Peter Cotton Tail

If anyone is interested I actually posted some Christmas pictures and Molly's birthday pictures in the two posts before my Ireland post.  I can't believe I ever did this almost weekly.  

Before I print out another hard copy of this, thought I'd just throw Easter in there too.

I'm so sick of candy.  Just having it in the house makes everyone tense.  I'm trying to hide it, they're trying to get it.  Molly knows how to use a ladder now, so that makes things more complicated. School had an egg hunt and a party, so there was that candy.  There's been a few birthday's lately, so there's that candy. Then we brought them some Easter candy from Ireland, Meredith bought them some too.  On top of all that, we went to the country club for Easter brunch and they also had an egg hunt with even more candy.  Fortunately most of it was not worth saving and went into the trash, but still it's so much crap. 

here's Maggie with a death grip on her chocolate bunny.  She would not put it down.

 This reflects Molly's new attitude lately.  Willful? Disdain? I'm not sure what's going on.

 Easter Morning we sort of slept in (7:30) and my parents were wondering what was going on.  They went outside to see if they could see any eggs and neither saw anything.  I'd like to point out that this egg is right in front of their front door.

This year we got both our families together for brunch at the country club.  It's always nice to just get everyone into one place so you don't have to drag small children around all day.

 I've never found it to be worth my while to make my kids take pictures with strange characters.  I will say that those who do, have some of the greatest crying kids pictures ever.  My favorite is an infant Grayson with the Easter bunny.  Molly asked to take her picture with the bunny, she held it together, but I did notice she got a little uneasy when she was close up to him.  Maggie was not interested in the least.

This is the best picture of both of them that I could get.  Oh-well.

After brunch, Jonny went and played a few holes. The girls started out interested in golfing, but after meeting up with their friend the drink cart lady, they became more interested in Gatorade, pretzels and of course Maggie had to have her Perrier.  After that they pretty much just played around in the cart.

Molly with her "Sad Eyed" puppy from Gran for Easter.  Also one of her favorite flower arrangements.

 

 

Maggie is a nap fighter, not a lover.  Still, sometimes they catch up with her

 

Desert Rats!  We went out a few weeks ago.  It's fun to let them just go around a whoop it up.

 

Zonks!  Too much desert fun.  Molly has been preoccupied with who she will marry.  Of course Grayson is a front contender for her.  All day she was very vocal about this, so when she passed out like this, I made sure to send the picture to Ramsey so Grayson could see his lovely future bride.

As is tradition, we hit up the county fair with Annette and Kate.  They had a good time conning us into buying them crap.  This ride, was not a baby ride.  We went 2 days and in total, Molly rode it 4 times.  I rode it twice and Jonny rode it once.  Jonny was not a fan.  If Molly's going to be a daredevil, Jonny's going to have to suck it up!

Other random news to throw in before I wrap this thing up.  Molly started piano lessons.  So far, so good.  She has a recital next month and she'll probably have at least a small part to play for it.  Very exciting for me.  

Maggie started "real" gymnastics class.  She had 2 classes that went great and 1 that went horribly (lots of tears).  We've paid for 1 more so we'll see how that goes.  She is super into the idea of dance class.  She always wears the clothing.  She's a little obesessed with looking at tutu pictures and watching ballet videos online.  She's always talking about being in "Miss Myriah's dance class", and her dance moves/poses are pretty awesome.  Hopefully this summer she'll do better than her first attempt at dance class.

Ireland!

This is going to be the modern version of a boring slide show of someone's vacation pictures.  The best part is that you can leave now and it won't matter at all to me.

 We were lucky enough to be able to leave our kids for about a week in the capable hands of our family (mostly my mom) and take an anniversary vacation.  The week, all on it's own would have been awesome enough, but in addition, we were able to go all the way to Ireland (where Jonny has always wanted to go) and we even got to go first class!

We were pretty excited about the lay flat seats.

 

my travel buddy.

 

the first stop on our trip was Trinity College in Dublin. Mainly because it was a block from our hotel.  We took a quick tour which was interesting, and then checked out the library.

So many books! Not Alphabetized in any way!

 There was a Magnolia tree in bloom there.  Of course I had to take a picture of that.

 We did do other things during our first stay in Dublin, but I'm an iffy photographer and can't always be relied upon to take pictures. The highlights were Christ Church Cathedral where we able to watch their choir and St. Micham's church where Jonny touched "The Crusader" a mummy from their crypt.  It's supposed to have imparted some mummy luck to him, so we'll let you know how that pans out for us.

