Catching up

This will be a two post day- I just published a post that I started when I was still pregnant but I can't delete it- it's unfinished but those are memories I will cherish someday! Life is SO GOOD in the Dolan house. We welcomed Rose Kelly Dolan (Rosie) on January 9th, weighing in at 8lb 14oz and looking just like her sisters! We get a lot of comparisons to her and Molly but we think there's a lot of Maegan in there too, and a little bit of Anna Kate. She's a wonderful baby and we are all enjoying her and life to the fullest. She was an amazing sleeper at first, giving me 5 and 6 hour stretches but she's normalized now and sleeps about 3 hours between feedings. She's just about 3 months old and growing so fast- at 2 weeks she was 9lb 2 oz (75%) and 20 3/4 in (80%) and at her 2 month check up she was 12 lb 8 oz (97%) and 22 1/2 inches (75%). We do know how to grow them! :) She's a strong little girl and just this week started using her jumperoo. She loves to bounce! And it's the perfect way to talk, smile and gaze at her big sisters. The girls have adjusted perfectly to having a baby. They are all very helpful and quick to do anything I ask them, and Maegan loves to walk around and keep Rosie happy. Her arms get tired quickly though! Maegan has just started her 2nd season of little league softball and is learning to be a catcher. Molly and Anna Kate start soccer this week and they are both very excited! Here's a few pics of Rosie and her sisters:

Just born:

Being admired by sisters:

One month:

Getting big! 2 1/2 months:

It's fall and...

it's only been a few months since my last post! The weather is getting cooler and things are starting to get busy in a great way around here! The craziness of school starting/soccer season has given way to excitement about the holidays, and the arrival of baby sister. We've been looking forward to this time for awhile- with Anna Kate being born January 3rd we knew exactly what we were getting when we found out that our baby is due January 12th- it's a wonderful Halloween, Thanksgiving, out of town family comes home, Christmas, BABY! Having a baby right after the holidays is fabulous- makes that third trimester fly by. I'm 31 weeks pregnant now and my c-section is scheduled for January 9th. She's moving and growing like crazy, and I'm savoring every moment just in case this is our last baby. The girls marvel every time we talk about her size and read the weekly updates about her- we're all trying to figure out just how a 16" long person that weighs about 3 pounds fits into my belly. It just doesn't seem possible to any of us! Maegan loves to talk to her; she moves almost every time she hears Maegan's voice! I think I'm carrying her a bit lower than the other girls and I'm curious to see if she continues to stay low. I've had regular chiropractic care this time and I wonder if that's the reason. The school year is going well for all 3 girls. We had conferences a couple weeks ago and left feeling a little inflated at how well they are all doing :) Molly's teachers said she should just be in kindergarten, Anna Kate's teacher asked us if we'll ever have anything but easy kids (don't jinx us!) and Maegan's teacher just loves Maegan. Maybe she could talk a little less though, Mrs. Lucas suggested. Soccer season is finally over, Maegan was the only one playing this fall. It was on her top 3 activities to do this year and unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?) this was her career ending season. It's just not for her! She is loving her piano lessons and seems to be doing very well. She and Anna Kate are taking softball lessons every other week from Aunt Hallie and they are both looking forward to playing little league in the spring. Molly and Anna Kate are both taking gymnastics and enjoying it very much. Our schedule right now is lovely- I can't complain at this point about having kids that are over-involved!

It's time for an update! Yep, it's been a year. I'm not surprised :) I doubt anyone else even reads this anymore but it's turned into quite a nice little journal to print out for my three lovely ladies, and even if I only post once per year, that's great! What brought me back here will have me hopefully posting more than once per year because.... Baby GIRL number FOUR is on the way!!! We found out in May, told the girls at the end of June, and last week on August 17th found out that we have another precious little girl joining our family sometime around the first week of January, 2013. I'm 19 weeks pregnant right now, and feeling so blessed. The big girls are over-the-top excited to have a baby. They've prayed for this for a long time and I'm so thankful to God for answering our prayers! Maegan started 3rd grade last week. She is loving it so far! Soccer starts tomorrow and she'll begin piano lessons next week, which she is very excited about. Anna Kate started 1st grade last week and is also loving it. She began gymnastics last week and has enjoyed practicing. She still works hard to be good at whatever she does. Molly started 4 year old preschool last week. She goes four mornings each week for 2.5 hours. Which leaves me feeling a little lost and sad without my baby at home! She also started gymnastics and is having quite a good time. Here are a few recent pics: Our precious baby girl- profile shot: In this ultrasound photo she has her two arms held up in front of her face, it's my favorite shot! Maegan and Anna Kate's first day of school: Molly's first day of school: This is how we told the girls that "it's a girl!" Pink cupcakes: And just a cute pic of them from this summer at Brookfield Zoo:

