New Siding February 2013

New siding, exterior doors and lighting.  Februrary 2013.

Well hello blog thingamadoo. How've ya been? We had some good times, didn't we? Wanna pick up where we left off?

Okay, my little convo with the blog is getting a bit weird. So...9 months ago I quit blogging, which is just tragic because thousands upon thousands of people checked this blog first thing in the morning - even before their morning coffee! Even before peeing! Maybe I'm the only one who has to RUN to the bathroom when I wake up. Wow. I've got a bit of a stream of consciousness thing going on here.

So, anyway, Joel and I have three kiddos now. Three female kiddos. I said it outloud today (something about "my three daughters") and nearly hyperventilated. Three daughters! Oh how I pray that one of them becomes an absolute Twins fanatic for their dear long-suffering Daddy!

Kid #1: Marie, aged 4 years. Enjoys coloring, reading (being read to, rather), the great outdoors, coloring some more, pondering deep philosophical truths, asking approximately 2,156 questions each day, most of which I can't answer, eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and chili (which she has eaten for dinner three days in a row), and obsessing about various natural disasters and the probability that they will destroy our house. Marie is in her first year of pre-school and we're getting good feedback. She's been labeled by her teachers as a "rule follower". An all-around great kid.

Kid #2: And then there's Renee. She's 2 now and POTTY TRAINED. That's right, we only have one kid in diapers. Rock on with your bad self, Meehan family! Renee enjoys the finer things in life, such as thumb sucking, eating gum off of the underside of tables at restaurants, stripping down naked and running around outside (although, I must admit, I'd enjoy this too if it were socially acceptable), and carrying around a stuffed puppy that more closely resembles road kill than it does a cute fluffy canine. We love this girl.




Kid #3: Noelle is the latest (and probably last) addition to our brood. She's the peanut of the family. One week overdue and our smallest at 7lb 8oz. Also a solid pound lighter at her 2 month check-up than her big sisters were. At four months we're beginning to see that she's a bit of a social butterfly. And by this I mean that whenever she's left alone for .09 seconds she begins to shriek. The shrieking stops upon the reentry of any member of the family. Noelle loves her Mommy very much, as is evident by her 12-13 hours stretch of sleep at night.

So there ya go Mrs. Conklin. I blogged.

Oooh! A blog from Maggie! This doesn't happen very often! I definitely am not staying on top of this blogging thing. After three + years it is starting to lose some of its appeal. Plus, everyone is on facebook now so that's kind of taking the place of blogging for some of us. But, anyway, I thought I'd "blog" because we do have some pretty exciting news! We bought a house last week, and will close on August 31! The kiddos went to their grandparents' house for the week, and Joel and I looked at about a bazillion houses with a realtor (who was great, by the way!). So, what was supposed to be a relaxing mini vacation to celebrate my birthday and our anniversary, turned into a pretty big, unrelaxing, deal! But we're so glad that we found the house that we did and that we were able to do so while the kiddos were away. It definitely would've been much more difficult to house hunt without an empty nest for a week.

So, here are some photos! It's in a great location in Maple Grove, 3 bedrooms, 1600 square feet...nothing too big or fancy, but it's perfect for our little family! And as a bonus, we took Chad and Heidi over to see in on Sunday and there was a family out across the street with two little girls, and another one on the way (just like us!). Hopefully that'll be a lot of fun!

In other news, our 19 week ultrasound is tomorrow, but I guess it's not all that exciting because we're not going to find out the gender of the baby. Although, I am going to have the ultrasound tech write it down on a piece of paper, and then we'll immediately mail it to my friend, Traci Davies, who lives in Nashville. She really wants to know, and promised us a super cute gender-appropriate outfit after the baby is born. Oh, and she knows that if she tells me or anyone else what the contents of that envelope are, there will be serious repercussions. I'm threatening the health and well-being of her English Bulldog, Winston :-) I don't think I could ever make such an agreement with anyone who lived within a thousand miles of us.

Have a great month - because that'll probably be how long it is before I post again!

I love love love talking baby names, so when I saw on a friend's blog that the Social Security Administration has just come out with their stats on the most popular names of 2008, I had to check and see the status of Marie and Renee. We definitely try to stay out of the top 50(certainly the top 10), but have not intentionally stayed this far out. I really like our kids' names, but apparently not everyone feels the same way!

However, I have heard a few more Marie's lately. One of Joel's co-workers is naming his unborn daughter Marie, and we've run into a few at the grocery store. For the most part they are 60+. I'm kind of surprised that Marie hasn't made more of a comeback along with some other old-fashioned names that are suddenly cool again (Emma, Eleanor, Clara, Ava, Lucy etc.).


Popularity of the female name Renee
Year of birth / Rank
2008 / 734
2007 / 713
2006 / 580
2005 / 543
2004 / 476
2003 / 452
2002 / 418
2001 / 385
2000 / 362


Popularity of the female name Marie
Year of birth / Rank
2008 / 546
2007 / 557
2006 / 571
2005 / 508
2004 / 494
2003 / 506
2002 / 429
2001 / 403
2000 / 373

Here are a few that my mom took during her visit at the end of April. Once again, I forgot to take any photos of the girls with their Grammy. Sorry, Mom! We'll make up for it later this month when we come to Nebraska.

We fished all of Marie's old broken crayons out of her crayon box, and melted them in muffin tins in the oven at 350. They turned out like this, and are lots of fun for her to color with!

I really dislike blogging lately. Facebook just makes uploading and writing captions on photos so much easier, which is the main purpose for which I use this blog. I think blogger.com needs to make some changes if they want to keep up with the Joneses.


Some photos from our weekend with Chad & Heidi, at their cabin. Chad's family built this cabin with their own hands about 30 years ago. It was fun to see the land and the house that he grew up visiting, and to read the cabin's guest book, which dates back to around 1979! Weren't there dinosaurs back then?

Heidi is 23 weeks pregnant, for those of you who haven't heard. They are due around Labor Day (how appropriate!). She's quite a trooper! Still jogging, chopping wood, etc. She puts me to shame! Anyway, we had a terrific time. The highlight for me was definitely trudging through the muddy swamp land on Sunday morning with knee-high rubber boots. Joel and I (who are not experienced mud trudgers) got stuck several times. It was really a hoot!

Chad, Heidi & Joel planted 180 bushes and trees on Saturday to create a wind break on their land. It'll be fun to go back in a few years (if they'll have us) and see how they've grown!

Marie was very brave and climbed to the top of a deer stand with Uncle Chad. She also enjoyed "doing work" outside like hauling logs and planting pansies with Aunt Heidi, and picking wildflowers to make bouquets. What she didn't enjoy so much were the lovely wood ticks. In fact, I had to take her into the doctor this morning to get a tick head removed from her armpit! But she did great and the doctor told her that she was even braver than a 5 year old, which really made her smile.

"The whole goal of a baby's awake time is to bridge the gap as seamlessly as possible from one sleep event to the next."

A Joel quote from this evening. So true.

On that note, we are expecting another cute sleeping baby on 12/02/09.

From a couple of months ago. Marie has about half of her books memorized, which is nice because she can "read" them to herself! This is an excerpt from Fancy Nancy's Favorite Fancy Words.


"I have a knack for mixing and matching ensembles. Take it from me, lavender works with almost anything....

Now can I watch it?"

Renee doing her pig impression:





And here she is going going nuts:





And being cute:





Sweet:










Cereal Box puzzle:





Our favorite time - Story Time:





My french braiding skills are a little rusty:





Joel & Renizzle dancing:





And a few from their birthday party last month: