2012 St. Patrick's Day

We had plans to party with friends, but they ended up getting pink eye.  And we all know how pink eye affects Sharon.  Highland games will have to wait for another time. Our unplanned event was that we ended up in New York City and saw some of the St. Patrick's day parade.

 Ira wasn't sure what to make of all the people in green.

We stayed long enough to see a few bagpipe groups go by and a a lot of policemen.

Sharon put her amazing cake decorating skills to work and made this sweet cake. She also perfected the corned beef and cabbage.

 Sharon's interjection:  This cake really makes me smile as I think, "My 3rd grader made that all by herself?!?" And then I realize that I don't have a 3rd grader, and that I'm the one who made the cake.  It didn't turn out how I envisioned, but it was extremely fun to make...and watch Ira eat.

Ira eating the "apple-con."

In other craftiness, we remember Ira drowning in most of his clothes when he was born.  So our solution was to buy a load of cheep onesies and tie die them for baby #2.  Sharon has experimented with quick and easy versions of the art, but never the real deal.  It was more fun the second time around, perhaps since Ira helped. 

Spring in Central Park

We decided to get a visit to the temple in before the baby came. Such a treat. Ira and I enjoyed our early morning walk through Central Park where spring was starting to unfold. We even caught some of the New York St. Patrick's Day Parade, picture are in our St. Patrick's day post.

Ira liked the pond with the Ducks

 I enjoyed seeing the green lace on the trees and the emerging flowers.

 

 Some early morning hockey. It was pretty with all of the mist coming off the ice.

 It was tricky trying to capture the moment with my cellphone, but I liked the way this one turned out, with the city and nature merging in the early morning light.

February Family Visit

It was great to have a visit from my parents and my youngest brother, McKay, while he was on his 'ski break'. We love seeing family and having time to catch up and talk. It snowed while they were here but we didn't get any skiing in.

Ira loved uncle 'kk', Papa, and Grandma

Sharon tried out some new recipes for us. These lemon pudding cakes were a nice treat.

My cousin Josh and his family came down for a day from upstate NY.

Ira also loved their visit. (He's a social kid). He was pretty goofy while they were here.

Kennedi, Ira, & Libby were excited they all had the same kind of pajamas. 

Ira was so sad to see them leave, he couldn't stop crying. We look forward to getting

together with them again.

West Point Visit

 While my family was here we made the short trip out to West Point, NY. We did a thorough walk through of the Military Academy's visitor center and free Museum. 

 Reporting for duty.

Down in the basement they had an Atom Bomb display as part of the large weapons exhibit. I'd never been close to one before, amazing to think how destructive such a small and simple looking thing can be.

I also enjoyed the history of war gallery that pointed out the major shifts in military strategies over the years and the war leaders that introduced them.

I don't have many pictures because I was the one lagging behind everyone reading the exhibits, but we can take you when you come to visit :)

Danbury Railway Museum

Happy March everyone!

We're all settled in our new apartment here in Danbury, CT and are having fun in the same ward we were in a year ago.  It's good to see familiar faces and know the territory.  

We had a blast when the Quinns came out to visit last week.  Having family around is the best.  Hint hint. For those of you who have slept on our floor, we just got a second air mattress!

Here are some pics of our visit to the Danbury Railway Museum, otherwise known as Ira's Dream Come True. 

Ira followed Grandpa out to the train yard...

and almost immediately biffed it on some slippery ice.  

Ira calls this the "Thomas Train."  I keep thinking the Thomas shows will bore Ira out of his mind, but since he got scared out of his pants watching Veggie Tales last week, I guess boring is a-o.k.  

We tried to replicate some train yard super model shots they had in the museum with Mckay.  

So majestic. :)

Ira with Grandpa and Grandma.

I'm not a huge fan of having my belly-shot taken, but I had to show off the Pennsylvania car.  

I can still get the top and bottom buttons together on my coat, but nothing else.

