And . . .

We celebrated Mark's birthday last month as well.

He looks good for 30!!

All of my men . . . 

And some more . . .

Patrick was inducted into his school's National Honor Society last month!  Thankfully, both Mark and I had the evening free, so we were able to attend.

Patrick humored me by allowing me to take a picture (he was not feeling well, poor baby!).  Mark humored us all by making it appear that he awarded Patrick his certificate (not).

Congrats Patrick!

Continuing Updates. . .

Liam had his First Communion several weekends ago.

Another very busy and crazy day.

Conor, with Mark as coach, had a baseball game scheduled for during First Communion.  Ultimately, the skies opened up and the game was cancelled, with Mark dealing with the myriad of texts and phone calls during the ceremony.  Patrick had his Spring Sports Awards Banquet (hence his dress) during First Communion as well, but was able to attend the majority of the service.  Aidan was asked to usher, so he was dressed up also!

Liam chose to celebrate afterwards with dinner at Quaker Steak and Lube.  He, along with his brothers, loves buffalo chicken wings!

Chicken wing face!!

Welcome Liam!!

Updates . . .

Conor was confirmed last weekend.

We had a craaazzzyyy day.  Three baseball games, two soccer games and a graduation party.  All of this occurred before 3:30 when Conor had to be at Church.  But he got his shower in and looked very handsome.

Patrick stood in for Conor's sponsor, Uncle Chris.  

We had dinner at the Japanese Steak House afterwards.  The boys loved the show put on by the chef!  

Unfortunately, they did not heed my warnings and ate too many cookies at the post-Confirmation reception.  We came home with six boxes of left-overs!  Seriously, you need to fast for three days before going to Japanese Steak House!

Congrats Conor!!

FINALLY!!

Finally . . .

I'm back?  (yes!, but no)
Baseball is over? (no, sigh . . . )
School is out?  (thankfully, no!)
Rowan knows his alphabet? (sadly, no)

Rowan has lost his first tooth!!  At the ripe old age of 6 1/2!!

A little traumatized by the tooth pulling!

I will be playing catch-up for the next week or so.  We've had lots of "events"!

Angelic Rowan?!

Rowan had the opportunity to be a junior altar server during school Mass last week.

He was so excited all week leading up to the actual Mass.  Interestingly, my not-a-shy-bone-in-his-body child became extremely self-conscious when all eyes were on him on the altar.  

Funny enough, the shyness dissipated after Mass when it was time for pictures . . .

It sure didn't last long!

What I Read - March

March was a slow month for me in the reading department.  It was incredibly busy in all other aspects, which, unfortunately, did not bode well for my literary pursuits.  But, what I did read was very, very good!

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese is an incredibly interesting story about conjoined twins born in Ethiopia to a nine-fingered surgeon and a nun working at a mission hospital.  (That right there should be enough to pique your interests!)  The book revolves around the twins' lives within the backdrop of the beautiful Ethiopian countryside and intense political upheaval.

Not having a lot of context as far as Ethiopia is concerned, I found it enlightening to read about that country, its people and its politics.  There is a lot of medicine and medical references in the novel, especially of the ob/gyn variety, which I, of course, found to be fun.

This book did take a little bit to get into though; but definitely got better once the story became more linear.  Towards the end I had a hard time putting it down.  It is not for the faint of heart, topping out at 670 pages (part of the reason it required the whole month of March for me to read!).


Favorite quote:  "The world turns on our every action, and our every omission, whether we know it or not." 


My score:  4.5 out of 5 stars.