The McGinnis Family

Ceirnan Ray McGinnis was born on November 30 th , 2009. She has grown so much over the last year and we are so proud of her. She's been through a lot and yet she is growing and thriving. She's so smart. She is walking all around the house and can say Mama, Daddy, and BraBra (brother). She has even started climbing onto things. She's excited and we are thrilled for her too. She laughs a lot. She claps her hands. She loves to dance. She is a girly -girl through and through right now. She will pick something with flowers or ruffles whenever she gets a chance. She loves her baby doll and her stuffed duck, Quackers . Most of all she loves her brother and spends most her days right on his heals. She has brought much joy to our lives and we are so grateful to have her. She is one determined little girl. For those of you who are wondering, her arm and her hand are okay. She still doesn't have full use of her hand, but she compensates well. She can pick things up with it a

It's been a great few weeks. CJ, Ceirnan, and Mama managed to sneak in a trip to Kansas City for Aunt Alycia and Uncle Eric's baby shower. We had a great time and spend Sunday at the pumpkin patch. There were tons of rides and things for the kids to do. Mama even got her face painted too. The pictures above are from our adventure that day. This weekend we spent Saturday on a fabulous nature walk through Susquehana State Park. It was beautiful. CJ loved looking for leaves and running around. Ceirnan enjoys the wind on her face. Daddy and Mama just enjoy the quiet and spending time all together.

I guess I'm officially blogging once a month now. Life just continues to get crazier and crazier as we deal with work, school, preschool, church, etc. That being said the McGinnis family is still finding time to have a good time. Most of you know that the month started off with a trip down to Disney. The pics above are from breakfast at Chef Mickey's. We had a wonderful time meeting all the characters. Ceirnan found Donald a bit suspect though and proceed to cry any time he came by. Overall though, it was a great experience and I would highly recommend it for anyone who brings their kids to Disney World. You have to get reservations far in advance though unless you are really lucky (like we were thank goodness). We spent time at Magic Kingdom , Animal Kingdom, and Epcot. I wish we had more time available, but I had a conference so we had to limit our time a bit. We came back to celebrate Casey's birthday and had a wonderful time doing it. Case received some fun gifts and

Here we are almost to the end of September. The time just continues to fly by so quickly. The first two weeks of the month were certainly crazy as we adjusted to new schedules. I think we've all finally hit our stride though. Here are a few milestones for the month. CJ started pre -school again. He is now adding simple numbers like 5+1. He can write most of his numbers and about half of his letters. He knows the names of his soccer skills (passing, dribbling, and shooting) and is getting really good at all of them. Ceirnan is pulling herself up to stand. She will take several steps holding onto our fingers. She's even beginning to climb. (We are not that excited about this one. LOL !) She's saying Mama on a regular basis now and is really trying to get out Dada (come out Baba ). She's picking up and eating Cheerios like a pro. Casey is doing great in school. He's keeping up with all of his school work and has received excellent grades on the few things he's ha

Wow! What an end to a crazy and fun summer. We had a blast this summer spending time together as a family, enjoying some new places, and celebrating some exciting important events in the lives of our friends. The kids have explored the outdoors, spent plenty of time in the water, endured the right number of bug bites, ate enough watermelon for a whole town, and have grown like weeds. Ceirnan has begun to walk holding on to our hands or occasionally furniture, and CJ is getting great at sounding out words and writing his letters. We've celebrated CJ's birthday, Ceirnan's baptism, and the birth of two new "cousins" Lena and Olivia. We had a great time on a trip to Kansas City, a weekend getaway with Aunt Cherie in DC, a wonderful visit with Nana and Pop Pop in July, and are now finishing up with another two week visit with Pop Pop. We played in a waterfall, relaxed in our hammock, and laughed more than we've cried. It's been a great summer. For those that di

We had a wonderful trip down to DC this last weekend. We met up with Aunt Cherie in Baltimore and spent the afternoon on the Baltimore waterfront. We then headed down to DC for a few relaxing days. We had a great time walking through the zoo, taking a night tour of the monuments, and showing Aunt Cherie around where we used to live. The food was great. The weather was great. The company was great. We could not have asked for a better time!

You can see the kids absolutely love the outdoors. Ceirnan is a water baby for sure. CJ is more into setting things up than relaxing in the pool. He is definitely his mother's child. They have really enjoyed getting the opportunity to play more after Mama gets home from work. It's still light here until around 9pm.