Speaking of being pregnant, I'm feeling good and have been nesting like crazy!  Now that I've got less than 4 weeks till my due date, I'm suddenly packing hospital bags, organizing cupboards, setting up babysitting, and reading up on birthing.  I feel like I've just sprinted a few laps after bending over to put on shoes, and can't stop checking out books for Ira about becoming a big brother.  We're really liking our Bradley class, and love the birthing center I'll deliver at if all continues to go well. Here's a link if you're curious. http://www.ctbirthcenter.com/

Work is keeping Anthony busy, and being a few blocks from a library and park are keeping Ira busy.  Spring can't quite decide if it's begun or not, but we try to get out when we can. 

More Quinn photos and updates from Anthony are pending.  

Have a happy Sunday everyone!   

Ira Moving

Despite some health concerns with Ira he was a gem during the move.

Of Course he loved the boxes

He was really cute. He would curl up inside the box and close the
top and yell, "Where is Ira" 

He would then explode out of the box.

This hat caught his eye while we were moving and he
won't let us take it off. He even slept with it on a few times.

Back East

Our move back to Connecticut is over and we are getting comfortable in our new apartment. Leading up to the move everything seemed to be falling perfectly into place, but that was too good to be true. The movers came on Thursday and packed our lives into boxes and left, giving us what we thought would be a week to say our goodbyes and travel. However, later that afternoon we got a call and they wanted to deliver our stuff that Sunday. We went into scramble mode to leave the next afternoon. That evening we did all our apartment cleaning and as we crawled into our sleeping bags wearily made plans for finishing up work, returning items our friends had lent us, and saying some quick goodbyes then heading out. We woke up the next morning to find some blood in Ira's diaper, the final piece of evidence to confirm our growing suspicions that something was off with Ira (He had recently started to refuse to use the potty, even with good incentives). All signs pointed to a Urinary Tract Infection (UTI). We added 'Go to the Doctor' to our list of things to get done before we left.

Sharon was the lucky one that had to deal with most of this while I tried to get my projects at work wrapped up. The list goes on and on as to the challenges she faced. President Obama was giving a speech in Ann Arbor that morning, so she got stuck in stopped traffic while they closed the freeway. She got stuck at a train crossing because the train stopped. Her phone and GPS to get to run the last few errands ran out of battery resulting in getting lost a few times, she got pulled over by the cops, and risked a guys job to break into my work to pick me up. Sharon is amazing though and miraculously worked it all out and made it back to pick me up at work. After hastily throwing all our stuff into the car and turning our keys in we grabbed Ira's prescription and headed out of town.

We made it to the Romero's in Niagara Falls that evening after an uneventful drive through Canada other than the border patrol giving our stuffed car a few weird looks and asking a couple of times to verify we hadn't stopped somewhere along the way to buy anything. It was great to see the Romero's again. It felt like it had been a long time and was defiantly too short of a visit before we were back on the road. We made it to our new place Saturday evening and our stuff was delivered Sunday.

Ira's antibiotics seemed to be working well until Thursday when his temperature was up to 102 and didn't want to do much of anything but snuggle and grump.  Friday we took him in for a very long and traumatic doctor's visit with his temperature down to 100.5.  The pediatrician couldn't do much to find out what was wrong since Ira was busy kicking and screaming and punching the nurse.  Saturday, we finally got a urine sample from him at home and took it in.  His temperature is back to normal and it looks like the infection is clearing up, though he still says it hurts to use the potty.  It's been frustrating since he's been refusing to drink very many fluids or use the potty regularly, but other signs are pointing to recovery.  Thanks for the prayers!

In the midst of our first week craziness, Sharon made it to the Connecticut Birthing Center, which is a few minutes away and looks great.  We're signed up for a Bradley class (since Sharon may want to become a Bradley instructor someday), and are happy to find old friends at church.  This has been one of the more stressful moves, but things are falling into place.

Thanks to all our friends who helped us out.