Pajama Party with Santa

My husband's company holds a Christmas Party for

the children every year...

This year it started at 6PM...

all of the children were asked to come in their "jammies".

First they had their chance to tell Santa what they wanted...

Scooter is "old friends" with Santa

Tilly is pretty fond of the "Big Guy" too!

We have known him personally for seven years...

Last year Snorkie wouldn't even

be in the same ROOM with Santa!

This year...He RAN up to him when we arrived

to introduce his little brother!

He Really wants that motorcycle video game system...

um, I don't think it is coming...

Lumpy was fussing like crazy with me...

He calmed right down and enjoyed his time with Santa!

After pictures the kids went to another room for Milk & Cookies...

Then off to the last room for a story read by Santa...

in HIS pajamas!

(Bright red Union suit with "Santa"

embroidered in silver, on the shoulder...)

Snorkie scratching Santa's itchy beard...

He had a BLAST!

They even got presents...and it was held on the

Feast of Saint Nicholas!

Introducing: Lumpy O'Toole!

He has received his "Gaelic" nick name...

He is officially

Lumpy O'Toole!

Can you guess why he is our Lumpy-Man?
This kid LOVES to be "worn"!

I Love Being Home With My Kids!

There are so many wonderful things about being home

with my kids all of the time.

When I had my last infant, the girls were only in

First grade and Pre-school...

Now they are in Third and Fifth Grade...

They can also read independently (pretty well)...

and they help with a good deal of the house work...

(They get a reasonable allowance).

They are great kids

and I love being around them...

It is only hard when I want to do

something to surprise them...

THAT can be difficult!

This is with whom

I prefer to spend my time!

Snuggly little boy...

in the cutest "swaddling" blanket ever!

I even manage to regularly get a shower

and keep up with the laundry...

Thanks to big sister "Scooter"

A GREAT advertisement for homeschooling!

(Scooter is reading Anne of Green Gables...)


My very alert two week old!

Sponge Bathing can be COLD

Boppy Pillows are SO Wonderful!

One VERY Proud Big Brother...

and his Little Brother.

I have about a dozen posts to put up in the next couple

of days...Hang in there with me...

There are BOUND to be lots more PHOTOS!

:::Grin:::

Addition to the Family

Here are some additional photos of our newest family member...

Still working on the nick name...

but my Sister-in-Law brought an adorable outfit

with "Snugglesaurus" on it...

That will do for now!

Here he is with his sisters...about seven hour old

Home on Friday...gotta love the Boppy Pillow!

Happy Siblings!

SURPRISE!

We interrupt the unfinished flood story

to update you on our most recent activities...

This is what I have been doing lately!

Our newest BABY BOY arrived on

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

10:12 am

7 pounds 15 ounces

21 1/4 inches long

He has not received his "Gaelic" nickname yet...

though my sister suggested we call him

"Pierce" or "Lance"

because I was on injectable

Progesterone supplementation...

twice weekly shots for 36 weeks...

and diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes...

had to test my blood sugar levels 4 times a day

for the last three months...

Luckily, he didn't need to be poked or prodded

very much after arrival!

I realize that many of my blog readers had

NO IDEA...

For that I am sorry...

I spent so much time at the beginning wondering

if we would lose this baby, that I never did quite

figure out HOW to mention this pregnancy on this blog...

By the time I was SURE that he would be joining us,

it just felt funny... : (

Needless to say, the last few days,

I've been cuddled up with the little munchkin...

We got home from the hospital yesterday &

the "milk truck" pulled in last night.

We are busy establishing a balance between sleep,

nursing and a chance to get to the bathroom : )

Blessedly, Scooter and Tilly are AWESOME

at holding and snuggling with him when I am occupied!

The "sibling rivalry" in this house is something like...

"No, its MY TURN to hold him!!!"

Snorkie spends his time kissing the baby's head,

and saying, "He's SO CUTE, I can't stand it!"

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Pax Christi

Photos of September 2004 And the Flood Waters Rose...

2004 Flood...the photos

This is one of the first images we saw of our neighborhood

The tree "line" you see at the top of the photo

is the Delaware & Raritan Canal.

Our house is just in front of the clump of trees

a third of the way down from the top & right in

the middle of the photo (too bad I don't know

how to edit to put a big red circle around it.)

You can see how the "back" of the neighborhood

is still dry ground.

Our neighbors behind us had no water...(in this flood.)