Wow! Summer is flying by so quickly. I can't believe we're coming up on the end of July already. It's been filled with swimming, hiking, backyard BBQ, smores , and Popsicles . You know...all the important stuff. The kids are loving it as are we! This past weekend was our 11 th wedding anniversary. We decided to celebrate by taking the kids to Kilgore Falls. It's a little known swimming hole with a beautiful waterfall. A quick half-a-mile hike down through the woods and you are there. It's really beautiful and not very crowded at all. CJ and Casey hiked up to the top of the falls and we all get the opportunity to swim. For those of you who love things like this checkout www.swimmingholes.org. CJ enjoyed helping some bigger boys build a dam and climbing on the rocks. Ceirnan just enjoyed sitting in the cool water with Mama. The heat index that day was over 100 degrees, but by the falls it felt like it was in the 70s. It was an amazing day.

Seriously...I know. I know. I'm a terrible blogger. I just get so behind. Things here are good. We have had a lovely summer. It seems to be going by too quickly. Pop Pop and Nana were just here for CJ's birthday. It's hard to believe my baby is 4-years-old. He is just getting smarter and smarter each day. He's working on his addition and subtraction, which he can do pretty well if we use people as examples. He has even started the process of reading. He's sounding out words and moving his finger under the words as we read. It's pretty exciting to see him really begin to take off. Ceirnan is also doing great. She's starting the process of walking as long as we're still holding on to her. She's lifting herself up to stand on occasion. Ceirnan really isn't into crawling at all, but neither was CJ . Anyway, here are some pics of CJ on his birthday. He is ready for his baseball debut, thanks to Daddy and Uncle Eric. Ceirnan even got in on the ac

Well, we made it. We took our first across country car trip. The kids were amazing. I was so impressed. We actually had a really great time traveling with them. We drove from Delaware to Kansas City via Kentucky on the way out and then Kansas City to Delaware via Ohio on the way back. We really had a good time. It was our best Kansas City trip ever except that Grandma was sick so we didn't get to spend nearly enough time with her. We just had so many fun adventures. On the first day we stopped at a state park in West Virginia and CJ got to feed some huge carp. The next day we got to stop and see Michael, Sarah, Abby, and Evan on the way to Kansas City. Evan and CJ had a wonderful time. Poor Abby was too sick to play, but I did get a chance to read her a few books. Then we got to stop at Shakespeare's for pizza. YEAH!!!!! We got to Kansas City and had a wonderful picnic with family and friends. We visited the Kansas City Zoo with PopPop and cousin Nevaeh. I was amazed by the cha

I can't believe how fast the time flies. CJ will be four in less than two months. Ceirnan will be 6 months old in twelve days. How fast time is going. I just want to wrap them up and keep them small for just awhile longer. It's exciting to see all the changes though. CJ is just so smart and he keeps getting smarter everyday. He's funny and his classmates just love him. He's so kindhearted and sensitive. In the picture above, he's wearing his birthday crown for school. Since he has a summer birthday, he celebrated last week by bringing in cookie bars. He was very proud of himself. Needless to say, this has prompted birthday fever in the house as he begins to plan his Mickey party and comb the catalog for present ideas. Ceirnan had another big moment this week. She began eating cereal for the first time. She was extremely excited and wanted to use the spoon herself. She spent the whole day giggling and looking proud of herself. She absolutely loved it. She also fi

This week CJ's school had a family day in the park. It turns out CJ is quite the little ladies man. If you look closely above, CJ and Bella are walking together to the slide. The top photo is CJ and all the girls. It was fun to see him there interacting with his peers. He has made a good friend named Nick that he loves to play with. The two of them are hilarious. Bella is a favorite as are Avery, Brooke, Noah, and Gabe. Truth be told, I don't think CJ has ever met a child he doesn't like. Cerinan came with us too and had a good time watching the big kids play. She keeps hitting milestones and it's hard to believe how fast she is growing. She began rolling both ways this week and is scooting on her belly a bit. She started holding her own bottle for part of her feeding this week too. She definitely thinks she is a big girl now. We had a picnic and watched the kids play. On the way home, we ran into a local creamery and stopped for ice cream. We could not have asked