Birthday wishes

Happy Birthday, Dada.  I love how you play rough with me and read stories to me and toss me high into the air.  Thank you for teaching me how to build things.

Happy Birthday, Daddy.  You are a wonderful Daddy, and you do a really good job feeding me (better than Mommy--shh!  Don't tell her that!).  Thank you for tickling my thighs, kissing my cheeks, and all the snuggles.

Happy Birthday, Dad.  You do a great job clipping my nails.  Thanks for playing with me.

 Happy Birthday, my Love.  I pray we may celebrate many more of your birthdays together Thank you for being such a wonderful husband, father, son, brother, and friend.  God's Wisdom and Peace be with you today and always.

Happy Birthday!
Love,
Lachlan, Torin, Weezer, and Angela

Love ya, mean it
Be here now

Terribly Teriffic Two yr old birthday party!

Birthdays are a very special time.  A time to dote on the birthday boy (in this case) and celebrate life.  So that's what we did.  He woke up and the birthday fairy had decorated the house!  'Hapderpay to you lachan!' is what he kept saying when he saw the decorations.  He got special birthday cereal-Berry Crunch-and got to eat with Daddy.

Then the birthday boy, Torin, Auntie Emi and I went to Barnes and Noble for story time and a free birthday treat.  He got to choose whatever he wanted, but of course he chose the chocolaty-chocolate one.  Son after his Mother's own heart!  We wondered the mall afterward, and since it was his birthday, we went on a ride--up and down the escalator.

Coloring time after the stories

Before

During (I realized I better take his sweater off before it's too late)

After--nothing like a big chocolate cupcake at 11 in the morning!

After a quick playtime at the play set in the mall, we went to Luke's work for lunch--pizza!  One of Lachlan's favorite.  Luke had a big dry-erase board with markers, so Lachlan went to town and had a lot of fun drawing and accidentally erasing everything with his bum.  It was a big treat to be able to eat lunch with Daddy on his birthday.

Little did we know that after he shut this door, he would go beyond the dry-erase board and find something new to draw on: the carpet!  Ah!  So I left the party and ran to Walgreens to pick up a magic eraser, which magically worked!

Auntie Emi got attacked by the chocolate during round 2 of the chocolaty dessert.

Washing down all that sugar--what a mess!

We tried to nap, but I think he was SO excited for his party that was going to happen, all he could do was say people's names and jump in his bed.  So, after Luke got back from work, he rescued the non-sleeper birthday boy and they waited with great anticipation for the guests to arrive.  We opened presents, ate tacos, had cake & ice cream, and celebrated Lachlan's life!

My attempt at decorating a cake.  At least the frosting was delicious!

Aaron made him this AMAZING table & chair.  Lachlan loves it.  You can't really see here, but his ankles are crossed!

Emily gave him a bin FULL of balls.  And each of them were wrapped.

He is so concentrated on getting all the balls unwrapped.

'Ffffffffffff' That's how he 'blew' out his candles.  And this was round 2.  He wanted us to light them again.

Then 2nd generation Cahills toasted to Lachlan's life.  here is the line up.

We are so blessed to have Lachlan in our lives.  It was a fun-filled celebratory day.

Love ya, mean it
Be here now

terribly Tremendous Twos

My Dearest Lachlan,
Happy 2nd Birthday to you!  This is a huge milestone, because this is the only time you will get to double your age from one birthday to the next.  We are so proud of all that you have accomplished these past two years, and how much you have grown.  You have learned to breath, eat, take a bottle, sleep, crawl, walk, run, jump!, and talk.  You have learned to share Mommy and Daddy.  You have become such a loving brother and have shown such tenderness (though not all the time) to your younger brother.  You have learned how to count, you have learned at least half of the alphabet, as well as the end of each line to countless nursery rhymes.  You have learned how to be silly and how to not listen to your parents.  You keep growing and growing, consistently being in at least the 90th percentile for height and weight--big kiddo!  We have seen your love for numbers, books, songs, Toy Story, VeggieTales, your brother, your puppy, letters (specifically the letter Z), balls, cars, Mario Kart, tubbies, outside, Y balls (the YMCA), mall target, and for each of your family members.  What a big heart you have!  We look forward to seeing more of your loves as the years go on.
Words cannot describe how blessed we are and how grateful we are to have been put in charge to care for you.  Our prayer is that we will be a good example to you of how to love and forgive and turn to the Lord.  Thank you for all the laughter and all the times you are teaching us patience.  We are not perfect parents, but gosh we love you.
Happy Birthday, two year old!
We love you, Lachlan.

Love ya, mean it
Be here now

Count your (Irish) blessings

Life comes with many little blessings. Sometimes they are not what are expected and sometimes you have to look hard for them.  Last weekend Luke and I went to our church's gala, and for the first time EVER a non-family member, hired babysitter put our boys to bed.  She was GREAT!  The whole time I was so nervous about Lachlan and how he would do with Mom and Dad leaving, so I was prepping him all day long telling him how fun it will be and how she will be putting Lachlan nigh-night.  So when she came, he did just fine.  He was finishing up dinner and we headed off.  We had SO much fun!  We look forward to cashing in our winnings later on! 

Ole!