Our summer

Here is a glimpse of our summer in pictures! Today is our last day- school starts tommorrow!

Anna-Kate lost her first tooth!


Being cute at a wedding reception


Arrived at Hilton Head!


Eclairs, yum!


Going on a pirate cruise


Molly goofing off


Maegan holding a sand dollar


Cousins Maegan age 8, Ellie age 8, Lindsay age 6, Anna-Kate age 5.5, Molly age 3.5

It's been awhile!

I am embarrassed that it's been a year since I've updated here! I'd like to say I've kept a handwritten journal for my girls of this past year's happenings, but sadly I haven't. Thankfully, we have pictures to document even if we don't have words.
We are in the final weeks of school now- Anna-Kate finishes preschool on Friday. It's hard to believe that she can be done with preschool and onto kindergarten already. She loves school and dance class, where she tries really hard to get all of the steps right, and also enjoys soccer. She's pretty good too!
Maegan's last day of 1st grade is next week. She is very ready to be a 2nd grader and turn 8 in just over a month. She's looking forward to big things in 2nd grade- like First Communion and possibly a teacher who serves hot chocolate for the 1st snowfall!
Molly is certainly hoping this summer goes fast because she is so excited to FINALLY get to start preschool. She is very sad when she has "no one my age to pway wif." Molly's also just completed two sessions of gymnastics, where she did lots of fancy falling moves off of the balance beams, and is now moving onto dance class with her big sister, Anna-Kate. Maegan still participates in gymnastics and has almost completed level 1. She can do a pretty awesome handstand!
This summer will be filled with lots of playing in the sun (we're really looking forward to our family coming home!) soccer camps for Maegan and Anna-Kate (time to learn some actual skills) and Girl Scout camp and Camp Shalom for Maegan! Very exciting things, for Maegan especially!

Family pic, Easter 2011


Anna-Kate, age 5, with daddy in her new room


Molly, age 3 AND A HALF!


Baby bunnies! Maegan age (almost!) 8


Lots of girls in our neighborhood!


At the park this spring


After massive snowfall


Visiting Kansas City




Very serious Hawk fans!!!


At the beach, Summer 2010

Spring is near

What a long winter the Dolan girls have had! But with temperatures finally coming around, we are all looking ahead to spring- it's so near! Maegan's finally ditched the snow boots for her walk to the school bus, and I think in the next couple of days I'll put away the winter coats, in an effort to keep any cold weather gone for good :)
The first part of 2010 has been wonderful and our girls are growing up so fast. Maegan is still excelling in kindergarten. She reads well now, and has enjoyed learning addition and subtraction. They are now learning the values of coins and adding coins together and I think soon will start working on telling time! It's crazy what they learn in kindergarten. She's now taking an hour-long Spanish class after school on Thursdays, which she loves. It's taught by her teacher and it's kids in grades k-2 so she's getting to know a few "older" kids, which is great. She still enjoys riding the bus, but was very excited when I got to pick her up from school for the very first time a couple of weeks ago! I look forward to doing that more next year, as I won't be babysitting Ella anymore and will have more freedom.
Maegan and Anna-Kate are still enjoying their weekly gymnastics classes. Maegan is perfecting her round-off and it's quite good! She likes to do this in the living room which makes me think we should have made that room a bit bigger. Anna-Kate was able to start dance class in February and is excited to dance in her first recital! She took a couple of weeks to warm up, but I'm proud to say that last night it only took a couple minutes of adjustment before she was dancing like crazy. I'm excited to get to watch both of my girls on stage! Hard to believe in just another couple of years Molly could be up there too, and I'm sure she will be as she loves anything her sisters do!

