St. Patrick's Day

I must admit that this morning I was a tiny bit sad that my girls didn't care about leprechauns or leprechaun traps or green milk or green glitter.  They are growing up. Those days are gone.

I keep repeating the lyrics to Alan Jackson's song, Remember When, "We won't be sad, we'll be glad, for all the life we've had and we'll remember when."

Those days were fun, and I LOVED them.  But now we have to create new memories!

Tonight I am making traditional Irish Soda Bread.  I mean my friend MaryKate O'Malley shared her grandma's authentic recipe - so I definitely MUST try it, right? I'm not sure if my girls will eat it or not - it does have raisins.  Maybe this will make them love raisins again! :)

Here's the recipe if you want to try it too: http://www.thegoodstuffguide.com/nanas-irish-soda-bread/ 

I am also going to make Shepherd's Pie for the first time tonight! :) We'll see how this goes! :)

I decided to do some research about Saint Patrick, because honestly, I know nothing about him!  Here's a few things I discovered (which I'm sure most of my catholic friends already know!)...

• March 17th is his date of death
• He is credited for bringing Christianity to Ireland
• His color was blue, not green
• St. Patrick was English, not Irish
• St. Patrick was sold into Slavery 
• He used the shamrock to teach about the trinity - father, son, holy spirit
• There are no snakes in Ireland (although he was not the one to drive them out).
• More Irish descendants in America than in Ireland. 
• Irish immigrants were once treated as poorly as African Americans, and organized St. Patrick's Day as a time of unified political support 
• Ireland is an island (how did I NOT know this?! #embarrassing) Been a few years since I've studied geography or looked at a map of Europe! 

I'm planning to share these facts at dinner tonight, thought it would make a fun conversation.  

I'll probably buy some green juice for dinner (why, oh why, don't they make ecto-cooler Hi-C anymore -- I LOVED that stuff!) and some mint ice-cream -- because I think my girls will still LOVE those green things! :) 

One day I'd love to explore the Ireland countryside...maybe I'd even kiss the Blarney Stone (although it kinda sounds gross!)! :) 

Winter in May?

I had to capture this past weekend (May 3-4) because it has been 69 years since it has snowed in Missouri in May!! This is what we woke up to last Friday...

So I did my best to cheer myself up with some extra chocolately hot cocoa in my newest favorite mug...

I mean, after all, this was me on my deck just 2 days previously, trying not to be quite so pastey-white...

 Then Saturday morning, we had signed up to run the May Day 1 Mile Fun Run in Republic...so we kept our commitment.  We had a good time, despite the temperature!

And I'm definitely glad our temps are back up into the 70s this week!! Because I love Spring!! 

Rewind: Easter

I'm a bit behind on getting my Easter Pics up, but I did want to capture a few of the sweet moments of these ever fleeting years.

The girls and I tried a few 'pin'spired ideas from pinterest. I love the age they are at and the fun things we can do together!

1. Ressurrection Rolls.  They kinda worked. They were still yummy, even if they didn't look quite right. :) Whoops - no pics.

2. Egg Decorating.  We used glue dots and glitter to make polka-dot eggs. We used rubber cement to make swirls.  And I found this yellow duck fuzz that I've had in my craft stuff for like 18 years that we used too.

3. We made Rice Krispy Treat Eggs -- with Jelly Beans in the middle.

4. We made Deviled Eggs that looked like Chicks.

To celebrate Easter, we...

1. Saturday night, we had a fun Easter Dinner at Darian and Beau's House. It's been awhile since we shared an Easter Dinner with anyone and it was really nice to share the table with others and enjoy some delicious food, that we didn't have to even prepare! And of course, Henry added lots of smiles to our day. Whoops - forgot to take pictures.

2. We spent the morning at church....3 services, attending and helping. Sarah even got to go on stage and participate in a blindfolded taste test in kidpoint services.

3. And after six hours at church, we decided we deserved to eat Andy's for lunch on Easter.

4. Of course, we had our annual treasure hunt to find anticipated Easter Baskets.  Not sure how this happened, but my girls never did believe in the Easter Bunny.  Santa - yes. Toothfairy - yes. Bunny - no.  We celebrated Jesus, had egg hunts and baskets - and they always thanked us, not the Bunny. It worked.

We hide chocolate eggs in house night before
and they find them when they wake up.
A tradition my own mom started. 

5. We spent the afternoon geocaching (not much luck) and soaking up a bit of Spring Weather at the park. The girls still love playing pooh sticks, which I think is adorable. (It's a game Winnie the Pooh plays, where you put a stick on one side of the bridge and watch it come out the other side.) They also still love the flying on the mushroom. And they even posed for pics for dad and I - I'll let you guess who encouraged posing for which pictures!

6. We also went to our town's egg hunt Friday night. 

And a parting shot...this is what happens when I try and get pretty pictures...

I texted Mike yesterday, 2,871 days til these sweet girls are both adults. This reminds us  to make the most of these years... a collection of moments woven together to make a lifetime.