Ryan laughing

Maire made this little video (with her iPod, so I'm sorry for the poor quality) of Ryan laughing:

Big Blue

After searching for nearly 6 months, we finally found a van that will seat all of us, was in our price range, AND isn't white! Yay! Meet Big Blue (AKA "The Bluebonnet"):



Everyone was eager to explore and try her out. Patrick doesn't look excited, but he was. ;)


Haha, very funny, guys...now where's my carseat?


Of course, being in the driver's seat is always the best! Ciaran was having fun with it...he was a bit of a tyrant about letting anyone else have a turn.


Intensity, thy name is Declan...


Smiles! Just waiting for that other front tooth to fall out...


And since he wasn't looking for the last pic...one of Rowan smiling, too. ;)


Hmm...just noticed the girls never made an appearance. Maybe they weren't as excited as I thought, LOL. Or maybe pretending to drive just isn't their cup of tea these days. ;)

Tummy time!

Ryan isn't a fan of tummy time, but he loves the colorful quilt Grandma made for him! Tummy time goes better on Grandma's quilt. ;) Look, he's almost smiling in one of the pics, LOL.

Ryan talking

Untitled from Aislinn Mellor on Vimeo.

Funny Ciaran

Just walked in on Ciaran sitting on a stool with his stuffed cat. He had his shirt pulled up and was talking to the cat. "Oh, you're hungry?" Cat says, "Meow, meow!" Ciaran says, "Here, you have some Ciaran milk!" Cat says, "No, I want Mommy milk!" Ciaran says, "No, you don't get Mommy milk...you get Ciaran milk! Try it for ONE minute!" and then the cat got smothered up to his chest and stopped complaining, LOL. So funny to listen to him doing the cat's "voice".

Recognizing the little things

In my efforts to be better about blogging more regularly, I thought I'd start with something I was reminded of today. It's all about the little things with our children. Curtis and I took Ciaran and Ryan with us to Costco this afternoon. Ciaran sat in the shopping cart and really did a great job of listening and not trying to climb out or make a scene as he sometimes is prone to doing. When we got to the checkout, he stayed in the cart and went on the "cart side", while Curtis and I (and Ryan, in his sling) went on the "member side". As the cashier was ringing us up, I heard Ciaran, who was separated from us by the conveyor belt, etc, whimper, "Mommy...Mommy...I want you." The cashier smiled at him and told him that we were right there and I smiled and waved at him and said, "You're okay, Ciaran...they're going to push you through to us in a minute!" He looked at me, and his lower lip trembled, and his big blue eyes were looking puddly, but he didn't cry. He faced forward again and lowered his eyes and sat there quietly until we were done and they pushed him through. He perked up right away as soon as he saw us and we were headed out the door, of course. It could have ended there. He was done being sad and all was well, but it occurred to me that what had just happened was a big thing for him. He was sad, he wanted his mom and dad, and it was hard for him to sit there and wait, but he did it! He didn't cry, like it was obvious he wanted to. He was able to control himself and he did! So I told him how proud I was of what he had done. I pointed out that he was nervous (and he said he was scared) and I told him he had done a great job hanging in there and waiting for the scary part to be over. After we talked about it, he got very animated and said, "Yes! I am brave! I did that hard thing!" That moment reminded me that when we point out and praise the little things, we give our kiddos tools to handle the bigger things down the road. He knows that he is brave and he knows that he can handle things that seem overwhelming to him at the time. Hopefully he'll never forget that...and we'll keep reminding him, of course. Anyway, not an earth shattering blog, but something I want to remember! ;)

Ryan Douglas

A few days ago, I was looking through my blog for the sugar cookie recipe I knew I had posted and I was getting caught up in old posts about things I didn't even remember and I realized I should REALLY be better about blogging for my own sake! I figured I'd start with a few pics of our newest little family member, Ryan Douglas Mellor, who was born 10/21/11...5 weeks early by emergency c-section, much to our chagrin. We are so excited to have him, though! He's a delightful little baby who smiles and is working hard to gain weight.