Halloween

Hello again. We have all settled down now after a couple of months of adjustments. First back to school for James with a later finish time and starting football after school. Also Lily started play school one day a week. Then I went back to work with more hours and a second class group to teach as my dear colleague Marion retired. Luckily Nuria, our lovely au pair, arrived back to us to help with everything. As they don't celebrate Halloween as much in Spain Nuria has been really enjoying the festivities here in Dublin which are gaining in momentum each year and have nearly reached American standards.

Nuria (in the middle) and her friends Ester and Christina as Bees going to a Halloween party

We celebrated Halloween well this year starting with decorating our windows properly last week thanks to many supplies sent over from auntie Alicia! We also got sent an angel and a ninja costume from uncle Simon which got the dressing-up started a week in advance. James managed to do a lot of his pumpkin carving himself this year and got seriously stuck into scraping out the guts! He also helped with the making of his soldier costume sewing a few seams on the machine by himself. Lily changed her mind several times about what she wanted to dress up as. She wore her angel costume to her play school party which went down well with the other princesses. I had assumed she would want to be a bumble bee as she loves and copies everything Nuria does but as the colour pink is of paramount importance to her a pig was the final choice. Not shy at all to knock on doors Lily did extremely well at the trick-or-treating and she had a well rehearsed snort ready in case anyone asked for a trick. However she got stage fright when a trick was requested on two occasions.

Tank Commander James

Lily the pig

Ninja Paddy going for the punch while tank commander has a munch on a twix

We ended our Halloween celebrations with some sparklers and a night walk to the local bomfire.

Three Three Three

Lily turned three while we were on our holidays in Ennistymon/Lahinch. The day was long anticipated by Lily. Last years birthday party made a very big impression on her especially the part where everyone sang Happy Birthday to her. She talked about the song, the cake and candles a lot after that. If we played with stickle bricks or play dough or whatever we always had to make a birthday cake and sing the song. So just when I thought the birthday fascination had faded James' birthday party brought it all back and the "When is it my Birthday?!" questions started coming at regular intervals. Since she doesn't have an abundance of patience I gave her no advance warning that the big day was so close. I simply mentioned it when she was in bed the night before. In the morning when she came down the stairs (these days she sleeps in late) I said "Happy Birthday Lily!", she answered "..but where is my Happy Birthday?" So I brought her into Bama's front room where there was a table set with all sorts of pink things, balloons, presents etc and then she said "Oh there is my Happy Birthday!"

We went out to dinner that evening and then went to the play park. She didn't want to leave so I thought to help extract her I would mention the cake (which I hadn't yet iced). This I am not so sure was a good idea. She was tired and had been waiting for this moment for a whole year so she quickly worked herself into a frenzy when she got home as she had to wait while I iced the cake. This was way too much to ask...so we went ahead and stuck the candle on the cake and continued with the proceedings. We gave her a big slice and her mood quickly changed back into sweetie pie mode.

Cake number 1


Two munchkins picking at the cake.

Cake number 2 (well really cake 1 iced) and more munchkin fingers.

Take two on the birthday proceedings.

Then a few days later when we were back in Dublin we had a small family Birthday party where she got another go at the song, cake and candles!

Cake number 3.

At the party she got her present from Mammy and Daddy which was a balance bike. She was delighted and is aspiring to keep up with James on his birthday bike.

As it happened on the day of her party James lost his first tooth. He had been waiting a long time for this watching his cousin and all his friends loose numerous teeth before him. Although he has questioned the probability of whether the tooth fairy is real or not many times before he was quite happy to suspend his disbelief on the day as he had heard from his pals that your first tooth gets you 5euro from the (real or not real) tooth fairy!

Summer is Here, Summer Weather Still to Come.

"You know it's summer in Ireland because the rain is warmer" I heard that quote recently and thought...well said!



Summer holidays have arrived for me and will arrive for James in a couple of days. The weather has been cool with regular wind and rain. We haven't spent much of our time in shorts since April but we are still holding out hope that we will get some summer weather in July and August. Luckily with the light staying around until after 10pm lately we have gotten lots of bright evenings to spend on the green area at the end of our road christened "The Grassy Knoll" by Gavin. James has taken a shine to his bicycle that he got for his birthday and spends many evenings on it or playing football.

James has been very productive lately with assorted "projects" as he calls them. He loves drawing and spends hours drawing stick men in wars/battles and scenes of general destruction. He has taken to making books with his drawings and enjoys writing stories to go with them. He also spends time making army related objects out of wood, thanks to Uncle Joe and Auntie Jessie for the carpentry kit given at Christmas. Anything to do with constructing things/army stuff is tops for James at the moment. We had some serious inspiration a couple of weeks ago after visiting the NCAD (Nation College of Art and Design) end of year exhibition where he saw a textile artist who's subject was army figures photographed and made into fabric. This has started a whole new craze for James. Setting up army figures in scenes and photographing them. He has branched out into lego figures as well. Here is a little selection of his recent "work" in a slideshow.



