St. Patrick's Day celebrating!

It was really awesome that St. Patrick's Day was during Spring Break this year, because it meant we got to do a really great outing, in addition to some other fun little things. Today has been a stay at home day (and consequently a blog catch up day), because I'm honestly pretty worn out from our zoo trip and our st. patty's day celebrating. But it was worth it!

We had Lucky Charms for breakfast. The kids were way more excited about this than I expected... marshmallows in cereal are a big deal for kids who are used to Life, Kix, and oatmeal. Here's Emma in all her morning glory happily enjoying her St. Patrick's Day breakfast...


The kids got dressed in green (we had to get creative from their closet... but every year, I always find at least ONE green shirt or dress for them to wear. Jake got to wear an actual St. Patrick's Day shirt that he got from Grandma for his birthday). Then I painted the girls nails green - they LOVE this!


After we were all dressed and ready, with a lunch packed, we hopped in the car, for an hour long drive to Fountain Hills. It actually ended up being an hour and 15 minute drive, because of the crazy construction traffic on the way there. But I have to say, it was SO worth the drive out there! If I can, I would definitely go again next St. Patrick's Day. Every year, they turn their famous huge fountain GREEN. And this fountain is HUGE, so it was really exciting for the kids (and me!). We ate our lunch while waiting for the clock to reach Noon...




Then at 12:00, it was GREEN! So fun!








It ran green for about 30 minutes. The kids did a lot of running around on all the grass while we were there. Jake got busy trying to open a green Starburst... he's really intense about doing things all by himself - it's usually just annoying :) He says "No! I wanna do it!"






They had a coloring table and face painting... and oh, lots and lots of BEER. We refrained. :) But we did partake in the coloring table. We thought about doing the face painting, but oh my goodness, it was like 20 dollars per kid (depending on the design you picked)! That would explain the short line, but I couldn't believe some people were even willing to entertain the idea of paying 20 bucks for a rainbow on their kids face! Nuts, I tell you!


Speaking of rainbow's, after getting home, we made rainbow cookies. I was going for easy, so I was happy to have found this idea online. I think if I were to do it again, I would have taken the cookies out of the oven a minute early, put in the m&m's, then cooked them for one more minute, so that he m&m's melt a tiny bit and stick to the cookie. I just bought store bought sugar cookie dough, and then we put in the candies right out of the oven while they were still warm. Some of them would fall off when you picked up the cookie to eat it though - but still delicious! And the kids enjoyed the activity... and the treat. :)






So, the kids were a bit disappointed about not getting their faces painted at the park earlier - I told them while we were there, that I would paint their faces when we got home. So we did! It was pretty fun actually... and I was happy that I happened to have more paint colors than I originally thought. Plenty for rainbow's and clovers...


Becca wanted to take a picture while I was painting Emma's face - as she snapped away, she says, "I'm practicing to be a mommy!". haha.




And lastly, those sneaky leprechauns made their way into our house at bedtime... I'm not sure those little green men were thinking that it's not the best idea to give kids pixie stix right before bed. :)

Spring Break time at the Zoo

The kids have been on Spring Break this week! I really do love when the kids are out of school. Getting up early to get ready and out the door for school everyday gets tiring. And it's fun to have more time to play! We went to the zoo on Wednesday and really had a blast... it was SO busy though! We got there at 10am and already had to park in their overflow parking lot in the back. But I didn't lose any of my children while we were there, and we had a great time, thankfully. It was hot! I slathered the kids in sunblock when we first got there, but I of course didn't think to put any on myself... so I got a little bit cooked... but I already have a bit of a tan now and it's only March... so that's awesome! :)


We decided to get tickets to pet the sting rays, because the kids all acted like they really wanted to... well, they were all a bunch of scaredy cats. Emma reached her hand in the water a couple times but any time a sting ray would get a little bit close, she would quickly pull it out and tell me she was scared they would sting her. I told her their stingers were removed and that they couldn't hurt her, but that didn't seem to help. But they still had fun watching ME pet them. :)








The splash pads were open at the zoo, so the kids changed into their swim suits and played for over an hour in the water. Jake really liked it and did a lot of jumping in the puddles...



Whenever Jake would get water splashed in his eyes, he would make this face. It cracked me up.










On our way out of the zoo, at the end of our visit, stopping to look at the turtles...


This is what Jake thought of having to leave and go home...

Emma's missing a tooth...

