And then there were 4

This week and next we are a family of four. Arlington is officially on her first vacation from her family! We have spoken to her every day, and yesterday did Skype with her so that we could see her. She seems to be having a fun time. She has been a busy bee so far! She has been with Mat's parents since last Friday, and will be with them until this coming Friday. Then she will spend the next week with my parents. So far she has helped with a yard sale, gone to a water park with slides, gone to the local county fair, and gone to a local zoo. She is also participating in Bible School this week at Mat's family church. She loves it so far! It is every day from 6-8:30pm, so that gives her something to look forward to each evening. Her cousin arrived yesterday, so she was excited to see her. I know the girls will keep each other company this week and time will fly by!

Anyway, a funny story before I forget about Arlington and Bible School. Yesterday (Monday) they learned about Jesus and the lepers. They may cookies and she told us "some of them were sad faces with dots on them - before Jesus cured them, and some were happy faces when they were all better!". We laughed about the fact that they had "leper cookies". Too cute! Can't wait to see what they made today!

So that is Arlington. Doing well. I am trying to remember where we left off in pictures. I think what is next is our day at Kennywood - which is a great amusement park in Pittsburgh near our house. But those pictures were taken with my mom's camera, so I will post them next time. I will just post today some of the pictures from our last few days in Pennsylvania and maybe a few from our days once we returned to Connecticut.

Today my parents left. We have been with them for about 2 weeks, and it was sad to see them go! My grandmother was also here visiting, and it was nice to see her as well. This was her first visit to our new house, so she seemed to enjoy seeing our new area. She and my parents helped us get resettled after being gone a week, and that was really helpful.

Finley and Cainan are doing great. They are going to miss their big sister this week and next. I will too! Arlington is a second set of eyes and ears when it comes to the two little ones, so I will miss that a lot! :) But it will be easier to get some things done with only two kids for a little while. I plan on getting a lot done during the babies nap times over these two weeks since I won't have Arlington during that time! Let's hope that happens!

Finley has a new favorite saying: "Change my stinky butt". Isn't that lady like of her? What a riot. She says it all the time. Cainan even started repeating "stinky butt", so that is great also. I tell ya! Kids are weirdos. Finley is a talker just like her sister - non-stop! She talks all the time now. On and on and on. Cainan still mostly babbles for long periods of time, but he will say his words too. He just can't run as many words together yet like Finley can. Finley also sings "Happy Birthday to you" over and over and over. She is in a rut.

You have to read this article. There is a little girl in New Zealand that was named (first name) "Talula does the Hula in Hawaii". No joke. Poor kid! Anyway, there is an article about her getting her named changed by the courts, and some of the other crazy names that are out there. Arlington, Finley and Cainan aren't sounding so bad after all! Here is the article: Talula

This weekend, on Sunday, we saw my cousin Kirsten in "Grease" on Broadway. She plays Frenchy in that show. It is always neat to see her up on stage. This is a big role -she was on the stage pretty much constantly, so we really enjoyed that. And Taylor Hicks (winner of American Idol) is playing in the show right now, so we got a chance to see him. He is really tall - I had no idea! And a really nice guy. We got to watch Kirsten sign some autographs, and at dinner after the show (we had a chance to eat with her before her next performance) someone wanted her autograph their as well! Too great! We are really proud of her. She has been there a lot time and is very successful. She is coming to Connecticut to visit in a few weeks, and Arlington is SO excited. We can't wait to have her! You can see some info about Kirsten here - (Grease) it links to pictures and cool info about Grease. If ever in NYC - you should see the show!

Anyway, we were supposed to take the train into NYC so we wouldn't have to drive, but they changed the train schedule and we didn't know, so we couldn't do it. Bummer! Next time. It would have saved on gas and parking, but not on time. Oh well. It isn't too bad to drive in the city - we used to do it all the time when we lived in Baltimore. We haven't been to NYC in years and we are both really glad to be so close again. I love going there!

I am sure I am missing lots of details, but it is getting late and that is how my brain works at night! Below will be pictures from the end of our trip to Connellsville and a few others. Maybe even my NYC pictures if there aren't too many to post.

Just for some info on the pictures. Some are of buildings in Connellsville. One is of a place called "Crafty Tats". You think - huh? Only in a small town. This is a place that sells crafts AND does tatoos. Can you beat that? NO!!! ha!

