Year Five: The Irish Wedding

I'm doing a bit of maintenance today (shocking I know!)
The following is a REPOST of our Year Five: Irish Wedding. The original website it was on went down so it wanted desperately to be here with its old friends.

-=- -=- -=- -=-

It is that wonderful time of year again!

At the beginning of November, my sweet hubby and I celebrate our favorite day of the year. 

The day we said, "I do." 

And this year was our 5th wedding anniversary and as with every year, we throw

us a little shindig. ;) Each year we renew our vows to a different theme, invite our crazy family

and friends and tie the knot again.

Both of us being Irish we thought it was the perfect time to have a real Irish wedding... kilts and all.

Check out McCarty Designs special decor for our very special day: 

That is one good looking man in a kilt! 

More impressive bling to add to my collection.

Since it was in the middle of the afternoon, we kept it simple with homemade oatmeal cream pies, shamrock cookies and some lime water and Irish Coffee Punch. 

Bryan's Irish Family. 

My Proud Parents. 

When I first got married in 2007 I had just returned home from working at Walt Disney World.

At the time I had one friend, who I still talked to and still surprisingly liked me. (I wasn't the best of peeps back in my early twenties. The Lord graciously did so much work in me!) She's the one behind the baby and in front of Bryan. Megan. <3

So Megan, my sister Holly and a friend I had just made Danielle were the only bridesmaids I had in my wedding. Not my dream but at the time I thought I was inconveniencing them by even asking...

Thankfully I've learned what a fun honor it is to be a bridesmaid and the joy of having

amazing women who would love to stand with you on such an important occasion.

So we use these "faux" weddings as an opportunity for me to honor the special relationships 

I have and have those ladies stand with me on our special days! 

I am just so blessed to know so many amazing women who are a part of my life it is a joy

to have them be crazy and silly with me!! 

Megan by the way, has been a bridesmaid for me 4 out of my 6 weddings. 

She only missed 2 of them because they were destination weddings. 

Kristen is following closely behind her with 3 weddings.

And I've had the great blessing of being in both of their stunning real weddings.  

I'm pretty humbled they keep saying yes each year. I'm super lucky. 

Well... perhaps it's more than luck.

God had an amazing plan.

He handpicked me for Bryan as much as he handpicked Bryan for me.

These have definitely been the best five years of me whole life and I'm excited about the next sixty!

God Bless,

  Jessica

McCarty Happenings: April

Sometimes I wish my husband was a bit more irresponsible.

Like would it kill him to skip work one day for FUN or take a sick day?

Yes. Yes, it would.

Now, I have to admit, his "Adultness" and work ethic were a huge draw when we were dating. He has an excellent work ethic, is kind, supportive, devilishly handsome... I mean I married the man after all.

And if I was the only one to notice how awesome he was, it would probably make my life easier.
Sadly, you can't hide that kind of awesomeness... everyone stinkin sees it.

That leads us to our newest McCarty Adventure. Starting on Monday Bryan will be a part of a super cool special project for 20 weeks where he will spend each week in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Seriously awesome city to have a project in and Monday through Thursday he will be eating much better seafood than me... if he liked seafood as much as me. Which he doesn't.

But also Monday through Thursday I'll be hoofing it on my own.

Which for my children might be a scary thing.

It won't be an easy summer. I really like Bryan. He's my best friend and I talk to him ALOT.
But it won't be an impossible summer. I've been blessed to know many great women who have to deal with husbands who go over seas or work three weeks on so that is an encouragement to me. This is done often. I won't be alone. It can be done!

While I'm not too excited to grow up while he is away and actually have to make dinner every night...
It definitely won't kill us. Well... my cooking might...

But please keep us in your prayers. I'm excited for his new opportunity and I believe in him that he will always give his best. He is my favorite.

I'm excited to try and also give it my best without him there every day and when I fail... cause I will... I know each day I can start over and try again.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
    his mercies never come to an end;
23 they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.   
Lamentations 3:22-23


How beautiful and comforting is the love of the Lord. [insert a zillion heart emoji's here]

- Jessica

Hi.

It’s been awhile hasn’t it?

