Happy St. Pat's

Put to bed two happy kids tonight.  St. Patrick's Day took on a life of its own around here, with leprechaun trapping and so yesterday I introduced the boys to Darby O'Gill and the Little People (a Disney movie I have always loved featuring leprechauns) which they barely understood but stayed riveted to nonetheless!  Today the traps were checked, the disappointment experienced, and then we had a green supper.  I didn't have time for corned beef and cabbage, alas, didn't get to the crock pot soon enough.  But we had green grapes, green apples, celery, spinach noodles, roasted cabbage and green turkey meatballs (only lightly green).  Throats were wetted with leprechaun punch (gingerale with a scoop of lime sherbet).  Our deviation was a cherry pie...with a shamrock on top.  Then we turned on some celtic fiddle music and danced!  What fun.  And Owen asked for cabbage for lunch tomorrow.  You just never know.

New Tooth

We have the first occurrence of an adult tooth coming in amongst us!  However, the baby tooth has not been lost :}  Owen told me last night at bedtime, "What is this sharp thing in my mouth?  Last week it wasn't so sharp and it was hurting and this week now it's really hard and sharp.  Is it a wart?"  Well, that was puzzling. Lo, and behold, there is a tooth way behind his baby tooth.  His baby tooth is quite loose, and we've known that, but he steadfastly refuses to want to lose it :}  So, he has a case of shark teeth (http://www.oralanswers.com/2010/10/adult-permanent-teeth-coming-in-behind-baby-teeth-shark-teeth/).  Who knew?  Apparently it usually takes care of itself.  We are working on wiggling that baby tooth on out.  I sewed him a tooth fairy pouch just to generate a little excitement :)

Money pit and pie

We have put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into our home, and hired very little professional help for the work we've done.  However, with three small children and 2 bedrooms for 5 people, it was way past time to get a project done that we knew would be too all-consuming and take too long without help.  So, there are contractors currently working to renovate the rear two rooms of our house and make a few layout changes.  Ah, old houses that have been added to...and added to...and things just sort of tacked together over time and not really up to standard.  First, we were just gutting the rooms and reframing a closet, new windows, new plaster and blueboard.  Then, the roof had to be redone.  Today I looked out and the walls were completely gone.  At this rate, we should have just bulldozed!  The contractor was so exasperated, no doubt because they spent so much time taking siding off, gutting and leaving the structure intact...only to discover things were so out of plumb and the two rooms so out of sync with each other that putting on a common new roof was not going to work.  Ugh.  The ship has sailed, not much to do.  It may be a major blessing that our first contractor backed out.  We thought he had given us a good price (at least compared to other bids), but when we searched the 2nd time around for someone, we got a much lower bid.  So, adding all the extra work is painful, but still within reason considering the price was significantly lower to start.  What a blessing that is.

First, gutted.  Then, de-roofed.

Today...de-roomed.

I found this posted on my refrigerator today by a certain sneaky 5 year old:

When I found it he went on to say, "I love ALL kinds of pie...EVERY kind, YUM...except for ones that are filled with stuff I don't like."

One of each

Asher:  [trying to put on gloves, rather than his usual mittens]  I don't like these!  I can't wear them.  They are just too organized for me.

Owen:  [walking past the girl's toy aisle at Target and rolling eyes]  Uhh.  It half kills me to even look at that.
Me:  What Owen???
Owen: [blushing] NOTHING!
Me:  Oh, it half kills you to even look at that girl stuff?
Owen:  YEAH.  It's so pink and for GIRLS.

Eden: [translated from the language of the mind] MMmm!  This flatware in this plastic caddy thing is very interesting.  It's covered with food and I can grab it and lick it!  I just have to be quick before Mom sees me and closes the dishwasher.

Snow Day

Wow, we thought a couple inches were coming and it's more like 10 and still going!  No school today!

