We're home!

Wow, what a weekend!!! Let me start off by saying that we will NEVER fly using Southwest Airlines ever again! All 17 of us flew out of Islip Airport in Long Island on Thursdays and arrived in Chicago at Midway Airport. My sister in law, Eileen, and her husband's 2 suitcases, missing and NEVER arrived for the whole weekend. They had to go out and buy clothes for the wedding (which they were reimbursed for) and then yesterday, lets see.... finding out that one of Eileen's bags had been found in Florida, my other sister in law, Kerry's boyfriend's luggage not arriving with his flight, my brother in law, Christopher (THE GROOM'S) luggage not making it to their honeymoon destination and to top it off, they lost Joey's carseat!!! Keep in mind, on the way home, there was 3 different flights and on each flight, someone lost luggage. And I wouldn't have been so mad about our's, but come on, a car seat?! Thankfully, they had loaner carseats so we were able to go home and also thankfully, Joey's carseat was found by the time my in-laws flew in last night so they were able to bring his carseat home with them and Southwest Airlines is going to pay to have the loaner carseat FedEx'ed back to them.

Besides our mishaps with the airline, we all had a wonderful weekend! The wedding was wonderful, I love weddings!! And the reception was a blast! Joey got so much attention that he was so tired by the time we left. I took so many pictures, 213 to be exact! So I'll only post a few...


My two boys waiting for the wedding to start, aren't they handsome?!


The newly weds!!


Me and Joey (yes, I cut my hair off, 6 inches gone!!!)


Us girls!!


Joey with the newly weds!


"Mommy, I'm tired, can we go home now?"

Crazy week!!!

So yesterday was my calm day of the week. Joey's EI teacher came for her visit and that was it for the day. Thursday we are flying to Chicago for my husband's brother's wedding. I'm very excited, I've never been to Chicago before so this is going to be something new!! Not to mention that I love weddings!! So the rest of this week goes as follows...

Today
1. Take a shower while Joey naps
2. After Joey's nap, find a hair salon that has an opening so I can get my hair cut
3. Pick up my hubby's suit from the dry cleaners!
4. Joey's speech therapy at 3:15
5. Dig out suitcases and start packing
6. Attempt to shorten the legs on Joey's suit for the wedding

Wednesday
1. Joey's physical therapy at 12:30
2. Ultrasound at 2:30
3. Drop Joey off after the ultrasound at my in-laws and take the twins to get their fingernails painted and a pedicure for myself
4. Try to pack more
5. Buddy Walk committee meeting at 7:30

Thursday
1. Wake up EARLY, finish up any last minute packing and be out of the house by 9am to go to the airport!!!! There will be 17 of us on one flight, so it's going to an interesting ride with all of Patrick's family!

Friday-Sunday we're in Chicago sooooo, if I'm not around much in the next week you know why. Don't worry, nothings wrong, I'm just going to be REALLY busy!! And the cool thing is, I'm going to be getting another sister in law!!! This weekend is going to be a blast Steph, try not to go crazy for the next 4 days!!

Snowed In!

Well, yesterday morning I woke up feeling worse than the other days. My head was killing me and I could barely breathe. I called my doctor and got the last appointment available for the day. 12:45. I knew that we had a winter storm heading our way but thought I could get back and forth before it got too bad. WRONG! I left a little after 10am to drop Joey off at my in-laws and by the time I got there, the roads were AWFUL! I slid past my in-laws driveway, slid past their neighbors, got turned around in the next street and went to pull into their driveway. My van went sideways and I slid into the guardrail across from their driveway. Thank goodness I was only going about 2mph and did no damage to my van and didn't even wake Joey up from his nap. So I back up and pull into their driveway. Almost 20 minutes later I walk in the door. I kept sliding and getting stuck in the driveway (what a mess!!). No one was home at their house yet so no one heard me trying to get up the driveway which was good due to the fact I was in no mood to talk to anyone after that ordeal. There's one thing I've learned from that experience... new, better tires on my van by next winter!!!

