St Patty's Day

   I personally, hate this holiday. Anyone who knows me, knows that. I think it's pretty much the closest way we Americans come to Communism. You better wear a certain color or else other people are allowed to cause you bodily harm. Um. Yeah, no. Not to mention you're supposed to top the whole day off with a nasty dinner of Cornbeef and Cabbage. You may not be able to see me right now, but I'm over here gagging just thinking about it. 
   Of course, my own preferences flew out the window once the kids came into the picture. In an attempt to be a good mom, I try to make the holidays fun for the kids. While I REFUSE to make Cornbeef & Cabbage, I do dye all the food green for the day. Over the years I've learned what the kids will eat green: pancakes, mac'n'cheese, grapes and what they won't: scrambled eggs, bread and meat. Our all time favorite St. Patty's Day food and tradition over the last 4 or so years are our homemade Shamrock shakes. They also wake up to Leprechaun pee in the toliet and a treasure to find. Also, in case you're wondering, I AM a loving enough mother to dress my kids in green to protect them from lunatics who might find pleasure in pinching small children. I also try to keep my opinons on the day to two or so outburst in the day.

  See.

  I can make St. Patty's Day fun. 

 This year was kind of weird b/c St. Patty's was on a Saturday and Brian was home. He finds the green food less humorus. Since it was a Saturday and I love me some sleep, I ditched our normal baby powder, leprechaun footprints and used crepe paper to criss cross the top of the stairs back and forth, making a gate. I had a sign from the little guy himself, to the kids instructing them to wait for each other to go on the hunt. There was another note with a riddle. The riddles took the kids through out the house until they ended up in the toy room at the treasure.

Then, they got hopped up on chocolate coins until we woke up a hlaf hour or so later. Then we downed green pancakes and green milk, we got dressed, went shopping (pain free, I might add) and then met up with Grandma and Papa and Grandma M&M for lunch at Archibalds. It was pouring buckets, which is the kids favorite time to be outside. We came home and to be honest, I don't remember the rest. This is why you should blog regulary. Ahh.
  Anyway, I do remember dinner. We had Irish meatball Sliders and some rice I invented with a green cream sauce I mixed in. I remember dinner for 2 reasons: 1. Any recipe from Michelle's Dinner Bell is gold (and the sliders were no different) and 2. I took a photo of the green saucy rice with my phone's camera and sent it to my parent's phone with the text, "Don't you wish you took up our offer for dinner? You're missing a yummy St. Patty's day feast!" to which my dad replied, "It looks like you're eating Pixie's (their dog) throw up. I'm glad I stayed home.". Yep, that's my dad. In case you don't know my dad, he's not being malicious at all. He just super picky about food and has a total dad since of humor. I'm still laughing about it.

Got an idea from Pinterest (AGAIN!!) to use little feet prints on the toliet rim. The kids thought it was pretty great. PS- that's dye settled in the bottom of the toliet and not Leprechaun poo.  

  I hope you all had a great St. Patty's Day...and by that I mean, I hope you weren't pinch on the fatty side of the back of your upper arm. I pretty sure it's less painful to be shot than pinched there.

Best big boy ever!

  Caleb has loved Kindergarten (not the homework so much, but that's another story). As great as it is to watch your kid get an award for academics, there's something special about watching them get an award for behavior. Each trimester, the teacher decideds who the best behaved student was and they're given the "Super Star Behavior" award. For the second trimester, Caleb was chosen! We are SO very proud of him!! His teacher told us that he always follows the class and recess rules and he's great at paying attention. His teacher also said that he's a "rare breed" of student for his age because he is very outgoing and popular with his friends but he can keep it together when he's in the classroom so as not to disrupt the class. Way to go, Bubby!




Caleb shaking Mr. Dent's hand



Caleb and Mrs. Lane



  Grandma DLC hung around and after school treated us all to Mc Donald's to celebrate! Thanks Grandma (mom)!

Random March pictures- Sadie and Daylon

A common sight- Sadie reading. I love that she's taken such an interested in reading since she was a baby and now that she is learning to read on her own, I will often go looking Sadie because she's being too quiet and I'll find her reading.

More Sadie news: She fell at preschool at got 7 stitches under her lip. This is obviously after the stitches

Our family has been really loved by the Corona Fire Dept since Daylon was born and we love them! This is Daylon modeling his new CFD tee shirt! Thanks guys! The kids love their shirts!



Daylon also started to have a desire to do things himself. He loves to hold his nebulizer and push the pause button on his feeding pump when it beeps.



Daylon's first day of Nursery! Even though he's 2 1/2, Daylon has been staying with us during church until recently. He loves his teachers and friends...as long as we stay with him. :)

Valentine's



 Growing up I hated Valentine's Day. It probably had something to do with the rotten luck of never once being in a relationship on Valentine's Day (technically, that's not entirely true. I actually had a fiance break up with me--via email!-- at like 2am on V day.). Ever since I've been married though, my feelings on the day are quite the opposite. I LOVE Valentine's! My mom made us "Love Pockets" (a family tradition on my side) several years back, but they didn't do well in our last move. The "Love Pocket" tradition works like this: Each family member has a pocket with their name on it and once a day or so everyone else in the family puts something in the pocket (piece of candy, a love note, a picture, sticker, etc)  from Feb 1st to Feb 14th. This year, since our hanging pocket strip broke, I was looking for something a little different. I came across the idea of using Target dollar spot mailboxes and thrift store candle sticks. I love how they all turned out and the kids thought it was the coolest thing to pull the little mail tab up. Each mailbox was less than 2 bucks each and the tradition continues! 

another Pinterest project. I'm really short on Valentine's decor and this was a really great, inexpensive help to my living room wall. The 3 letters were 50 cents at Michael's and I had the rest on hand!

  A down side to having school aged kids is that Valentine's Day is SUPER busy and stressful in the morning.
The kids and I made their Valentine's again this year, but I'm seriously thinking that this may be the last year. With 4 kids in school, they took FOREVER to make the night before. Not to mention there's still the other school afternoon junk to deal with.

breakfast of champions, am I right?

 Another Valentine's tradition in our family is that Brian buys the girls a Valentine gift and I buy the boys one. This year, the boys each got a noise sticks and car. Brian was a brave man and ventured into Claire's for the girls gifts. He bought them each a hair clip and ring.

  The little girls had a party at school and as usual, Mrs. Rogers went all out. They loved. it.
Caleb had a party the the teacher funded, which I thought was pretty nice and Keira's class through a pretty cool party to...if I do say so myself. :)
  Later that night, Brian and I went out on a date (woot! woot!) while my parents very generously watched all our little guys. All and all, an AWESOME Valentines!

Valentine's Tea Party

   The girls and I have been wanting to start a tradition over the last couple years of a tea party and this year we were finally able to do it! They invited their cousin Aleyna, and some family friends that live down the street. The girls loved dressing up and drinking tea (punch) like English ladies. I think they like pouring the teapot as much as drinking it. We also had some lady like/Valentine snacks.

I found teacups and saucers from thrift stores and then the girls got to use them as party favors when it was time to go home!

  Afterwards, we had a photo shoot. Let me tell you, these girls loved to ham it up. They got into my box of props and picked out accessories, while I took their pictures one by one.

Keira and the Bruer twins, Kara and Kelli

Our twins and Tori Bruer

Aleyna with Violet and Keira

From the mom stand point, it was such an easy party and I loved gabbing it up with Katie

while the girls played. We're definitely doing this again next year! I figure we only have a year or two left until Keira starts to think this sort of thing is lame, and I'm taking advantage while I can!