As the school year winds down I'm already looking ahead to what next school year will bring. Anna-Kate is registered for 4 day preschool, so that means I will have time each week with JUST MOLLY! I'm not sure if I've said this here before but when I get time alone with Molly it's weird! She's always accompanied by at least one sister so I am so excited to have her to myself for awhile. We plan to take classes together- maybe music or something at the museum.
She's a very entertaining little girl and sure to be a future comedian or actress. She seems to know exactly when to make a silly voice or do something comical- I swear it's her God-given talent! If you haven't seen her lately, she really looks like a big girl now. She's as tall as Anna-Kate is and her hair is getting longer. No more baby Molly! I get asked a lot if she and Anna-Kate are twins???

me- Molly, you're so silly!
Molly- No, I not silly. I MOLLY!!!

This year all 3 girls are participating in their first Lenten promise! They've given up candy and are doing so well with that. Of course we made the stipulation that "candy" and "chocolate" are two very separate things so they are still allowed the occasional M&M. It's a good jumping off point, right?! It makes me so proud to hear them remind themselves of their promise when they are asking for candy.

We participated last month in the Disney "Give a day, get a day" program. We made 6 blankets for Project Linus (for children in the hospital or other stressful situations) and in turn got 3 one-day Disney passes! We look forward to using them the first week in August, when the whole Dolan clan goes down to Florida. Maegan and Anna-Kate are going to make their first flight without Mom or Dad- they are flying with Grandma and Auntie Kerin! Ryan, Molly and I will drive down, and then all 5 of us will drive back home. Should be FUN!

Some other fun facts:
Anna writes her name well now
Molly is sloooooooowly learning her colors. (Just ask her sisters about the "library incident")
Dorothy the fish passed onto a better place, which was terribly sad for Maegan and Anna-Kate and our toilet funeral did not go well.
Our new fish is named Rainbow Whitey, occasionally called Rainbow Cloudy and most of the time called Dorothy.
Maegan bought fake glasses at the mall, and she loves them.
Maegan learned how to do armpit and knee farts.
Molly finally learned how to open doors, which is good and bad.
All 3 girls are still horrible eaters. I give up!
Anna weighs 33 lbs.
Molly weighs 33 lbs.
Both wear size 8 shoe!
(See how simple my life is right now?)
All 3 girls love a book we recently bought of 100 Catholic Saints. They love hearing about St. Ann, St. Elizabeth, St. Paul and St. Patrick.
The girls are already excited for what will be in their Easter eggs this year.

Happy Spring!

Fall 2009

Today is day number 2 of no school. I'm kind of happy and kind of...not sure what we're going to do all day! It's bitterly cold out, which is too bad because there's a ton of lovely white snow that the girls are dying to play in. They played in it for a bit on Tuesday and I was so excited as we were getting ready because both Maegan and Anna-Kate can pretty much dress themselves in their snow gear! Dressing 3 girls to play in snow is no fun, so any help I can get is good
This fall has been a good one for our family. Maegan still loves every minute of kindergarten and we were both surpried when she was hoping for a snow day yesterday. But, she's a girl that loves staying in her jammies, making art projects and playing in the snow so snow days are exciting, even for her. Anna-Kate loves preschool and is so much more social than Maegan, we just eat it up. She comes home and tells us who she played with and what they did and can usually give us many details of her day. She is so excited for her birthday! I always get ahead of myself and start thinking my kids are their upcoming age way too soon, so to think she's just turning 4 kind of blows my mind. And add to that the fact that she speaks and acts like an 8 year old!
Molly is our funny girl. She makes us laugh constantly by acting like her sisters, and saying many funny things. I think she might be our future class clown! Her current favorite activity is "pway da ipod." Hearing my 2 year old ask for my ipod is just a little too much for me! Molly has been having some sleeping issues for around 6 weeks now. Most nights she struggles to go to bed and when/if she does go to bed in her own bed, she wakes in the middle of the night to come to our bed. However, last night she was struggling to go down and I promised her a sticker (on her hand, she insisted) if she stayed in bed all night, and she did! I'm shocked.

