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Monday, March 29, 2010

Rainy Days and Mondays Always Get Me Down

I thought April Showers Bring May Flowers…What do March Showers bring, besides antsy toddlers, grumpy mamas and flooded playgrounds.

What better way to beat the rainy day blues then jumping in puddles with my girl Kate!

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My kids owe me BIG!

As I am laying in bed not feeling so hot…my wonderful husband is taking care of K & P.

He is in their bedroom changing them into their PJ's…no easy task with two toddlers!!!  You wouldn’t know by looking at him, he makes everything he does look so easy. 

I have boasted about what a wonderful, caring, intelligent husband Mike is, but have I told you what a ROCKSTAR Daddy he is!!! OH MY WORD! My kids are lucky!  I couldn’t have picked a better man to father my children. 

I worried that since Mike was already a father from his previous marriage (more on that some other time…we all make mistakes ;) )

That maybe he only wanted a family with me because I wanted kids.  (Clearly that is not the case…since no man would go through all we went through to conceive a child that he didn’t want 100% I am so thankful that I chose to marry and have a family with Mike, I wonder if I had chosen another man if I would have ever had the opportunity to have my own children. Considering the emotional, financial and long road of infertility we struggled with.  I can’t imagine many men would have supported me.)

I think in some ways Mike’s sees this as a 2nd chance.  Boy is he taking full advantage of it…he is such a fun, caring, kind, loving daddy to both Kathryn and Patrick.

Kate is daddy’s girl all the way.  It is so sweet to watch them interact.  Its an amazing love that they share.  Patrick ADORES his daddy and LOVES to roughhouse, and play trucks, as much as he loves his daddy’s hugs!!   I can’t blame him…Mike’s hugs make everything better!

So yes, my kids owe me big…I picked them a great daddy!!!

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Tuesday, March 23, 2010

 

Patrick’s 1st Hair Cut!!

Well the time had come.  It was time to get Patrick’s hair cut.  We have been talking about it for awhile, and I have been putting it off.  I don’t know what the big deal is… I just think once you cut their hair…they no longer look like a baby.  Patrick is my baby and always will be.  It makes me chuckle, when I think back to when I was pregnant with P, and was so afraid I wouldn’t love him enough and my mom just said you do.  I’m happy to say she was right…BOY do I love my little P man!!!

Such a handsome little man!!!!

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Monday, March 15, 2010

St. Patrick’s Day Fun!

I remember celebrating St. Patrick’s day before kids!!! AHHHH… sweet memories!! Ok in all honestly I don’t really remember a lot.

We still love to celebrate our Irish heritage…its just done with green milk now instead of the green beer we have consumed in years past.

This year was exceptionally FANTASTIC.  We were lucky enough to celebrate at The Shannon Door.  For the kids party.

We headed up on Saturday after my class, and stayed with Kathleen and her family!!  Which is always sooo sooo much fun!  We all enjoy spending time with our cousins up North.

Katy and Patrick enjoyed singing and dancing to the fun live music!  Of course the pizza was DELICIOUS as ALWAYS!!!

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Katy dancing with Mae!!

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Saturday, March 13, 2010

Loving Holland

I posted about a month ago that I was dealing with a bit of PTSD… and maybe I was/am or maybe I was just grieving what was Kathryn’s birth and her first few weeks of life. Maybe I am still trying to figure out this uncertain life we are leading.

In my quest to find my way through this, and I am finding my way for those of you that are worried. I’m feeling a lot better and have been able to process and work through this with the help of my amazing, understanding and AWESOME husband, some great mommy friends, who don’t know exactly what I am feeling, but are willing to listen.

While doing some research on the subject, I stubbled across the following poem:

Welcome To Holland by Emily Perl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It’s like this……

When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland.”

“Holland?!?” you say. “What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.”

But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It’s just a different place. It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around…. and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills….and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy… and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned.”

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away… because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But… if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things … about Holland.

I am enjoying navigating my way through “Holland”. I wouldn’t change our life with Kathryn for ANYTHING! She brings such joy and happiness to our days.

It’s funny after sharing the poem with Mike he said…that given the choice of going to Italy or Holland…we would both choose Holland…literally and figuratively.

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Thursday, March 04, 2010

I’m still here…

I can’t believe its been almost a month since I last blogged…I mean really.  That’s terrible I want to become this famous blogger have a million plus followers, you know to read about my kids poops or date night with my hubby?!! What that’s not worthy of a million followers? And then I don’t update for a month!  Terrible, I apologize. 

I leave you with some pretty heavy posts one regarding PDD (post partum depression) and Kate’s and her Special heart ( Restrictive Cardiomyopathy) and then I just drop off the blogosphere radar…I mean unless you are addicted to Facebook (as my husband might tell you I am) you might think I have went into a horrible dark place and am hiding from the world, or worse something terrible happened with Kate’s heart. 

Thankfully, I am pleased to say that neither of those things have happened, I am dealing with some of the stressors that sent me to the edge a month ago…notice to the edge, not over the edge.  I will share some of that with you in a bit.  Kate and her funky heart are doing swell!!  As always No news is good news with Miss Katy Girl.

The reason I haven’t updated is not that I have nothing to say, because lets face it I always have something to say.  Its that I have just been busy!!  Murphy Custom Creations has taken off.  I am currently working on another wedding invite order.  Which is very exciting and AWESOME for our family. I have lots of things to list, but I am too busy filling orders to actually list things, which is so very exciting!! I finally feel like my dream is coming true.  I am getting paid to do what I LOVE.  It’s hard to wrap my head around sometimes. If you need invites, announcement or fun party stuff please let me know 20% off for all blog fans!!!

So I am going to try and work on the back log, since my friend Nicole owner of Three Princes on Etsy Has offered an AWESOME giveaway to all my lovely readers.  Check out her Etsy Shop and see if you can guess what she is giving away.