Emma lost her first tooth! It's been VERY loose for a few weeks, and it finally fell out (after Ben casually pushed on it really hard... Emma apparently didn't cry about it, so it must have been very ready to come out of there). The tooth fairy found our house and left Emma a dollar and a certificate... the next morning, Emma says to me, "I think the tooth fairy must have used our computer because this looks like the font you always use mom!" Sigh.

Flowers, forts, and fun birthdays!

Here's some random stuff from the past couple weeks...

We've been making LOTS of trips to the library lately... I'm not sure why we've started going so much in the past few months, but if you start checking stuff out, then you eventually have to go back to return it all, and then you end up checking more stuff out and the cycle continues. :) Well, the last couple library trips we've spent a bit of time in their little garden area in the back - the flowers were too inviting to ignore! I've been desperately trying to get a culture pass to the Desert Botanical Gardens, but no luck lately... spring time is the best time to go see the beautiful desert flowers...

I noticed in this picture that Jake is missing a flip flop... that seems to happen much too often

The kids had been begging to make a big fort for the past while, so this past Friday night, we helped them to construct one in the loft. They were so excited to sleep in it! I thought we might have scared little girls in our bed during the night, but they both slept well and enjoyed their night in the fort. And the next morning, godzilla Jake came and destroyed most of it. :) Maybe when the kids get older they will be able to create even bigger and more elaborate forts... like the amazing blanket fort on Community!




I've decided to sign the girls up for spring swim lessons which start at the beginning of April... so we picked out some new swim suits for them to use this summer. They were anxious to use them, so when we got home we hooked up the sprinkler and they had a wonderful time! This picture embarrasses me because of the dead and weedy grass, but the girls are too cute not to post it. :)


So, Jake is turning TWO in less than 2 weeks! I'm excited! This past Sunday, we did an early birthday celebration with Ben's family at their place. Ben's dad also has a birthday in March, and the bestest news of all is now there is a THIRD family member with a birthday in March, and she was just born! I'm giddy about it... Ben's sister and their cute family have been trying to adopt for many years and finally they were able to adopt a sweet baby girl, born on March 8th! They named her Caroline... isn't that such a sweet name? So, Caroline was just brought home from the hospital the day before and was a preemie, so they left her at home with daddy - but we still sang Happy Birthday to her and to Clyde, and Jake. Emily made a very yummy pistachio shamrock cake! mmm. Even Emma ate it, and that says something... because she's adamant to only like chocolate. Jake got lots of great new clothes, including lots of shorts which he's desperately needed with the warming temperatures. He also got a little doctor kit and some toy trucks. In addition to birthday fun, Ben's parents made an Irish corned beef and cabbage dinner for everyone. I actually liked it!






I just can't believe my little Jake is almost 2! And in a couple months he's going to be a big brother! That's just nuts.

Green eggs and Oobleck

We had a splendid Dr. Suess Day a couple weeks ago. I only own 2 Dr. Suess books (which makes me sad!), so I went to the library the day before the "holiday" and checked out every single Suess book they had left, which wasn't many because they were already picked over quite a bit. The kids had to settle with The Cat and the Hat Comes Back over the original.... haha. But we read through every single book throughout the day, which was fun.


That night we made green, eggs, and ham like we did last year... we decided to make eggs with spinach (eggs florentine) instead of just dying the eggs green, to make it a more appetizing for dinner... but Emma was not pleased with the idea of spinach in her eggs, so we made a special batch of plain green eggs just for her. Emma's teacher sent her home with her 'Dr. Suess hat' to use for the evening. Emma was thrilled! She very happily wore it during our Suess dinner.



After dinner, Ben read our favorite Suess book - Oh the Place You'll Go! - to the kids...


I had Bartholomew and the Oobleck on hold at the library before Suess Day but it wasn't ready for pick up until earlier this week, so recently we read the book (which is long, but Emma really loved it!), and then we made Oobleck. I imagine most of you have made this stuff before - just mix 1 cup water with 2 cups cornstarch. We died the water green before adding in the cornstarch to make it the color of the oobleck in the book. Emma and Jake were in love with manipulating it as it switches from solid to liquid and getting really messy. Becca didn't like it one bit... you can see from her face in the pic below - she's not into getting messy. She got the stuff on one of her fingers and she already wanted a wipe to get it off. :)








This ended up being a great Dr. Suess activity, or an anyday activity for that matter... unless you have kids that hate to get messy, like my Becca.