Holiday Buntings

I have had a crafty bug lately. (This is likely due to the germy bug that spent two weeks over-staying its welcome in our family. And just when we thought things were on the "up and up", Daniel starts coughing.)

I've already kind of shown you my St. Patrick's Day craft. Here is a better picture. It was really easy to make and was done in one day. (Joseph was trying to get in the picture.)

And here is one that replaced it today. This one was pretty easy, too, though more involved. It took a few days, because of several interruptions.

Now I have to decide what else to make!

St. Patrick's Day

When you become a parent, it seems like some holidays take on a life of their own. Take St. Patrick's Day, for instance. When I was younger, it was only a half holiday. That means I only thought of it in terms of making sure I wore at least some green to avoid a painful pinch at school. Past that, I didn't give March 17th much thought.

Fast forward to St. Patrick's Day now. I spent the days leading up to the day making decorations. DECORATIONS? Yes...and they are darned cute. One is a fun little green and white bunting that you can see hanging on the wall in the first photo below.

Another is less durable, but more interactive and must be credited to my old roommate, Laura, who shared the idea with me on Facebook. I made a big pot of gold from paper, placed it under a paper rainbow and cut out a bunch of coins that had "Golden Rule" printed on them.

The deal was that the kids could add a coin to the top of the pot when they were caught doing something kind for another. The excitement of the project has diminished a bit, but we did end up with over a dozen coins on it. Maybe I wasn't very good at noticing their kindnesses.

The night before St. Patrick's Day, the Leprechauns paid us a little visit. They have been coming and causing a bit of mischief the past few years. I might have forgotten about this if Rebekah hadn't anticipated it out loud. So this year the little imps switched the dining room and living room furniture.


Our dining room is too small for us. (One of the reasons why we want to move.) Even when the table and chairs were out and the room was empty for a moment, it still felt small. It didn't get any better when the couches were put in!

That morning, the kids were surprised by the difference. They started to eat at the table, but I know them well enough to know that I didn't want them eating over the carpet. Nor did I want them eating near the couches (though they no longer seem worth much protecting), so we moved the couches back into the living room and they ate at the coffee table.

I also made some St. Patrick's Day shirts for the kids to wear to school. I designed them on my Silhouette program and cut the fabric on the cutter. The green fabric is ironed onto the shirts and stitched around the edges. The kids all had some say in what their shirt would look like (except for Sarah). I thought they were a pretty good looking bunch!

And now for the real story behind the picture:

I had woken a little late that morning and lost the few minutes that are usually a buffer for waiting for the bus. I wanted to get a picture of the kids in their shirts. Plus, I had two rooms of furniture that I wanted to put back while I had Daniel home. (He's not the biggest kid on the block, but some help is often better than none.) This is on top of the normal task of getting ready for school.

While people were running here and there, I was trying to make enough room to get a table through. Then Rebekah starts coughing (we've had some tenacious germs around here) and THROWS UP on herself, the wall and the carpet. Of course. Long, ugly story short, I got the shirt rinsed off and threw it into the dryer long enough to just be "moist." We took a quick series of pictures, zipped up coats and sent the kids out to the bus.

Then I moved the furniture back into the places it all belonged. By myself. Darned Leprechauns!

St. Patrick's Day tom foolery

For the Family Home Evening activity last week, we made these mobiles. (I cut out those little shamrocks by hand...it took all day!) I asked everyone to think of if they found a pot of gold, what would they do with their wealth? They were supposed to write it on the shamrocks.

I put things like take a trip to Thailand (although I'd wait until the fighting stopped), buy a new dryer (to match my new washer), travel the 50 states, etc. Daniel was a little more general: food, clothes, toys, etc. Nathan put things like "spend", "save", "buy", "give." Leah only did two. One was buy a horse (what a surprise). Rebekah's four choices were: treats, clothes, strawberries and a doll for Sarah (so nice of her to think of Sarah!). Joseph make a lot of circles on his shamrocks.

I was thinking I'd get great insight into Chad's secret dreams and private shopping list. I should have known something was not going right when I saw the length of his strings on his mobile. I gave it the shortest clearance from the ceiling and the lowest shamrock came within 1/2 inch of the floor. Chad had 6 shamrocks. Here is what he wrote on them to do with his pot of gold: "Hide it from Daniel", "Hide it from Nathan", "Hide it from Leah", "Hide it from Rebekah", "Hide it from Joseph", "Hide it from Sarah". Good thing we only have 6 kids...someone might have felt left out! Good thing he only had 6 shamrocks...he might have hid it from ME!

