EDDIE IS FOUR!!

Four years ago my life changed...I became a Momma to a beautiful baby boy who continues to teach me to love beyond my wildest dreams, challenge me and show me how awesome this motherhood thing really is. He is funny and sweet and awesome and I love him to bits and pieces.

Happy Birhday, Eddie Butt. I love you the most.

Phone Dump

{eddie in his hockey gear from auntie chris, finn mccool, the boys at the local university, brave eddie at the dentist, pouty finn pants, puddle jumpin', finney getting nice and clean at nanna's, me and finn being crazy (at the same age!), party prep, smiley finn, eddie and maddi watching fireworks, me and finn at the steam power show, eddie's foot self portrait, finney bed hog toes, nakey playing, eddie's crazy hair day, finn and eddie waiting for the doctor and the boys on their boat}

Just keep swimming

On Saturday, September 8th I have my "big swim". If you've been around me in, hell, the last year you've heard me talk about this. The big swim for me is the Lake Michigan Big Shoulders 5k & 2.5k.  I've been wanting to do this swim for a couple years now, but have usually been pregnant or just off of my 6 week wait time for excersise. This year, I tried to refuse it. I made excuses, didn't push hard enough when Frank would say it wasn't okay money wise to sign up yet. And finally, once I saw that the 5k was sold out and the 2.5k was almost there, I jumped. I knew I had to sign up. I had less than 2 months to train. Yikes.

Now, I've been a swimmer forever, but my passion for swimming has come full circle, something that I think usually hits for people when they become adults. Something you hated and said you'd never do again transforms into some kind of serenity...the pool is my happy place, you all know that. Add being an assistant coach to an awesome team on top of that, and I really am happy with my sport and my involvement in it. And? I still have that competitive nature, so this race is feeding that ten fold. As race day approaches, I'm getting more nervous. I go through days of feeling like I've got it, I'm going to kick ass and days of feeling like I am going to fail and climb out of the water crying because I suck. Those days happen when I don't get to swim when I want, and I guess looking back it is kind of like I'm throwing one giant hissy fit for not getting my way, except I don't punish anyone but myself. I know that I need to keep positive, know that my outlook and where I am at mentally has so much to do with my performance. I know I do well under pressure and I have to go in with the confidence I deserve.

But oh, I'm scared. Scared I will fail myself and my goals, scared I won't represent myself well with all those people watching, scared of the fact that some of my now college-age swimmers will be running the event. Hell, self concious me is scared that people will cringe when they see my have-had-2-babies-body in a swim suit. But then, when I really think about it, I can visualize and feel what it will be like to run out of that water with a smile. To see my boys standing there with even bigger smiles. To feel an ache in my bones and burning lungs and a happy heart. When I visualize that, when I tell the negative side of me to shut up, I know I can do it.

So here is the official notice to my amazing family and friends that read this blog....cheer me on, please. I need you. I need your positivity and your awesomeness. Text me, call me, email me or leave a comment. Kick me in the ass if I say one negative thing, because I deserve better than that. I'll love you forever.

And because I don't want to leave you without a picture....

{these two, they love the forward facing camera on my iphone}

So now I'm off to check the event website again. Look at the times from last year, the course, run through my plan again. It's a daily occurrence...and only driving me slightly insane :) 

Paddlin' for MB

Have you ever pushed yourself to do something totally out of your normal routine? Have you ever learned something new, joined a new team or pushed yourself physically and mentally? I recently had the opportunity to do just that. Through my local YMCA, I became a part of a Dragon Boat team, Paddlin' for MB. 

{photo courtesy of teammate Tracy}

This team has pushed me to up my fitness goals by about a million percent. Before my first big race with them we practiced on the pool deck, leaning into the pool and I figured that I had the hang of it. A week before the race, we had an opportunity to practice in a real boat...my first time. We were out for about an hour and on that drive home I was shaking and crying. I didn't think I could do it. I didn't want to be the weakest link and I didn't want to let people down. Thankfully, I have awesome family and friends who pushed me to not give up. And on race day, I was nervous but pumped. There were teams there from Boston and Canada and paddlers from Florida and beyond. It was a big event with a lot of amazing teams. And overall? We rocked and I'm hooked.

As a team, we're ready to grow. Our team captain, Josh, has big dreams and they include getting our own boat and creating a regular practice schedule that would get us off of the side of the pool and ready to run with the big teams. 

If you'd like, read more about our team (like why we're doing this!) and how you can help. 

Above all, I want everyone to realize that this opportunity came from me stepping out of my comfort zone and doing something I never, ever thought I would do. What could you accomplish (or help others accomplish) if you stepped out of yours? 

Cubbies - with Daddy!!

In the beginning of August we were lucky enough to get to go to another Cubs game, but this time Frankie got to come with us! Our seats were awesome this time, 9 rows from the field and right off of 1st base. It is amazing how much more interesting baseball is, not only for me (ha!) but for Eddie, too, when we were this close! I'm sure it helped too that the Cubbies were playing the only team in the league worse than them, so there were lots of home runs and excitement, lol. Eddie had a blast waving his hat in the air and over indulging in ball park favorites (to the point that he puked in the walkway, eeep!) and was beyond thrilled when it was time to sing the 7th inning stretch (thankfully right after the puking, so we high tailed it out of there after!). Shockingly, Finn was awesome too, and played with water bottles and snacked and otherwise was a dream sitting in my lap. 