My dad is the president of the bike trail council there, and we are very proud of the work he and everyone else has done to make the bike trail through our town so nice. I think we are going to get a blog going to help people see what there is to do when riding through Connellsville, so stay tuned! This bike trail is part of the Great Allegheny Passage

Check the website out (click there on Great Allegheny Passage) to see what Connellsville and the trail have to offer! You can also click here: Connellsville - to see about the city.

Enjoy the pictures.

Oops!

Okay - I forgot yesterday was Saturday! Sorry! I went to be last night and then I realized that I never wrote on the blog. Ah well. :)

This post I am going to post pictures of the baptism last Sunday and the kids party on Monday. The baptism was really nice. Our nephew was very well behaved - out of the 7 babies being baptized, he was the most quiet! He did great and looked very cute in his baptismal outfit. After the baptism we had a picnic at a local park and it was nice to see all the family there. Arlington went with me to the baptism, and the babies stayed at Mat's parents for the day since we were going to be gone all day long.

Monday was the party for the babies birthdays at my parents house. We had a nice party that evening and a lot of people had a chance to meet Cainan for the first time. It was even the first time some people had met Finley since we have not been home for two years! It was fun. They all got WONDERFUL gifts (even Arlington received some) and it was great to visit with everyone.

Next Tuesday I will share some pictures from our day at our local amusement park in Pittsburgh and the last of the pictures from our trip. Then I will be all caught up!

Enjoy!

Still having fun!

We are still on vacation and having a great time!  I put some pictures below of our few days in Connecticut before we left and then the first couple of days that we were here.  It is ending up being a ton of pictures, so I am just including the pictures from Thursday, Friday and Saturday of last week.  I will post the baptism pictures and pictures from the babies second birthday party on Saturday when I post again.  I will be playing catch up with pictures for awhile!

But we are having a great time.  I will write about the things we have been doing on Saturday.  Just a little explanation of some of the pictures.  We had breakfast in New York City last Friday with my cousin Kirsten (who plays Frenchy in 'Grease" in NYC) and the Orlando's family friends.  There are pictures of that below.  And the other pictures are from the Pletcher's house (Mat's family's house) from when we stayed there on Saturday and had a party for the babies.  

Hello from Pennsylvania!

Hello there! We arrived safely in Pennsylvania Friday night after a long drive from Connecticut. The drive went well, but was long. We stopped in New York city for a few hours to have breakfast with my cousin Kirsten and her husband Sean, and the Orlandos - family friends. It was a nice break. We are two hours from NYC, so this was a good time for a break from the car. After we left New York we stopped one more time for lunch before the babies took a nap in the car. During their nap we found out that the highway we were traveling was closed for an accident, so we had to go on a detour that took us out of our way for over 1 hour. But while on our detour, we did see a Dairy Queen, so we stopped for some ice cream when the babies woke up from their nap. Then we stopped one more time for dinner and then headed the rest of the way home.

Saturday was spent with the Pletcher family. Myself and the kids stayed there all day Saturday and all night. We had a great time. It was nice to spend time with Mat's brother Zac and sister Jess and her husband Tom who we don't get to see very often. We had a little birthday party for the babies while were there and they got some great gifts. It was a fun day.

Today was the baptism of my new nephew. We took Arlington to the baptism but left the babies at the Pletcher's since we were going to be gone all day. It was a good day and Arlington was very well behaved. The baptism was very nice and the party afterward was fun. Again, I had a chance to see family and friends that I have not seen in over 2 years.

We have had a very long and tiring weekend, but fun. I am sorry, but there won't be any pictures today because I am too tired to work on them! There are many, many! So on WEDNESDAY (Tuesday we are going to a theme park) I will put the pictures on the blog. I promise!

We are having a great time, but I am missing Mat. I wish he could have made the trip with us. I know he misses us too, and soon we will be home. I am hoping the next trip like this he will be able to come along!

Anyway, I will post one picture below from the baptism of the family. I thought it was a nice one!

Enjoy!

Left to right: Pap Appolonia, Mom, Grammy Appolonia, Dad, Ryan, Pat, Tricia, AJ, Me (little kids Arlington and my nephew

Leaving soon!

Here we are! I hate having my picture taken, but Cainan's 1 year social worker visit is coming up and we had to have a picture of our family all together. We were out shopping this day for flowers and it was hot and we were all sweaty, but Mat's Aunt Betty took this picture. It will do. :) Aunt Betty took a great pictures - we just look tired!