This morning the kids awoke to find that a leprechaun (or two) had been a little naughty during the night. All the chairs and benches were on the table, the couch pillows were stacked in the middle of the floor, their backpacks were dumped and scattered in the living room and the milk in the fridge had turned green! Additionally, there were little segments of crumpled green paper streamers throughout the room.

No one was cranky this morning. There was too much fun for negativity. Leah and Nathan both took a piece of green streamer to school. I think it was for "evidence". Nathan is hovering right around make-believe and reality. I told him leprechauns were just for fun, but the results of the morning, along with Leah's complete belief, are almost too much for him.

Since this morning, the magic has worn off for Joseph. He's been throwing tantrum after tantrum. I think the leprechauns are playing a joke on me, now!

GREEN!

I completely missed February and the hearts, etc. But I won't let you down for March!

My scrapbooking program was in total shock when I opened it up this morning.

St. Patrick's Day

We had fun with St. Patrick's Day this year. Nathan explained to me why it was important that he wear green to school and had his clothes picked out the day before. Daniel also donned green to ward off the pinchers!

We had a green dinner - but not the Dr. Suess variety. We had green pancakes that I attempted to cook in the shape of shamrocks. Some turned out better than others (though ultimately, they all ended up in the same condition). We had green syrup which was almond flavored with green food coloring since the almond extract was colorless and the mapleine was not.
We also had green milk left over from lunch and enjoyed it in cups decorated with Shamrocks. Breakfast that morning was chocolate Lucky Charms with "double the shamrock marshmallows". Not real healthy, but a heck of a lot of fun!


For FHE, we answered questions about Easter, but the questions were on the backs of posterboard shamrocks. We used a 12-sided die and rolled to find out which question we got to answer. After we answered a question, we got a little green frog candy. It had nothing really to do with St. Patrick's Day OR Easter, but it was green.

Our FHE treat was a shamrock we made out of breadsticks, sprinkled with green sugar which we ate while we watched Shrek the Third (he's green).

H unting for gold (and the rest of our weekend)

Since Saturday was St. Patrick's Day, we had a hunt for leprechaun gold. It was a picture scavenger hunt and along the way, everyone got a little stuffed white/green bear. At the end of the rainbow was a clear green piggy bank and 3 gold foil-covered chocolate coins. There was money taped to the back of the coins for the bank.

The day had been beautiful so we walked 15 minutes to Subway for dinner. While we were there, we were talking about our hunt we were going to have when we got home. Daniel, ever skeptical, piped up, "Leprechauns aren't true!" We reminded him that it would be wise to believe, if only for a few hours.

Earlier that day the kids had enjoyed playing with their Laird cousins. Daniel seemed to slip right into "take charge" mode. He's lucky they were willing to play along since 2 of them tower over him. Leah enjoyed having an older girl to play with. She didn't even seem to notice that her cousin was 5 years older.

Chad got deep in rabbit gunk as he moved the cage out of the greenhouse. There was a lot of fertilizer in there! Chad and Daniel planted some berry bushes. Will we have berries for jam this Fall? It's always a gamble.

I spent the day working on my quilt block creation and doing laundry (when I wasn't napping). The laundry takes the whole day and I didn't get the last load into the dryer until after 11:30 PM. It goes without saying that it's still not folded.

In Primary yesterday, Daniel was yucking it up as usual. Gratefully, I only had 3 kids in class. The 3 hardest ones! One of the kids said, "Daniel is so funny!" And then the other one added, "Yeah! He's like a clown!" I think Daniel grew 1/2 an inch (or was it just his head?).

Rebekah started saying, "Bye-bye" yesterday. She was trying to repeat names, too, but they weren't very clear. She's very good at saying, "uh-uh." As you picture that, add a baby scowl.

So now the week has begun again. Ho hum. I do get to take the cat to the vet for booster shots today and Daniel's P/T conference is this afternoon. I teased him last night and said I had to go talk to the teacher to find out how bad he is. He looked at me for several seconds and then said, "I'm not bad!" Good! Let's keep it that way, Mr. Clown!