Well when we returned we found out that Torin was the one we really needed to be worried about.  He did not take his bottle, he screamed for about an hour, he just was not cooperating...out little angel!?  (wink).  Well, we hope that our new babysitter will not give up hope and help us out again!  And perhaps that means we need to leave more often so that Torin will get used to not always having Mommy there.  (He has acted this way for his father as well, but I thought we were over it...)  Yay!  Lachlan did GREAT without us!  Bummer! Torin did horrible without us!

More blessings: Our baby boy is growing up!  Well, duh!  You may say.  Well, though this is a quite obvious fact of life, for some reason I still don't believe it.  Rather I don't want to believe it.  So every time a milestone comes, it is bittersweet. 

 Yay! His first time eating solids  Bummer!  Now his poops are SOOO different and smellier.

He has also started rolling over--sometime in February.  This is fine too, but it just means we need to watch him while he is sitting on the couch now--sorry Torin!  And now he is sitting up by himself! (Not just when his mom props him up in the sand!)

He has also gotten 2 teeth.  Sometimes I think he kind of looks like Dopey when he smiles.

(This one doesn't look like Dopey, but you can see his teeth, and it's pretty cute!)

With more teeth comes a HUGE need for having EVERYTHING in his mouth, including your hand sometimes which can kinda hurt...

                                   But sometimes there are just (Irish) blessings with no strings attached.

May the road rise to meet you

May the wind be always at your back

May the sun shine warm upon your face,

And rains fall soft upon your fields.

And until we meet again,

May God hold you in the palm of His hand.
                    ~Irish blessing

St. Patrick, Pray for us

St. Joseph, Pray for us

Love ya, mean it

Be here now

The 7 C's

This Lent some of my family members and I are giving up the 7 Cs.
Chocolate
Chips
Cake
Cookies
Carbonation
Candy
Caffeine

If you are looking for something to do for Lent, I would encourage this one.  First, it is just has a fun title and is kind of clever!  Second, I think that in this list there is at least one thing that would be really hard for everyone to give up.  I believe Lent is a time for sacrifice and a time to sever some of our ties to this world.  As I crave any of these things, or am tempted by the 'goodness' of them all, I will in turn offer up a prayer.  There's just one small way to journey closer to God.
During this Lenten season, may you too journey closer to God.

Love ya, mean it
Be here now.

Disneyland!

Some say it's the happiest place on Earth. Some say it's where dreams come true.  I say both of these are true when you have a sister with a bum leg!  Since she was not able to really walk on her leg yet, she needed to be wheeled around all day.  Because of this 'inconvenience', we were able to wait in the handicap lane for the majority of the rides, which pretty much cut our waiting time in half.  Thanks for taking one for the team, Aunti Emi!!! It was a beautiful day with not a cloud in the sky.  We rode a lot of rides, saw a few characters, and enjoyed our time as a family--we were able to meet up with Tim, Luke's brother and his girlfriend, Victoria.


Lachlan had no idea of who this was (Chip or Dale--not really sure, actually) but we thought we would say hi anyways.





In line waiting for Mickey--we asked Lachlan if he wanted to meet Mickey and give him a hug, and he did, so we did!




The Mouse himself





Surprise visit from Alice and the Mad Hatter



Evie and Lachlan looking in awe at 'It's a small world' castle.



During 'It's a small world', he kept his hands like this the whole time, but I think he enjoyed it.



When he learned he could see Mickey Mouse again, he did not want to do anything else but wait in line again!





When I grow up, I want to be like Mary Poppins.  I told her she was my favorite princess of all. (She told Torin to stop chewing in his restraining harness, in true Poppins fashion)



Tim and Victoria with the boys.



We have about 12 pictures of Lachlan and Buzz and EVERY single one of them Lachlan is looking at Buzz-he would not take his eyes off of him!  In this photo he is saying his version of 'to infinity and beyond!'

 

Mickey suckers!



Auntie Molly with the kiddos on their way back from Autopia.  I hear Evie is a pretty crazy driver!





in your best alien voice: Ooooo!  You are this ta-a-a-all.



Every one trying to shoot the evil Emperor Zurg on the awesome Buzz ride.



Nemo was next!  Lachlan fell asleep before the ride had even finished.



Torin enjoyed the submarine ride as well.



The tea cup ride was the last ride of the night for the kiddos.  There was the slow cup.

Lachlan was laughing during the ride, especially when he saw the fast cup.



Hang on, Evie!



This was the fast cup before we started.

This was the fast cup during the ride.  It was so fun--these guys got a work out!

Lachlan really took a liking to 'Uncew Tim'

Family picture in front of Pixie Hollow (Aaron looked, but all the fairies went to bed)

The Cahill's went back to the hotel, got the boys ready for bed, and actually went back to Disneyland to meet up again with Tim and Victoria while Emily stayed back with the boys.  It was so fun going on a bunch of 'adult' rides (like Indiana Jones and Space Mountain) and it was great to spend more time the locals!  Luke was excited to go on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride-it was his favorite ride when he was younger, and after the ride was done this time, a little bit of the magic of the ride was gone because he realized that the whole ride was just a bunch of cardboard cutouts.  I'm sorry Honey.  Growing up is hard to do.  Looking back at these pictures brought back so many memories of a really fun day!  I'm glad I could share them.  I am truly grateful for the wonderful time we were able to spend as a family.

PS it was my goal to have our bags unpacked and the trip blogged about within a week of us getting back, (I tend to procrastinate) and I did it!  With only half hour to spare, but I did it!

Love ya, mean it
Be here now.