Goats

The kids have been asking me for weeks to take them to the zoo.

Blame it on the heat or the third trimester, but I in return have been begging them to take me anywhere else.

I finally caved this past week.



We even fed these guys, something I never do, which has nothing to do with heat or pregnancy (regardless the trimester) and everything to do with my irrational fear of goats.









For all my procrastinating, we actually had a wonderful day of it and wound up staying for nearly 5 hours. A record for us I believe. There was no rushing, no schedule, nothing else to do and nowhere else to be and so we just lingered.

Did you know that lingering is really quite lovely?
















"Our zoo has two giraffes. They are currently separated because our male has been chasing our female incessantly and causing her a lot of stress." Poor Rhana.

As for this little one, she is just a goof ball in front of the camera, or behind the camera, or just in general. She is a comedian.









Turns out the zoo has their dinosaur exhibit up and running again this summer. You have to pay extra to get in, but it's sort of worth it even if just one of your kids spends the entire time looking like this...





And I mean it when I say the ENTIRE time!



Totally worth it until I noticed that the only way to get out of the darn Jurassic period (without having to double back....did I mention third trimester already?) was through a make shift gift shop that they just happened to plop down right smack dab in the middle of the walk way. I kid you not.

Much to the dismay of my kids we left empty handed.

A quick train ride did wonders to make up for it.





By then we were pretty much ready to call it a day anyways.

Although in the parking lot on the way out they had already started planning for "next time".

In other exciting news:
*Finn, Sidhe and Ruari departed this morning for their annual Maryland vacation and will be out east for 3 weeks. It always feels like forever, but history has taught me that it will fly by and they have so much fun with family there.

*Kiely is sick. She's our fluffy princess cat and after spending a small fortune at the vet on Friday we still don't know exactly what's wrong. We did however rule out Leukemia, so that's good....However, her liver is not functioning properly and I'm not sure specialists and surgeries or costly medications/procedures are really an option at this point, which of course is not so good. The kids are naturally very upset about this, and while I'm trying to stay practical about the whole thing it's not nearly as easy as I think it "should" be.....and well it just sort of sucks all around.

*There is an unequal ratio of knitting to cleaning taking place in this house currently. If you've been over lately then you already know what I mean.

*I helped shoot a wedding yesterday. It was a beautiful ceremony and I'm so happy for the couple and their family. It was however a reminder that a) I am not a professional photographer, b) I am not a wedding photographer and c) I actually have no desire to be either of those things at this point. I love shooting my kids and the every day tidbits. I don't mind taking snapshots, in fact it's what I enjoy doing! There, I said it. I like taking snapshots, I really do. Anyways...

*Saoirse still wears a diaper at night. We tried her for about a week without one and after the fourth day of laundry decided that maybe she wasn't quite ready. Of course now she's staying dry again, go figure.

*I may have over scheduled the 4 youngest this summer. I think I got sort of stressed out about the 4 oldest not wanting to do much of anything and then in mommy protest may have overcompensated with the little people. Stuff like that always backfires when you realize it just means that your own life is the one being complicated, especially since the older kids are still just as content doing lots of nothing, while you on the other hand are running around trying to get everyone else somewhere for something pretty much every single day, multiple times a day. Good plan, good plan.

*I'm 3o + weeks pregnant, 75% done, and things are going really quickly and also very smoothly. I have gained a shit ton of weight. I swore I wasn't going to, and for the first 10 days or so I totally didn't. I went to spin and yoga and kept up with my running and thought to myself rather foolishly, "oh yeah, this will be the time when I stay skinny and pregnant". Ha! Oh well, there are way worse things than being chubby (okay, fat). And I've done this before, I mean I know what it's like, but is it strange that I feel like I've never been this big before? I'm not even within 50 pounds of my heaviest all time weight and yet I feel gigantic. I made it back to yoga a few days ago and felt like a heffalump on my mat, but a graceful one all the same. Also, I'm having a baby. At the end of all this there will be a BABY in my arms. When I think about it like that, nothing else really matters. Yoga will be there, my running shoes will be there, my favorite pair of skinny jeans will still be there (eventually) but at the end of this whole heffalump adventure our BABY will be there too and I can't tell you how excited I am about it!