Like… since May last year… been awhile.

Life goes by so fast and then POOF… it’s just a collection of great memories and photos.

Ethan turned 3

Ezra turned 1

Elliot turned 5

This year has been a bit of a trial over here in McCarty land with medical issues, new job opportunities and three children under five.

Granted I have the three children all the time… but all the time it is crazy and most days I'm not super at it! 

But while we have our ups and downs God is still faithful to keep working on us. And one thing He has been working on me is getting this blog up and running because while it is easier to capture life in a tiny facebook status update… that isn’t really capturing life.

I could give you a ton of excuses why I haven’t blogged, most of them being I’m super lazy and would rather binge watch a show but… these three reasons might be a better explanation:  

1.     I haven’t had anything great to say.

a.     I have this nagging feeling in me that if I’m going to take up your time to read my blog, it better be something worth saying.

That was putting a lot of unnecessary pressure on me. I wanted every post to be a “Make your life 10x better post” and honestly… You shouldn’t be reading a blog for that. That is crazy. If I make you smile then the time I spent on here is worth it but you might also like getting to know me better… I am stinkin hilarious. I mean just sayin…

2.     It takes a lot of time…

a.     Blogging is kind of time consuming… and children are kind of time consuming. Many people can do both at the same time. I’m not very good at it so I choose to do the one that was way more important: Kids.
Will I be writing on this every day? Ha! But I can definitely try for more than once or twice a year… These years are precious and fast. I gotta hold on while I can.  

3.     I was a bit afraid…

a.     I fear more and more for the world around us. I had a fear that if I kept blogging that someone would get a hold of one of my blog posts, take it wrong and I’d suddenly have CPS knocking at my doorstep to take my children away because someone didn’t think I knew what I was doing. First: I don’t know what I’m doing. Second: Is this an extreme fear? Yes… but is it????

So with all those factors… I kinda let my sweet McCarty Designs fall to the wayside for a bit.

But I shouldn’t. Because one day this might be the only thing my children read about their mom... since I am super not a journal kinda person and if they look at my planner they are just gonna think mom was super OCD with the color coding. (I may or may not use 8 different color pens to keep my life on schedule…)  

Now you know why you haven’t seen me… but how about I show you what I’ve been up to and we can start off a new year of blogging with excitement!

Here is to the rest of 2016!

So let’s spend some time catching up and getting to know one another again.

I think it’s going to be great fun.

- Jessica

To the Mommy who thinks her kids deserve a better Mommy:

Dear Mommy who thinks her kids deserve a better Mommy,

I get you completely.

I have this thought at least once a week and on a bad week... six or seven times an hour.

You too? We should start a club.

Yet, if we started a club we would probably be picky about whose kids really do need a better mommy.

We would first weed out the moms who come in with the guilt that their kids didn't eat enough organic foods or have watched more than their 30 minutes of "Screen Time" for the day so their brain must be mush.

Yep, those moms get kicked out first.

Then we would politely ask the moms to leave that only had three at home crafts planned this week  instead of the fifteen crafts suggested by Pinterest. Or that their child hasn't met the milestones displayed on the Pinterest info-graph so she must be delaying them...

I'm sorry. This is not the club for you.  Please join the, "Pinterest is killing my mommy-joy" club two doors down.

No, I want a club with the hard core mommy guilt sufferers.

The ones who cry at night because they spent more time yelling at their children instead of loving on them that day.

The ones who fear their children will never understand grace because they aren't showing it enough to them or to themselves.

The ones who have actually yelled out loud, "I QUIT!" then hid in a bathroom for ten minutes because that is the only door in the house that locks.

The ones who talk their husband's ear off with, "Don't you worry about me alone with your children? They must be scared of me! See, they jump when I yell!"

The ones who read through every self-help book to still fail not because the answers aren't there... but because the sin inside is so strong and the Devil is relentless.

The ones who hate themselves because they get mad their child is "inconveniencing" them.

The ones who over-compensate in a desperate hope their kids will see some sliver of good in them and that you love them no matter what.

Have we gathered all those mommies?

Hi. My name is Jessica and I'm a bad mom.

But... I don't want to be and I know you don't want to be either.

