Spring Break

We spent another fun spring break in Colorado earlier this month. Allen really wanted to come up and hang for the week so it was a little bit shorter than usual (he usually drives me up and flies home to work for the week and then flies back up to drive me home). We still packed in lots of fun though we didn't get to everything on our list. We drove up after work on Tuesday night.

Wednesday:

Slept in a bit and then headed to the Littleton Historical Museum. This is a must do every time we go to CO and my kids love it, just like I did growing up. We got lucky this year and were there right when they milked the cows. The kids all gave it a try (I looooove having adventurous kids!)


I gave it a go and the the kids were thrilled and surprised to find that Allen is an expert milker. He hand milked cows twice a day all growing up and he has not lost his touch! The workers were even surprised at his skill. Who knew?

In the children's museum:
We spent the afternoon visiting with our CT friends, the Crocketts. Somehow I never manage to get pictures of us together. We enjoyed a delicious dinner and had a fun time catching up. That evening I went to RS Enrichment with my mom, who is the leader in her ward and had fun seeing old friends!

Thursday: we headed into Denver and had lunch at Cafe Rio and then went to the Denver Natural Science museum (it has a different name now). I knew we had to get the traditional T-Rex shot at the entrance and I was laying on the ground for this one.
They had a special exhibit on reptiles there that we spent a lot of time at. This is Emery's newest funny face. She does it all the time and we have no idea where it came from!
With the boa:
This huge lizard LOVED Addie. It stayed this way the entire time she stood there. When she moved, it moved. We even had her walk away and come back a few minutes later and it did it again. It was a little unnerving but fun and she loved it.
We could have spent the entire day there and in 3 hours we only saw 1 of 3 floors. We will definitely be going back this summer when we visit again. My kids were in heaven!

Friday:

Allen got a special delivery first thing in the morning. Do you think he was a little excited?! I'm not much of a tech junkie but the new iPad is awesome! He got it so we can FaceTime while he is WA and we are here but we have already had so much fun with it.

We found out some college friends were in town for a wedding and the Partridges squeezed in a couple hours to see us in the morning. Awesome to catch up and especially fun to let our kiddos play together. We cruised with them in 2010 but our kids haven't seen each other in years.

After the Partridges left my parents kicked us out of the house to have an overnighter while they kept the kids. It was the best! We didn't do anything fancy but went out to lunch, did tons of shopping - mostly new work clothes for Allen but we also hit Ikea and a few other stores. I was planning to do A LOT more shopping but now I will have all the stores I need in WA so I mostly made lists of stuff I need/want and will pick up once we get there. That evening we met our friends the Howells for dinner and had a grand time catching up. Afterwards we went to a late night movie. We slept in until 10:30 the next morning and then got a quick breakfast before heading home to our kiddos. They didn't miss us a lick. My parents spent hours at the neighborhood park with them, took them all out to dinner on Friday night (brave) and then took them to see Irish dancers on Saturday morning. Grandparents are the best!

Saturday:

We took the kids to see The Lorax in the afternoon which I wasn't that impressed with but they loved. Our leprechaun, Lucky, dropped off some goodies overnight which the kids loved. Here they are all dressed up in their St. Pats garb:
(this pic is SO getting framed and put up next year! I love it!)

We made these fun rainbow cupcakes:
We had our traditional St Pats dinner of corned beef/potatoes/carrots/cabbage and Irish Soda bread, which the kids gobbled up!
Just a funny picture of Emery. She thought this wig was hilarious!
Sunday we went to church in the morning and then drove home in a horrible wind storm that afternoon. It was bittersweet coming "home" to New Mexico for the last time. We had a blast but it is sad to think we will not be able to jump in the car in come to CO anymore. Thanks to my parents for a grand week!

St. Patty's Day, Part 2

St. Patrick's day fell over spring break this year so we were able to make it an extra fun day! The kids woke and found that our naughty leprechaun, Lucky, had been up to all sorts of crazy antics during the night. He dyed the toilet water green, turned our milk green, left footprints everywhere and turned all our chairs upside down. Carter and Makenna had created quite an elaborate leprechaun trap and were very disappointed they did not catch him this year. I'm mostly disappointed that I didn't take a picture of the trap before they took it apart and chucked it in the trash.