*I think it might be time to start getting serious about his arrival. *No, we still don't know what we're having and we're still not going to find out, but I am soooooo certain that this baby is a boy*.

*Our 5th wedding anniversary is coming up and we're sneaking away to Door County for a few days to bask in the glory of all that hard work! Muahahahahahaha, just kidding honey, it hasn't even felt like work at all. Sort of. Can you believe it's already been 5 years?!

*Brendan took the 3 little ones to the museum this morning and they're back now, so I need to wrap it up. Hope you're having a wonderful Sunday. We're going to a birthday party later and maybe even out for a quick date night dinner. Life is good.

Summer Mornings

The best part of waking up? Well, it's not coffee (oh coffee I still adore you and think of you often).

No, the best part of waking up is definitely this:







Ruari coordinated this project with the little sisters last week.....



Imagine my surprise when one second later we woke up to find this guy in the sun room.

Ruari and Saoirse both planted beans and have tall stems with enthusiastic leaves sprouting in the windowsill. Nuala on the other hand went with cucumbers which apparently take a little bit longer to make an appearance. She still has dirt. She's being very patient and understanding about the whole thing.

Especially when I ask her to pose with Saoirse's plant every once in a while.



The best part of waking up? It isn't kissing my husband goodbye as he leaves for work (I like it a lot when he's here actually).

Nope, the best part is lounging around in pajamas and easing our way into the day.













Nuala is fascinated with this pregnancy book I got from the library.



She wants to know how big the baby is every single day.





And that's the pace of summer mornings around here.

















But don't worry, we don't spend ALL our time in PJ's. Especially since there is now a beautiful chunky baby to hang out with. Maro has arrived! In fact just as soon as we get dressed we're taking him and his mama to the museum with us.

Bits and Pieces

You know how sometimes you go to the beach and you decide to be brave and bring along your giant snazzy camera because you just know that your pictures are going to be amazing and so you say, "sand be damned, we're going digital today and shooting something for above the mantel!"?

And then you get home and it turns out you could have just stuck with Instagram after all?

Although I do love this one, even with the blur, it makes me giggle. Doubt she'll let me hang it up poster size above the fireplace though.



So yeah, we went to the beach and did beach things, isn't that what you do in summer?











Plus, Saoirse really did have a little bit of fun after the horror passed. She was happy as a lark to sit in her little sand castle and give her princess a sand bath.



We escaped to the farm this weekend for a little bit of R&R, unfortunately Brendan got sick for pretty much the entire visit, but hey we still got out of the city.





















I'm on another knitting streak and have finished a few hats recently. I told myself I'd stick to neutrals, but this one sort of screams "boy". I should make a pink one just in case...







First time ordering from Knit Picks, but I've seen a lot of Chroma projects lately and I am convinced that I will be making the cutest legwarmers on the planet with this stuff very soon.



But first one last little "neutral-ish" (well, it was in my head, but looking at it now it is also screaming boy at me, ah well earth tones are for everyone!) hat I finished last night.



First time trailing the yarn along for the color changes, and aside from the awkwardness of having to work with all 3 balls at once it went fairly smoothly. This one I worked in Cascade 220 Superwash and I think I might make some leggings to go along with it. I'm not crazy about the thin stripes but I'm hoping they'll grow on me.



Last night I found Little Miss quietly tinkering around with her imagination. I almost didn't want to interrupt her.

Almost.







Happy Tuesday lovely world. Michaele and Maro are flying in from France today and we're super excited to finally meet our nephew/cousin!!! (plus we missed Michaele too, but let's face it we really want to see that baby!).