Fionny McFest

Really?  A simple green t-shirt wasn't good enough for you people?

Don't let the above picture fool you.  I know he looks a little persnickety here, but rest assured.  Fionn just returned from the best weekend of his life. 

In the Crimmins family, we call it simply The Fest.  It happens every year in August in Milwaukee.  In Fionn's world, Irish Fest is made up of all things sweet -- loud music, Irish dancing, unhealthy food at every turn, extended bedtimes for 3 consecutive nights...And, most importantly, gobs and GOBS of cousins.

Seven to be exact.  Here they are in all their glory.  The Crimmins Littles circa Irish Fest 2012.

Annie, Griffin, Georgie, Gracie, Callum, Ellena, Liam and Fionn -- whew!

As you might imagine, it was incredibly challenging to get all 8 kids looking forward at the same time.  As far as capturing them all smiling?  Fuggedaboutit.  I like the above shot because everyone is doing something a little bit different.  And my kid just happens to the one looking forward AND smiling.  He's a prodigy, I tell you.  Haha.  Believe me, anyone who was with us at last year's photo shoot would call some serious bull on that statement.  Last year, we had to ply Fionn with lollipops, and he still bawled his eyes out.  Who did he think he was, a one-year-old?  Geez.

For those interested, here are a few more shots from our Littles Photo Shoot.  Conor was the photographer.  He did a great job, but it was definitely challenging to get a good shot of everyone.  Let's see, shall we.

Everyone looking at camera, but no one besides Liam and Callum is smiling. 

Love this one of Fionn and Liam, but no one else is looking at the camera.

Everyone looks pretty unhappy, but they are facing the camera so we'll take it!

The Fest is always a good time, and this year was no exception.  We enjoyed some amazing weather the first day -- sunny but not too hot.  Zero humidity.  It was brilliant.  Here are a few scenes from Saturday.

Callum gets a boost from Uncle Carey.

Clapping to the music.  Loving it.

Shannon and Mike Bailey -- with funny hats.

And, finally, the piece de resistance.  The Irish Fest 2012 Family Photo.  Turns out it's pretty hard to get so many people in one frame.  Our kind photographer kept moving back and back and back some more.  Which is why we ended up with the noggins of some randoms at the left corner of the shot.

Aside from his time with his cousins which was definitely his favorite part of the weekend, Fionn also had a love affair with the playground at Irish Fest.  He especially loved the enormous slides and tunnels.  Exhibit A, B, and C.

"Fast and furious, that's me."

God, I love that space between his two front teeth.

"Watch out, boys.  There's a new Crimmins in town."

It was hilarious/bittersweet/adorable to watch Fionn try so very, very hard to keep up with his Big Boy Cousins.  He had to pump his little legs twice as fast.  Swing his little arms twice as hard.  But he held his own.  Of course, it gave me heart palpitations sometimes.  If Georgie danced on the table, Fionn danced on the table.  If Liam went down the slide head first, Fionn went down the slide head first.  And so on and so on.  Here's a perfect illustration in this next photo.  This is a pic of the older boys dancing on the tables at The Fest on Friday night.  You'll notice a certain blond head parked right smack in between them.  Oh yeah.  He wasn't missing a thing, our boy.

"So we're dancing on the table now, guys?  Cool.  Cool."

But I don't want to paint too rosy of a picture.  Although wonderful at times, this Fest was also a bit of a comedy of errors.  There were lots of mistakes that occurred.  Some were teeny, some were a little bigger.  Let's take a quiz, shall we?

Irish Fest 2012 will be remembered in which of the following ways?

a) The One Where Casey Forgot Her Running Shoes
b) The One Where the Shirts Had a Major Typo
c) The One Where Fionn Pulled the Fire Alarm at the Hotel
d) All of the Above

If you guessed "d," you would be right!  Ding, ding ding!  Go buy yourself a Coke.

Yeah, so let's start at the top and work our way down.  Forgotten running shoes.  Right.  So every year I run the little 5K Run/Walk that Irish Fest organizes.  It's a fun little race, pretty scenery, makes you feel better about all the beer you will be drinking later.  This year the entire Crimmins family rallied, registered, and created a team for the event.  The team name was "Tada gan iarracht" which is Gaelic meaning "Nothing without effort."  Pretty awesome, right?  Yeah.  I was pretty stoked.  Until I realized that I left my running shoes at home.  My only options for the race were flip-flops and green Converse sneakers.  Obviously, I went for the Converse.  Take a look-see.

 

Yep, I looked like a pretty big idiot.  I kept getting these weird flashbacks to Grease when Danny tries out for football.  It was kind of embarrassing.  All I can say is this.  Running shoe technology has come a long way, and we should take every advantage of this technology.  My feet were not loving me after we crossed the finish line.  But finish I did.  So that's something, I suppose.  What's better, everyone finished.  It was quite fantastic.  Here is a pic of our team following the event.  Not sure if you can tell, but we were all a little peeved because they ran out of the free beer we were promised at the finish line.  I mean, seriously, people?  And Fionn was peeved because...well, who knows?  He's two.  He gets peeved for no reason.

Next up?  The shirts.  Ah, the shirts.  My dear husband (in cahoots with his brother, Colin) worked so hard on these shirts.  They were a big surprise to the whole family who thought we were going sans new shirts this year.  Conor couldn't wait to surprise everyone.  Well, it turns out that he was just as surprised.  And not of the pleasant variety.  There was a pretty bad typo on the shirts.  Check it out.

