Magic of the Beach

The beach is a magical place. 

People go to the beach for vacation. Entire cities are built around the commerce of tourist. There is something about the beach that is peaceful and relaxing.

Whether you are playing or laying, being at the beach always creates memories.

The anticipation of going to the beach brings thoughts of sand castles and wave jumping. 

There is so much fun to be had during a day at the beach. Searching for little critters scurrying across the sand.  Creating tiny homes in the sand for them to live. Begging to take them home only to have them die in the car on the way.

After leaving the beach, the beach stays with you. The sound of the waves crashing and the people laughing. The sand in your hair and in other places. Most of all the memories with family and friends of time spent at the beach are some of the best memories of all.




Beach

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Each baby brings a different type of HOPE

I have been overwhelmed with love, joy and HOPE after the birth of each of my babies. 

Everyone has those feelings, of course. But the timing and way each one changed our world also brought a different type of HOPE to our eyes.

1999 Connor Patrick HaddiganSos

Connor was our first, we weren't young or newly married. So bringing our first baby into the world should not have been completely overwhelming. The enormous overwhelming love after seeing your first baby for the first time is so far beyond words. The HOPEs and dreams we had for him started months before he was born. As he developed his own personality and his own HOPEs, we soon realized that our hopes could only be for his happiness and that became enough.

2007 Logan Edward Haddigan                                                         2007 Riley William Haddigan

When Logan and Riley came into our lives HOPE was kind of the only thing we had. When your babies are born 3 months early after having fetal surgery at 18 weeks and being on bed rest for the remainder of the pregnancy, what else is there?  These two helpless tiny babies showed us just how precious life is and that each day is a gift. We had to leave them everyday in the care of other people, we had to HOPE that they would be okay. When Riley died  days later, our HOPE might have died with him. We were beaten, broken, we were feeling hopeless. Until, two days later, Logan had lifesaving heart surgery. We were again HOPEful. HOPEful for his survival, his future and strength.

After Riley's death, we were so beaten. We had Logan and we loved him so much. We were so thankful that he was strong and healthy and alive. But we were all so devastated by Riley's death that it became hard to really breathe. 

2011 Liam Joseph Haddigan

With Liam's birth HOPE was alive! Liam brought all of us the chance to believe in happiness again. Liam made us HOPEful for the future. Let us believe that everything would be okay and that we would be happy.

Hope is a crazy thing.

Without HOPE I'm not sure where I'd be.

Today's daily post prompt Hope

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The Power of Music

There is something magical about music. Music has the ability to transport you back 30 years and put in a moment that you might have otherwise forgotten about.

I recently heard the song "I can't drive 55".  In an instant, I was eleven years old and in my mom's car as she was FLYING down the street. This as a 35 MPH road and my mom was BARRELING down  at 55MPH. It was as though she was in a moment of her own. She sang at the top of her voice, because of course the radio was turned ALL THE WAY UP. This moment was burned somewhere for some reason into my long term memory. Maybe I was frightened for my life. Maybe I was mortified, I was a preteen after all. Whatever the reason, I'm so glad it was! 

I have tons of memories from my childhood that revolve around music. 

I was lucky enough to have parents with great taste in music. A typical Saturday consisted of my mother cleaning and watering plants while dancing with the stereo blasting the Beatles or Pink Floyd. These were the days when the bigger the speaker the better the experience. The wood floors vibrated. It was good stuff!

Memories revolving around music seem to be so happy. 

I remember laying on the floor of my grandparents house with my grandfather. They had a floor model stereo. It had a small red power light indicator on the front at the floor. I remember my grandfather 
putting his finger over that light. Watching his finger glow, I was amazed.

My husband and I drove 12 hours to Florida for a visit. We were in our 20s with no kids and thought nothing of heading out of town for a short visit. The return drive home just a couple of days later was painful. We were both exhausted. We resorted to listening to Kool and the Gang to stay awake. To this day, every time I hear "Celebration" I smile thinking of that road trip.

Music is incredibly powerful. 

I need to play more music. Maybe this Mother's Day weekend, I'll have my mom dance around and clean my house. My kids' reactions will be priceless, as will the memory.

The prompt for today from The Daily Post on WordPress is “music.”
Music

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Scars

I have a few visible scars from being a reckless tomboy. I mean you can only swing your tire swing off of the top of the doghouse into the house so many times without enduring a few scrapes.

