7QT: Angsty

Happy beginning of the long weekend, everyone! I thought I’d start off this Quick Takes with sharing some articles that have really made me think.

1. Over at Catholic Vote: How to become an annoying Catholic by Emily Stimpson.  Funny and thought provoking!

2. At NCR: Why the world doesn’t take Catholicism seriously by Matthew Warner.  Similar theme to that of Emily Stimpson’s piece, very well written with, as my Dad put it, a profound message.

3. And over at Catholic All Year, Kendra’s post about her making excuses game really struck me as a practical way that we mothers with young families can live authentic Catholic lives and raise saints just by playing a fun little game with our kids.  As an aside, I really like Kendra’s blog.  She’s a no-nonsense homeschooling mom of 6 with a lot of practical advice.  Sometimes, after reading more experienced mom blogs,  I feel like I need to quit this bloggy business because I clearly have nothing of value to contribute, I only add to the background buzz of young-mom angst.

4. Oh boy, speaking of angst, something has been getting into our garden!  It’s so sad, it was doing so well!  Two of our three baby tomato plants that were just starting to flourish just, poof, disappeared one afternoon!  And half of my sunflowers have been nibbled down to nubbins.  Whatever it is, it’s been trying to make a dent in the peas too, but they seem to be impervious to our dreaded foe.  Here are pictures of our progress from a week ago, before the enemy advanced.

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Alleluia, the enemy has not found my beautiful strawberries yet!

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I used some old cinderblocks to make planters for my herbs. Dave thought it was a very hipster idea.

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Ugh, please ignore the photographer and Daddy-with-baby shadows. And all the stupid helicopter stuff from the trees. Look at our little plants!

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The mighty peas.

5.  So, last summer when I was 3-5 months postpartum, I lost a tremendous amount of hair.  I know this is perfectly normal and I was warned that it would happen, but nothing really prepares you for the reality!  My hair has been slowly growing back in ever since and I’ve been impatiently watching the progress of my forehead fringe.IMG_1178

But!  This week when the humidity hit, it brought out all the other stragglers that were hiding underneath.  I had my hair up in a high messy bun all Tuesday and in the evening I was alarmed to see a very heavy fringe of exactly 4 inches of hair on the back of my neck!  I mean, really, it was a lot of hair, even Dave was alarmed!  Anyway, do you think I should embrace it and try an Elizabeth Bennet hair style?

 

No joke, I really have enough fringe to pull this off. Yeesh!

6. So, SK has started playing that fun game of find the bellybutton.  She loves showing hers off and then finding Mommy’s bellybutton (Daddy’s is weird; so much hair!).  Maybe I’m just hormonal, but this game practically brings me to tears!  I just can’t help but think about how Sara’s little bellybutton is a permanent, tangible reminder of the once physical link between the two of us, and how my bellybutton is the same reminder for me of my mom!  Ack, don’t look at me,

7. Whew, enough of the angst, Ellen! I hope everyone has fun and/or relaxing plans for the weekend!  We’re just sticking close to home and relaxing over here.  Dave is pretty burnt out from work lately so he just wants to veg and I’m always game for that plan.  We’ll probably work a little more on our chair and try to revive our garden a little.  Of course, I’ll be thinking of our vets this weekend, especially our beloved McGrandpa, who was a WWII vet.  God Bless all of the service men and women who sacrifice so much for our country! 

For less broody takes, head back to Conversion Diary and say hi to soon-to-be-published Jen!

Photobooth Dump

I got my first Macbook when I started my senior year of college, in the fall of 2006.  Seeing as I was a silly college student with oodles of time on my hands, my favorite feature of my new mac was the photobooth. Fast forward 7 years and all of these silly selfies from my college days to the present are still on my mac.  Occasionally I’ll scroll back through the pictures and it’s like taking a walk back in time.  It always felt very immature and narcissistic taking these pictures at the time, but now I’m so glad to have this scrapbook that spans most of my 20′s.  I thought I’d share a few with you if you’d care to see. :)

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Duty night in the Marian Hall RA office. Rachael and I are so hot and so cool.

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Something about this mode makes one’s acne not so apparent and one’s eyelashes super foxy. Obviously, this was my facebook profile pic way back in the day.

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3 things. 1. Jimmy is so wittle! 2. Sister Theresa Joseph went a little crazy with the tweezers. 3. Unfortunate adolescent skin.