All the "stuff that accumulated against the fence

behind our house...much of it was NOT ours!

The top of the 4' fence was the "high water mark"

at the back of our house...

Hydrostatic Pressure damage to the "upriver"

side of our basement walls.

Significant restoration work was needed to repair this.

Much of our property piled up in front of our house.

Thank Goodness for all the help we got...

We never could have done all of this so quickly!

The Trash company decided to do "extra" pick-ups for

the entire week...Our stuff alone probably filled

half of the truck...cudos to them for making the effort

to help us all clean out the junk in DAYS.

How High the river still was...

"on the road" on Monday evening...

we were able to drive in on Tuesday.

The view at the foot of our basement steps...

before we got a sump pump running to drain

the rest of the standing water.

The shelf lying on it's side held art stuff as well as extra

"pantry" stuff, like pasta and canned goods...YUCK.

Keep in mind it was PITCH DARK

with no power when this photo was taken...

it looks "better" because of the camera's flash.

This is an Entertainment system that DH and I

built together while we were expecting Scooter...
The turntable was on the bottom left (trashed)

and all our "Home Videos" in the

drawer on the bottom right.

We couldn't imagine them being salvagable,

but we put them in a box because we

couldn't bear to throw them away...

(notice the portfolio in the background of this photo...

It was all of the artwork that I had taken OUT of

the minivan...SOME of it was ruined...

most of it dried...damaged : (

Hard to believe, but our Living/ Dining room carpet

WAS white...

The ottoman next to the couch was another

"project" that DH and I created...It housed all of the girls

dress-up stuff...the lid lifted off!

Lovey built the box, I upholstered it...

It went in the trash

with most of the other upholstered furniture...

except the chair on the right,

which only got wet at the "skirt"...the chair was fine...

this made me happy,

because the chair had belonged to my mother

This is the way that the Good Lord protected

my lilac bush...I don't think it would have survived the

the force of the water & debris if the fence post

hadn't risen and wedged against our driveway.

This was the ONLY spot where a fence post

came out of the ground!
(the lilac was a mother's day gift from

my mother-in-law several years before...

it is still living...in my current backyard)

We tied up the canoe INSIDE the fence during the

evening before we left...the river rose about 12"

above the fence in the "front yard"...

All the stuff that I left sitting on the picnic table

and benches stayed dry...It was all of my

painting stuff that I used when working on the

playground mural...

This is what the contents of our basement looked like

stuffed into contractor plastic bags...

Members of The Knights of Columbus as well as many other

friends and aquaintences worked with us for days

clearing all this stuff out and washing down

the things that we could salvage...

Our Parish Priest was there slogging our trash

for us too...what a great guy he is!

We made sure that he was the one to Baptize

Snorkie Boy when he was born!

I promise the next "chapter of the story"

before next weekend....

:)

The Morning After

It was Sunday morning, September 19, 2004.

We awoke after a rather short night and much worry,

showered, dressed and took the girls down to the

hotel breakfast room. We discovered that we were among

many in our neighborhood that wound up

at that particular "Macintosh" hotel.

We also discovered that we were National News!

Watching our town engulfed in water on TV was

VERY STRANGE.

We checked out, not knowing what to do next...

except that we had to get to Mass.

Our Pastor spoke about the need to postpone our

Annual Parish Picnic that afternoon due to the

"difficulties of our neighbors in the flooded areas of town"...

He went on and on... making me wonder

if we would have water above the roof line...

My Darling Husband tried to track down a youth group volunteer

to give them a donation and ran into an aquaintance from the

Knight of Columbus. They exchanged pleasantries and then

Lovey blurted out that we really had NO IDEA where we would

live for the forseeable future. That wonderful guy immediately

invited the four of us home with he and his wife. WHEW!

They fed us and helped us to get some info and then we ran to

Walmart because we had NO CLOTHING AT ALL !!!

Our daughters fell "In Love" with the man of the house...

he is a big, cuddly, teddybear of a man who loves children.

(let DH and I get out to do some stuff and when

we came back, both girls were sitting with him

on his BIG chair watching Sleeping Beauty!)

We tried not to watch too much coverage while the girls

were awake, but at night, we couldn't help ourselves.

I began to pray that the water would stop rising

below the 4 foot mark. I had a picture on the wall

in the girls room that my mother had made in school

when she was about ten years old.

I thought that if only that picture was spared,

I would be OK.