So needless to say, I called and canceled my doctor's appointment. There was no way I would have made it to my doctor's office. Throughout the day, I started feeling worse and worse. Thankfully I had my mother in law and sister in laws to take care of Joey. The snow was falling my the inches which followed in the evening with sleet and a lovely layer of ice. My husband got off work at 2:30 and the usual 20 minute drive to his parents house took him almost 2 hours!! We decided to stay put to see if the weather was going to let up at all. By 9pm, still coming down hard. So we decided to stay the night. It iced all through the night and into the early morning.

This afternoon the sun is finally out and melting the ice down some. We'll hopefully leave here soon to go back to our house and feed my poor little fishies! What a way to spend our St. Patrick's Day, snowed in!!!

I'm feeling MUCH better today, actually about 75% better. I felt so sick yesterday, miserable, down right miserable. Thankfully much better now!!

Joey's Birthday Party

Just a couple pictures and videos from Joey's Birthday Party on Saturday. As you can tell, Joey had a great time!!!

Make video montages at onetruemedia.com

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Make photo slide shows at onetruemedia.com

Busy, busy weekend!

Well I started off this morning driving a hour out to the Navy Base at Groton to pick up my friend for the weekend. He's being transferred next week to Virginia so this will be our last time with him for quite some time. Anyways, we got back to our apartment at 12:00 only to have to get Joey ready to go to his birthday party at my in-laws house at 1:00. So off to Grandma & Grandpa's house we went. Joey had a blast! Lots of great gifts and we even let Joey have a piece of cake. Of coarse he didn't really eat any, he just played in it and got REALLY messy. He tasted the icing a little and I don't think he was too crazy about it. Kinda surprised me... and of coarse I left my camera over at my in-laws house so I will have to post pictures and video later when I can get them uploaded onto my computer.

Tomorrow we're going to the New Haven St. Patrick's Day Parade, I'm very excited about it. I didn't get to go last year, it was my baby shower and I was in no condition to stand outside at a parade (I went into labor the next day). Well, I guess that's it for now, I will hopefully post pictures tomorrow night!

Oh yes, also, here's a great find. "They'll Do It Themselves" written by Michael Winerip. It's the cover story for tomorrow NY Times Connecticut Section. Way to go guys!!!

20 Froggies

When I was little, my Grandma used to sing a song called "20 Froggies" to me and my cousins. Years went by and I forgot about the song. After Joey was born, and I went home to Ohio for a visit, she was holding Joey and started to sing it. After Grandma had her open heart surgery and stroke over the summer, I feared that I would never learn the words to the song I grew up hearing her sing. I didn't want the tradition lost. Up until today, I could only remember the first verse, I couldn't remember the rest of the lyrics for anything and today it hit me to do a google search and I found it! Now I can continue singing the song to my son that I grew up loving my grandma to sing to me! I can't wait to tell Grandma that I found the song online!

Twenty Froggies
BY GEORGE COOPER

Twenty froggies went to school
Down beside a rushy pool
Twenty little coats of green,
Twenty vests all white and clean.

"We must be in time," said they,
"First we study, then we play"
That is how we keep the rule,
When we froggies go to school."

Master Bull-frog, brave and stern,
Called his classes in their turn,
Taught them how to nobly strive,
Also how to leap and dive.

Taught them how to dodge a blow,
From the sticks that bad boys throw.
Twenty froggies grew up fast
Bull-frogs they became at last.

Polished in a high degree,
As each froggie ought to be.
Now they sit on other logs,
Teaching other little frogs.

BUSY weekend!

Well, like I said on Friday, Joey still had his lovely hives so we went over to my in-laws for the evening rather than going out to celebrate my husband's birthday. Yesterday, we didn't do a whole lot during the day. Patrick went into work for a couple hours, and Joey and I stayed home and played. Last night, we went out with Pat's friends to have a couple drinks (non alcoholic for me of course) and Joey spent the night over at his grandparents house. It was such a nice treat to be able to sleep in (thank you Joe & Virginia!)!! We went to 11:30 mass and from there went to the Irish Club for a corned beef and cabbage dinner with our family.

After the Irish Club, we came home and watched the Daytona 500, which was a HUGE disappointment! Dale Earnhardt Jr is my favorite driver and with just a few laps to go, he along with a few other cars wrecked!

