"We Are Reilly"

Being that it's St. Patrick's Day and our last name is REILLY, I figured I had to post something about being Irish today!

I really just married into the Irish family. My maiden name is full of lots of heritage -- although my dad was adopted, so we don't really know where we truly come from. Someone once asked me if I was Native American....I'm sorry, but I must admit, that we are far from being Native American. My family is a bit of Norweign, German, Dutch, Irish, English and of course, mutt -- a mix of everything, but the friendliest sort of mutt you could find!

Now, my husband on the other hand, he's 1/2 French and 1/2 Irish. Pretty simple, huh?


I've had people ask me about the name of our blog -- here it goes:

I went to this motherhood course last year, http://www.hearts-at-home.org/ and I listened to a speaker there talk about being 'one tough mother' and how, as the mom, you have to lay down the rules and instill values at your house and demand respect from your children and their friends. She spoke of how her children would ask her, "why can't I go to the movies with my friends on Sat. night?", "why do we have to have family night?", "why, why, why....". She reponded to them, "We are the Johnson's and we spend time together as a family", or "we are the Johnson's and we xxxxxxx (fill in the blank)" -- and she would fill in whatever family value they choose.

So, I took that mantra and changed it to fit our family, "We are the Reilly's". It signifies that we are standing together as a family -- in hardship, in tough times, in fun times and in struggles -- and thus, a blog titled emerged: We Are Reilly. As as family, we value each other and we are standing strong together.

So, now you know! This is also why I have left the first names of myself, my husband and our toddler daughter off of the website -- now that you and the rest of the world know our last name, I'd like to keep our first names private.