the luck o' the irish!

We love St. Patrick's Day around here!  It's one of those holidays that I'm embarrassed to say I don't know the real meaning behind, but I love the excuse to start family traditions and make memories with my children. Plus, I get to say, "the luck o' the Irish" in my fabulously realistic Irish accent dozens of times in one day! We started the night before by setting our leprechaun trap.  We put fake gold in this pot hoping one would mistake it for real gold and we'd be able to catch him, and he would grant us wishes that would make us ridiculously wealthy/powerful/happy.  Or something like that.

In the morning, we saw that while we hadn't caught any leprechauns, one did visit and bring us some Lucky Charms and some gold candy.

He also used our toilet, and forgot to flush, gross!
Since St. Paddy's day was also the first day of Spring Break this year, I decided to have some fun with it.  I made a treasure hunt where I hid 19 numbered shamrocks all over the house, and the three boys had to find them.

When they did, they could bring them to be and redeem them for a prize with the same number.  All the prizes were, of course, green!

For lunch, my friend Greta and her kids came over and we had a very yummy, very green lunch.

I don't know why, but there is something about eating food, usually for a holiday or a party, that all follows a color code, that makes me giddy.

Of course we all wore green, so as to not get pinched, and I had all my boys pose in front of this green wall, for a very festive photo!

For dinner we, of course, ate more green food.  The only thing not naturally green was the rice.  Oh, and the frosting on the brownies.  It was such a great St. Paddy's day, and a great start to spring break!
Also, I was glad that I had the energy to put this all together.  I have had morning sickness/all day sickness all day every day since the very beginning of January.  I have neglected my kids and my husband and my house, and I was happy to be able to help my kids have a fun holiday, and make fun memories for them, instead of giving them more memories of mommy laying on the couch, sipping Gatorade.  Again.
I'm happy to report that I am now having some good days mixed in with the bad days, or at least plenty of good parts-of-days, which makes everything so much easier.  Not that I feel like complaining at all.  We are all so thrilled about this baby, and having done this before, I know how worth it all of this is.  I know I won't care one bit about how sick or tired I have been, the moment I get to hold this baby in my arms for the first time, it will have all been worth it!

arrrgh matey!

A few weeks ago, the cub scouts had a pirate themed blue and gold banquet.  All the scouts dressed like pirates and put on a very cute skit.

 There's nothing so entertaining as a bunch of 8-10 year old boys pretending to be pirates, trying to remember what they are supposed to say and where they are supposed to go, and putting on a skit.  I loved it!

 At one point, the bad pirates "shot" at the audience.  I turned to look at Krew and saw this face:

 This is the face he makes when he get "shot" or otherwise "fatally wounded."  It's usually preceded by the phrase, "I'm dead."  You can tell he has two older brothers. Apparently this was an interactive theater event.

 Krew makes a pretty cute pirate too!

 And on a totally unrelated note, doesn't this picture of him playing Daddy's iPod, with his feet behind him in the air make him look so grown up?  When did that happen?!

the day it finally got above freezing

To say that this winter has been brutal would be a huge understatement.  We have been shattering records left and right for minimum temperatures, and lowest high temperatures, and most days below freezing, and coldest January ever, etc., etc., etc.  In order for the boys to have outdoor recess at school, the windchill has to be above zero.  (Which is still sooo cold to be outside for 20 minutes!).  I believe that in January, they had exactly two days of outdoor recess!  And February, I believe they had three.  That means that all the other days, at 11:30, the windchill was in the negative!  It also means that we have all been stuck inside for months.  So, after months of it not getting above freezing, the 19th of February, it finally did.  I think it got to 38 degrees, which probably meant the wind chill was around 28, so of course we headed outside to enjoy the heat wave!

 The first thing Krew did was find his sidewalk chalk, pull off his mittens and start coloring.  It didn't last long because it's too cold to be without mittens, but he did enjoy those couple of minutes!

 I had the boys stand on our mountain of snow so you could get an idea of how much snow we have.  We haven't really had any major snow storms that dump a ton of snow, just lots of storms that drop a few inches here and there. But since none of the snow that has fallen since December has melted, it's all piled up in our front yard.

 Snow ball fight!

 It was sad to watch Krew try to play in the snow.  He was so excited to, but even in the middle of the yard, it's at least a foot or more deep, much too deep for him to even walk around in.  So, other than standing on this hill for a few minutes, he had to stick with playing with the hard, icy stuff along the edge of the driveway.

 But, since our snow piles are so high, I decided to try making a sledding hill on it.  I don't know if it's awesome or super sad that in our very flat front yard we can go sledding.

 But Krew sure liked it, so that's good!

Now that we've had some fun in the snow, can it please warm up?  I'm going crazy here!

the return of the flag footballers

The twins just finished up their second season of flag football. It is such a great activity during these long, cold winters, to be able to play a team sport indoors. It was fun to see how much they have grown and how much better they are than last year.  It seemed like everyone in the league had a better grasp on the game of football and it was more fun to watch.  The boys took every play seriously, even if they were chewing their fingernails, dancing, waving to the crowd, talking to each other, and fidgeting wildly in between every play.

Their team was the Yellow Lakers this year.  Not sure who came up with the team name, but Kade and Ky were not too thrilled about being named after a basketball team.  Didn't matter what they were called though, their team was good!  We often won by a large margin. 

 See what I mean by dancing and trying to get attention from the crowd in between plays?  Both of them.

Krew didn't always enjoy being at the games.  He often wanted to be out there with the big boys, and definitely didn't want to sit with me and just watch the game.  

In fact, pictured below was Krew's favorite place to be during the football games:

 Peekaboo!  Yes, he loved climbing inside one the lockers and hiding in there for several minutes at a time.  He was exactly the right size to fit inside, and I can't even count the number of times he went in, shut the door, waited, and then came out laughing.

 The Yellow Lakers were able to finish the season undefeated, making it the second year in a row that the boys' team has won the championship.  Way to go boys!!

a little note. . .

Look at the note that Krew found on his crib today...

We are all this excited!  Except maybe for Krew.  When I explained what the notice said, he became less enthused about the whole idea.  See. . .

Just kidding.  I actually just told Krew to make a sad face, and he is a fantastic actor! But it made for a super cute photo.  Really he's thrilled too!