The other major love at the moment for both Lily and James is Jedward. For those who don't live in Ireland Jedward are a pop sensation born on the English X-Factor program. They are twins (John and Edward) from Dublin and they are very funny, entertaining and cool if you are 7 or 3. I insist you check them out if you have never heard of them, link below.

Spring is Here

Grandad Jim

Long time no post.

It has been a sad few months as we lost our beloved Grandad Jim a week before Christmas last year. His passing has left a gaping hole in our lives and a feeling of bewilderment. Life seems to be dramatically different in so many ways.

I learned recently that Jim didn't like glowing eulogies so I won't go on too much but I wanted to say that Jim was always a loving, welcoming and supportive "father in law" to me. He was uniquely loving and tender with babies and small children. I discovered this trait in him when James was born. Since then I have been moved by Jim's enthusiasm for and admiration of his grandchildren. From the time Lily was only a few months old she showed signs of favoring Jim above anyone else and as she got older this continued. If Jim was in the room with her it was as if nobody else existed. Jim's interest and wonderment of his grandchildren was a wonderful gift to them and I am glad that both of them got to know him so well.

The good news is that we are having an unusually sunny springtime. This is helping us get up and out and enjoy our days. Luckily it was sunny too for James' 7th Birthday party where we entertained 17 children at our house! We spent plenty of time preparing the entertainment... target practice, obstacle course, waterbombs, pinjata, pass-the-parcel, treasure hunt etc. Not to mention sorting the food (two vegetarians, one non-wheat, one non-pork, one non-beef, 1 non-dairy, and 1 nut allergy!). In the end most of the boys time was spent divided between playing football and Lego- 7 year old boy favorites!

Here is a slideshow of the past few months starting with Lily's "grumpy fairy" at Christmas, some sunny February days in Lahinch Co Clare, James party, more sunny April days in Lahinch, Easter Sunday picnic and egg hunt in the Burren, Moher hill pet farm and tide pools and swimming at Clahane.

Snow, snow and more snow!

A week of snow in Dublin (the biggest snowfall in living memory apparently) has filled our week with adventures of all types. Unlike last year's cold snap where we got over a month of scary compacted ice, this week we have had lovely deep powdery snow falling every day. This has been very exciting for the kids. And just when James thought things couldn't get any better, his school closed down for three days.

We have learned lots about snow this week starting with trying to figure out how to make a snowman out of powdery snow. It took a couple of attempts but we got there in the end.





We figured out what kinds of things are good for make-shift sleighs. We tried laundry baskets, plastic tubs, surfboards and we aren't finished trying yet. We experienced what it is like to be in a car that's wheels are spinning in place, we witnessed many cars attempting to drive our ice-rink of a road (about 2 inches of compacted snow). They slipped, slid and spun as they made their way to the main road which had a bit of salt on it.


I figured out how long it takes to walk to work in the snow with a two year old and a six year old, result: over an hour (usually takes less than 20 min). We figured out how to get to my work on the bus by going quite far out of the way and transfering once. That took about an hour and a half. The kids liked these adventures and James especially liked coming into work with me as he got to watch movies, play computer games and was given chocolate from Bernie in the canteen.


The snow is here to stay for another week at least or so we have been told. And while it has been great fun in many ways it has also been very difficult to visit grandad Jim who is very sick. Luckily he has a lovely view of snowy dublin and the sea from his fifth floor window and thankfully we are within walking distance of him.

We did miraculuosly manage to make it down to co Clare last weekend for Gavin's cousin Vinnie's wedding party which was brilliant!


I will leave you on a happy note with this image of Vinnie and his lovely new wife Amy, who hails from Flint, Michigan... and won't even mention the scary IMF/ECB bank bailout stuff.

Two Ninjas and a Lion

A couple of pics from Halloween

Summer Is Over

I've been very slack on my posts lately. It's a sign that we were too busy having a great time this summer. There was a lot of lovely weather, especially in June and August and we spent most of it mastering our picnicing technique. Beaches, parks, pet farms, islands, you name it we picniced there this summer. The best part of the summer was of course the visit from Auntie Alicia! We got her for about 6 weeks which was both a luxury and a pleasure. She unfortunately experienced some on the worst weather of the summer during July but benifited by getting some of the classic Irish experiences such as rainy picnics and beach trips.
We miss her loads since she left but luckily we have been occupied by settling back into school, work and creche.

Here are a few pics from the fab summer 2010 including pics of:

• A visit from Naomi, Adam and Luke
• A trip to the pet farm in Co Clare
• Bama's Birthday
• Lily's Birthday
• Dressing up
  
• A trip to the Aran Islands
• Rainy picnic at the Burren
  
• A trip to the Zoo with cousin Paddy