Loving Summer

We are having a great summer so far and it is hard to believe that it is already half over. Aidan played machine-pitch baseball and had a great time. Cian played t-ball and also loved it. Cian and Fintan are in swim lessons and making great progress. I am thinking that Cian is part fish. Aidan is in swim team for the first time this year and aside from the 8am practices (EVERYDAY!!) he is loving that too. He has really improved on all his strokes. Maeve is running around with us and enjoying all the activities from the side lines. When we are not at a sport activity, we are usually at the pool 4 days a week. Maeve really likes the pool and prefers to hang in the zero entry pool right at the area where the water comes up to her neck. One more step and she will be under water, one step back and she is not happy. Very fun! Cian is going down the water slides this year which is a huge change from last summer. Fintan loves to jump in over and over again. Yes, he is that kid who bothers all the moms who are in the pool trying not to get wet (you know who you are!). Aidan loves the pool too. We rarely see him after we walk through the gates as he needs to be in the deep end with the cool people.

We have spent many weekends at the lake house already and plan to get in as many as possible before the summer ends. We will also take a trip to Texas for a week to soak in some rays and lounge and grandma and grandpa's house. We hope all of your summers are going well!!

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Maeve Update

Maeve has been with us for 3 months now and she is doing great. She has made so much progress it is hard to believe she is the same sacred baby we met in China on March 2nd. She is talking alot. Most of it is still gibberish, but she is clearly saying about 15 words and more seem to be added everyday. She is no longer running up to strangers and asking to be held, which is a great sign that she is learning who she is supposed to be with. Sounds like a weird "improvement," but it is very common in adopted children to be confused and open to anyone and everyone. Now she is much more reserved and sticks close to Susie and I.

Her cast was removed on Thursday and her fingers look great. There are still some large scabs covering her thumb and index finger, but those should fall off in the next few days. Until then, we are continuing to wrap her hand in gauze/bandages, but we change it twice a day and she can now take a bath! That alone makes life easier around here. We go back to the ortho surgeon in 2 weeks and they will probably make a splint for her to wear at night. Her index finger naturally wants to deviate over to her thumb and so that still needs to be straightened out a bit. All in all, it seems like the whole process was a success thus far so we are thrilled.
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Crazy week

This has been an interested week so far. We had a very busy weekend of baseball practices, high school graduations/pool parties and our niece's birthday party. On Sunday as we got home and were finishing up late baths and getting everyone in their pj's, Maeve some how managed to throw off her cast. YIKES! How it happened we still do not understand, but one minute it was on and the next it was lying on the floor. Her hand did not look good. Not that we would expect it to 2 days post surgery, but it was a bit scary for the boys. There is was ton of swelling and bruising along with the hundreds of stitches. So I called the ortho physician on call and took Maeve into the ED. Thankfully the ED was not very busy and we were only there about an hour and a half. She has a new cast now and unfortunately the emergency room does not offer the "colorful" choices of cast as they offer in the ortho clinic. So she has a very bland brown cast. Oh well. This cast seems fairly secure so hopefully it will stay on the next few weeks. I also hope her hand looks better the next time we see it...I'm sure it will. Other than that, Maeve is doing really well and the cast is not slowing her down one bit. We were just noticing how happy she seems lately. It will be interesting to see how she is in 6 months!

Currently we are a house hold of two kids...Cian and Fintan headed to the lake today with my parents. It is amazing how quiet it is around here without them. We are enjoying the break tonight, but I'm sure we will miss the noise by tomorrow. I know the boys are having a blast and we will see them on Friday. We went out to eat tonight as a special treat for Aidan since he had to stay home and go to school for the rest of the week. It was a nice dinner with four fewer hands around the table.

We are watching the finale of American Idol though I haven't seen a single episode all season. I used to watch it religiously, but obviously this has been a busy year so far. At least we are catching the last show so far it has been great.

Surgery success

Maeve had surgery today on her left hand. After much thought and discussion with her surgeon, we decided to hold off on the right hand, for now. She does not feel that the fingers on Maeve's right hand can be separated and we are not sure we are ready to give up on that thought just yet. Since the work she was going to do was mainly cosmetic on the right, we just decided to pause on that for a little while. The left hand was a priority anyway and it would probably be better to not have both hands in a cast for the next 3 weeks. We are now very thankful that we made that decision.

Maeve went into surgery ~0945 this morning and was in recovery at ~1245. We were able to see her again at ~2pm. The surgeon felt everything went as expected with no surprises. She was happy to see Maeve's pointer finger straighten out well once it was released from her thumb, so that is good news. Now Maeve has a cast from just above her elbow all the way down and completely covering her hand. This is mainly to keep the skin from being injured so the grafts can heal well. It looks now as if she had her hand amputated, so it is quite a sight! She is doing very well and very tired tonight.

Disney Wonder

Sorry for our lack of postings lately. We have been quite busy around here. We just returned from a wonderful week at Disney World. We spent 4 nights aboard the Disney Wonder cruise ship and 3 nights at Disney World with one magical day at Magic Kingdom. It was a great week and the pictures show all the fun.
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Cian and Fintan getting Goofy's autograph. The boys loved meeting all the characters. They were able to get autographs from Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Pluto, Stitch, Chip and Dale and Captain Hook.
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Aidan and Cian in front of Cinderella's castle.
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Cian on the carousel.
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Susie and Finnie on "Its a Small World." This is a family favorite and we had to ride it numerous times.
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Maeve liked small world too!
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Aidan and Cian waiting on the Indianapolis 500. Aidan was tall enough to drive and push the pedals, so he was thrilled.
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Fintan wading in the waters of Castaway Cay Island.
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Susie and Maeve on the Castaway Cay tram.
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The Disney Wonder!!!
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All the kids and cousin Evan hanging out at Castaway Cay.
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The boys with their best friends!
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Maeve lounging in our stateroom.
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Susie and Maeve at the absolutely crazy Mickey pool on the ship. This place was madness.
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Cian and Fintan amongst the thousands of kids in the Mickey pool.

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Happy Easter

Happy Easter to you! We headed down south to Dallas to celebrate Easter with Susie's parents. We have had a great weekend. The trip did not start out great though, at least not for Susie and the kids (I flew down...poor me :) . The usual 8 hr drive here took 12.5 hrs!!!! This was not good for Maeve's first experience on a long distance road trip. There were massive fires in Oklahoma and the highway was such down twice. At one point they waited 2.5 hrs on the interstate as fires rushed along the road and smoke filled our car. All I can say is thank God they are safe and thank God again that I was not there!! I guess the boys all did amazingly well considering and Maeve tolerated the whole trip pretty well too. Hopefully our drive back will be less eventful. The rest of the weekend has been great and relaxing. We have had decent weather except this morning, so the kids had their egg hunt in the house. It didn't damper any of their spirits though, so that is good. Maeve has done great on the trip and she is sleeping better here than at home! She even likes the pool. We are happy she was able to get used to the bath before coming here.
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Ready to be the leader of the marching band.
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Taking a leisurely Sunday drive.
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Thumbs up to pool time for Fintan.
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Maeve a little tentative at first.
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The kids taking a break from their "war" with Grandpa.
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Cian, Maeve and Aidan on the pool rocker.
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Serious business of egg dying.
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Grandma and Maeve getting the stickers ready for the eggs.
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Aidan and Cian post egg hunt.
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Easter Pictures

We had the kids photos taken today. Sorry, but I can't flip them around so you will have to crank your neck. Happy Easter!!
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Fintan
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Cian
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Aidan
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The gang. Maeve was not thrilled with the picture taking!
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This one did turn out well.
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