Lucky DID leave a few surprises though. He left a box of Lucky Charms along with funny leprechaun pens that light up and some green candy. The kids loved it! I thought I would get out of making shamrock pancakes due to the Lucky Charms (which I normally never buy but my kids love) but they wanted to stick to tradition.{the kiddos with their surprises. I never managed to get a shot of them in their green outfits and the thought of recreating it was way too exhausting. Oh well!}

We had an all green lunch which the kids thought was fabulous! Green mac n cheese, green grapes, celery, kiwi, green yogurt with sprinkles, green marshmallows and little cans of 7 up.

For dinner I decided to make a traditional Irish meal. We had corned beef, cabbage, red potatoes, carrots and Irish soda bread. I wasn't sure they would like the meal but they LOVED it - especially Addison, which was a huge surprise. For dessert we had mint chocolate chip ice cream sandwiches:

I had these sitting on the kids' plates before dinner:And made bigger ones for the gals I visit teach:

A couple days before St. Pats I got together with a couple friends and made this darling banner:I love how it turned out and it was EASY and cheap!

I have no idea where my love for St. Patty's came from this year but we've had a blast with it! I've found some fun new traditions that I think we'll carry over from this year too!

{CUTE banner idea and rainbow printable are both from Simple As That}

{PS - I get asked OFTEN about the candy in my apothecary jars and how my kids handle being around it. I can honestly say my kids very rarely ask to eat the candy in the jars. They are used to having it around and when they ask for a piece I usually say yes to ONE piece. I try to keep my smallest jar full of something really yummy because it is less expensive to fill and it is usually what the kids want. Some stuff I don't let them eat - like the Skittles- because I don't want to spend the money to replace it every year. I DO save my candy from previous years so I don't have to invest the money every season. I have two plastic bins full of candy that I swap out in my jars.}

St. Patty's Day

I'm the first to admit that I've never been into St. Patrick's day. I like to make the day fun for my kids but have never had a desire to decorate for it. However, with Easter being so late this year I needed something to fill in some of my spaces. A friend came to the rescue with some cute ideas for my apothecary jars and I scoured the internet for a few more ideas to "borrow." I like what I've come up with don't think it's overdone or cheesy.

Emery was diagnosed with RSV this week and we have been home all week. It has been HORRIBLE having a sick baby but she was healthy enough to stay out of the hospital. I haven't dared leave the house with her for days so I have been able to get a tiny bit of crafting done. She has mostly just wanted to be held so I worked on my projects in short spurts.

St. Patrick's day decor:



Isn't this idea CUTE?!?! Love!! It took me about 2 hours of sorting 8 bags of skittles to get them arranged as a rainbow. I caught up on a lot of TV during this project.

{If anyone knows how to take pics of glass and not get a glare, please hook me up. I can't get it no matter my settings and this was with natural light and no flash}

Dining room table:


A close-up of this little beauty:

So cheery and happy! I'm so glad I saved my button collection from my scrapbook days! I seriously looooove how this turned out. Glue gun + buttons I already owned + frame I already owned!

Burlap Wreath:

I saw this idea about a year ago on another blog. When I went back to look at the tutorial it was gone so I just winged this one. 1 yard of burlap, cut in strips and then threaded on a wire hanger. I see lots of possibilities for this idea.

Front door wreath:

Maybe bordering on the cheesy side but I liked it enough to buy it from Target. They had some other cute things that I hope to score at 50% off after the 17th.

I guess I can't say that I don't decorate for St. Pat's any more. I will say that when Easter falls in March again, the Easter decor will always take precedence.

St. Patty's Festivities

Ok, I'm totally NOT into St. Patrick's day but Carter was really interested in it this year after doing a unit on it in school last week. He came home on Friday and decided we needed to make a Leprechaun trap:

He did the entire thing himself - that is a bed/pillow, a table with a snack, green carpet, a pot of gold and a tiny green flag on top. Pretty clever, I think.

So, of course, Lucky the Leprechaun HAD to come visit during the night. First, he made a trail of shamrocks for the kids' bedrooms all the way down to the kitchen.

Then he left a little note and some treats for the kids.

We had shamrock pancakes and green milk for breakfast.

We had friends over to play and for lunch today. We had an entirely green meal (that's green mac & cheese, jello, green peas and a shamrock rice krispie treat you see here).

Makenna refused to pose for the green picture and obviously Addie was super thrilled to be there:

The kids spent the afternoon coloring St. Patty's sheets and making crafts. They had a great day. Hope you had a Happy St. Patrick's Day too!!