The biggest thing in our lives right now is that Maegan's best friend, Joey, was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia last week. As a mom, I've been waiting for something like this to happen. I assume it's natural- and I don't consider myself to be a worrier- to fear car accidents, serious illness, any life-changing event. And to know our friends are going through this is heartbreaking. We went to visit Joey on Monday, and that was nice. We just can't wait to have him back, and 100% healthy again.
Maegan was shy to Joey at first, because of his wheelchair. But after a litte time, she was better and even went for a ride with Joey! He took us to the 8th and 3rd floors of the hospital, showing us all his favorite spots.
Joey is coming home from Iowa City today, and we are so happy for him. Being in the hospital is no fun.

We've been working hard to make our den more organized and fun for the girls. I bought and painted a table, which is our new art table, we hung some shelves and painted a large chalkboard on the wall! It still needs to be trimmed, but the room looks great! I also painted a corner tv stand which is now their computer table. It's really coming together and not such an eyesore anymore!

I'm working on uploading some pictures, but having problems getting blogger to cooperate.

My apologies

I apologize to my loyal blog readers who have been made to wait so long! I've neglected you, and I'm sorry. :) I've decided to make this task simpler by writing a word update now, with picture update to come later.

Maegan's update-
Maegan, our beautiful kindergartner! I am adjusting to her being gone all day long, but I can't deny that it still does make me sad to not have her here. Don't get me wrong- the house is more peaceful, things stay cleaner longer and the art table, while tidy, lacks the life it used to have. Our house is just not the same without her here! She loves every minute of kindergarten. It worries me slightly that the only thing she can ever tell me she did each day was 3 recesses, snack, lunch, gym art or music, and rest time. Oh and sometimes they color. But I remind myself this isn't college, it's kindergarten and the academics will come...later this year i hope? She rides the bus to and from school each day which she loves and has a bus riding partner in Joey, who is the big brother (also in kinder.) of the little girl I babysit.
We made the decision a year and a half ago to keep Maegan from kindergarten last year and put her into pre-k, making her one of the oldest in her class. This concerned me but I was assured that it was best for social purposes, so we agreed. Fast forward to this year, and the packet of information we got about Maegan's kindergarten curriculum. The will focus on 2 sight words per week, with a total of 26 learned by the end of the year. I had maegan read through the list and the only sight word on the list that tripped her up was "seven." So, I'm feeling a little concerned about how they can keep her entertained and continue to build on her reading skills if she is already reading...we'll see what happens.

Anna-Kate's update:
Anna Kathryn, our gorgeous preschooler! School started this week for her, and both were short days so she was bummed she didn't get recess! A very disappointed Maegan sat on the playground and waited for her, because they will have recess at the same time some days. I thought that was very sweet!
She did great with preschool, aside from the first morning where I think her nerves got the best of her. She had a tummy ache but was all healed by the time we got to school, and she took off without a second glance. She already knows several of the kids in her class which is great for her.
Anna-Kate and Maegan are both doing gymnastics and hopefully dance this year. Anna-Kate is excited to be at the same gym Maegan is at and did really well in her first class last week.

Molly's update:
Molly, our loving little wild child! We've discovered that Molly has two personalities. The loud, pushy, cranky one that comes out when her sisters are around and the sweeter, quieter, softer one that comes when she's by herself with mommy or daddy. She is normally loud and very, VERY funny. One of her famous quotes from lately is:
Ryan- Molly, you're not funny.
Molly- I FUNNY!
Ryan- No, you're not funny.
Molly- (growly voice) I FUNNY!!!!!

She's very verbal for her age, I think. Maybe not quite as understood as Anna-Kate was but for the most part I can understand everything she says. She's recently learned how to jump, which is pretty funny to watch. She pretty much copycats everything her sisters do and say, which is also hilarious. For example, Anna-Kate will walk up and say something to me, and walk away. Molly follows right behind her, says the same thing in a garbled up Molly language, and walks away.
I can't believe my baby is almost 2! I'm not sure what kind of party she's going to have yet, but she really likes Mickey Mouse so I'm thinking we may go in that direction.