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Winter formal hair.

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Me and baby Joey!

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Therese and I are overwhelmed by the thought of impending graduation and real life looming.

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 Dr. Mike & Sully 4 evah

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Mary and I were roomies for two years before I got married. And we loved each other ;)

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In my first classroom

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Favorite teacher sweater. See the little owls? What did I ever do with it?

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Baby Jude and Toot!

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Welcome to my life, Dave!

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He put a ring on it.

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SK’s first appearance on ze photobooth! (3 years after he put a ring on it.  Apparently being a newlywed and the breadwinner while your hubby finishes his PhD doesn’t leave much time for silly photobooth selfies!)

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Me and Margot :)

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Cute pregnant…

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Overdue!!

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Baby!

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Fun, huh?  If you have a photobooth on your computer loaded up with random documentation of your life, you should share it too!  It’s an easy blog post, just sayin’!

It’s a major award!

I won, I won, I won!
No, not a leg lamp, just a second place ribbon in the category of “other media” in my local Art Society annual Spring Juried Show at our library. Big time, people.
A little background on how I ended up here: After being “the artist” in the family all my young life, I wasn’t ready or interested enough when I graduated from high school to invest full-time in studying art in college, and I was torn between being an art major and an English major, so I chose to be an art major at a small Catholic liberal arts college where the art program was pretty negligible and I’d get a very broad liberal arts education. I had fun drawing and painting for four years and won awards in every student art show, but I never really got down to making art my life or anything.
I never seriously pursued a career in art after graduation, either; instead, I became an English teacher at a liberal arts high school and loved it for seven years. During that time I didn’t do much painting other than on the walls of my house and a couple of gifts for people. After I stopped teaching a did an illustration project for a friend who was self-publishing a series of books, and that was a really good experience in meeting deadlines and drawing what other people want but making it my own. It was also a chance to practice and hone my pen-and ink techniques, which I used again in one of the works I entered into this most recent art show.
Anyway, to the present. We moved to this area two years ago and I started to notice that there was a local art society that had shows twice a year at the library, as well as a regular tent at the weekly Farmers’ Market in town, and when I expressed interest my mother encouraged me to join. I finally did so this winter and in the beginning of May I got to enter two pieces into the juried art show. One was a watercolor of Margot, with some colored pencil detailing, and the other was a pen and ink drawing of Ruthie. Sorry for the bad photos.artshow

Both works are done from photos taken by my talented husband — in fact, I’m pretty sure every other painting I’ve done from a photo in recent years has been one of his photos as well. He has bragging rights for getting a higher grade than I did in the photography class we took together in college. I totally stink at photography, as you can see. He does not; here is the original of Ruthie, and it’s a work of art in itself:

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So, we’re a good team!

In any case, the reception for the art show was this past Thursday, and when I heard that one of my pieces had won, I and everyone else assumed it was the pen and ink, but it was actually the watercolor of Margot. Once I saw the rest of this guy’s choices it made more sense, but several people stopped me about the drawing of Ruthie, and one even said he would’ve chosen it for best in show!

It’s been good to get back into things, but I don’t think the Art Association is the path to a career; the members are mostly older and have come to art as a hobby in retirement. So far I’m the only person I know of with an art degree, and I’m pretty sure if I want to get serious about this I’ll have to go to grad school, which isn’t in the cards with babies at home. For now it’s a good way to keep me in the game and stop me from getting too rusty, and I’m glad I joined. ribbon                                                                                                                Ruthie is proud!

Quick Takes: Farm Fun

Time to fulfill my Friday obligation to the internet via Jen@Conversion Diary!

1. I’m posting late because we actually (gasp) had a bit of a busy day over here.  Well, half of a busy day.  We went down to Rhode Island to visit SK’s Godmother and my oldest and sweetest friend in the whole world, Rachael. As is the case with sweet people, Rachael also has a pretty sweet family, who have been McFamily friends of ours since the rockin’ mid-nineties.  Anyway, Rachael’s family owns Stamp Farms of Cranston and Exeter, RI.  Right now it’s greenhouse season so things are equal parts pretty and busy around their house.  SK and I had a fun time surveying the sea of flora and playing with Rachael’s little brothers.sara stamps 2 sara stamps 1

2.  Whenever I visit the Stamps, I always return home with  vegetative goodies and today was no exception.  I picked up a hanging basket for my front stoop (there’s really no other word that accurately describes the situation out front), several herbs and best of all, this:

hanging strawberries

Hanging strawberries!

