Gonna catch a Leprechaun!

In keeping with tradition, we made leprechaun traps last week for FHE. This year I just set out a bunch of random items and the girls went to work creating their own. Savannah is cutting fake gold out of this butter box.

Brighton was excited to join in this year. He had no idea what exactly a leprechaun was, but he knew he wanted to catch one after his sisters gave him the 411 on what the leprechauns give you if you do manage to trap one. We borrowed from last year's trap and concocted this simple trap.

This is Savannah's finished product. I loved how she decided to duct tape the box to the hearth this year so the leprechaun couldn't upend the box and escape. Creative problem solving, Savannah!

Irelynd's was a little more simple, but similar.

Update: the kids got up St. Patrick's day morning to find that, alas, the little men escaped yet again! Left behind were some shiny new pennies (usually they leave gold dollars, but, we are in the middle of a recession, ya know!), and some gold chocolate coins. Irelynd's leprechaun had had help getting out; we found a piece of ribbon tied to the fireplace handle and thrown down the hole to the trapped leprechaun's rescue. Savannah's used the popsicle stick sign to climb out. Brighton's didn't seem to need help. Darn tricky little Irishmen!

My SIL, Sallie, brought her girls and crafts over last week for some St. Patrick's day fun. The girls had fun making badges; I had fun later sweeping up glitter. In fact, I'm still having fun with it:) My kitchen floor is bling-y!

No, they're not that excited over badges; I happened to get this expression as their favorite song, Fireflies, came on the radio. Cute, huh?

What a grin; looks almost evil.

Brighton was too young and just observed the fun. He found this pair of goggles recently in our swim drawer and somehow thought they looked so cool to wear. He's seldom been without them. Future aviator, or deep-sea diver?

While the girls had their fun, I had mine, making cute flower clips for the holiday. Where were these when I was young enough to wear them? Love them! So fun to make! This may become my next craft obsession.

Minnie Mouse lives at our house

Just some cute photos taken recently of Waverly. With the bow, she resembled Mickey's girlfriend.

"Oh-oh! Where's my shoe?"

Peek-a-boo!

I see you!

And this is why time-outs in our house may not be so effective.

Waverly had to sit in her first time out ("mout") last week for hitting Keaton on the head. It's a common practice for her. I think she likes the sound it makes. I sat her here, went and set the kitchen timer for one minute...

...and came back to this. Not so effective, but how cute is that? Keaton sat to keep her company.

Rainbow bright

Inspired by my sister-in-law, Sallie, Brighton and I made a foot rainbow. He loves to paint and asked me for days if we could paint. Like the wonderful mother I am, I pushed him off so I could get my cupcake party stuff done. Finally, one weekend I pulled the stuff out and we painted. Oi. That was an adventure. Good thing it's washable!

To make one, first you start with big white paper (I used a roll of white wrapping paper) and draw a rainbow on it.
Next you squirt out your paints onto paper plates.

Then you apply the paint to the feet and walk along the drawn lines. I meant to get a photo of this "step" (haha!), but couldn't afford to let go of Brighton's hands. THere is no telling where he would go with painted feet.

After we were done, this is what feet smeared in 6 different paint colors looks like:

Not sure why this photo didn't turn right side up, but here is the artiste, so proud of his work.

I cut around the rainbow a little, since our lines were a little drunken; here it is on our wall:

Ta-da!

UVMOM cupcake party

This month I hosted a cupcake party for my twins mom group. I was having blenvy, drooling over this party, and wanted to copy it, in a smaller scale, of course! There were 10 ladies that came; we decorated cupcakes and overloaded on sugar and buttercream frosting. I think we all left in a sugar daze:) It was fun to chat with everyone and enjoy each other's company over my latest obsession: cupcakes!

Waverly had to wear her cupcake outfit today, of course:) She sports a sentiment I feel deeply: So many cupcakes, so little time. She sampling my cupcake pops. So much better the next day, refrigerated.

Table display.

Close up. Aren't they cute? And, if it's not cute, why eat it?

The girls and I made our cupcake jewellery again.

