Category Archives: family

the white house goes shamrock green!

 

White House fountains run green for St Patrick's Day at Michelle Obama's request

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, everyone!  I’d say something cool and witty in Gaelic, but guess what, I’m too lazy to look it up!  Anyway, St. Patrick’s Day is being celebrated at the White House this year Obama style.  Meeeesh had them dye all the fountain water green!  Love her.  

And now, perhaps for the first time ever, a SWTCTW repost.  Dearest Madeline found this gem and posted it awhile back, but I think today’s as great a day as any to show it again.  I present to you the song “There’s No One As Irish As Barack Obama”!

It’s no “Danny Boy”, but I think I love it.  Have a fantastic St. Patrick’s Day!  Do something Irishy!  Drink something Guinnessy!  Get lucky…in the Irish sort of way.  

PS- Found this article to make us all sophisticated while celebrating St. Patrick’s Day.  (It’ll tell you what Erin Go Bragh actually means, so maybe you should check it out.)

[Posted by Kathleen]

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a lifetime movie waiting to happen.

Here is your crazy story for today! (From the AP)

HEBRON, Ind. —  Police say a northern Indiana woman who wasn’t invited to her sister’s wedding reception showed up anyway and attacked the bride, pulling out clumps of her hair.

Twenty-three-year-old Annmarie Bricker of Valparaiso faces a misdemeanor battery charge for last Friday’s attack outside a Porter County home.

The Porter County Sheriff’s Department says a friend was hosting a reception for Nicholas Landry and Lori Kappes — Bricker’s sister — when Bricker attacked Kappes on the front porch.

Police say that after the attack, Kappes had smeared makeup and clumps of hair missing from her head but sought no medical treatment.

Bricker told police she arrived at the home to confront her sister and parents and “just wanted to talk” about family problems. She says she never touched her sister.

She “just wanted to talk”? HA!  Liar, liar, pants on fire!

I sense a Lifetime movie script in the works.  Toss in a stripper, a pregnancy, and we’ve got ourselves a nice little Sunday afternoon.  Maybe Kate Hudson is available?

[Posted by Kathleen]

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they heard the taco wedding bells.

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Forget the chapel, Paul and Caragh Brooks of Illinois entered the covenant of marriage sitting in a booth at a Taco Bell on Friday, Jan 9.  The courthouse was booked, and they needed another option.  No, I didn’t make that up.  “Going to the T-Bell and we’re gonna get married, goin’ to the T-Bell and we’re, gonna get married.” Okay, sorry, I had to do that.

Fatties like me customers continued to buy their 4th meal of the day while the ceremony took place.  The employees blew up balloons and displayed taco sauce packets that say “Will you marry me?”.  I didn’t know they made those, but that’s cute.  The bride wore a $15 hot pink dress.  The groom’s mother loved the ceremony.  The reception was held right there, with guests ordering right off the menu.  You know what I have to say about that? YUM!  All in all, the wedding costs the couple $200.

Now of course you want to know the ‘how we met story’.  Well, take a guess how they met.  Okay, now read this.

Caragh Brooks, 21, of Australia, met Paul Brooks, 30, on an Internet dating Web site. They already had the same last name.

The couple wrote back and forth and talked on the phone for nine months before Caragh Brooks moved to the United States.

Yup.

“We have the same brain, just in two bodies,” Paul Brooks said. “We think alike in virtually every manner. We have the same interests, viewpoints.”

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that one of those interests might be Taco Bell.  What do you know?  I’m right!

He proposed on New Year’s Eve and, because they like to spend time at the local Taco Bell, they decided to wed there.

Naturally, of course!

The best part of all?  This happened in a town in Illinois called Normal.  NORMAL.  Isn’t it ironic?  Don’tcha think?

As critical and quick to point out the abnormalities as I may seem,  I’m only kidding and I’m honestly really happy for them.  If you decide you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, I guess it doesn’t really matter how you decide to do it.  These two are eccentric.  Also, they paid $200 for a wedding that I won’t ever forget…and I wasn’t even there.  Imagine spending $30,000 on the most cookie cutter wedding imaginable, and then having people groan about “another wedding” when they get the invitation.

You’ve got to give them some credit for having it their way.  Hold on. “Have it your way” is the BK slogan.  Maybe that would have been more fitting?  That aside, congratulations to Caragh and Paul!

[Posted by Kathleen]

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bennifer have nameless but beautiful child.

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Jennifer Garner popped out baby numero dos yesterday– a baby girl.  Little Violet is a big sister! Awwwww.  I wish that I could tell you the name of the no doubt bound to be gorgeous spawn of Jen and Ben (RAWR!), but alas, they either don’t have a name or it has not been revealed.  Usually celebrity baby names are great fuel for blogging, but I think these two like to go traditional.  What would you name their child?

