Exploring the Outside

We've been spending more and more time outside these last few weeks.  Whether we are at the pool getting it ready for it's opening next week or just in our own little backyard, we are out there!  One thing my son really enjoys is visiting the neighbors.  And boy is he lucky!  My neighbors have some fabulous gardens abound!  He gets to explore the nooks and crannies of small city gardens, and I get to gander at all the beautiful plants in them.  I try my hand at gardening, but I'm not nearly as skilled as my amazing neighbors are!

Anyway, one of our neighbors shared with us the most amazing little treasure today.  She took us to her gardening bench where her gardening pots were...and in one of them, was a little nest of baby birds!  Five of them!  Sleeping right on top!  Breathing, and occasionally startling to open their mouths to us!  I made my son promise not to touch them or their nest.  I picked him up and showed him.  His face was aglow!

Peculiar little fellows decided to nest in a terracotta pot!  Go figure!  I'm so glad we got to see them.  We look forward to revisiting them as they grow - but not too often!

Two!

My goodness!  Where does the time go?  The winter is always so dreary here, and not all that much happens, but I never expected the blog to get away from me!  If you are still out there reading, well, thank you!  I hope to blog a bit more through the summer months!

Maura turned two.  Can you believe it?  I blinked my eyes, and she grew and grew and before I knew it, she was two!  I feel like the first year was a year of shock - shock from what I'd been through, shock from what she was going through...but the second year was a different story.  It was like we were recovering.  Maura is seizure free. She has been for a very long time.  Her meds may or may not have anything to do with that, we won't know until we wean her...which will happen sometime soon, for at least one of them!

Regardless, we put all that aside this week as we celebrated two.  Maura had cake,  she made a mess, she got some help from her big brother to open her presents.  It was a beautiful day!

Oh hello there!

Long time no see, blog friends!  I got wrapped up in the holidays and busy making dollies that I've kinda neglected this place...but alas, I've thought of you!  I've visited your blogs!  I just haven't posted here!

Things are well.  It's funny how the new year makes you look back on the last.  A year ago, I was in such a dismal state.  I hid it well!  After Christmas, the quiet set in, and I realized that I was having very real issues.  I got help...and I did something!

I remember sitting in Starbucks, right in the heart of New Hope, with a very dear friend who has since moved across the country.  She sat there and told me of her plans, and encouraged me to open a shop!  I told her about my failed endeavor - how I'd tried to open an etsy shop and totally bombed...even in the heart of the Christmas season, nothing had sold!  Not a single thing!  Etsy was a sea in which finding oneself would be too hard...that it wouldn't work for me...

Little did I know that I'd cross paths with another soul over the summer who would plant a seed...a seed to sell dolls!  Well friends, I've learned a lot since making those first few dolls over the summer - which were FAR from my first dolls to begin with, but FAR from where I am now!  I love every one of them.  Who would have thought?!

Anyway, I took a bit of a break after the holidays.  Making for a shop in town, making for etsy, customs, and family gifts...whew!  It's all got me tired out!  But I'm making again, and there are more friends coming to my shop soon!  I hope you'll stop by!

Oh Christmas Tree

We headed out to our favorite tree farm this weekend...I know what kind of tree we like best - the concolor - with it's fabulous citrus scent.  The day was unseasonably warm and damp, but we were troopers as we headed out in the late afternoon sun.  

Patrick wanted to ride the tractor, which turned out to be a good decision with two littles in tow.  The ground was a bit muddy as we rode out in the depth of the fields.  

This year, we had two hunters for trees..obviously, one much slower than the other, and most certainly more interested in the pine needles under foot.  I'd hoped that she'd walk by Halloween.  She did, though not so efficiently.  I feel like she's finally crossing over the border of being a real "walker".  It all happened just last week when she figured out how to get up mid-floor!  

He had two onlookers too, as he cut down the perfect tree....but not before one last picture of this living wonder.  Ahh, the concolor - branches out like a Douglas Fir, but the needles are a bit longer...

More than anybody, Patrick couldn't wait to see the tree go up.  He was quite fond of our find.  Each year as he grows, and I'm sure it will happen with her too, the holidays become something more and more magical for us.  I bet the same thing happened to the generation before us.

Here's wishing you a wonderful season of light and giving as we begin.

Finn and Fern and busy busy busy!

Oh hi there!

