Balloons

Balloons can be a life saver. Cecily was blowing a gasket at the Market and the nice cashier offered all the children a balloon. It immediately calmed her....until her siblings took hers away. Then she got it back and was calm again.

I couldn't decide which image I liked best so I am sharing all three.

Look at this face. Pure joy.

Also, here are are some St Patrick's Day recipe's and ideas that you can use next year! I posted a whole bunch this week on my other blog. Here are just a few examples of how we celebrated this week.

Leprechaun Rainbow Pancakes

Alternative to green eggs and ham for St Patty's breakfast? How about leprechaun sized pancakes? Make them rainbow colored for extra enjoyment!

Here is a quarter to give you perspective with how big, or small these little guys are.

Sadly, the purple ones got eaten before I could save them for the photo shoot :)

I didn't think about serving these little pancakes on the play dishes until it was too late. But that would have been fun too, though I really would have had to make them silver dollar sized. Serve with syrup and sprinkle some green sugar crystals on top for the final touch!

Rainbow Pots

For family night on Monday night, we taught the children about the biblical symbol of a rainbow. Then they got to paint their own rainbow pots!

Remember these pots from this post? I found this fun idea from Ohdeedoh.

If they went to bed nicely, which they did....well enough, they'd get to search for the pot in the morning. I told them a leprechaun was going to bring golden treats if they were good and he hid them. So after breakfast I got my Irish accent on and led them on a treasure hunt around the house until they found their pot!

I filled the pots with the almond/toffee Hershey's nuggets, but let's be honest, those are for me. They just looked more like gold bars. The kids get the regular miniature candies (pictured in pot #2). In the next few weeks we'll plant some herbs and they'll get to watch them grow,(another great FHE lesson)!


Look at their concentration. It could have been very messy if I wasn't supervising. I recommend lots of newspaper and help. Samuel, at first, didn't want to paint his rainbows because that is "for girls" and reminds of him "ponies jumping through rainbows." But once I showed him how cool it could look and the fact that the leprechauns wouldn't come if it wasn't painted because they wouldn't know which pot to fill, he gave in, and loved it, of course.

Jocelyn quietly worked on hers. Suprisingly, her's turned out a little bit cleaner (hers is pictured in the front) though Samuel loves art. I signed him up for an art class, I hope he enjoys it!

St Patrick's Day Parade

I braved the streets of SLC (because it is such a huge city! ha!) with a friend and brought my 3 kiddos to the St. Patrick's Day Parade. It was fun! Long, but fun. My favorite is always the bag pipes. I LOVE bagpipes.

Samuel took these first group of photos.

Me, probably texting or maybe wiping Cecily's boogers. Poor thing, she had a cold.

Love that smile.

My friend Raylynn.

We sat right at the crosswalk. People still felt the need to use this even though it was the smallest street.

Love that horse with painted "nails!"

Love Irish dancing!

Love tall and skinny dogs. But, to be honest, I'd never want to own one.

Funny.

Love the bagpipes!

Some more.

And some more.

Don't know what can of beer guy was doing.....

I forgot to mention all of the Catholic schools represented. There were at least 7 plus a Baptist and a Lutheran school. I didn't know there were so many in Utah. If I could afford it, I would consider sending our kids to a private Catholic or Lutheran school because I am sure the discipline and curriculum is good.

St Patrick's Day Ideas

We're starting our St Patrick's Day Festivities tomorrow by attempting to go to the parade in SLC. Luckily, my BIL's sister, Raylynn (who is basically a part of our family too) will be joining us as I am a single parent this week. The kids and I are feeling a little under the weather (is that the right phrase, I just forgot it) so I hope we'll feel up to going.

Check out my other blog for the source info for those beautiful photos.

What about you? What do you do?

Motherhood moments and musings

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I thought I would take a moment and remember why I love being a mother. Or rather, why I love learning how to become a mother as it is not my favorite thing to do in the whole wide world. So curse me, if you will. It's truly how I feel. Motherhood does not come naturally for me. I have to work at enjoying. Sad but true. But more on that in another post. This is a post to reflect on why or how I am coming to truly enjoy it.

So, somehow I slept in this morning. So did everyone else. I suppose that's why. Cecily woke up twice in the night. The first time was like 40 minutes after I finally dozed off. I was hitting that REM phase (I think) and finally into deep sleep. You know that wonderful blissful feeling of relaxation and delight? And then she awakes. Like a record screeching to a halt. I have the hardest time with that feeding. I do it half asleep. She's lucky if she gets her diaper changed then because I am half-conscious. It's not safe, really. She could easily slip out of my arms they become so relaxed. Anyway, she woke up again at 5:45 AM. I don't know if she's actually hungry some of these times. I just wake up to her stuffy nose and my fear that she's suffocating. So I fed her and got to sleep by 6:30AM which is usually when Tyler gets up but he didn't. So I fell back to sleep until after 8 when Jocelyn announced that is was time to wake up.

Today I made green eggs and....pancakes for lunch (because I didn't wake up early enough to make them for breakfast, besides, Tyler doesn't like this pancake recipe). It was fun to watch the kids watch the yellow eggs mix with the blue dye and magically turn into green! A great art lesson. I tried to make it a moment for them. I think Jocelyn just thought I was weird. hm.

Last week I was able to go to a play with the kids. It has been much too long for that. I was more excited than they were. It was a children's theater piece. An adapted version of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. It was hard explaining that it was a play and not a movie. They were growing impatient waiting for it to begin. Then they saw the paper program with a picture of a life sized mouse on it and began to get scared. Then they grew excited as the music started and a grown man/boy came out of the red curtain. Their eyes widened at the mouse. It was such a thrill to watch them take it all in. I remember one of the first plays I attended was The Secret Garden for my 13th birthday. It was magical. I loved taking this play in for the first time with them. The audience was full of kids and the sound system was loud enough so I didn't mind when Jocelyn loudly asked things like, "When is the mouse's mouth going to open?" (he had a fake mouse head on that was sort of meshy and his eyes and mouth never moved). or "Why are the lights turning red?" or "When is the mommy going to come home?" It made me laugh. I think I had a smile on my face the entire hour (even when it dragged on near the end).

This week we discovered that Samuel is the only one of his pre-school friends whose name does not begin with the letter "J." He has Jimmy, Jair, Jared, Jameson, Jordyn and Johnny and Jocelyn. Crazy, eh? Good lesson in the letter "J."

Jocelyn reminds me of myself as a kid. She likes to wear twirly skirts (or any skirt or dress, for that matter). The weather has been gorgeous this week and the kids have been playing outside. Jocelyn likes to twirl with a doll or stuffed animal and sing. It's so fun to watch because I made my own "music videos" in the backyard when I was a youngster too. Except no one else knew it but me :)

Here is a picture of our little Cecily. I love it when they fall asleep like this (when she's not burritoed up). She's almost 2 months old already. She's getting fatter by the day. And she's getting stronger but still a bit wobbly with her head and body. She still curls up and cuddles on my chest too. Her hair is lightening up and I love to look at her everyday. I try not to pop her little baby zits or clean her ears out with my pinky while she's eating or scrape the green goo out her eye. It's such a temptation but such an annoyance for her, especially when I have long fingernails.

The end of the mommy moments this week.