from trying to cure cabin fever ....cold turkey?!?!

Where's the water??

2011-04-10T12:25:00.001-05:00

Been a busy week since the conclusion of Spring Break 2011! Since I worked some part of every day and had a series of doctor appointments to keep with little girls and big boys, I've not photographed a darn thing all week. Yesterday as I raked out the flower beds I did have a thought to run in for the camera to show tulip and daffodil progress but then I talked myself out of that as sooooo many bloggers have already covered the arrival of spring.

As is typical for Chicago, we are experiencing wild temperature fluctuations with the arrival of spring. Spent most of last week in jackets or raincoats and now this weekend.....T-shirts and tank tops are in order!?!?! Yesterday was a glorious and sunny 65. Today....it is 9:30am and we are already back to 65 degrees and on our way to a projected 85!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That was the temperature we had in Florida! So, as today starts to bake we are reminded of the beach....and the warm waves of the Gulf of Mexico. Seeing as how our local pools will not open until June 1st and the temperature of Lake Michigan water is in the mid-forties, I guess we must be content today with our memories.

That or find that darn money tree so we can buy our own bit of the tropics!

Joining the 21st Century!!

2011-04-02T19:15:00.000-05:00

So, all you 30 somethings and younger who happen upon this post won't probably 'get' it but I must simply gush! You see I am sitting in a car traveling at highway speeds and BLOGGING at the same time?!?! I'm only just creeping onto this mobile technological speedway and for me this is still pretty darn amazing. Let's just say my first trips to Florida for spring break involved station wagons with windows for air conditioning and AM radios for entertainment. My children are soooooooooooo spoiled....but then again I wouldn't have it any other way for myself these days.

Just keeping it short as I'm in a notorious Georgia back-up and the starting and stopping is bringing on a bit of nausea! Just thought I'd show you a few pictures of how a USPS delivery person knows they are in Florida....

and that is just on my Dad's block!!

Things Dermal

2011-04-02T00:19:00.000-05:00

So we are pretty much packed to head home...said with a pout. I'm taking a few minutes to up load our 400+ pictures and some videos before trying to sleep as much as I can before the marathon car ride. Just thought I'd share two photos that speak volumes.

I'm titling this one Teens- Tough Heads and Tender Skin

At some point you just have to let them live and learn! This was taken on the first night of our vacation...sun screen was applied with due diligence thereafter.

My title for this one is Who Said Life Was Fair!

Hmmm, let's just say the Irish skinned members of our traveling party are finding tan lines of this magnitude to be unfathomable?!? Alyssa was the first to voice the sentiment but now the rest of us concur....WE WANT A DO OVER!!!!!!!!!!! Can someone talk to the man upstairs? There's a group of us who'd like to revisit the DNA distribution moment and request a switch to Guatemalan dermis! There's time...we won't need the new skin until next year's spring break trip to Sarasota. Sounds like a great Christmas gift to me!?!?!

The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow...

2011-03-29T21:25:00.000-05:00

Ahhh, spring break in Florida...the Sunshine State...the mecca for winter weary Northerners seeking respite from down parkas and Vitamin D deficiencies!

Ummm, not so much!!!!!!! Remember in a recent post how I mentioned our lack of luck? You know the "never even match a number on a lottery ticket" kind of bad luck???

We did make it to the beach EVERY day so far...the sun didn't but we sure aren't letting that old party pooper ruin our precious few days of spring break! In all honesty the sun has peeked out from behind the clouds a couple of times BUT then it saw the Mahoney family was still there and it went back in hiding!

We Mahoneys are a tough bunch though! Where there are 80 degree temperatures there we are, so off to the beach we go EVERY day (:

We have the routine down with every member carrying out his or her assigned duties like a well oiled machine! Patrick is in charge of producing shade for the Irish skinned members while the kids are in charge of chair set up and towel distribution. Auntie Peggy and I handle food and sunscreen duties.

We've done a LOT of reading!

And with 75 degree gulf water we have done a TON of swimming!!!

Boogie boards and piggy back rides through the gulf surf seemed like they were going to be the highlight of our days at the beach this vacation....until today!!

Until Mother Nature gave us one of her best shows ever!!!! Can you see it????

Today we swam with WILD DOLPHINS!!!!! I mean I was speechless for once in my life. This is just the kind of special memory we hope to give the children when we make trips like this together! We will be talking about today for YEARS to come!

But just like clockwork the beautiful day became...

WET!

So we washed off the sand and gathered up Grandpa...

So I could celebrate yet another birthday!!

Doesn't every girl deserve a tropical drink and dinner out with those she loves on her big day??

[Man I cannot deny being his daughter can I? When did I start looking so much like him???]

There is more rain in the forecast, of course! But we plan on having more fun in the water...

and Alyssa will spend another morning lathering on sunscreen as she whines,

"I want a do-over! I wish I was born in Guatemala!"

and Mari will have a couple of more days of wishing the beach came with air conditioning...

and I will have a couple more nights of sending everyone off to bed with the assurance that,

"Surely the sun will come out tomorrow!"

Springbreak Status

2011-03-26T22:20:00.000-05:00

The car was packed efficiently and in a timely manner. The children all executed their school dismissal plans letter perfect and all seven of us were seated in a mini-van heading south by 4PM Friday afternoon. The weather co-operated. The traffic co-operated. The kids co-operated!!

Lots and lots of this....

and this went on over the next TWENTY hours!

The driving duties were split between Auntie Peggy and myself and we powered through the night only stopping for a 30 minute nap just north of Atlanta waiting for sunrise to help keep us from getting hypnotized by the headlights!

We knew we were conquering the 1300 miles as the morning dawned to Spanish Moss draped trees...

and blooming azaleas! Bummed to have missed my absolute favorite signs of spring as the Redbud trees were not visible in the dark ): but surely the trip home will reveal a purple haze spread across a Tennessee mountainside!

Then before we could be camera ready it happened!?!?!

We officially were welcomed by the state of Florida!!!

Before you knew it...okay four more hours of driving into Florida...we found my Dad pretty much in the same spot we left him when we left Sarasota last fall!

We emptied the car and fixed dinner and spent the first, of what we hope are many, evenings watching the sunset over the Gulf of Mexico!!!

Then we went for a night walk in the neighborhood

and now one by one they have crashed into their beds were I will be a nanosecond after I hit the publish button on this post!!