Oh and Friday, I went to meet with the nurse practioner at my OB and I will be going this week for my first ultrasound. I'm very excited to see my little baby bean. I've been trying so hard not to get too excited until I see that little heart beating for the first time. But the more I think about it, the more excited I get. I went ahead and got out my maternity clothes already. My jeans were getting a bit snug so I've been wearing a couple pair of my maternity jeans that are smaller.

I also spent a lot of time this weekend cleaning and going through things. I actually put together FIVE TRASHBAGS full of clothes to give away to Goodwill! I went through my closet and pulled out anything that I hadn't worn in a year and my hubby even let me go through his clothes too and together we got rid of some of his things too! Not to mention, I finally got my kitchen floor mopped!!!

Oh and did I mention that Joey's hives are finally gone?!

Dads update

Both of our fathers are doing well and both should get out of the hospital today!

My Dad had his heart cath done yesterday along with a stint and is recovering nicely. Now we're not sure if he had an actual heart attack. He's had 2 doctors tell him yes and one tell him no. But he did have a blockage that required a stint so that's definitely a sign that he needs to eat better and exercise more!

Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers!

Prayers Needed

So Friday my father in law starts having chest pain along with the pain radiating down his arm, finally on Sunday drives himself to the hospital.

Yesterday my father wasn't feeling well so he took himself to his doctor and after taking his blood pressure, his doctor called an ambulance and he was taken to the hospital.

Do you see where I'm going with this? Both my father and my father in law have had heart attacks in the past 2 days! WHAT THE HECK?!

My father in law had a 90% blockage in one artery, less in the some others so they repaired the 90% with a stint and the others they're going to try to fix with medication.

My father is in route being transferred to a different hospital for the heart cath and possible stints.

LOTS AND LOTS of prayers are needed today folks!

Christmas 2006

Just a quick post on our Christmas. It was such a great day. Just a quick recap... we woke up and went over to Patrick's parents house, opened gifts, had breakfast, mom and I came back to our house to cook, took the food back to my in-laws, ate, then opened more gifts when Pat's Grandma, aunts, uncle & cousins came over.


"Merry Christmas Mommy & Daddy!"

"Is this for me?"

"Cuddles with Mommy!"

"Thank you Aunt Kerry!"

"Toys, toys & more toys!"


If you would like to see the rest of our Christmas 2006 pictures, go here.

Happy Christmas Eve!

Happy Christmas Eve everyone! Patrick and I just got back from Christmas mass. We left Joey at home with my parents. He wasn't in the best of moods to take to church, hopefully next year he will be easier to take to church with us.

Tonight, my parents, Patrick and I will be exchanging our gifts, then in the morning we're going over to Patrick's parents house to exchange with everyone over there, then have dinner with everyone. Then later in the day Pat's grandma, aunts and cousins will come over. BUSY DAY! I'll be sure to post pictures in the next couple days.

This is my first Christmas away from Ohio. It's really helping having my parents here. But I've never been away from my brother on Christmas. It's weird. I didn't think it would bother me as much as it does. Growing up, Terry was more like a father to me at times. He's 16 years older than me and was always not only a brother, but a wonderful role model to me too. I'm really going to miss him the next couple of days. Merry Christmas Bubba, I miss you!

The Lord works in mysterious ways

The Lord definetly works in mysterous ways... I was so upset yesterday about our car breaking down, and not being able to afford heating oil along with our regular bills. Well, today Pat recieved a hoilday bonus. It's enough toget the car fixed and pay for part of a tank of heating oil. Which I just called and it's $2.39 a gallon! Ouch! Well, at least we're going to have some extra money to help us!

In other news, Joey had a visit today from his physical therapist and his speech therapist, both is which went excellent! Joey worked very hard with his PT is reaching while sitting, attempting to stand and trying to get to the crawling position. He still has a long way to go with the standing and crawling, but he's getting so good with his sitting and reaching! His SLP was very happy with his speech progress. She said he's making all the sounds any infant should be making. She also said his eating his going great!

My parents are on their way to Connecticut from Ohio right now. They're somewhere in Pennsylvania and I'm going crazy! It's not been that long since I've seen my mom but I haven't seen my dad since October! I can't wait to have both of our families together for Christmas!

Also, I finally got my copies of Gifts! I don't care that they have flaws on them, I just wanted a couple copies of them to share with my family! yay!

