Happy 3rd Birthday Cora Larkin!

I wanted to make Cora's birthday special, despite our move one week prior and going to the lake a day later. We decided to have a party at Tot Town, an indoor play area of sorts here in Brookfield since our house was filled with boxes. Sweet Cora picked out her own dress and enjoyed every minute playing with the imaginary play stations and seeing her friends sing to her. I adore our unique, blue eyed, free spirit so much. I hope she never changes.

Becca's Bachelorette

There is really no better excuse to escape for the weekend than a college roommate's bachelorette party. I headed to Newport to catch up with all my college girls and celebrate an old and dear buddy from Holy Cross. Had a lot of laughs digging through some old photos to put on a board we made for her.

Becca and I - 2002 in Wheeler Dorm at Holy Cross

2016- at her bachelorette

Thanks for Em for keeping these three happy for the weekend so I could get some time with my ladies.

The Big Move

It is only fitting, after our 12 year action packed and sometimes, since kids, overly chaotic adventure together, that Emmet and I were closing on our very first home the day after his Residency Graduation.

 We had our friends Nery, Samuel and Juan meet at our house on Greenwood Avenue at 9:00 am and start unloading boxes from the basement into the moving truck. My Dad directed and organized like a true Captain, and my Mom watched the kids, while Emmet and I went to our closing.

 Without a kitchen table to eat off, it was pizza on a blanket on the living room floor and without a crib, it was naps in the car seat on the front lawn. In and out all day, the guys moved like a well oiled machine, working their tails off to get everything out before sunset. I cleaned rooms, boxed up a few last things, and tried, along with my Mom to be the calm in the storm for these little sweeties who had to say good bye to the only home they had ever really known. When all was said and done, we got into our car, and pulled out onto Greenwood avenue from that driveway one last time. I thought I was going to hold it together until I looked out the window and saw our neighbors, Ralph and Cheryl, waving from their front yard. I couldn't hold back the tears. 4 years of helping us in good times and in bad, I couldn't believe they wouldn't be next door anymore. And then all the memories that I saw as I looked beyond our hedges behind our cozy little house, into that great little backyard, where I had spent so much time playing with these three and watching them learn to walk, and run, and explore, and I just sobbed.

People say moving is one of the most stressful life experiences one can go through. After packing up everything we owned after bedtime in boxes, night after night, for months, and then waiting daily on baited breath for weeks for the confirmation that this short sale would happen, I can attest to strain that it put's on anyone. Sitting in the lawyer's office, our palms sweaty with anxiety, waiting for everyone to dot the i's and cross the t's, I felt like there wasn't much more we could take.

 And then finally, just like that, they handed us the keys. Relief. Joy. Dream come True.

Welcome home family. Here is Emmet, after a whirlwind 48 hours of finishing Residency, and moving his family, on his very own stoop at 7:00 at night on June 18 on Cemetery Road. The kids were excited, and we were proud of them. They had been champs all day. We promised them and we hoped that we would never have to move again.

Residency Graduation

Graduation from Residency had been a day so far in the distance for so long, that it seemed impossible when the final details came to us about where and when it would be held. I remember the  the very first day of Emmet's Residency program, because it was the day Cora was born, and we laughed at the irony of that. And then I remembered the sleepless nights of him being "on call," the girls waking up at night, the day to day trying to make it as a stay at home Mom, praying for Emmet for the strength to be able to get up and go to work at the hospital and do what he needed to do to finish his program. We learned we could only take on life with a grateful heart one day at a time despite utter exhaustion and the children made us live in the moment.

On the day of graduation, I put on heels for the first time in 4 years and a fancy dress that Emmet bought me for the occasion, and then his lab coat to protect me from Maury's spit up while we got ready. We got the kids dressed and took a few last family pictures in our backyard on Greenwood Avenue before we left for the ceremony.

It's only fitting that my parents received two of our tickets for the graduation, because they have been there for us from the beginning, through every up and down of raising a young family and chasing down the dream of Emmet becoming a doctor. And as always, they came through that night to help us watch the kids so that we could sit and enjoy the speakers and the announcement of Emmet's name and then go to the Candlewood Inn to celebrate.

I will never forget this moment, a moment we longed for, a moment to say that we made it, that he, Dr.Ferriter had chased down his dream.  The sunset was beautiful, the graduates were all elated, and I was, undoubtedly,  the most proud spouse on Candlewood Lake.

Daddy's boy

Can't get enough of this smiley kid :)

Maury's first dip

Summer begins!

The first hot days are always exciting for the kids, and adding water to any playtime in the yard is a guarantee for fun. Just a few photos of the girls in their first bathing suit moments of 2016. 

Keeley soothing Maury below, our droopy little man, who has yet to get a tooth, but seems to be feeling the pain.