Slacker

I have been slacking a little bit here on our blog.

What can I say? I am busy. We are all busy.

Here are some quick updates....

I am now 29 weeks pregnant (out of an even 40) and I am starting to feel it. The third trimester is always the hardest on me, and I am beginning to actually feel very large and awkward, and I wasn't exactly dainty to begin with. So.....

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Nuala and Oscar are in love with spring time and what it means to them (honestly, aren't we all?). We have FINALLY been set free from our winter hibernation to explore the outside world around us. For the past few months they have been shuttled from the house to the car, from the car to the house, and have had to view the outdoors from behind the straps of their car seats, through tinted windows. Now that they have been let loose to actually WALK around outside they are in heaven, and now every time I have to load them into the car they scream and cry and wail and arch those backs and make it generally miserable and quite nearly impossible to get them loaded into the car. 

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Yesterday we took Finn, Sidhe, Ruari and the twins to Jacobus park to go rock hopping in the creek that twists and winds through the woods there. The older ones are seasoned rock hoppers and have spent many warm days traveling the creek's path. Nuala and Oscar even went a couple of times last summer, but of course were not walking yet at the time, so yesterday was essentially their first true creek experience. They of course loved it, Oscar was actually giddy about throwing little pebbles and stones into the water and Nuala was even able to dip her fingers into the flowing stream. Neither one wanted to leave, which of course lead to the type of scenario described above.

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Today we are supposed to get highs in the low seventies, a veritable heat wave here in Wisconsin and the older girls want to set up their shop outside after school, cleverly named "The Three Sisters". What began as a lemonade stand quickly changed into a lemonade/bakery/craft shop and they actually did pretty good last summer, considering all of the construction we had to deal with on our block. I helped with the start up, but they have enough of a profit margin now to buy their own supplies and maintain their shop. They even have enough to hire seasonal help every once in a while, which really makes Micah's day!

See how even the UPS delivery guy and the Harley riders couldn't pass up some refreshing lemonade? You have no idea how proud these children were at the end of each business day. I implore you to support your local stand, you have no idea how happy it will make someone!

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In honor of St. Patrick's Day I actually painted my toe nails green while the twins were napping. Sorry for the squishy moments there June8ug! Here I am 3 hours later cleaning green nail polish off of my daughter and off of my hard wood floors, all the while wondering if maybe a call to Poison Control is necessary. Either I didn't screw the cap on tightly or she really IS that good......at getting into mischief! 

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This weekend was chore central around here. We started by opening up the garage and getting to work cleaning it out, and by this I mean getting it organized enough so that 7 kids can have access to their scooters and bikes and go-carts and wagons and helmets and shovels and sand toys and well, you get the gist of it. As is the nature of work like this, one job can very quickly lead to another and before I knew it we were hauling fire wood off of the front porch and finding a new home for the entire heap. Which of course meant that Brendan and I spent a good 2 hours pricing out patio furniture at 4 different stores later that afternoon. Naturally this lead to me deciding that perhaps we didn't need a whole brand new set after all. So yesterday I went back to the old house and got some of our old patio furniture off of our old porch. Two trips to Menards and nine cans of Oregano spray paint later our out dated white wicker furniture looks brand spanking new and I have saved our family nearly $800! Phew. Who knew I was so thrifty?

That's all I have for now.

We are heading outside to relish in this gorgeous day!