Well the kids and I are getting ready for our big road trip to Pennsylvania to see the parents/grandparents. We are looking forward to the trip. We haven't been to our home town in almost two years! That is too long. I am glad we live closer now so that we don't have to go that long anymore. We are leaving this coming Friday. My parents fly in tomorrow and are going to ride back to Pennsylvania with me and the kids. No way was I driving all that way with those three monsters - I mean darlings - for 8 hours. We are staying a week and then my parents will drive back with me to Connecticut and are bringing my grandma with them for a visit. They will be staying for a few more days before flying back home. I plan on hiting all my favorite spots while I am there - all the restaurants that I loved when I was living there. I know it seems silly, but they are YUMMY. Mat has to work and can't go this trip because he just started his new job. He will go with us next time.

Arlington won't be returning to Connecticut with us. She will be staying an extra two weeks with the grandparents. Mat is not crazy about this idea - mostly because Arlington is definitely his buddy and he is going to miss her like crazy. But Arlington is so excited. I just hope she doesn't get home sick. But my parents and Mat's parents have something huge planned for her every day, so she isn't going to have time to miss us! She is going to be too exhausted. We are returning to Pennsylvania on August 8th for the weekend because it is the annual Pletcher reunion. So it worked out for Arlington to stay - we will just get her then.

Anywho - not much going on here. I have ceased painting projects for a little while. Now, I am itching to keep going and get the whole house painted, but I decided to take a break until probably either late August or once Arlington starts back to school in September. Right now we are trying to focus on the yard. The grass is coming in REALLY well in spots, and not so great in others. It is so patchy. But I am hoping that it will spread, or we will have to just do some more seeding. Once I return from our trip, Mat and I will decide. But is is starting to look like a real lawn. I can't even picture what it looked like before. We have also been busy working on our fire pit and the area around our boulder. Those are both long processes, and they keep us busy. I have my new Autumn Sun plants blocked now, and their flowers came back. I am going to have to come up with a more permanent solution for them, though. I need to take a class in perennials and deer repellent!

Speaking of deer - as mad as I am at them for eating my flowers, I saw a mommy and baby deer today. It was so cute! I wish I would have had my camera. This is not the first time they have been spotted around our house.

The kids are doing great. You are going to be mad because I only have two pictures below. But there wasn't much to take pictures of these last couple of days. We hit the library today and Arlington stocked up on books for her trip. Even the babies left with a couple. I hope they love to read as much as their big sister. Arlington has drawn about 1 million pictures in the last two days. Since we are going to visit her grandparents, she felt she needed to make them a ton of pictures. I am going to need a suitcase just for them soon. Today, no joking, she colored for 4 hours straight. That is a record.

Cainan had a little fall tonight and now has a swollen lip. He was climbing the ladder on our playset, and fell off the top rung. He hasn't ever fallen before, so it was bound to happen. I didn't catch him in time. He did hit the ground. The part I am most upset about (since he wasn't seriously injured) is it was the side of his cleft lip repair. The fall made his nose bleed and that side is all swollen. I am sure it is fine - we are almost 1 year since it was repaired. But I still worry. Poor guy - it is going to be sore tomorrow. He didn't cry much, which actually isn't like him! Cainan is starting to sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" I can make out most of the words. Funny how kids can't put 2-3 words together can sing a whole song. That has always amazed me. He has switched completely over to a twin size bed and does great in there. We took his crib down two nights ago and are going to give it to my parents to use at their house. Before summers end, I think Finley will switch over as well - if she stops falling out!

Finley is as bad as ever. If there is any change in her personality, I will let you know. Just kidding. She has been playing really nice with Cainan for the last couple of days. She hasn't bitten him in a few days. Yes, if I haven't said before - Finley bites Cainan. She only bites him. Mostly if she isn't getting what she wants. Poor guy was having like a bite every other day on his back. I don't know what caused her to start that, but we are getting a handle on it. She never did that before. But there is no excuse for biting - I will put an end to it. She is also getting better with her sentences. She speaks clear 4-5 word sentences these days and has become quite the tattle tale. She is always tattling on Cainan and Arlington. Her favorite is "Cainan/Arlington hit my head". Even if it isn't true. She will wake up from nap and say it. She is doing pretty good in her toddler bed - she falls out almost every night and I put her back in bed (it doesn't wake her up) but she is napping, which was my biggest concern.