DH and "teddybear" got a look at the house from

the back of the neighborhood on Monday afternoon...

Blessedly, the water had stopped rising and began to receed

as of Sunday night...We got into the house onTuesday.

Because of the elevation of the house,

we had 8-10 inches of water in the "upstairs"

(remember, it is a ranch house so everything was

on the first floor) of the house.

The basement had filled completely.

We stayed with the Teddybear & his wife for a week.

The mess was incredible. The only visual description

I can give is of a local pond where everyone is encouraged

to dump unwanted stuff... for 20 years...then drain the pond...

THAT'S what my basement looked like.

We threw out lots of wet stuff from upstairs that I

later realized could have been washed...

but there was little looking back...

what can you do about it now?

We spent the first day

(when we still had running- cold-water)

salvaging what we could from the basement.

One wrench in the works was that I was

5 months pregnant with Snorkie at the time

and really had to be careful about the (semi-treated) sewage

and propane oil that had contaminated the flood waters...

(and made EVERYTHING smell awful for months).

We wore masks and gloves and grungy clothing and used

Gallons and Gallons of BLEACH.

I spent a good deal of time at the house,

thanks to Grammy watching the girls

& even taking them overnight one night.

That first week was a revelation.

It is amazing what the power of friendship,

volunteerism and hard work acn do for the spirit.

I will never forget

the effort and help of relatives, friends & strangers.

GOD IS GOOD.

To be continued...some more.

An Unusual Anniversary, or If You Really Want to Make God Laugh, Tell Him Your Plans!

In September of 2004 I had been working for two years

with a few other women in our small river town

of Yardley, Pennsylvania

to design and build a children's playground.

September 19th was to be our GRAND OPENING!

We had a beautiful reception on Saturday the 18th

for all the "Major Sponsors" that donated $1,000, or more.

It was held at the lovely historic Library at Lake Afton.

Many of our corporate sponsors were local Realtors.

One of the Realtors,

knowing how the home prices were still rising,

told me that if I ever wanted to sell,

she would be glad to handle the house.

I told her that I intended to "grow old" in my house.

(I think I actually said that I would die in that house.)

I LOVED where I was living...

one block in from the Delaware River,

one block over from the

Delaware and Raritan Canal State Park.

I could walk up town to the store, post office, playgound...

We canoed on the canal with the girls in the summertime,

bicycled and walked on the Canal Path...

The weather was yucky that weekend

and we had to postpone the Grand Opening.

Predictions were for rain and chill,

due to the remnants of Hurricane Ivan

passing through Pennsylvania and upstate New York.

By the time I got home from the little "party",

My husband had gotten word that we should move

our cars out of the neighborhood.

Often, when the river rose, it would block off our

little area of Yardley by flooding Delaware Avenue

and make it impossible to get around.

The "back" of the neighborhood was dry,

but you couldn't get to town from there by car

because of the canal.

We emptied the minivan of all the Homeschool Co-op stuff

I had in the back and loaded up the "mural"

that I had painted to be hung on the back wall

of the playground.

We moved the cars uptown to a municipal parking lot,

and decided to grab some dinner at a local restaurant

overlooking the river.

We learned some things...including that NOAA

was predicting major flooding...

we didn't know what that meant really...

but when we got home, we started bringing things

up from the basement "just in case".

Our house was only 20 years old, so it had been built to newer

code requirements and was elevated above the road somewhat.

Our home was a 1,000 square foot rancher

with a 1,000 square foot basement

(multiplied by the 7 foot ceilings,

made 7,000 CUBIC feet of storage).

We had a VERY FULL basement.

We joked that this would help us get the basement

cleaned up once and for all....LOL.

We worked all evening trudging stuff up,

somewhat indescriminently...

I left BOTH of my sewing machines,

too many art materials and art works to count,

all the scrapbooking stuff/photos that were already organized,

all of our old vinyl records, lots of decorator items...UGH.

We realize at about midnight that we were going to have to

LEAVE.

At around 1:00am, we woke the girls

(who were 3.5 & 5.5 years old at the time)

We gathered clothes for Sunday Mass,

one toy for each of the girls,

and hiking out the back of the neighborhood,

each of us carrying a sleepy daughter,

got to our car and rented a hotel room for the night.

I'll admit,

we were still chuckling...singing"Climb Every Mountain"

and debating whether we should have

turned off the power to the sump pump,

we thought it might only be a little water in the basement...