 After Dublin, we rented a car and drove to Killarney. See, that makes it sound really simple!  Jonny was the brave one who took on lefty driving.  We had a taxi driver tell us that in 20 minutes he wouldn't have any more problem and that he would even find it awkward when he went back home to drive on the right. LIES!!!! Although he did get the hang of it enough that we didn't cause any horrible accidents, I'm not sure he ever felt 100% comfortable and he certainly didn't have to worry about driving on the right at home.

In Killarney we spent all our time in and around their national park.  First stop was Ross Castle.  Some of it has been restored, so we were actually able to go up inside and take a tour.

 Later that day we went to Muckross House.  Again, we took a tour, and it was definitely a cool old place, but Good Lord, the property was insanely beautiful! It makes perfect sense that it would become a national park.

 Yes, we took a "selfie". I'm sorry.  Mostly I'm sorry because the internet has given "selfies" such a bad name.

 Nearby there was a waterfall and a few trails you could hike.

 So we did.

 So, which way is north then?

It was about 1/2 way through this day that I asked "hey, what day is it?". Yep, we kind of forgot our anniversary.  Only because we were having so much fun though.

 Also in the park they had different examples of traditional farms, complete with lots of farm animals.  

This guy was huge!

"She had hair of sticks and woooool"

 Muckross Abbey was probably my favorite place.   I'm not exactly sure why, but it was just a neat place to be.

 Chim chimney

 This is probably a weirwood. Don't you think?

 Strangely enough, the only place we were ever truly cold was the Cliffs of Moher.  Also strange: It never rained once.

 Random castle on the way to Galway. They're kind of everywhere.

 In the outskirts of Galway, these were also everywhere.

 We stayed at Ballynainch castle hotel one night.  It was a perfect little forest scene right out of our window.

 The hotel ground was really the only place that looked like that in the area.  Instead, it was mostly bogs and Ocean nearby.  We had a guy from the hotel take us on a hike nearby.

Pretty view of their beaches from up there.

As well as the bogs.

 We had another couple days in Dublin before we left.  We went to St Patrick's Cathedral and saw their choir as well.

We also went to the National museum of Archeology which had some more really cool mummies as well as other things that had been preserved in bogs for around 2,000 years.

By the end of the trip we missed the girls a lot and were excited to get back home refreshed! That didn't turn out to be entirely true, but we still had a great trip.  Can't wait to go again and see and do the many things we missed.

5 Years Old!

On the 11th...of LAST month, Molly turned 5!  I think we talked about turning 5 for the entire year of 4, just as we are now talking about 6. I suppose it's good to look to the future.
She had a fun day at school and brought cupcakes for all her classmates to share.  I actually managed to stop Molly and Grayson long enough on the playground to take a quick birthday girl picture.

The following weekend we had her party at the house with lots of friends and her favorite food, bean and cheese burritos from Mr. G's.

Here are Molly and Kate...wait, errr, I mean Elsa and Elsa.

The fantastic birthday cake!  It could just be nostalgia, but I love Goldsboro's cakes.

"Frozen knuckles" getting ready for her roller derby debut thanks to some rockin' skates from Granny!

Seriously? What is wrong with kids these days?  None of them ate all their cake and most of them barely touched it. Maggie is helping them out with their frosting at least.

Here's the obligatory St. Patrick's Day picture of the McIntier girls.

Who remembers this dude?  probably no one.  I admit, I probably wouldn't have remembered either except...

Maggie has a striking resemblance!

 

Little Baby Jesse Camp.

Christmas!

So I barely remember, but way back in December, we actually did the whole Christmas thing.  I had been happy to let Chris take all the pictures and then completely forgot to get them before he left.  Then even after my mom brought them back from MO for me, I still never actually got around to looking at them until a little while ago. I have also made a half assed attempt at reorganizing the pictures properly but I'm apparently in no state to do this. Such a slacker.

Here's Molly and her friend Bryn, totally pumped for their school's Christmas performance.

 

Maggie and Molly enjoying  candy canes afterwards.  Those who were there know how I feel about candy canes now.

This is what Maggie did.

Going to start with Christmas and then move forward to Christmas Eve.  At this point does it really matter?

Maggie's first love is Tutus, but her second love are babies and baby accessories.

The bike!  Which she is still reluctant to ride.  One of these days.

We made it to Christmas Eve!

My girls with Ruby Gloom mama.

I love that we can have everyone together, outside, in December.  at great perk of Yuma life.

Miss Maggie Mac Mac Mac!