Lily at 8 months

Here is our little precious Lily at 8 months. Her form has improved greatly over the last month as her four top teeth have finished cutting through. We have discovered that she is a little socialite. James was such a shy boy at this stage so we we are suprised to find that Lily loves an audience. She charms everyone by giving out huge grins and lovely baby gurgly sounds.

We had a lovely St Patricks day this year as the weather was mild and sunny. We went into town to bring James to the fun fair but when we got there he refused to go any rides, typical James. We ended up spending the whole day in the Merrion Square park having a picnic. Lily loved crawling on the grass in her little green frog suit. We all enjoyed the day but definitely noticed the recession taking effect as there was no music or family entertainment on the streets of town like there usually is.




The photos above were taken over the last two months. James is getting so big now. It will be his 5th birthday on Easter Sunday this year. The other day when I came home from work he was playing with his friend Jack in his bedroom and when I came in looking for a hug he gave me a quick hug and said "now will you go away?" Oh the rejection is terrible! He has finally realised that playing with other children is much more fun then playing with the Mammy. His cousin Paddy and himself have just discovered play fighting. I have a feeling they will be doing this for a long time to come. There is a little clip below of the two of them in action, as well as a clip of James doing his break dancing, as he calls it.

7 Months and Crawling

We had a big change in our household this week...Lily started crawling! She started on Valentine's day, when she was exactly 7 months old. It's been just over a week since then and she can already crawl quite fast. It's a big adjustment for us to be constantly following her around making sure she is safe. On her first day of crawling she managed to try and eat some firelighters, topple our paper recycling bin and she reached her ultimate goal the Lego box. Needless to say we have many crawling-baby adjustments to make to our house. The one lovely thing is that she now comes smiling and crawling over to you when you come home.

Lily has been quite clingy and cranky lately. The crankiness we are putting down to the fact that four new top teeth are cutting. The clinginess is probably due to the adjustment of being in childcare for part of her week. However she is still a sweet, smiley, social baby when she is in my arms and not having major teeth pain.

I have included two little clips of Lily. One clip is of her on her second day crawling, when she is still working it all out and going slowly. The other is a nice example of her smiley self.

Let It Snow

Can you believe it snowed in Dublin?! We have been having a very cold winter this year and sure enough we got snow last week. It was only an inch or two of snow but it was enough to create snowballs and cause total traffic chaos across the city. Bama was up in Dublin for one night before she traveled to Canada to meet her new Granddaughter Claire. She had just enough time to make a mini snowman with James that had a proper carrot nose.

Welcome cousin Claire

We have a new cousin!!!! Yes Joe and Jessie's baby girl, Claire arrived last Thursday! We are all very excited about the new arrival and want to say a big congratulations to Joe and Jessie. Now Lily will have a girl cousin her own age to grow up with, how lovely.

In our house we are all recovering from being sick, and adjusting to our new life with me back at work. It has been hectic and I want to apologise in advance for forthcoming lack of communication. I am run off my feet trying to keep up with all that needs to be done on a daily basis. I am sure it will all settle down in a few weeks when we get used to our new routine.

This little video is from our Christmas holidays.



The end clip in the video where Lily is sitting happily and playing with her toys is already a little dated. It is looking like Lily will be crawling any day now. There is a lot of frustrated grumbling going on due to unsuccessful attempts at crawling. We sit her down, she lunges forward onto her belly and then gets stuck and gives out. Then we sit her up again and the process starts all over again. To be honest we were hoping she would hold out on the crawling for a little longer as we know how much work a crawling baby is but....oh well.

Happy New Year! I hope Christmas went well for everyone. We had a lovely Christmas. On Christmas Eve we took a family trip into town to have a look at the lights on Grafton Street. James loved the lights and got to run around and use up some of his Christmas Eve energy.

In the morning he had forgotten it was Christmas and came into our bed for a snuggle. I said "James, Happy Christmas" upon which he scampered out of our bed back into his room to rummage through his stocking. After a good while he went into the front room where his Lego police station was waiting for him in a giant box, the sight of which made him gasp. He also got a girl power ranger as requested, and a Wall-e that folds into a box as a surprise. Santa was kind enough to also leave a couple of books and a poster for James as well as a chew toy, cuddle toy and a pair of shoes for Lily.

Poor Daddy was sick in bed with the flu on Christmas morning so Mammy and James began the task of building the Lego police station. Four hours later, James having lost interest, it was complete! The sight of the completed masterpiece left James overwhelmed with excitement and full of promises not to take it apart. To my surprise and Daddy's happiness this creation has not been taken apart yet even though it's been played with all week!


On Christmas afternoon we went to the Ward's for a lovely Christmas feast. Cousin Paddy and James watched Wall-e and played peacefully while we ate our meal, unaware that there were more presents to come. After dinner the boys were given presents, the highlight of which was receiving two light sabers each. It's not hard to imagine what happened next...yes a light saber frenzy which Uncle Michael and Auntie Celine kindly participated in for hours. There was also a glowing remote control car which provided plenty of entertainment.


James was amazed by his Christmas experience. Like a good boy he was very grateful for his presents. At one point when Daddy said jokingly "you got so many presents I want one of them", James willingly handed one over!

The day after St. Stephens Day we traveled to Co. Clare to visit Bama who was also very sick with the flu. We had a lovely time enjoying the cold and bright days and got our first family photo taken on Lahinch promenade.

Lily took huge leaps forward over Christmas. She took her first few spoons of solids on and began siting unassisted both on Christmas day.

It's Christmas Eve and we are all ready and waiting for Santa's arrival.




We have had a busy month as you will see in the slideshow below. Starting out with cousin Paddy's 4th birthday party. Then Mammy, James and Lily went to Clare on the train. We had lots of winter fun cracking ice puddles and running around on the beach chasing waves at sunset. We also enjoyed an outing to Farmleigh for a Christmas market, puppet show and a run around the fields in wellies with Paddy. Over the last couple of weeks we have done much preparing and decorating for Christmas, in which James and Lily were very involved.




In other news, Mammy started back at work. Luckily it was only 2 1/2 days and now there is a break of two weeks for Christmas.

This is our favorite photo of Lily sitting on Bama's couch looking like a little doll.


She is still biting everything in sight. Her favorite things to bite are Mammy's chin, wood or paper.

We could be twins

Here are photos of James and Lily at 4 1/2 months. Can you tell who is who?