3.  This week was pretty monumental for me in my two year project of “establishing a social network”.  Pretty lame, I know.  This week I officially switched our parish to the closer, younger, more vibrant parish, and a friend of mine in this parish started an official Mom’s group and we had our first meeting this week.  Guys, I’m just so grateful for this development!  I think I just wasn’t prepared for how difficult it would be to make friends in the bold new frontier that is adult life.  When Dave and I lived in Albany, we had my family and my best friend Sara was my co-worker and her husband was Dave’s best friend. In short, we were perfectly fulfilled by our social lives.  Then we moved here and Dave started work, I was pregnant and at home and Sara passed away.  It was a really rough transition to say the least.  I kept on waiting for my social network to just fall in my lap like it had in the past but that just didn’t happen.  I had Melissa who lived 15 minutes away at the time and Rachael who lives down in Providence, but really no local friends.  Well eventually  a year later I met my first local friend at daily Mass (after praying fervently after communion for the guts to go up to her after Mass and introduce myself) and slowly, very slowly, I’ve been working on making friends locally which brings me to the major development of this week.  Hooray!

4. I feel like I’m getting worse at running the more I train for my first real 5K on June 2nd. I don’t know if I’m just psyching myself out or what!  Every time I run, I’m running shorter spurts before I collapse in a huffing puffing mess.  What happened?  I blame Jillian Michaels. Anyway, I have two weeks, I have to get myself together!

5. Thank you for the encouragement and tips you left on my dieting post this week. Today Rachael took me to a fantastic little sandwich shop in Providence (Geoff’s Superlative Sandwiches in case you were dying to know) and I had the most amazing chicken salad sandwich in all the world.  Correction, I had only half of the most amazing chicken salad sandwich in all the world! You’re welcome Z (Rach’s hubby) for the other half of the most amazing chicken salad sandwich in all the world.

6. Ok, I can’t believe I’m about to do this, but I have to defend poor Kim Kardashian for a sec.  I love me some Suri Cruise, but this post about Kim’s pregnant puffy feet and ankles was really really cruel.  YES I know she’s insane for wearing that outfit and those shoes, but I have to say from the bottom of my heart with every ounce of sincere empathy in my bones: Oh honey.  I feel ya.

7. Which brings me to the most exciting quick take of all time!!! I’ve been given permission by Rose (who has had a really awful week of toddler stomach bugs at her house) to reveal the gender of McGrandbaby #11!!!

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I’ll give you a hint.  This McCousin will be very outnumbered…

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Rose is having a McBoy!!! Finally!!! We’re all tickled pink blue!

Happy weekend, everyone!

{phfr} Flowers of the Fairest

{pretty)

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I thought it was funny that Auntie Leila wrote about lilacs too. :) Lilacs make me think of my Mom.  They always bloom around Mother’s day (in the Northeast) and purple is Mom’s favorite color, so there were always bouquets of lilac around the house at this time of year.  I remember on one of our first trips to the Martyrs Shrine in Auriesville, we passed a thicket full of lilacs and Mom made Dad pull over so she could pick a bunch.  I can’t remember if they were for our house or for a May Crowning that we were on our way to… Do you remember Mom?

Of course, lilac season usually falls in the month of the Blessed Mother, which makes them the perfect flower to bring to Our Lady.  I can remember when I went to St. Pauls Elementary, and later when I taught at MTA, more often than not the kids would bring lilacs in when it was their day to bring flowers to Mary.  If I just close my eyes and breath in the scent, I think of Mom, The Blessed Mother, rosary processions, Marian hymns and maybe, just a little, (don’t kill me Mom) too long trips in the big blue van!

And speaking of pretty and Moms…

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Carmela and Claire

{happy & funny}

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{real}

Chair is stripped.  Next we have to sand and stain the wood.  And then, CUT!OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

For more pretty happy funny real posts, clickety-click back to Like Mother Like Daughter!

Something to chew on

What? Two posts in the same day? Yeah why not.