I have been working on Finley's quilt very hard this weekend/week. I will have the whole front sewn together hopefully when I come back from vacation. I am glad to have the fronts done, so now all I have to do is quilt the backs to them. Then I can put them on their beds. I am also going to be quilting Cainan's 100 good wishes quilt at the same time. I will do that one by hand. I finished the front, so now I just need to do the back. Now this, I love to do. I love seeing the finished product and using what I made. Very cool. I may not have a green thumb, but this - this I can do. The girl's quilts will be my first attempt at machine quilting. I have always done it by hand, but this time, I have two large ones - I want to use the machine. So if anyone out there has tips for me, I would love to hear them.

Anyway, here are the two remaining pictures. I probably won't blog on Saturday because I will be at my in-laws house and may not have time that evening. But I will blog on Sunday evening after my nephew's baptism. I am going to be the Godmother! I am very excited about that.

I have also added a cute video at the bottom of a Huggies commercial I saw this week on TV. It had me cracking up, and for all of you that have baby boys - you have to watch this! :)

Enjoy!

Cainan and Finley at the fire pit
Playing around - waiting for something exciting to happen

Weekend relaxation

Is there really such a thing as relaxation when you have a new house? Nope. But I was doing wishful thinking when I titled my post.

We have been busy this week. I finished the master bathroom and the kids bathroom with painting. Touch ups are still needed, but I am going to do all paint touch ups with white all at once, so it is done for now. I am finished painting for awhile. I need a break. That does it for the upstairs walls, anyway. All that is left is the hallway, and then we come downstairs, so that is good.

Thursday this week we had the oil company come by and give us a proposal about filling our oil thank and what that will cost monthly/yearly. I will spare you the details. It is very expensive, as we knew it would be. I hope the oil prices don't climb any higher. I don't know how people will afford to heat their homes. It is getting scary. But it looks like the boiler is working fine (a plus since we were worried) and all looks well. They will be back next week to clean it and put new oil in our tank.

Friday I took the car to the shop (big excitement) and finally got our trunk fixed. As some of you might remember, our trunk hydrolics quit right before we moved, so we have had to hold up the back hatch while we load. That hasn't been fun! But we got a note finally from Toyota that said that many cars were having that problem so it could be fixed for free. Yeah!

Firday was also the girl's physicals. Finley had her two year physical and Arlington her school physical. Arlington is 37 pounds and 42 inches. She is in the 40%tile for both height and weight. That was good to see! We were very happy to see she was 42 inches because that is a magic number when it comes to roller coasters! We have plans to take her to Kennywood, so this allows her to ride some things she is going to LOVE! Finley was small, of course. She was 22 pounds 4 ounces and 33 1/2 inches long. She is in the 5%tile for weight and 40%tile for height. She and Cainan are the same height now, but Cainan is a pound heavier. Finley has always been our pickiest eater and most active child, so we weren't surprised by her weight. She did not pass her hearing exam, though. This is also not really a surprise. Finley has had "odd" hearing since she was a baby. I remember one time I dropped a pan on our tile floor by accident and she never even budged. And we would clap our hands behind her and she wouldn't jump or turn. The doctor thought she was just not easily startled, but we are keeping an eye on it. She is going for a formal hearing test in a few weeks to see if anything is going on, or she is just fine. I think she is fine because her language skills are just fine. She says over 100 words and talks in 5 word sentences. But it seems like when she is 20 feet or more away, I have to really yell to get her to respond. It could be nothing related to hearing - it could be her attention span and craziness! So we will see.

Today we are getting a few chores done. Mat is finishing the fire pit area so we can roast marshmallows. I am doing some more clearing of our large boulder. Just little bits here and there. We also did our fantasy football draft with the Pletcher clan. We did it by skype conference this year. Not as fun as being in person, but the years we don't go to the lake, this is the best we can do. 12 people play - we are a large bunch now! My football team is awesome (not). I have a few key players, but mostly I like to collect Steelers and weirdo players for fun. Last year I almost made it into the superbowl, so you never know!!!!

And guess what? Stupid deer ate some of my new flowers. Up here the deer population is bad. People are fighting against controlling them, so they are out of control. We have three areas - Lyme, East Lyme, and Old Lyme. This is where the investigations and discovery of Lyme disease came from. Aren't we lucky? Ticks are bad here. But anyway, the deer are seen quite often in our yard. Well, I moved my plants just the other day into the ground from their pots, and those little stinkers ate every flower. UGH! I can't believe it. Well, yes I can, but I am STILL MAD. So now I am going to have to either net them (ugly) or move them somewhere else. They are deer resistant plants, but we were told the deer will eat anything!