UPDATED:  The baby’s name is Seraphina Rose Elizabeth Affleck.  Maybe not as traditional as I expected! I like it!

[Posted by Kathleen]

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but you’ll shoot your eye out!

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Yes, it is Christmas eve and I am blogging. What of it?  But I have to share this with the world.  In case you didn’t know, the best movie EVER is on the teevee for a solid 24 hours straight.  Twenty-four hours of “A Christmas Story”?  YES PUHLEASE!  I’ll watch it inbetween meals.  So turn on TBS.  This movie makes me laugh so hard I cry.  The scene with the leg lamp?  PRICELESS!

Fa ra ra ra ra, ra ra ra ra!

Also, in case you wanted to keep tabs on the big guy in red, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, has a Santa tracker going.  As of right now, he’s in between the South Pole and South America.  He best be getting to the US of A tonight!  Specifically, my house.

http://www.noradsanta.org/

Merry Christmas!  I hope Santa is good to you!

[Posted by Kathleen]

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oh joy! the 18th bundle arrives.

We all have hobbies.  I like to think of mine as travel (because that sounds cool), but it’s probably reading US Weekly and the Huffington Post nonstop.  For Jim Bob Duggar and his wife, Michelle, I would venture to say that their hobby is having babies.  The Duggars just welcomed their 18th child into their crazy world.  Little Jordyn-Grace Makiya was born on December 19. Now I love babies.  I coo at every one I see.  I love the little clothes, the little shoes, etc.  Perhaps I’ll have one or two in my lifetime.  But my god, the thought of 18 babies WITH NO INTENTION OF STOPPING makes me a little queasy.  Yes, Jim Bob told the press “We both would love to have more”.  Sure, buddy.  Michelle Duggar has been having children for over 20 years.  And as if it couldn’t get any more bizarre, here are their names and ages.

Joshua, 20

Jana, 18

John-David, 18

Jill, 17

Jessa, 16

Jinger, 14

Joseph, 13

Josiah, 12

Joy-Anna, 11

Jeremiah, 9

Jedidiah, 9

Jason, 8

James, 7

Justin, 6

Jackson, 4

Johannah, 3

Jennifer, 1

Jordyn-Grace, 0

ALL J NAMES?  WHY WHY WHY? (Ginger with a J? Seriously?)  You could probably guess this by the freakshow nature and all the babies, but the Duggars have their own show on TLC.  It’s called ‘Seventeen and Counting’.  That’s original.  But will they have to change the name now?  This family seems a little strange.  I’ll take ‘Jon & Kate Plus 8’ anyday.  They are awesome.

[Posted by Kathleen]

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’tis the season to be hungover.

Office parties, neighborhood parties, family parties.  Eggnog, champagne, whiskey (for the family parties), wine.  In the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s the opportunities to be hungover grow exponentially.  If I remember my pre-calculus correctly (and there’s a good chance that I don’t) the graphical representation of what we’re now experiencing ends up looking something like this:

hangovers

It’s a rough six weeks.  Luckily, National Geographic would like to help.  They have kindly gathered information about “Hangover Helpers” from around the globe.  So if the Gatorade and Smartfood just aren’t cutting it you can try Romania’s recommendation and eat some tripe soup, because nothing says “anti-nausea” like a healthy serving of cow stomach.  In Poland they recommend drinking soured milk or very sour pickle juice.  I can’t imagine that that does anything other than make you vomit and if that’s the case, I’d rather take care of that Blair Waldorf style.  In Japan, they eat pickled plums to cure “futsuka yoi” or, “two days drunk” and in Mexico the drug of choice is a nice shrimp cocktail or seafood salad (the real kind, not the first-grader version).  The salad is appropriately named “Vuelva a la vida” or “return to life.”

My favorite “cure” is probably that found in the Netherlands: a big, tall glass of cold beer.  Although it’s usually hard to imagine drinking anything alcoholic when you wake up in the morning feeling like your head is on backwards, in my family we favor a little Irish Coffee to settle the stomach or, on really bad days, straight shots of Jameson, and it seems to do the trick (I wasn’t kidding when I mentioned that we’re a walking stereotype).

No matter your potion of choice, party on!  There are tons of antidotes to experiment with and you have plenty of opportunities to do so!  Plus, it’s Christmas and nothing says “praise be to the Lord, Jesus Christ” like too many glasses of eggnog.

[posted by Madeline]

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santa claus is coming to town!