I’ve been thinking of posting about this topic for a long time, but I always talk myself out of it thinking “Everyone struggles with food and their weight.  Big deal. Get over it. Do another link up!”  The fact is, I don’t want this to come off  as (or even become by the time I’m done writing it) a whiney, navel-gazing post about how I think I’m fat.  But, I’m getting tired of thinking negatively about myself and I’m getting tired of blaming food and then baking a batch of cookies and eating half of the dough.  Then last week, the awesome Jenny of Mama Needs Coffee delivered a line that finally brought home to me what my problem is.

“It was like having a healthy, grown-up relationship with food.” (read the rest here)

Bingo!  That’s exactly what I DON’T have.  That’s exactly what I’ve never had.  This is why I hate diets.  I think “If I only try this fad or if I only eliminate this food group, I’ll lose 20 pounds and I’ll be a whole different person!” Fast forward a week, maybe 10 days and I’m crashing and burning and crying to poor long-suffering Dave. Ultimately I always come to this dramatic conclusion à la  Scarlett O’Hara: “Diets are crazy!  I hate diets! As God is my witness, I’ll never go hungry again!”

So, I focus on working out, which is something I actually enjoy doing, and a few weeks after really devoting myself to fitness (and not worrying about what I put into my mouth because I’m hungry dammit!), I stupidly step on the scale.  And the cycle starts over again.

The thing is, though, if you truly do eat more than you should, especially carbs and processed and/or sugary foods, despite your best working out efforts, you really do need to cut back your calorie intake.  That’s just common sense!  Now that I’m nearing 30, it’s finally getting through my thick skull that I need to be an adult about my relationship with food and acknowledge that weight loss and weight maintaining comes down to simple input-output.  I also need to be an adult and face the facts about the size of my portions and the content of what I’m eating.

So, I started this week, cutting down on my carb intake and eliminating seconds at dinner.  That’s it.  No gimmicks, no absolute restrictions.  All I’m doing is eating two carb free meals and a normal dinner with no seconds. I know that carbs are my kryptonite.  But I also know that when I completely eliminate carbs I become a maniac.  So this is my adult solution and I’m admitting it here on the blog so that I have a little more accountability.  

Hi, my name is Ellen.  I have a dysfunctional relationship with food and I’m striving from now on to be an adult about it.

Ok, I also have a body image issue as well.  I blame Gwyneth Paltrow! No, but for real, part of this process is accepting the body type that I have (that I’ve always had) and the roles that pregnancy, motherhood and aging have in the current and future state of my body.  When I get to the break-down stage of the dreaded self-hate cycle, it’s always me crying because I don’t like my body, I feel unattractive, yadda yadda yadda.  And that’s the most frustrating silly part about the whole thing.  My body is my body.  Should I take care of it? Absolutely! Will I look like Gwyneth Paltrow if I take proper care of my body? Oh no no no no. Never. So enough’s enough.  Time to put my big girl pants on and get over it.  (That last sentence is highly ironic.)

So, you’ve started Ellen!  Keep us updated! Post before and after pictures! Yeah, no that’s not going to happen. When it comes to fixing dysfunctional relationships, the work is never done, is it?  People don’t go to counseling and then leave totally changed with no problems whatsoever.  I’ve always had this problem with food and with my self-esteem and I always will have this problem, so I’m viewing this as a life-long project. But that is a comforting thought to me.  I don’t have some 2 week or month deadline in which to complete some diet or cleanse regimen.  This is just me working on my input output, like a normal human being and praying for the humility to see myself as I truly am and to praise God for the gift of my life.

Five Favorites, Vol. 6

Linking up with Hallie of Moxie Wife to share my skin care regimen. Ordinarily, I’d be the last person you would want to take skin-care advice from, but in the last month my skin has really cleared up like it was right after I had SK.  So I figured if it’s due to anything I’ve been doing, I had better share with my other adolescent-skinned McSisters!

1. Trader Joe’s Spa Face Wash with Tea Tree Oil:

To be completely honest with you, I only use this was about once a week.  If I wash my face every day, my skin gets really irritated and dry, so I only wash it when I feel like my skin needs it.  This face wash is really nice, though.  It foams up very pleasantly when you rub it on your face and the tea tree oil smell is very strong and fresh.  Afterwards you feel as though you used a face wash and an astringent!

2. Kirkland facial towelettes:

This is the Costco brand.  I don’t know if they work any better or worse than other brands or other store brands for that matter, I just picked them up because they’re cheap!  Anyway, I use these at night time only if I’ve worn makeup that day.  Again, I try not to use any sort of cleanser every day because it irritates my skin.