No school meant Owen was already saying "I'm bored!" by 9am.  I set out measured ingredients for cookies in small bowls and labelled each one with a number.  Then, I wrote up a kindergarten-friendly recipe with readable words that went like this:

Mix 1 and 2 and 3 a lot
Mix 4
Mix 5 and 6
Mix 7 and 8
Mix 9 and 10
Mix 11
Scoop on cookie sheets

I asked the boys if they would like to make cookies with NO HELP FROM MOM.  Squeals of delight and peals of giggles followed this query.  These boys love to accomplish something solo!  (Who doesn't?)  I bravely left them to it (they know how to run the mixer), told them they were not to touch the oven or its controls, and took Eden upstairs with me and got a shower.  When I came down, there were two boys with chocolate brown teeth and tongues, puffed up chests and big smiles.  Also, there were two full cookie sheets of dough balls!  The only things amiss were a smattering of cookie ingredients on the floor, including two full broken eggs, and a tea ball covered in cookie dough.

Me:  Wow, guys, you did it!  Congratulations, I'm proud of you!
Them:  Yeah!!!!!!  We did it without you!
Me:  I can see that!  I can also see chocolate in your mouths [pretend frown].  Did you ask if you could eat chocolate?
Them: [looking askance] Well, we just tried some dough.  It's SO yummy.
Me:  Ha ha, I'm just kidding!  If you make cookies you always get to taste the dough!!  So, what happened with these eggs?
Owen:  Well, we couldn't get the first two to work, but we got it on the third one!
Me:  And how about this? [holding up tea ball]
Asher:  There's only one cookie scoop so I tried to use that one but it doesn't work right.

:)

And now it's 10:45 and they are watching a short bit of a show.  They've already played in the snow all morning before 9 while Reuel shoveled.  I am going to run out of steam and ideas by noon, I fear.  Bring out the library books!  (I am not helped by Eden's wakefulness from 2:30-4:30am, caused by skipped naps, caused by contractors...rrrrrr.)

Movie is done!
Owen:  What can I do???????

Addendum

Asher:  ...but there's not a real leprechaun in dis world.  Dat's not a real thing in the world!
Owen:  Asher, yes there is!  Miss Kathy, my 4 year old preschool teacher told me about leprechauns.  MO-OM....are leprechauns real?
Me:  Um, well, I'm not totally sure, but I'm thinking probably not.
Owen:  You are not right!  That is wrong.  Miss Kathy told us all about them and she said that she SAW ONE!!!  They are real.

(Asher may be wise for his years because his preschool teacher asked me to help prepare him for their St. Patrick's Day class activity by letting him in on the fact that leprechauns aren't real and they are just pretending in class.  Apparently when they've played pretend games of a shark or bear chasing the kids, Asher takes it very seriously and gets terrified!  So she was worried about fear of leprechauns!  I hadn't filled him in yet, but his teacher must have already talked to him, I'm guessing.  Maybe all this leprechaun business is big around here because of how Irish our town is historically???  Too funny.)

Open season on Leprechauns

It's that time of year again!  Time for Owen's hunger for leprechaun trapping to kick in.  Oh my!  He is quite a little engineer with his trap designs.  There aren't too many things that turn him on like designing the perfect trap with leprechaun psychology in mind, and then imagining his three wishes.  Asher is in on the fun this year too.  They are fierce hunters.  Owen usually designs his traps with signs that say 'gold inside' to lure the leprechauns and then explains that he will just put a couple pennies in there because he's just trying to trick the leprechaun and that way he won't *really* get our money.  The traps are even getting a bit vicious this year.  A trap not shown here has a stairway up through a tunnel, then looking out over a 'trampoline'--a box with paper taped over the opening--and written on the paper is, "jump and yll git glld."  (Jump and you'll get gold.)  He plans on the paper breaking once the leprechaun starts jumping and then he'll have him inside the box. Watch and learn!

Click here:  https://vimeo.com/60831937