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I’ve never had any trouble believing in Santa but for the Scrooges out there Larry Silverberg, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at North Carolina State University, has conducted some research to further explain Santa’s magic.  His Christmas-spirit-lacking conclusion?  Advanced nanotechnology and an exploitation of the time space continuum help to explain some of Santa’s powers.

Silverberg says that Santa is exploiting the time space continuum when he makes his Christmas Eve voyage around the world.  A Christmas Eve voyage that actually lasts SIX Santa months.  Pardonnez moi?

“He understands that space stretches, he understands that you can stretch time, compress space and therefore he can, in a sense, actually have six Santa months to deliver the presents,” Silverberg told Reuters.

“In our reference frame it appears as though he does it in the wink of an eye and in fact there have been sightings of Santa, quick sightings, and that’s in our reference frame, but in Santa’s reference frame he really has six months”.

I suppose that makes it a little easier to believe (that is, if you didn’t already) that Santa can visit 200 million homes in just one night.  Silverberg said his research also indicates that Santa doesn’t carry all of the toys in his sleigh.  Instead, he grows the presents under the tree using nanotechnology or, more specifically, he turns irreversible therm0-dynamic properties into reversible ones to turn soot, candy and other natural materials into the presents.  Maybe that’s why we’re supposed to leave cookies for Santa.  Not because he’s so hungry (although now that we know it actually takes him six months the cookies make a little more sense) but because he uses them to grow our presents!

Some of Silverberg’s other research on Santa indicates that to determine whose naughty or nice, Santa uses giant antennas; the sleigh also has a GPS system of sorts and the reindeer are “genetically bred to fly, balance on rooftops and see in the dark.”

I still think Santa’s sleigh is fueled by Christmas Spirit and my biggest question remains, how does Santa eat all of those cookies and still fit through the chimneys?  Also, where does he vacation after Christmas?  I’d like to go there and buy him a drink.

If you’re still not convinced (you lousy non-believer, you) check out this picture from Iwasabducted.com  (a truly reliable source if ever there was one) of an unidentified flying object that looks eerily similar to Santa’s sleigh.

Honestly, do you need more proof than that?

[Posted by Madeline]

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cut. it. out. full house lives?

Have mercy!  John Stamos, also known as “Uncle Jesse,” has approached a few of his Full House co-stars about doing a “semi-remake” of everyone’s favorite sickeningly sweet family show, “Full House.”  Candace Cameron Bure told OK! Magazine that the show “would involve me and Jodie Sweetin. We would revive our characters, but today as young women.”

Interesting.  Will Uncle Jesse still be living in the attic with Aunt Becky and the twins?  Will DJ and Stephanie still be there with their own families?  Who will keep that place clean with Danny Tanner gone?  Whatever happened to Kimmy Gibbler, the biggest geekburger of them all?  There are so many questions . . . and I don’t think I need the answers.  “Full House” was a memorable part of my childhood and I’m okay with leaving it that way. 

There’s no word yet on whether any network is interested in this “semi-remake” or if any cast members other than DJ and Stephanie are interested in reviving their roles.  Something tells me the Olsen twins are screening their calls this week.  How rude!

[Posted by Madeline]

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it’s christmastime! repeat the sounding joy!

Santa has made a visit to Herald Square, the tree in Rockefeller Center has been lit, my father and I have spent a full day yelling at each other while hanging the outside lights . . . it’s officially Christmastime!  The best part of Christmas is definitely the music and I have listened to nothing else since Thanksgiving.  Bing Crosby, Harry Connick Jr., U2, Elvis, The Irish Tenors, it’s  all so good! 

What’s funny about Christmas music is that there are maybe 30 songs in total but 700 versions of each song–and everyone prefers a different one!  In the spirit of Christmas let’s play a little game à la High Fidelity.  I’m requesting, dear readers, that you share your top five favorite Holiday songs with us.  Don’t be shy, this isn’t so much a window to your soul as “favorite books” or “desert island movies” might be, but a representation of your traditions so we can’t really judge you.  I’ll start . . .

1. Ave Maria (Luciano Pavarotti)

2. Santa Claus is Coming to Town (Bruce, duh)

3. O Holy Night (Bing Crosby)

4. Baby Please Come Home (U2)

5.  When My Heart Finds Christmas (Harry Connick, Jr.)

I know that Ave Maria is not really a Christmas song.  I have five versions of Ave Maria on my iPod that I listen to year-round. However, that particular version reminds me of Christmas Eve and therefore gets a spot on the top five.  Okay, your turn!  While you’re thinking please enjoy this fabulous version of “Joy to the World” by Sufjan Stevens.  Unfortunately, I have to link to it; I tried every way possible to embed the song in the post but it just wasn’t working.  It’s worth taking the jump for though, I promise. 

[Posted by Madeline]

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