3. Kiehls Ultra Facial Moisturizer SPF 15

After a bit of trial and error, I’ve discovered that Kiehl’s is the stuff.  I had a bottle early last year and found right away that kiehl’s agreed with my skin.  But for some idiotic reason, after I was done with the bottle I tried Philosophy’s Hope in a Jar.  While Hope in a Jar didn’t make me break out, I really didn’t like the oily formula and the weird smell.  I wanted my Kiehl’s back!  I was a good girl, though, and I waited till I got all that nasty hope outta the jar before I hopped on amazon to order more Kiehl’s.  Needless to say, we’ve had a very happy reunion.  In case there is any other way to wear moisturizer, I’ll just tell you I put mine on in the morning after I shower.

4.  Philosophy Help Me  

I would never have thought to use this stuff and I would never have shelled out the $ for it, had I not had a Nordstrom gift card from my friend Pat.  Thanks Pat! Anyway, I was checking out all the fun skincare and makeup things at that fancy pants place and a helpful sales woman asked what I was looking for.  I told her that I still struggled with acne, mostly due to hormones, but I didn’t like acne wash and creams because they usually made me break out more.  Well!  She said she had the same problem (yeah right, pretty Nordstrom lady!) and that retinol really helps acne.  Who knew?  She recommended Philosophy’s Help Me night cream.  I’ve been using it, to great effect, since January.  I swear by this stuff.  It really helps when I do have a break out.  You know how usually acne stuff irritates break outs before they get any better?  This stuff helps dull the inflammation so it doesn’t usually get out of control.  I still have a good amount left in the tube, so I think it’ll probably last a few more months.  I definitely think it’s worth the price.

5.  Jillian Michaels Detox Cleanse Drink:

I had been seeing the pin for it all over pinterest and I’m a sucker for “Lose 5 pounds in a week” schemes that don’t involve cutting out food groups, or you know, food.  So, here’s the bad:  I didn’t lose a pound. Wop wop. Here’s the good:  my skin has been dewy and clear for more than 2 weeks now, and hormonally speaking, I should have had my monthly break-out at the beginning of last week.  And, the stuff doesn’t taste half bad!  I usually am a big water drinker, but the great thing about carrying this beast of a pitcher around all day is you’re guaranteed to drink your full 8 glasses of water.  My brother-in-law DJ, when seeing me tote around the huge rubbermaid jug this weekend, asked me if I was getting ready for a drug test! Anyway, I think if you were to try any one of these 5 things, it should be this drink.  And who knows? You could lose 5 pounds! But if you do, I will never talk to you again.

That’s all folks!  For more 5 Favs, check out Moxie Wife!

What he wore Saturday and Happy Mother’s Day!

My apologies to the FLAP ladies about this stretch of a What I Wore Sunday post.  I just couldn’t resist boasting a little more about my brother, and showing off his fancy uniform!

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The graduation ceremony sounded a bit like a reindeer convention; so many little jingle-jangles!

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Yes, this lucky guy has two more sisters, who we very much missed on Saturday.

I said it before and I’ll say it again, we’re very proud of Jim and all of his hard work.  He received several academic awards on Saturday, as well as the Association of the United States Army scholarship award.  I’m especially excited for Jim because of the next adventure on his horizon: a trip to Lourdes, France in June to volunteer at the shrine.  I spent a week volunteering in Lourdes while I was doing my semester in Austria and it was one of the most intensely formative weeks of my life.  I left a little bit of my heart over there and Jim being able to go there and volunteer makes the rest of my heart very happy.

And speaking of happy, Happy Mother’s day!

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Mimi, Carmela and Claire.

Dad really delivered this year in the Mother’s Day present department.  He surprised Mom with a print of this painting, depicting a mother and daughter overlooking the Schoharie Valley, which is where we all grew up.

Painting by Jean Terry

Mom cried.  I did too a little bit!  Schoharie is every bit as beautiful as this paining, and this is the same valley we looked upon from the back yard of our house on Terrace Mountain (which, to be specific, is the mountain just beyond the very distinctive looking mountain on the left in the picture).  We really did have a wonderful childhood on that very windy mountain, and all the credit is due more to my beautiful mother and hard working father than the idyllic Schoharie valley.  It’s just so wonderful that Mom has it kind of captured now in this beautiful painting.