Daily I seem to find myself in the struggle of my heart knows one thing but my flesh does another.
My impatience often wins over having to calmly explain for the eighth time in an hour why it is NOT a good idea to kick your brother in the privates.

But if we did find better mom's to take our children... would that really make everything better?

I mean, sure our lives would go to crap but maybe... the kids would be all right?

I mean they could get that mom that is always calm and lovingly points them back to Christ through every "teachable moment".

They could get that mom who spends more time playing educational games with them then watching TV with them or letting them play while you watch TV without them...

They might even get a mom that could actually nail all those Pinterest ideas from crafts to school, to just... life...

This could work! We could find a mom that would be a zillion times better than us to raise our children so they would have what we always dreamed for them to have. The mommy we always dream we could be but know will never be in a million stinkin years.

This new Mommy would have it all!

... Except the way we smell.

The new mom wouldn't smell like us.

She probably wouldn't hug like us either...
She definitely won't know how to burn mac & cheese like I do or that one kid likes things in a certain order while the other is more interested in bugs than books.

It would take her a long time to realize they like to be tucked in all the way around, not just at the top.
She might not ever find out that their favorite stuffed animal is always the one that magically somehow gets lodged between the bed frame and the wall and because it took you two months to figure that out after a week and a half of tears over losing said animal...

She might be able to calm their tears if that happened.

Or maybe... Maybe we should stay a little while longer.

Maybe we could try again tomorrow. Tomorrow we can be AWESOME Mom! 

Tomorrow God will give us more grace that maybe... we could give to ourselves. 

Tomorrow we should check out that new club down the hall next to the Pinterest Joy Sucker one:
"We are better than we Think Moms" 

It says all Moms are welcome so... maybe we are.

Sweet Mom:
Our kids still run into our arms.
When they cry, they want us near them.
When we leave the room... they still follow.

You are way better than you think.

My bestie Dannette told me recently when I called her having my weekly, "I'm a terrible Mommy" guilt trip:

If we were really bad mom's, we wouldn't care about how bad we were doing. We wouldn't keep trying to be better. 

We definitely aren't Super Mom's who have it all together.
But we are the ones God chose to be the mom's to our children.

And if God trusted us with them, maybe we aren't a mistake as their Mom's after all.

Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful and amazing Moms out there. 

You are more fantastical than words could express and I am humbled to be among your ranks.

I pray this reminded you to not let Mommy Guilt in any form steal your Mommy Joy. 

There is none like you, none more perfect for your littles. 

Today stand with me in reminding ourselves of that Truth. 

That we are the perfect moms for our littles. 

Riding in cars with Little Boys: #1

The blog is still undergoing a little makeover but lately I've been having these conversations with the boys that... it would just be downright selfish to not share. 

So, I've decided to start a new series called "Riding in Cars with  Little Boys" because that seems to be the time that Elliot and Ethan both have their moments of brilliance or decide that they want to talk about everything and anything.

Don't take my word for it... read on:


On Cooties: 
Elliot: "Mom, do you have cooties?"
Me: "No. Mom's don't have cooties."
Elliot: "My friend says girls have cooties."
Me: "They do. How do you get cooties?"
Elliot: "You get cooties in High School when a girl who isn't your friend walks by and throws them on you."
Me: "...Good to know."

On Babies & Grandmas:
{Elliot was asking about 'who was my grandma' and it eventually led to me trying to explain that when he has children I would be there grandma}
Elliot: "I don't have any children."
Me: "Nope. Not till you are 30."
Elliot: "I can't have children because I don't have a girl to put a little boy in."

(My eyes bugged out and I tried not to hysterically laugh since he said this with such innocence)
Me: "Not till you are 30."

*I like how he assumes he can only have boys.


Lagniappe (A little extra)

Ethan: "Can I have some Shake Milk?"
Nina: "Is he asking for a milk shake?"
Me: "Yep."
Nina: "Haha Are you going to tell him it's Milk shake?"
Me: "Nope."


Hey Friends! Tell me what you think of the new page design! Also click to your right and get e-mail updates straight to your inbox to never miss a crazy McCarty Moment.