Leprechauns

Happy St. Patrick's Day from our Bugaboo.
I've decided that I really love St. Patrick's Day. The kids don't have any big expectations for it, so when they wake up and realize that it's a holiday and that leprechauns have turned the milk green and left candy they are just thrilled. Carter had never heard of St. Patrick's Day until John gave him a quick run down in the morning. Carter was delighted with it all and came running in to tell me "if I find a leprechaun today he will give me ALL his candy". He had it a bit confused but he was sure excited and spent the day looking for "little green guys".


Kelsie had a very eventful day in 3rd grade with leprechauns turning their class upside down and leaving green eggs and ham for them to eat. She decided she wanted to build a trap for a leprechaun and made this house that was pretty adorable. The address read "Home Magical Home" on the top and had signs and a mailbox to complete it. It inside was decorated all in green and it was really quite magical. Meanwhile Emily was outside making a leprechaun trap with her friend Lizzie. Their trap was a leprechaun restaurant. It was complete with a wood sign, crackers, and water to entice the little guy. These girls always crack us up with the things they dream up to do because they truly live in their own little magical world. But really....what better way to trap a leprechaun than a restaurant just for him? I love it.

Tis the Season...

for garage sales. I hit the first garage sale of the season on Saturday and came away with way cute jumpers for the girls for school and a whole bin of wooden Barbie doll furniture for $5. I was so excited to finally have furniture for the Barbie house we inherited a couple of years ago. The girls have been happily playing Barbies for the last 3 days. Is it sad if garage sale season is my favorite time of the year?

Five Months Old

Matson at five months: He rolls ALL over the place. I've never had a baby roll all the way across the room like he does. He rolls until he hits a wall and then screams until someone comes and saves him....then he starts rolling again. He is very active and kicks his feet and tries to jump out of my arms when he sees something he likes. He squeals when he sees other babies and you can just tell he wants to play with them.

We broke out the saucer and he thinks it's pretty cool, although the toys are a bit overwhelming sometimes. :) He's pretty much decided that he prefers to be held all of the time and carted around the house wherever we go. We've tried every type of "chair" there is....the bumbo, johnny jump up, saucer, etc... and he isn't really a fan of any of them.

He is still a happy little guy. This is what I see when I go to get him after a nap. It doesn't get much better than that.

The highchair is his preferred seating arrangement, if he can't be held. His very favorite toy is books! He loves to open and close them, look at the pictures, and of course eat them. He loves to be read to and babbles and kick and tries to grab the pictures right off the pages.

Last Minute Trip

John decided Sat. morning that he really wanted to go to ID to see the closing night of his brother Drew's play "Forever Plaid." He reminded me that we used to be more spontaneous and I reminded him that we have four kids. But in the end we decided to give it a try because we wanted to see this show that we'd heard so many great things about. We left at 3:30 and arrived in Pocatello in time to visit, have dinner, and watch the show.

The show was amazing. So well done and such incredible talent. The kids all loved it and were totally entertained. We enjoyed seeing Drew and Julie, and hanging out with our cute cousin Ellie for the evening.

We left at 10 PM to start on our 3 hour drive home . When we walked out the doors of the playhouse Kelsie exclaimed, "that was totally worth the drive!"

That meant a lot coming from Kelsie (AKA our child who hates to drive anywhere and gets really carsick). We all agreed. We had a great time, even if it was a really quick trip.

Emily Thoughts

John was watching a basketball game. Emily came in and asked, "Do girls play basketball too?" John was pretty excited by her sudden interest in basketball and said, "Do you want to play basketball on a team?"

Emily gave him a funny look and said, "No, I'm going to be a cheerleader!"

Yip. That's my Emily.

Piano

Tonight was Kelsie's first piano recital. I remember my piano recitals being so long and boring, but this was so fun to see all these talented kids perform. She played Minuet by Bach. It was perfect and made all those long, hours of practicing so worth it. She started lessons last February and it's amazing to see how much she has learned in one year.

The story behind our piano lessons....

Kelsie had been begging to start lessons for a couple of years. During this time John's parents gave us a piano which made it possible for her to start. The problem was I couldn't find a teacher who had room for her. I knew the teacher I wanted (my neighbors go to her and she's amazing) but she has a waiting list forever. I called and talked to lots of other teachers but I didn't want her to go to any of them. In my head I knew who I wanted to be her teacher. The problem was she wasn't a piano teacher and had 6 little kids. But I finally got up the courage to ask my dear friend and next door neighbor is she'd consider teaching Kelsie. I was pretty surprised that she didn't laugh at me. She considered it and said yes. Kelsie started a week later and has been making amazing progress and loving her piano lessons ever since. Thanks to Mindi for being willing to do this and being such a great teacher. John and I are constantly impressed by the techniques she uses (that we never learned). And it's a huge bonus that she comes right to my house and teaches while my boys nap!

Mindi and all her students. Kelsie loves that she was her 1st student.

One of the perks to having your best friends mom as your piano teacher is your best friend comes to your recital. Cute girls.

Thanks so much to the grandparents for coming to her recital. Afterwards we got to take the girls to dinner with both sets of grandparents. It was a real treat to be with all of them and we had a great time visiting. Thanks for the support. And now we are moving on to new songs...Yeah!

Carter Turns 3!

Happy Birthday to my big 3 year old boy! He was delighted by his firetruck cake and he didn't even notice that it was PINK...thank goodness! He was so taken with the licorice hose and ladder that he couldn't even contain himself.

Carter has been talking about his birthday since the day he turned 2...seriously. On the way home from his 2 year old b-day party he said, "can we do that one more time?" He wanted to do the whole party just once more--you know the cake, the presents, the spotlight all on HIM. :) We assured him that he could---Next year! He took that to heart and has been talking about his birthday ever since and planning the Elmo cake and party he wanted (which we changed to FIRETRUCKS at the last minute). (And yes, we know this is not normal 2 year old behavior but he is not a normal 2 year old as anyone who knows him will attest to.)

So the big day FINALLY arrived. He'd been sick all week so we hadn't planned a whole lot because we didn't know if he'd be well. As soon as he woke up he checked out all of his decorations and cake and was SO excited that he was finally the birthday boy. The first first thing he said was, "My friends are going to be SO excited. When are they coming? They will want to come and eat cake and play party games and do a pinata.

I didn't have the heart to tell him that I hadn't planned a party. So I called up my awesome neighbors for a last minute party with Carter's favorite 3 friends and it made Carter's day! He was at the height of bossiness and must have told them that he was the "birthday boy" a hundred times. I guess he was afraid they might forget. :)

We headed to McDonalds for a birthday lunch. This was his first time getting a happy meal.

We are driving in the car and I say,

"I'm going to take you to McDonalds for a happy meal." Carter starts laughing at me and says, "But I'm already happy! ....And so are you mom!"

I love this kid. No one makes me more frustrated and tired and no one makes me laugh or smile more than this funny, crazy little boy. Happy Birthday "3 YER OLD"!