I found the recipes for THE BEST cupcakes. Yum! For chocolate sour cream cupcakes with peanut butter frosting go here; for raspberry-filled white chocolate cupcakes with white chocolate frosting, strawberry lemonade cupcakes, or chocolate chip cookie dough with cookie dough frosting, go here . Oh, they were so good! The secret to good cupcakes is apparently coconut milk. Makes them moist and yummy! I'm drooling as I talk. Surprisingly, the last 3 were vegan recipes; I used skim and whole milk instead of soy, but there are no eggs in the recipes! Who'd a thunk it? I'm converted.

I made this cute cupcake tablecloth, copying the one from Kara's cupcake party, of course. I still have to add the ricrac; my sewing maching was acting up that night, but it turned out so cute! And, I realized I can still use it for birthdays too! I might just have to give the girls a cupcake party now that I have all the stuff for it!

Sallie hard at work.

Date with Grandma

For March's date we went to dinner at 5 Guys Burgers and then to see "If you give a Mouse a Cookie" at the Scera. It was an adaptation of the book by the same name. It was only an hour long; half as long as I expected it to be, but 3 times as long as the book allowed itself to be adapted. The kids thought it was great; I liked last year's book adaptation better of "A year with Frog and Toad." But we had a fun night with Grandma and made some memories!

The girls got a kick out of the way the guy behind the counter yelled out everyone's order.

Dr. Seuss Day

Of course we had to have green eggs and ham for breakfast today!

From here to there funny things are everywhere!

With tomorrow being Dr. Seuss day, Scott decided to do a fun FHE on the man. He told the kids he had to go and get a special guest for tonight's FHE. After he left the room, the conversation went something like this:

Savannah: "is it Santa Claus? No, I bet it's a leprechaun!"
Irelynd: "I'll bet Dad is just dressing up himself." (she's my logical thinker)
S: "no, or he wouldn't have gone out the front door. I bet it's a lesson on St Patrick's day, since it's coming up. I bet he went to get Brother Packer [our neighbor], and he's dressed like a leprechaun because he's short and little like one!"

Scott came back, leprechaun-less, a few minutes later as Dr. Seuss and we read a few Dr. Seuss books together. This is his version of Dr. Seuss:

As there are no images of the famous author, he invented one himself. Like the lamb slippers on his feet? Classic!

Chalk up one more character Scott has impersonated for the kids! Cute, honey! Love you for doing this for our kids! I'm sure they'll remember it for quite some time!

St. Patrick's Day decor

My computer's mother board had an aneurism last week and died on the table. So I spent 6 days without one. Inconvenient at first, but I was so productive last week! I got some projects either completed or started, that I'd been wanting to do for a long while. 2 of these are below. With inspiration from MymixofSix blog (yes, I'm a blog stalker, I admit it. But I LOVE her blog; maybe it's the redheads), I created my new letters.
And here they are in place on my birthday shelf. It's supposed to be a time shelf, but it's kind of becoming a holiday shelf. Maybe after I get my vinyl lettering up it'll change. I love them! I decided they needed a little bit of bling to look complete.

Then I made a felt wreath to go on my bare wreath holder on my front hall table. That's becoming a holiday table too. I just love the holidays! I've embraced Scott's Irish roots (and thereby my kids' too), and we make sure to celebrate the St. Patty's day with a lot of green around the house. I had a website that gave a tutorial on it, but the link disappeared with my mother board. Fun and easy!

Oreo fudge ice cream cupcakes

I made these little babies for a family birthday dinner at our house yesterday. I'm a sucker for anything you can call a cupcake! They were delish! For the recipe, go here.

Fun with lunch

I've been trying to pep up my game as Chief Lunch Chef. I made some strawberry applesauce last week and made a face on it for Brighton (hoping to disguise the fact that it was all natural, no sugar added!) It worked!

Again, the toothpicks worked great! I thought I was a food genius at the time, but I realize now it's really not that original to put cubed food for toddlers on little toothpick skewers. Oh well, I was a genius for a day:) I did make that little "tractor" on the right, though. What won't I stoop to to get my kids to eat their veggies. He's on to me, though; it only kind of worked.

A built-in playmate

Just some cute pics of my twins. They were under the desk one day, just entertaining each other and laughing hysterically. Twins are so much fun! I wholeheartedly LOVE having twins!

First pigtail!

My little monkey finally has enough hair to have a piggie! Oh happy day!