 

In case you aren't sure what you are looking at, that's "Milwaukee" spelled incorrectly on the shirt.  Yeah, kind of an important detail.  Conor was livid.  I feel so sorry for that t-shirt company when he gets them on the phone this week.  Big mistake.  Big.  Huge.  As you can see from Callum's t-shirt in this picture, there were attempts to scratch out the second "a" to create the necessary "u."  It had mixed results.  Anyway, we'll live.  But it was definitely a bit of a letdown.

Now...on to the big guns.  The fire alarm.  So let me set the scene a bit.  There we are, sitting in the hotel restaurant, finishing up our sandwiches before we head to The Fest.  Fionn has wandered down into the nearby lobby with a couple of his cousins and one of his aunties.  All of a sudden, there is a terrible commotion.  Loud, honking sirens and flashing lights.  

Fire alarm.  

I knew it.  I just knew immediately that Fionn was somehow responsible.  Could my little guy resist a bright red lever that says "Pull"?  No, siree.  He could not.  In all fairness, the hotel was not exactly helping us out by putting the fire alarm adjacent to the elevator buttons and at the exact eye level of my son.  I mean, everyone knows that elevator buttons are like toddler crack.  Sigh.

The fire trucks showed up within a few minutes.  As my 4-year-old fire truck aficionado nephew, Georgie, noted, "They brought the ladder truck!  Wow!"  

Great.  Awesome.  

We whisked Fionn outside right as the fire truck was pulling up because we did not want him to associate pulling red levers with really cool dudes in fire trucks showing up.  He loves fire trucks.  What kid doesn't?

Fionn apologized to the front desk for his huge no-no, and everything was okay after that.  Well, until it got pulled again by Callum the following morning.  Sheez.  This hotel is never going to have us back.  And I really liked the free breakfast in the mornings, darn it.  Oh well.  Can't win 'em all.

We arrived back to DC on Monday evening, absolutely exhausted and glad to be home.  But we have some wonderful memories (and pictures) that will last a lifetime.  Here is one final image of Fionn from The Fest.  It really sums up his experience in Milwaukee to me.  I am pretty sure he is laughing at something (who knows what) that Liam is doing.  It's a pretty safe guess because Liam kept him in stitches the entire weekend.

Until next time.  Slainte! 

Jim and JuJu!

Okay, so I know the title is a bit lacking in the creativity department.  But I racked my brain for something better...and came up with diddly swat.  Plus, in some ways this title is the most fitting one of all, especially since our son is now uttering "Jim and JuJu" nearly as much as he says "Mama and Dada."  And that, my friends, is saying a LOT.  

Oh, we had a fantastic weekend together, the motley five of us.  We kicked it off with a tour of the Capitol at the request of my dear father who loves himself some US history.  Fionn, for his part, was mostly just excited to to experience his first audio tour.  Oh, and in case you're wondering, those headphones lasted about 5 seconds before he ripped them off his ears and tried to put them in his mouth.

Oh, so there's the office for the Speaker of the House?  Lemme check out my future digs!

By the way, before you think that we have really jumped ship in terms of Fionn's fashion choices, those shiny red shoes he is wearing are rain boots.  It was raining pretty heavily on our way out the door for the tour, and we never miss an opportunity for some puddle jumping.  Or a chance to wear his rain boots so Mama feels a little less silly for buying them. 

The weekend was full of so many wonderful moments.  Watching Dad and Julie interact with Fionn was just heartwarming.  I can still hear my dad's loud chuckle as Fionn did some sort of antic to crack him up.  Is there anything better than watching your parents have a truly wonderful moment with your kid?  I'm just not sure that there is.  Fionn simply ate up their attention and affection.  As far as Conor and I?  Well, we ate up some delicious alone time thanks to Jim and JuJu who watched Fionn for a few hours one day so we could dash out to the movies.  Seeing a movie with my husband is the most decadent treat I can imagine these days.  Sad but true. 

But my all-time favorite experience from the weekend was our time at the pool on Saturday evening.  We were so excited to introduce Dad and Julie to our little hippie pool so that they could see Fionny's pure joy when he is there.  He walks around like he owns the place.  And, because it's a co-op, I guess he does in some respects! 

Pushing a truck around the sandbox.

Watching the band warm up.  Gotta love the sandy swim diaper.

Watching enormous bubbles float through the air.

Trying his darndest to catch said enormous bubble.

Unfortunately, soon after these pictures were taken, the sky simply opened up and dropped buckets of rain on our parade.  The band packed up, and everyone started to run for the hills.  Or, er, their cars at least.  So our fun time got a bit rained out.  But I tell you, the memories were still plentiful even for a short period of time. 

Another thing we enjoyed doing with Dad and Julie during their visit was watching the last weekend of the Olympics.  My dad, as many of you know, is a fantastic runner who has completed many, many marathons back in the day.  It was a treat to watch some of the track and field coverage with him.  His excitement was contagious.

So, in the spirit, of the Olympics, I will leave you with this final image.  Fionn would like Gabby Douglas to know that she has some fierce competition on balance beam in the coming years.  Consider yourself warned, Gabs.  Consider yourself warned.

 

By the way, those are Big Boy Underpants on Fionny's little booty in this picture.  No, he is not potty trained.  Let's just say the Underpants were optimistically donned but short-lived.  But that, dear friends, is a story for another day.