{it was such a gorgeous day...I am so happy that Frankie got to enjoy a ball game with us. And let's face it, I was also very happy that Frankie was the one to deal with the puke :) }

More from RPM

There aren't that many blog-appropriate stories I can rehash here, but I can put up some of my cell phone pictures :) Love this group of friends and had so much fun.

{stefie love}

{tat, frankie and me}

{my love!}

{jon's manly drink. he was thrilled}

{food! prime beef meatballs, the most amazing garlic bread, chicken and peppers, squid ink pasta with spicy crab, caesar wedge, birthday gelato and the most amazing salted carmel thing}

{jon, tati, frankie, me, stef and mike. love em all!}

It's my birthday!

Admittedly, I wasn't very excited about this one. I mean, after a while, don't birthdays seem more annoying than not? I am so used to making the boys' birthdays huge and awesome and special, that when there isn't someone doing it for me (geez, mom!) it just seems kind of 'meh'.

Too bad for me I never realized that my boys would make this special in their own way, which included Eddie waking me up by banging a balloon on my face after Finn wanted to celebrate with me all night long! Frankie got me chocolates (since I always pick out my own presents (this year is a new swim suit and a couple of dresses)) and cute cards and even remembered to hang the birthday banner that we hang every year for everyone's birthday. Eddie has continued to sing a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday" about every 10 minutes, even making up his own rap-ish one that ended with him saying "I sung that just for you, Momma" and OH, how could I have ever wanted to ignore this day?

We kind of celebrated this weekend with dinner and friends and above all, the best people watching ever at RPM Italian, where I felt completely cool and chic until it was time to drive home and we had to move the car seats to the trunk for Tat and Jon to fit in the car. Nothing says cool like hauling the biggest carseat known to man around to the trunk of your Jetta Wagon in the middle of a road while youngins are emptying the club next door. Still, I felt pretty and loved and so thankful for friends that will talk about highly inappropriate things too loudly in a packed restaurant and then ride home primed and ready to puke in my child's backpack.

{love these girls}

So, I suppose I'll embrace the day. After all, I am a lucky girl with amazing friends, amazing family and most of all, amazing and awesome boys. 

more zoo, more cousins!

well, I suppose not more cousins than the 50+ that were in our last photo, but more cousin time! we had a blast with shebly, leah and michelle a couple weeks ago when the weather was hovering beautifully around 70 degrees...much better than the week before when we went for Finn's birthday.

this time I also printed out a couple zoo worksheets found online so the kids could do a zoo animal scavenger hunt. They were checking off animals when we saw them...this totally kept eddie into the animals and away from the playgrounds! Finn even got to explore a little bit this time, which he loved of course!

{the girls on the merry go round!}

{shelby and michelle}

{leah!}

{and, oh. look who didn't get to go because he got himself into such a butt load of trouble he's still apologizing. seriously. he is testing his limits and has me, well, at mine. stinker!}

{he's lucky he's cute, and so into lists and tasks and loved every minute of his clipboard}

{hi littlest stinker!}

{one of a million pictures of them looking at something...the bison, of course}

{finn loved the aquariums, it really made me want to take him to the shedd!}

{fascinated by the little fish}

{and the shark, of course!}

{penguin spotting}

{michelle and i hustled through this as fast as possible...it was a bird free flight area which scares the hell out of me. and also? free flight = free poop}

{my boys got the biggest kick out of the lemur play area, where Finney was deemed "baby lemur" and eddie was the zookeeper}

{finn loooooved his lemur title. it meant he got to climb where ever he wanted!}

{eddie helping baby lemur down}

{and eventually, they both became lemurs. I think Eddie realized that he got to be a little sillier as a lemur, and that boy is always ready to be silly}

{how fake of a smile is this?}

I love the zoo, can you tell? We had so much fun running around with the girls....and all the kids were such troopers that day! I couldn't believe it. There were the inevitable meltdowns at the end, but we took them in stride. I love cousin time :)

Cousin Party!

Goodness, I am so behind. Why does it always seem like uploading pictures is the biggest chore in the world? lol. We've had lots of fun the last couple of weeks, so I suppose it is time to share!

This weekend was Frank's family's annual cousins party, and as always, it was super fun. We missed last year's party because Finn had just been released from the hospital and this year we had to cut out early, so we are fully prepared next year to stick it out the whole time!

{the whole crew!}

{all the babies! finn was obviously thrilled}

{island golfing....pete and mike going to retrieve balls!}

{my favorite picture of the day...frankie shooting golf balls at the guys on the boat, and michael's awesome hat :)}

{this boy sure does love golf}

{finn loves bags}

{jim and leah}

{the patio crew}

{the yard crew}

{fireman finn}

{cutie!}

{love love this picture of frankie, chris, grandpa frank and eddie!}

{aw, love}

{i asked eddie to give me his best golf face....this is what i got!}

{eddie loooooved michael and hasn't stopped talking about him since!}

{hmm....can you guess who is really pregnant (with twins!) and who is pretending? lol}

{yup, finn is still scared of grandpa frank! poor grandpa}

{this out take from the kids picture cracks me up}

{pasta face! obviously....they're italians after all!}

Can you even believe how lucky my boys are? They have such an amazing family to grow up with!