Four Year Anniversary

Happy Anniversary, Husband!

Four years ago today I married my best friend. I couldn't ask for a more caring and loving husband or father to my children. I love you, John!

Brother and Sister

Reagan - December 2007

6 weeks old

Dylan - August 2009

7 weeks old

I remembered that I had a picture of Reagan at about this age and in this same car seat pose as Dylan was one day, so I decided to get one of him too.

Summer Hiatus is Over

I know, I've been awful at updating the blog and taking pictures for that matter. I guess it really is true that each child has less and less pictures taken of him or her. The summer just flew by like it always does and having a baby right in the middle didn't help slow things down at all. So what have we been doing with our time? Most days I spend the morning finding entertainment for Reagan and the afternoons cuddling/napping with Dylan while Reagan naps. Like I did with Reagan, I'm just cherishing the afternoons I have with Dylan before I go back to work in mid-October.

I'm going to try to take some time each day this week to get a little closer to being caught up, so be sure to look back as far as the beginning of July if you want to make sure you see everything. In the meantime, here is a summary of our summer days that we were able to capture all in one sunny Sunday morning.

The morning starts with a walk to my parents house where Reagan immediately goes to the garage to find all her outside toys.



On a good day, she gets to play with water, usually watering the flowers and bushes in the front of their house. Today, Reagan and John set out to wash her new police car.

Here is Reagan's "fleet" of ride on toys at my parents house. After we bought one cozy coupe, my mom was addicted and has since bought the other three at garage sales. We decided four was a bit much so the older red coupe has since been sold.

After a while, Reagan will ask to ride one of the cars down to the park behind my parents house. She loves to swing and go down the slides. She is quite the dare devil and loves to go down the slides even I'm too scared to go down.

Reagan's new love is hanging from bars and then dropping to the ground. You have to be quick because she doesn't care how far down the drop is. There have been a couple times where John has caught her about a foot from the ground and she just cracks up laughing!

During these visits, Dylan usually hangs out in the garage with me or chills in the stroller in the shade. It will be fun next summer when he can get around too!

Creative Genius or Just a Mess?

I once watched a documentary about a 4 or 5 year old whose parents let her paint on giant canvases and then sold her work for thousands of dollars. I thought I would start on a smaller scale with 8x11 paper to see how Reagan did and then we could move on to giant canvases if she showed an interest. Since the day was so rainy, it was the perfect day to give it a try.

She started out pretty meticulously just using her pointer finger to paint. I had high hopes that it wouldn't be as messy as I thought.

It didn't take long for the mess to get bigger.

Her hands were caked with paint. At this point I had already wiped them off three times.

It took a little longer than I thought for Reagan to start painting her body and yes, she did try to eat the paint soon after.

The first of three creations she made today.

D's Baptism

As John would say, Dylan was dunked this Sunday. This time we remembered the baptism candle, but we were not there 20 minutes early like they asked. How does anyone with two kids get out the door before 10am? It was kind of chaotic with 7 babies being baptized after mass and an unorganized Deacon running the show. Since we had to attend mass first and the baptism was after, two hours in church was a long time for a nearly 2 year old to handle (and 28 year olds for that matter), but we survived!

The front row makes it easy for a 2 year old to escape, so Reagan was not sitting with us for too long.

Getting "dunked."

During the ceremony with the beautifully decorated baptismal candle (thanks, John).

D's godparents - our good friends Kelly and Jason.

D with parents and grandparents

The baptismal gown that Dylan wore was the same gown that Reagan wore. This year marks the 100th year of that gown. John's great grandmother was married in 1909 and the gown was made out of her wedding dress in 1910. The dress was worn by John's grandmother, John's mom, John and now our kids. A total of 26 babies in John's family have worn it.

Welcome Emma!

Reagan and Dylan were joined by an international cousin on Sunday, August 9th 2009. Tim and Jane (John's brother and sister-in-law) welcomed Emma Isabel McCarthy. We are so excited for their new family of three! We wish we could be in London with them to celebrate her birth, but we'll have to wait to meet her in November when they come to visit!

I think Emma and Dylan share a lot of the McCarthy boys' features! It will be fun to see if they continue to look like each other as they grow older.

1 Month Old

At one month old, Dylan is a great baby. He is such a good sleeper and fortunately for us, is a really quiet sleeper. I remember Reagan being really noisy. She slept in our bed until she was 7 weeks old and I plan to keep Dylan in our bed that long too (both slept safely in a co-sleeping box thing, of course). Once we move him to the crib, he will still be in our room since we do only have two bedrooms.

Since John went back to work, I've been trying to find activities each morning for us to do. It makes the mornings go really fast. We've gone to storytimes, Kindermusik, and on walks with my mom and her friends most mornings.

Both Reagan and Dylan sleep for about 3 hours in the afternoon, so most days I'm able to take a nap too. Since Dylan spends a lot of time in his swing or carseat in the mornings while I tend to Reagan, I use the afternoon to really get some good snuggles with him. We usually hang out in the basement until he falls asleep on the couch with me.

Dylan has been a good eater. He eats every 2.5 - 3 hours and he eats really fast so I don't feel like I'm feeding him all the time. We can tell that D is gaining weight because his 0-3 month clothes fit better and better every day. I would guess that he is around 8.5 - 9 lbs by now. I have a feeling he will grow out of his clothes much faster than Reagan did. She didn't even start to wear 0-3 month clothes until at least 6 weeks.

Reagan wanted in on the pictures too. She looks like a giant laying next to Dylan! We had to switch from the blue blankie to the brown one so Dylan's rhinoceros friend didn't blend in so much!

Reagan has adjusted to having a baby in the house now. We have been struggling with her waking up at night, but we've been jumping to her side when she does wake up. I think one night of ignoring the cries will mostly cure her of this.

My favorite is watching her imitate John or I (me, mostly) with her Elmo. Elmo has been wearing a diaper since Dylan came to our house and she will "change" it. She also "feeds" Elmo by holding him up to her belly button. It is so cute!!

Reagan refers to Dylan as "brudder" and not Dylan. I think she thinks his name is "brudder." She will say "bless you, Dylan" if he sneezes though.

The one thing that I'm sad about is that (minus the above picture) up to this point, she does not want her picture taken with "brudder."