It's been a bit, huh?  It's been a busy busy place, this Conroy house of ours!  Maura started to walk during the hurricane, and now she's really getting it!  This keeps me extra busy these days!  Not to mention this dolly thing has really taken off!  Have you stopped over to Facebook to see them?  Please do, and please share!  I'm really loving that I can offer something to help our little family along, even if it is mostly all done in the wee hours of the night!  This little gal you see is one of them!  She's one of my new pattern.  I'm really pleased with how it's working out.  I've actually used three patterns so far for my larger dolls, and this - the third - is rather a combination of the two previous ones.  Isn't she a cutie?

Oooh Child, Things are Gonna Get Easier!

Today is World Prematurity Day.  Did you know that?  I got up, and got dressed.  We went to a benefit breakfast for one of Joe's former students..I wore purple.  We sat at the table and talked to a parent of one of Joe's students.  She asked how old Maura was..."She's not a year yet, right?"  Yes.  She is.  I explained our story in an annotated version.  She told me her son was a 32 weeker.  As time goes on, it doesn't go away, this preemie/CHOP/epilepsy business...it's still here, and I'm reminded of it often.

I look back at myself in the NICU now.  How naive I was.  They told me we could call Early Intervention when we got settled at home.  I thought to myself that we wouldn't be needing them for long...that since Maura was coming home, things would get better!  She carries her preemieship with her.  Her delays are immense.  She is doing things in her own time.  I really never thought she's wait until she was 18 months old to start walking...and I was often reminded of it as we watched many younger children pass her in milestones by the dozens.

The whole thing seems like a blur.  In ways, I've come to deal with it, but it doesn't go away...It's become part of us, this preemie business.  It always will be!

Boo...a Halloween Costume Part 1

A Ghost!  He declared.

A Ghost?!  I grimaced.  

A Ghost! He clarified!  

I could do much better than a ghost you know.  I've been sewing costumes for years!  A Ghost is the stereotypical easiest costume in the whole wide world!  Seriously, are you kidding Patrick Finn?  

Alas, my headstrong little boy meant it.  I should have known.  Last year, he insisted for months that he would be Mickey Mouse...It was another easy one, but classic and fun...and he pulled it off well.  I tried so hard this year to convince him to be Max.  You know, Max from Where the Wild Things Are? That way, Joe, Maura, and I could all be Wild Things!  I could have pulled that off too, you know...but no...a ghost it was...and I was going to make it worth it.

So when we walked around Thompson Street on our Halloween, my little ghost ran ahead.  I watched as people strolled by and oogled over his costume.  It was the coolest ghost they'd ever seen!  Did you make that?! They'd ask me.  

Yes, dear friends, I made that for my favorite little boy.

Sandy

powered by the one generator line that ran in our window.

My calendars still say October...the generators hummed outside my doors in all directions for days.  Friends are texting about rumors of gas in my town.  It's all almost post-apocalyptic, no?  I joked last week.  Provisions?!  We'll be fine!  

Six Days...Six days, my friends, without power!  We cheered and whooped and hollered in the neighborhood the moment the power went on at 10:30 Saturday night!

It's weird when you start to think it's never coming back.  For the first four days, we had a mere line from the neighbor's generator running to our house.  It powered our fridge and gave us a line to the TV for news and charging station.  We figured out as it started to get colder that we could plug our space heater in too...that was, until the neighbors decided to have their generator wired to their house.  That was when we tripped the system and couldn't run our heater.  

Luckily, I knew of a friend who had a generator.  They had gotten power back days before.  So on Day 5, we rushed over in darkness to get it.  Within the hour, my electrician neighbor had also wired it to our box, giving us about 30% power, but most importantly HEAT!  The temperatures dipped well into the 40s...it was getting really cold!

Life is very different without power.  There are things you have to get done in daylight.  As it starts to get dark, making beds isn't happening, cooking becomes more difficult, and baths are taken by glowstick light!  The dismal feeling of lighting all the candles in the house is daunting when you start to wonder if power is ever coming back!  

None the less, we are here...and we have power.  So now, we can start to get back to normal.  Today is our Halloween.   We'll be getting dressed up later to go out trick or treating.  Hopefully, our neighborhood is in good spirits as we all try to move past the worst hurricane to hit our little town.

A Carving Moment

Just a moment from our week we'd like to share...a moment to savor and enjoy always...an annual tradition!

At the Farm

It's been a busy few weeks at the farm!  We really love it and are glad we decided to do it!!  

We've hung out with the pigs, or as Patrick likes to call them - lawnmowers.  

We've taken hikes.  

We've gone on scavenger hunts. 

We've visited T-Bone, the cow.