Thanksgiving

We had a lovely trip Stateside for Thanksgiving. It was great to see Jane's family and introduce them to Caitlyn.

Highlights of the trip included lots of food, shopping, a great ice-cream parlour, American breakfast (Yum! - Marcus), more shopping, a talent show, snow, ice-skating, playing with cousins, the Air Force museum, free babysitting, a great children's museum in Chicago, the best coffee ever, and hanging out with family.

Here's a few photos:

Caitlyn's Blessing

Following Caitlyn's dedication by her grandad in England, we had an informal blessing service for her also in Ireland - this time done by her aunt Kerry (and cousin Penny). The service included a couple of songs that are special to Marcus and Jane, a reminder of what Caitlyn was like at just one week old, the blessing ceremony that had everyone participate, a book of 'pure' (Caitlyn) and 'beautiful' (Aoife) things, and a beautiful moment where Kerry took Caitlyn around to each person so they could give their own words of blessing. All very lovely indeed.

Thanks to (Great) Uncle Harry for taking a few photos.

Baby Alannah Laughing

I was going through some old videos the other day when I came across this favourite. So I put together a couple of clips from when Alannah was about 8 months old.

I think you'll like it!

Videos by Uncle Tim

Summer seems so far away now and I'm only just posting these couple of videos (shame on me!).

(Uncle) Tim had a go at doing some filming while we were visiting Marcus' family in Bournemouth and got to grips with some video editing on the computer. Well done, Tim!

Here's a video of us spending an afternoon in one of Bournemouth's city centre gardens:





And here are the kids with grandad going on a bear hunt:

Alannah & Caitlyn

Here's a couple of photos of Alannah and Caitlyn. Check out those baby blue eyes! Gorgeous!

Prayer for Caitlyn

We recently had Caitlyn dedicated by her granddad at their Salvation Army church in Bournemouth. Hopefully we'll get some video of the ceremony posted soon. As part of the occasion we made a short video-prayer for Caitlyn. Here it is:

Four years old!

Ahh, our Bupsy is four years old today, full of imagination and compassion and sweetness. And a few other traits that wouldn't be fair to mention on her birthday! We have a few friends who have children turning three soon, who think because they have missed the terrible twos their child will just be lovely and well-behaved forever. Well, sorry to tell you, but 3 is the new 2, and we're hoping 4 will be much better!

We had a My Little Pony party on Friday with some friends. It was loads of fun, very cute and sweet and PINK! Jane had so much fun decorating the cake with an overload of pink and purple frosting and pink flowers:





Here is Charlie, so exhausted from the party that he fell asleep on a beanbag in the living room, toys still in his hand. If you can see his pocket, he put some jelly (Jello) in there to save for later!



Alannah was sad after the party because we told her that her birthday was actually on Monday and we would be having family presents and doing something fun together on that day. Two birthday celebrations, that seems great, right? And it wasn't that she didn't enjoy her party or think it wasn't enough -- it was just that she wanted to be four, and the cards from her friends had 4 on them, and she couldn't understand why we were telling her that she wasn't going to be four until Monday. Now that the actual birthday has come and gone (and she did get more presents today) she seems fine, but I still don't think she gets what the whole birthday thing/another year older business is all about!

Sisters Sleeping

Don't worry. It's just the froth!

Marcus is currently undertaking a little personal project to visit every Starbucks in the Republic of Ireland. (There's really not that many and most of them are in Dublin).

Sometimes Marcus visits alone. At other times the whole family take part. For some reason Charlie has been asking more and more if we can go to a cafe. I can't think why...?

Family Sticker

Create your own family sticker graphic at pYzam.com