We were WRONG, Very Very WRONG.

...to be continued.

Hopefully Blogger will let me upload some photos next time...

Lost in "Summer-Land"

Assateague Island National Seashore near Ocean City, Md

July 2009...A very nice beach day

So sorry that I have been MIA this summer.
It seems everytime I have a little time...

I use it to read OTHER PEOPLES Blogs...
or do something else.
I have been reading, indulging in Crossword puzzles,
learning about Sudoku puzzles,
watching old movies with the munchkins...
getting SOME house cleaning and organizing done...
We have been having TONS of playdates
with friends and we have spent more time
at the beach this year than I have since
I was a teenager...
It is SO much more DIFFICULT with kids!!!
All that STUFF to lug...ugh.

Blessedly, Lovey is a great beach Dad...
In OC he let me sit under the umbrella and read!
Just LOVE that Man!

Ocean City Maryland...
Thanks to Lovey's Aunt for loaning us her house!
...I swam more that day than I have in Years...
took it really easy the next day : )

Independence Day in our own back yard...

Our home backs up to a school field, so we get our

very own fireworks display!

Lovey's Dad and Step Mom were visiting from Florida...

and a good time was had by all!

Scooter catches a BIG fish!

Tilly helps her to show off...that thing weighed a lot!

Snorkie still prefers to "cruise" the pool.

And now, it is time to finish planning the upcoming school year.

We have our curriculum in house,

I'm reading and organizing materials,

having a Moms Meeting for our Co-op tomorrow night...

(Ya think I should be writing up the agenda?)

In short, we are getting ready to start our school work.

I hope you all are enjoying the wonders of the end of summer :)

My Pretty Little Tilly Girl

Isn't this the sweetest picture!

It was taken when she was about four and a half.

She'll be nine this November.

She is still a very good snuggler

and very sensitive.

I look at that face and just melt.

She is my "pink" girl.

Loves her American Girl Doll,

playing "restaurant" with Snorkie,

drawing and coloring,

swimming in the pool and ocean,

watching movies, and cats....

ALL CATS.

She is loyal and has friends who are

very attached to her...I can see them

still hanging out when they are adults!

Tilly starts third grade this fall.

I'm very excited...

to see where the future takes her.

A NEW Look

Thanks to Dawn...

My blog Finally has a little

Personality!!!

What a great experience.

Stop by her design studio

(see the sidebar)

for some fabulous ideas

and her help!

The Sacred Heart of Jesus

This is the lovely gift that my

DARLING HUSBAND

ordered for us to give to each other for

Mother's Day/ Father's Day...

He arrived two days before the

Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus!

Our neighbors already have

a large statue of The Blessed Mother

in their front entryway...

We thought Jesus made a fine

addition to the neighborhood!

I recently read and interesting question...If it is ever against the law in the United States

be be a practicing Catholic...will there be enough evidence to convict YOU?

The BEST Things in Life Are FREE

Yup, that's how he often goes to sleep.

Some would say I am "spoiling" him...

I think I'm spoiling me!

The Day Was Warm but the Water Was COLD!!!

I FINALLY got to meet my best friend's new baby...

on May 31st (yeah, I know...I'm behind again!)

He is adorable!

Got a chance to hold him...

but best of all...

I managed to get him off to the Land of Nod!

We had a nice picnic and then wandered across the street ...

TO THE BEACH!!!

My kids are such beach bums...but little did I expect them...

TO GO IN THE WATER!!!

Thay had a blast...

Fishing....

Digging...

for sand crabs...

While we ladies just sat back and watched...

(thank goodness for Lovey...

He's the one who kept an eye on the munchkins!)

NICE DAY....AHHHHHH.

A MONTH???

I can't believe I have not posted for a MONTH!!!

In that time, we had Tillie's First Holy Communion party...

to which she actually wore the dress and veil (sans shoes).

We finished our Homeschool Co-op year...

and I was elected President for next year (ugh).

I offered to be one of the class "leaders" for

Vacation Bible School this year.

The girls got a four good riding lessons in...

We went to Chicagoland to attend my nephew's

High School Graduation...and

And Eagle Scout Ceremony...

(these are the scouts)

(these are FUTURE Scouts)

We Drove. ('nuf said).

Thank the Good Lord for DVD players in cars :)

It has been fun & crazy...

Hopefully, I will be able to post more often this month...

HA...this month is even busier!

Yikes!