I wanted to share some pictures of "before and after" of our boulder. We are no where near done with what we want to do with it, but are already heading in the right direction. Here are the shots. (below are more pictures of the kids!)

Here is the before - see the tree area (right above where our excavator at this time had just starting clearing the yard? ) The rock is behind those trees on that little hill.

Here is the after!!! The excavator has lowered the yard and made it flat - then Mat and I alone cut down all the trees, cut back all the brush and starting raking it out. I even planted two flowers on the one side of the rock (you can't see). Stay tuned......



So that is it. Next week at this time we will be in Pennsylvania for our visit. We are looking forward to that. Tomorrow we are trying a new church to see if it is the right one for us.

Enjoy the few pictures!

Hot day in Connecticut

We have had a couple of hot days lately. Without our beloved air conditioning, we are surely feeling the heat indoors. Thank goodness for our ceiling fans! But I do miss my central air. Someday we will have that again.....

The kids are doing well. We got Finley a little wading pool for her birthday since the kids love being outside so much. It was hot today, so before afternoon naps, I blew up the pool (using a pump of course!) and filled it up so it could be nice and warm for the kids this afternoon. The kids loved it. After they had a little snack, I got them dressed and out we went to play in the water. I decided to set it up on the deck away form the new yard. With all of their splashing, they would have just made it muddy! Plus most of our existing yard is taken up by a sand pit and the old playset that was here when we moved in. So that was the best choice. We have a huge deck so that worked out well. We played for about 1 hour plus out there and the kids were blue when I finally drug them out for dinner. Hopefully they will sleep well tonight!

We also went to the library today before lunch. We have a great local library and I am glad we were able to continue our weekly trips since our move. Arlington loves books more than anything in the world. She gets so excited to go to the library. I have been taking her on Saturday mornings, but this past Saturday it was closed, so today all of us went (minus Mat who was at work). I am never sure about taking the babies minus their stroller, but they are getting bigger, so I took a chance. They did pretty well. Finley pulled like 6 books off the shelf, but then she sat down and looked at them and was peaceful. Cainan found a truck book that had wheels on it and he just looked at that and carried it around the whole time. So it went well.

We had a full day. Not much else is going on. I finished painting the master bath. The color is PERFECT. I love it. Now all that is left in the master bath would be to.......change everything else. Ha! These folks moved in in 1996 and haven't changed a thing since then! The master is fine for now - it has a whirlpool tub and separate shower, double sinks, and is huge. But I don't like the color of the tile, the shower is old, and the counters and sinks are dated. Oh, and there is a crazy light bar that has about 18 lights on it. I feel like I am on Broadway every time I get ready in the morning. Every room is the same - I am starting with paint, but just about everything needs to be changed....in time. :)

I also started painting the kids bathroom. It is Apricot Spice. MAt picked it. It is okay - we will see once it is finished. I think it will be good for a kids bathroom. I took the ducks down and enjoyed doing it. And I changed the hardware on the cabinets. There is still TONS to do with that bathroom as well - like completely gutting it. But the paint and hardware does help. That will be the last room I am going to paint for awhile. That will complete the upstairs - besides the hallway - and that is a huge start. I will take a break for a few weeks now, and that will be nice.

The rest of this week we have a few things planned. We have a movie night on the lawn at the local library on Thursday for families. I am going to take Arlington. It is the "Bee Movie". We have seen it, but I think sitting on the lawn will be fun for us. And it is FREE. That day we are also having the oil company come by and give us estimates to fill our oil tank and service our boiler. I feel like I have moved back to the 1800s. I am totally clueless with this "self contained house" stuff. Well water, oil heat, septic tank. Yuck, yuck,yuck. I can't get rid of the well water and septic, unfortunately, BUT I can get rid of the oil. And in a few years I will replace it with central air and heat. Whoo hoo!

Then on Friday Finley has her 2 year old checkup and Arlington has her physical for Kindergarten. I hope they both don't need shots like Cainan did. Having them both there - that would suck.

Then this weekend will be just getting things together for our trip next week. I need to get the car serviced, get snacks, clean the car.....doesn't this sound fun?

So that is our unexciting life. No real kid stories. No more unexpected hair cuts.
Oh - there are a few pictures below of flowers from our yard. No new ones- I am just trying some different things with the camera, and I decided to post them. The girl's bedroom is a garden theme, and so I thought I might blow up some of these pictures to frame in their room. You will have to tell me what you think of that idea!

Enjoy!