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Take note, Dave. This is how you make your wife verrrry happy on Mother’s Day.

Happy Mother’s day to all you wonderful moms out there! Happy Mother’s day to our Mom (Mimi to her 10 grandkids), our Grandma (GGma to her 13 great-grandchildren) and to my McSister Moms.  And thank you to Dave and SK for making me a happy Mommy every day and for spoiling me with margaritas tonight.

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Nooooooooooooooooooooo

Quick Takes: Jiiiiiiiiimmmmmy

It’s Friday! I’m joining Jen and the gang for quick take fun.

1.  Our little brother is graduating from high school this weekend!

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2. Jim is the 6th child in our family of seven, and the first and only boy.  So you can imagine how much we’ve doted and ragged on him over the years. He’s a good sport, though, and he’s more than survived.  Jim’s done really well at the prestigious all boys military academy that he’s attended since middle school; so well, in fact, that he earned himself a free ride to Providence College starting this fall.  We’re all super proud and super emotional about our little Jiiiiiimmmmy growing up.

He's not just a handsome face - he's a good uncle too!

He’s not just a handsome face – he’s a good uncle too!

3. Last weekend, several McFamily members gathered at our cousin’s house for her daughter’s First Holy Communion.  Our Aunt Anne was reminiscing about McGraduations of the past and we realized that when Jane graduated from high school in 1996, Jim was only 2 years old, and Joanie wasn’t even born yet! People are always very surprised to learn of the 20 year span from oldest to youngest in our family, but I think I speak for all of us when I say that we think the age expanse is what makes our family so fun.  There are always kids and babies around.  Jim and Joanie were the babies back in the day, and now it’s all the nieces and nephews.  Joanie (bless her heart) is the toddler chaser these days, but I remember having that job back when I was her age!

4. So, in case you’re reading this Joanie, SK will be needing some chasing this weekend because she’s really on the move these days.  She officially took her first steps about a month ago, but just in the past few days she’s opted to walk around just for the heck of it.  It’s super adorable, especially when she’s wearing these:

I got SK’s salt water’s from Amazon

I know. Typical Ellen caving to the trends. But honestly, I just love them because they’re so classic and and adorable.

5. So while we’re on my favorite subject of fashion my child, I have to share about SK’s sudden shift in personality.  Beginning way back when she shunned my participation in her birth, necessitating extraordinary measures, Sara Kate has always been a very independent gal.  Sure, she depended on me for sustenance for the first 6 months or so, but other than that unfortunate fact, she’s always kept me at an arms length.  In the past few weeks, though, she’s started being very clingy.  Not all day, she still plays pretty well by herself and she lives for her date with Curious George in the late afternoon (judge away), but now she’s beginning to have periods throughout the day when she literally tries to crawl under my skin.  You mamas out there know how lovely this is, I know.  It’s kind of sweet at times, and those times when it’s most annoying, I try to remind myself that one day she’ll grow out of this phase.  One day she’ll grow up and graduate from high school like my little brother!  Sob!  Where’s my baby? Come crawl under my skin baby!

6. Moving on (you’re welcome).  I’m somewhat training for my first official 5K next month.  I know I’m capable of running 3 miles, but I’m really nervous about running it with other people, other people who are no doubt much faster than I am.  I keep having this vision of the race starting and everyone surging ahead of me and then turning around and pointing at me and laugh/sneering “SHE’S SO SLOW!!!”

Issues.

7. Right, that’s all I’ve got.  Don’t forget to read everyone else’s quick takes at Conversion Diary!  Happy Mother’s Day Weekend!

{phfr} Hazzard Edition

Linking up with Like Mother Like Daughter for some pretty happy funny real Hazzard moments.

{pretty}

prettyMy baby looking sweet.

{happy}

happyNothing is making me happier right now than the new washer/dryer duo in their new home on the first floor of the house. No more trips to the icky basement! I did eight loads of laundry yesterday.

{funny}

funnyJude and Jackie enjoying their am snack in my room. They’re eating kosher peanut butter puffs. (Editorial note: in case you haven’t figured this out yet, Claire has a life long, deeply held belief that she should have been born British, and a Jew.)

{real}

realI am happy to have the new laundry closet, but the family room changes means this is what my living room really looks like right now. Oh, and it’s gotta be cleaned up before McPrince’s graduation party this Saturday.