Where has the week gone?!

Unfortunately, my mom has to go back home to Ohio today. We hate to see her go home. I wish her trip here would have been for a different reason, but it was so nice having her around. This past week has been full of her cooking and even cleaning our house for us. Plus, having her around just made me feel so much better! Not to mention she was able to spend lots of time with Joey. The good news is that my parents will both be back here in a couple weeks for Christmas!!

Wow, I completely forgot to do my Favorite Ingredient Friday and give an update about Thanksgiving! I've been enjoying having my husband home for a four day weekend, I've completely forgot about my poor blog!

Thanksgiving was wonderful! We ate over at my in-laws house for dinner then went over to Patrick's aunt's house for dessert later in the evening. Such great food! There's nothing better than turkey! I could skip eating the rest of the meal, JUST GIVE ME MY TURKEY! Well, ok, maybe I couldn't skip the rest. Joey was the hit of the day of corse. Pat's grandmother was so into taking pictures of Joey, she barly got any other pictures of the rest of her grandchildren.



And Friday, I didn't wake up and get to the stores at 5am, I just couldn't do it this year. Maybe next year. But I did wake up at 7:30 and headed out to Micheal's, Old Navy and Walmart. Then today, we went to the mall and got Joey's picture taken with Santa (which turned out soooooo cute- I'll post it later) and then I finally broke down and got my hair cut. I haven't had it cut in over 7 months so I figured it was about time. I let the ladt take 2 inches off!! At least I can still pull it back! OK well, I guess that's it for now!!!

Wow, I didn't realize it's been since Friday that I've posted last. I go tomorrow for an ultrasound to see how far along I actually am. I really hope I'm more like 10 weeks than 5. That means one less one to go! We'll see tomorrow!

I haven't gotten much done around the house at all. I've been so tired. Not much in the way of morning sickness except for some evenings I get nauseated. And not to mention today I ate a bowl of cereal and drank a glass of milk and threw that up. When I was pregnant with Joey, the only thing I wanted was milk but NOT THIS TIME!

I got a call from one of my best friends, Eric, from back in Ohio today. He's coming December 7-10 to see us. I'm so excited! Since we're not going back to Ohio for Thanksgiving or Christmas, it's going to be so nice to see one of my friends. My parents are coming up for Christmas, but it's still not going to be the same. This will be my first Christmas not in Ohio.

Onto a Joey update! He's still not sitting, but getting very close! He's sitting for about 20 seconds at a time and he really seems to want to sit on his own. He gets so frustrated! It seems like everyday he turns into more of a little person. His personality keeps coming out and he gets funnier each day. He's getting new facial expressions and says new sounds all the time! Not to mention he's rolling so much now! It also seems like he's wanting to crawl. He lays on his belly and his little arms and legs move so fast but he goes no where. He still needs more strength to get up on his hands and knees.

Ohhhh!! And today Joey turns 8 months old! I can't believe my baby is 8 months old! The time has flown by!!

Well, I guess that's it for now!

We're home!

Wow, after a long 10 days, we're back!! I really went through some blogger withdrawal while we were gone! I couldn't check up on all of my favorite blogs and was going crazy wondering how everybody has been doing!!

Our trip was wonderful! I always love getting back to Ohio to see my family and friends. Saturday the 7th was my Grandma's 80th birthday party, so I got the chance to see all of that side of the family. Along with meeting 2 of my cousins' new babies for the first time! Little Jacob and yes another Baby Joseph!! Of course my Joseph is about 3 times the size of this little guy. The party was a lot of fun and we were all very grateful that we had Grandma after her open heart surgery/ stroke in August.



Monday through Friday was full of visiting everyone and just staying home and relaxing. Except Joey decided that while on our trip, he was going to start getting up at 4am instead of 6am. Luckily, he would go back to sleep around 6 or 7 and my mom would take over so I could go back to bed for a couple hours (THANK YOU MOM!!!)

