The McMahon Family

Patrick has come far with his bike in just a week or so!  He can now get the bike going on his own and doesn’t do his frustration scream when he’s stuck.  I love how it’s becoming second nature.  Notice how even when he’s distracted, he still can get going and pedal without too much thought. 🙂  I also love his interaction at the end of the clip.  His head gets cut off in the editing to widescreen, but you can still hear his adorable voice when he talks to his brother.  He’s still working on braking.  As soon as he figures out how to do the brakes intentionally, he’ll be allowed to go on the driveway (it slants and bikes quickly get out of control on beginners!).

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And here he is with his roller skates.  He was giving himself a little hop and rolling down the driveway.  I couldn’t get him to do it for the camera, but again, he sure is cute trying! 🙂

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Patrick has been longing to ride the yellow bike for a year now.  He just can’t get the pedaling down.  So his goal for this summer…to pedal.  I have spared you the clips of his frustration.  It’s not pretty.  Here’s a progress update:

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He practices almost daily (in between rains) so hopefully, I’ll have an even better update soon!

In the boys’ Easter buckets this year, there was an egg with Pop Rocks.  I figured my boys wouldn’t try them, but hoped they would.  I remember having fun with them as a kid.  Here was Patrick’s first experience with them. 🙂

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After 12 years, I just learned that Shannon doesn’t know that we have two towels hanging in the kitchen for a reason.  He overheard me explaining to the boys which one to use for their hands the other day and asked, “So there’s one that’s just for hands?”  Really?  He doesn’t know?!  One is a hand towel, and one is a dish towel.  I’m not sure how unusual this is, but it makes complete sense to me.  I mean, I don’t want to dry off clean dishes with a towel I’ve wiped my hands on.  I don’t care how clean you think you got your hands.  Don’t want to chance it.  I guess I never took the time to explain it to him and he never asked.  So, for 12 years, he hasn’t paid attention and I’ve been blissfully unaware that he’s been doing it wrong…It’s so weird how much we don’t know even after 12 years.

I cannot cook.  I do cook a few things, but I must follow a recipe and measure out each ingredient even though I’ve been doing it for years.  The recipe must be very specific, has to have all amounts and step by step instructions.  Even then, I usually mess it up somehow.  If I have to bring it to a family function, I usually hear from the person who gave me the recipe, “Oh, I usually….” and they tell me how they fix whatever problem I had with making it.  So, I try to avoid cooking in general.  Especially with family holidays and gatherings.  I prefer to just pick something up at the store.

So, this Easter, Nicki gives me the list of food and responsibilities for the meal.  I was on for Aunt Linda’s pasta salad.  It’s great and we all love it, but way too much work for me to not mess up…the recipe she sent had no amounts for the veggies and no directions.  So I set out to figure it out.

And I did it! It turned out perfectly! I did hear later from Nicki, “Oh, I forgot to tell you to shake the dressing up!” But it didn’t matter.  It tasted wonderfully with the way I did it. 🙂