The majority of my scars are internal. My scars have changed me deeply.

Although most people can't see my scars, the people who know me best can certainly see them.

• My distant stare while I'm reenacting a moment from the past - before my scars.
• The way I almost always avoid twins.
• The way I tense up whenever I hear an ambulance

My scars will never heal. 

There are others with scars similar to mine. Those that share the same heartbreak of loosing a child. We all find a way to put one foot in front of the other, to put on a happy face so that others don't feel awkward. 

I wish that the only scars I had were externally. Life would be quite different.

Scars

Scars

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N - Newtons Laws

The opportunity to use more eggs has presented itself!! OH JOY!!





We worked on Newton's Laws - well, we did some tricks experiments involving inertia, motion and gravity.

Trick #1 Experiment #1

You'll need:

• Eggs NOT BOILED
• Paper plate
• Toilet paper tube
• Glass of water
• Willing participant

Here's Logan performing our trick:

He was really proud of himself, and he SHOULD be! It was pretty cool!

Trick #2 Experiment #2

You'll Need:

• Bottle
• a dollar
• A stack of quarters

Here's the amazing Logan performing our trick:

That was cool, right?!

If you want to do these tricks with your kiddos, here's a YouTube video explaining Newton's first three laws and how they were demonstrated during these tricks experiments.

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L for Levitating....sort of...

What kid isn't into magic tricks?

Liam who is 5 is delusional, and completely believes that what he is seeing is real - its a pretty terrific place to be i would imagine.

Logan is 8 and he is a realist. This kid has a NEED to figure out how and why. He tends to burst Liam's bubble regularly. Its tough being the little brother.

I found this trick on YouTube, the link is below if you want to check it out. The magician is pretty cool, all of his tricks are geared for kids!

You'll Need:

• clear cup (one you can put a hole on each side)
• fishing line
• rope
• paper clip

We have a cup that has hooks on the side for a handle, so I used that to tie the fishing line to and it worked great!

PREPARE TO BE AMAZED!!

Start off by telling the kiddos that   watch the video...

Neither of them would tell the story, so I had to narrate...

So, Liam COMPLETELY believed that we had gotten an invisible Genie...he's such a little dreamer!

When Dad got home from work, they fought over who would show him the trick! It was great!

Let me know if you do this with your kids and if they LOVE it, I know they will!!

Here is the YouTube Video I promised you.

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M? Making Milk Magical...

I have seen these tricks on Pinterest but have never tried them myself...UNTIL NOW!!!

These were so easy and so rewarding because Liam did the entire thing himself and was ASTONISHED!!!

FIRST TRICK - MAKE THE PEPPER RUN!!

You'll Need:

• Pepper
• Milk
• Bowl
• Dish Soap
• Excited Kiddo - at least one!

 Step one:

Pour the milk

 Step two:

Shake in a bunch of pepper....he liked this already!

Step three:

Insert your index finger - NOTHING HAPPENS

Step four:

While distracting your audience with some magic words and hand waving, dab a little soap on the index finger of the free hand (I put a few drops on the small lid beside the bowl).



Dip your finger in and TA-DA! The pepper runs like boys from soap!

SECOND TRICK - MAKE COLORS RUN!!

You'll Need:

• Milk
• Plate
• Paint
• Dish Soap
• Eager Kiddo

 Step One:

Pour the Milk

Step two:                                                   Add the colors                                                     - food coloring or watercolors

 Step three:

Admire your beautiful artwork!

 Step four:

Add a drop or two of dish soap

Wait for the OOOOOs and AHHHs

Liam said,"OH WOW!!! THAT'S SO COOL!!"

And then......

added more soap - because if one drop was cool surely more would be AMAZING!!

Let me know if you do these tricks and what your kiddos think! 

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J - Jumping Beans!!

This one is ridiculously simple and cool. I know you'll have everything you need.

You'll Need

• foil
• marble
• a jar

 See, I told you!

Cut a small piece of foil.

Put the marble on one side.

Fold over both ends.

Place it in the jar. Shake it up...this will alert the kids. They come running and want to know whats happening....

"I'm training my jumping beans!"

Oh, boy they went crazy...I took them out and showed them how they move out of control.

Liam thought they were real, he was very disappointed to find out they weren't really alive.

Logan had to know what was causing it, he's a thinker, he wants to know about everything! 

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