This past weekend was the Sauerkraut Festival in Waynesville. It's probably my (along with most of my family's) favorite weekend of the year. It is a family tradition to go every year. My Aunt and Grandma have a craft booth at it so, we all gather together, take turns selling things at our booth and stuffing our faces full of various foods... some with Kraut, some without. This year, I ate such a mixture of food: sauerkraut pizza, sauerkraut donuts (which don't really have kraut in them), apple flappins, BBQ pork chop sandwich, carmel apples, peanut butter fudge, ham & soup beans, hot dogs with sauerkraut, fried mushrooms, cheese sticks. Of course some of these things I split with my cousin. I know I ate more, but I just can't think of it all. The one thing I DO KNOW is that I need to diet for the next 6 months to lose all the weight and calories I took in those 2 days!! Every year I look forward to the 2 days I get to spend with my family and pig out. I still have yet to miss a festival and I hope I never have to.

Buddy Walk

Our Buddy Walk yesterday was a HUGE success! We had the perfect weather, Joey was such an angel, and we raised $895 for our team. We've been recuperating all day!! My friend who is stationed in Groton even got a weekend leave and was able to be there with us. It was all together a wonderful day! Here's some pictures...


Patrick & Uncle Martin


Aunt Eileen, Aunt Margaret & Aunt Maureen


Our view during the walk


Team Heeran!


Mommy, Daddy & Joey!!!


Dancing to the "good bye" song

Happy Birthday Terry!

My brother was 16 when I was born and unfortunately our father worked a lot of overtime and wasn’t home very much. Terry filled in for Dad. He has been like a second father to me. He took me to my first baseball game (Cincinnati Reds) and first concert (Melissa Etheridge). I would spend almost every Saturday night with Terry and his wife growing up. Many of my best memories have my brother in them. He also took me to about every movie I went to when I was a kid. For some reason one thing I remember more than anything is whenever we were in his car, we would listen to David Lee Roth blaring on the radio (gotta love the 80’s)!

The past year has been so hard being away from my family and friends, especially being away from Terry. You never realize how much a sibling means to you until you’re away from them for an extended period of time.

The day after I got the call from the doctor that Joey has Down syndrome and needed my family more than anything, it was Terry that I called crying wanting to go home to Ohio. He was there on the phone listing to me cry and telling me that everything was going to be all right. I could always count on him for anything, I still can.

When Patrick and I got married last year, I had a brother/ sister dance with him. The song was “Hero” by Mariah Carey. Terry is truly my hero and was who I looked up to growing up.

Today is his birthday and I wish I could be back home in Ohio to spend it with him. Happy Birthday Bubba! I miss you!!

It seems like the past few days Joey hasn't been doing as good of a job eating and drinking. He usually is an awesome eater, but lately he's been choking on his formula and almost gagging on his cereal. I talked to his occupational therapist about it today and she told me to call his pediatrician tomorrow and to talk to his speech therapist next week when she comes for her monthly visit. But I think I'm going to call her tomorrow too. Sometimes it seems like for every step he takes forward he takes two back.

My Grandma had her open heart surgery yesterday. The doctors had to replace the whole valve rather than repairing it. So she has part of a pigs heart in her now, it's truely amazing the things they can go with medicine now compared to even 10 years ago. But Grandma is a tough ol' bird, she was sitting up in bed this morning eating jello, so she's going to be just fine. Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers for Grandma.

Well, I called my favorite aunt on Monday to see if it was ok to stop by and see her and my uncle. She took a huge breath and said "no, I can't be around Joey for a while". I didn't fully understand at first and she proceeded to tell me that she's been hiding something from me, cancer and that she's on chemotherapy until November and can't be around children. She has lymphoma in her mouth on the inner part of her upper gum. She didn't want to upset me until she knew how bad it was going to be and she didn't want me worrying. Luckily, it's isolated and they were able to remove the tumor. Please say a prayer for her if you could.

THEN, my Grandma has been having asthma attacks one after another for a the past week. She went to her regular doctor and she was told that it was her allergies. My aunt ended up taking her to the hospital on Thursday. During all the tests, the doctors discovered that she had 700cc of fluid around her left lung and 500cc around her right. We were told it was either cancer, a bad infection or possibly her heart. The tests were furthered and she has a severely leaking mitral valve on her heart. Needless to say, she goes in for a heart cath on Monday and open heart surgery mid to late this upcoming week. Pray for her too.

These two women are two of my favorite people in the world and who I'm the closest to out of both sides of my family.