Niamh lost her first tooth

Niamh has been desperate to loose a tooth for a while now. She is the last one in her class to loose and tooth and was feeling a little sad about it. Her tooth has been wiggly since the beginning of December and she has been giving us a progress report every day.
On Monday when I picked her up from school she said "Hey Mam, there is something back here behind my loose tooth. I think it is my 'permament' tooth"
When we got home I had a look at it and sure enough her permanent tooth was growing in behind the baby tooth. It was pretty far back and I was worried that if it stayed back there she would have to get braces eventually, so I told Scott that he had to pull her baby tooth out. Niamh was so excited that she was going to lose her tooth but as soon as Scott started pulling it and she freaked out!



You can see from this photo that she had been crying, her face was all red but as soon as it was out she stopped and laughed.



If you look closely at this photo you can see her new tooth growing in behind the hole where her other tooth was.



The tooth fairy came last night and she must have been pretty brave because she left $5, wow it's gone up since I was a kid. I think I got about 50 pence (which is about $1)

New Year, New Me (hopefully!)

So, I have decided that this is the year that I need to get in shape. I no longer have the excuse of being pregnant or just having had a baby. I have to face it, I am just fat.....lol.
Believe it or not (those of you who have seen me lately it would definitely be NOT!), but I used to be really athletic. I ran 800m, 1500m and cross-country. I was captain of my school hockey team. What happened, you ask? Well, I got married and had 4 kids in 5 years....lol.
So this is it. I am bound and determined to lose weight and get fit. By posting it here I am hoping it will make me more accountable. Now that everyone (well the 5 people who read my blog, haha) know about it I have to do it. I am going to lose 15lbs by May. I am also going to run the Community Care Health & Fitness Run on May 16th. It is only a 5k but it is a start and now that I have a date to be ready by I am way more likely to actually do it. My awesome friend Julie is going to do it with me. She totally doesn't need to, she's already cute and skinny, but it will be way more fun doing it together. Anyone else who is interested in running with us, let me know. I'll email you a link to the registration form. It's only $20 and you even get a cool t-shirt, lol.
I'll keep you posted on how our "training" is going.

Christmas 2008

I know, it has taken me forever to blog, but better late than never, right??

Christmas was so much fun this year. Niamh, Kian and Ronan were so excited on Christmas Eve, I thought they would never sleep. We tracked Santa on the computer all day long and by bedtime the kids were hyper.
I totally expected them to be awake at about 4am, especially considering Niamh and Kian were both awake 3 times each before 10pm. They slept in until 6:30am though so Scott and I were pleasantly surprised.
The kids had a great time and were totally spoiled. They got so much stuff. More than that though, we really enjoyed spending time together as a family.

Here are some of my favourite pictures from Christmas. Scott took over 100 pics so I really had to narrow it down.

Liam has this crazy face that he does when he is excited, as you can tell he LOVED his presents!



He is obsessed with cleaning. He loves sweeping, mopping, vacuuming and dusting. His favourite present without doubt was his vacuum. He plays with it all the time.



We didn't get many pics of Ronan. He doesn't love getting his picture taken. But this pic of him is one of my favourites. It captures his personality perfectly. See the huge pile of presents on the couch behind him? He couldn't care less about them. Why??? Because he found a $1 bag of chocolate coins and before he could do anything else he had to figure out how to get one out and eat them....lol.



HIs favourite present was his lightsaber. We have already gone through 3 sets of batteries.



Kian was like he whirlwind. He was so excited he was shaking and had all of his presents open in about 3 minutes.



He really loved his remote control 4-wheeler though. He has even been known to sleep with his "controller".



Niamh was so much fun to watch as she opened her gifts. She took her time opening each one carefully and really enjoying it before moving onto the next. I love this sweet pic of her showing Liam her new doll.



She was so excited about her High School Musical dance mat. Between that and her Hannah Montana guitar she has been spending hours in her room.



For a couple of months now the kids have been begging for a pet. Scott had a quiet word with Santa and convinced him that the kids needed a fish tank. Not just a little fish tank either, oh no, this is a 20 gallon aquarium!! The kids love it though. I have to admit, I am pleasantly surprised at how pretty it looks in the room.



We set everything up on the Saturday after Christmas and then on the Monday night for FHE we went over to the petstore and let the kids choose their fish. All day long Niamh had been asking if you could get pink fish. Well, imagine her sheer joy when we got there and they did indeed have pink fish! We now have 8 new members of the family. Niamh has Troy and Gabriella (Gabriella is the pink one!) Kian has Mikey and Sully (think Monsters Inc). Ronan has Spiderman and Ironman and Liam has Lightning and Mater. (Yes, Kian and Niamh named them all.) Click on the pic to enlarge it. I promise there is a pink fish in there!



Lastly, here is a pic of the kids all ready for church in their new Christmas outfits.



As usual Ro didn't want his picture taken so this is about as good as it gets with all 4 of them on.