Latest Maher Family Picture

This is one of the latest pictures of all of the kids, from the beginning of October. Rose was 7 months old here, and of course Bridget is 2, Anna 4, and Ian 6.

Rose Is Home

Rose came home on Friday, March 6th. Ellen ended up back in the hospital that day and night, because of high blood pressure, but she was able to come home Saturday afternoon and join our beautiful baby.

She is doing very well. Her sleeping schedule is, of course, a little different than ours, so we're suffering from some sleep deprivation, but really, so far it hasn't been that bad. If we can feed her and get her to bed around midnight, she's been waking up just once around 3am, and then sleeping again until 7 or so. Or a couple of times it's been more like feedings at 1am, 5am, and 9am, but either way, with Ellen and I trading off we've been able to get at least a little bit of rest, which has been good.

We look forward to each day that we spend with her, as she continues to grow and change. The other kids love her, and are doing really well with her so far. A little in her face at times, but really as good as we could have expected from them. Even Bridget just watches her in fascination with a huge grin on her face, like she's some kind of animated doll.

Rose Katherine

So, after much debate, we have decided on the spelling of Rose's middle name - we're going with the "K", for Katherine. There is definitely some debate about how my grandmother’s name was really spelled (it was C on her son Jack’s birth certificate and her marriage certificate, but K on her husband's death certificate, in the family tree book, and on her gravestone); we think it might have been C officially, but that was either a mistake when she was born or she just liked the K better. Either way, it seems clear that SHE spelled it that way, so we went with that. Plus, I like that the initial “K” sounds like my grandmother's nickname, Kay, and a couple of people pointed out that Rose C. sounds like “Rosie”, which I don’t like as much (although it seems inevitable that some people will call her that anyway, and I've even caught myself doing it a couple of times). So that, plus 90% of you saying you liked the “K” better, and we went with it. I think Ellen still prefers the "C" better, for what it's worth, but since Rose is her grandmother's name, she kindly deferred to me on the middle name.

Lastly, an update on Rose's health. She is doing great, but because she had some oxygen saturation problems over the weekend, the hospital has decided to keep her for observation, probably for the rest of the week. We were sorry to leave the hospital without her, but we're glad that she is getting good care, and will feel much more comfortable when we do get her home knowing that she is strong and healthy. She has been moved to a hospital closer to us, so that will make it much easier to visit while she stays in the special care nursery for the next few days.

Pictured: Rose with her grandmother, and her very proud big sister.

Rose Catherine (Katherine?)

We have a new baby girl! Rose came a month early, but Mom and baby are doing well. We're pretty sure she'll be named Rose Catherine, but we're also considering the Katherine (with a "K") spelling. It's my grandmother's name, and apparently she did spell it with a K. Still, the C is nice too. We're going to have to sleep on it. Feel free to chime in with your vote.

Here are a few initial pictures from Rose's first day:

Newly born in the Operating Room
















Nicely Wrapped
















The Happy Family

My Aquarium

This is a picture of my 10 Gallon freshwater aquarium. I had this tank when I was a kid, and it sat for many years in my parents' basement, until I had kids of my own and decided to pull it out and set it back up. When I was younger, I had blue gravel, a few plastic plants, and a plastic octopus/diver ornament. This time I went for something a little more realistic, with natural gravel, rocks, and driftwood.


Those of you who know aquariums can probably tell that I stuck with the plastic plants for now, mostly because the lights that I have are incandescent. But I think that for a non-planted aquarium, this looks pretty good.

The Fish

This tank currently houses the following fish:
1 Sunburst Wagtail Platy
2 Tequila Sunrise Guppies
4 Pristella Tetras
3 Neon Tetras
2 Otocinclus Catfish

Let me know if you have any thoughts on my fish tank. I have another small tank at my office, a 2.5 Gallon Mini-Bow aquarium with 4 Harlequin Rasboras, and an Amazon Sword plant, which is so far doing well. I'll post about that tank another time...

Ian The Engineer

Ian got the Lego "Skeleton's Prison Carriage", part of their castle series, for his birthday from the Nolans. We put it together according to the directions, but of course it was soon taken back apart, because Ian loves to make up his own creations, which of course is the beauty of Legos.

You can see the original carriage here.

Here is what Ian created today, using just some of the parts from the carriage:

As you can see, it's similar to the original carriage, but also very different. You can't even see the little white barrel pieces on the bottom of the inside of the carriage, which Ian says are the "gas tanks". And the chains attached under the spears on the front go through the inside of this vehicle, and attach at the back.



And here is the "Skeleton Tower", given to him by his Auntie Joanne, which we completed together the other day. I've been very impressed with Ian while building this. I've mostly not helped him at all, except just to keep him focused and moving from step to step. Otherwise, he's been looking at the pictures in the instructions and putting it together all by himself. He's even able to tell from the picture where the pieces go, even when part of the piece is obscured by another piece in the picture.

Next in line is building the castle. It's only 973 pieces. Shouldn't be a problem for Ian.

Updated Family Pictures

Okay, so to start things off, I know that a number of people have been wanting to see some updated pictures of the family. We've had some computer problems for over a year now that have largely prevented us from uploading new pictures to the web, but we just recently upgraded our computer, and we're back in business. Without further ado, here is a recent picture of Anna and Bridget, taken on Easter:



And here is one of Ian, caught in the act of putting a baseball hat on Bridget, back when she was wearing her corrective helmet. Clearly, he's a good influence on his sister Anna, although she's learned a few tricks on her own...



That's it for now. Check back again soon for more pictures, and stories of the kids' antics. Thanks for visiting.

Revised Blog

This blog was originally created to serve my extended family on my Mom's side (Maher, MacPhee, and Gibbs families), but unfortunately, people are busy, and that idea never quite seemed to materialize. At the same time, I found myself too busy to make regular updates to our Maher Clan website, so I have decided to reorganize this blog as a way for us to easily share stories and photos about our family, without the headache of building and updating web pages. Eventually, I'd like to rework the Maher Clan main site and focus more on the extended Maher family, the history of the name, and other things that aren't necessarily news about our immediate family. I hope you like the change - it should allow us to keep you more up to date on the kids, etc. Feel free to comment on any posts - we'd love to hear from you!