Making "Clean Up" Fun

In the spirit of St. Patrick's Day, I die-cut some shamrocks at the school where I teach. I was trying to think of a fun game to play with them and then it came to me: I will write bead amounts (if you don't know about my bead system for doing chores, read here) on some shamrocks and hide them under the kids' toys in the playroom. The kids will have to pick up toys to find the shamrocks and they can not have their beads until the toys are put away.

Naughty Leprechaun

For instructions on how to make this cute St. Patrick puppet, visit the author here.

Oh my goodness I love the holidays! I have such fond memories of my mom decorating the house for each holiday. I don't know that she did much more than that, but the teacher in me looks for as many ideas as I can find to make holidays memorable in our home. Yesterday, I found this idea on "Many Little Blessings" on Facebook and today, Family Fun posted about the shenanigans that a little Leprechaun tries in homes everywhere.

"Green milk? Green toilet water? Green footprints? Trails of shamrock confetti? "One year the kids woke up with green kiss marks on their foreheads," recalls mom Monique, still clearly shaken. "

Despite powerful bait (Lucky Charms cereal!), their traps have caught only chocolate gold coins and candy bars, accompanied by notes taunting them with "Good try," or "Can't catch me!" As everyone knows, leprechauns hoard pots of gold, and if caught, must reveal the treasure's location to their captor. But that's not the payback Jacob seeks. Because the elusive elves are always leaving him chocolate, he figures they must have even more of that than gold!

"It's for the sake of Jacob, Elise, and all the other St. Patrick's Day mischief fighters that we offer here three state-of-the-art leprechaun traps. Each is easily made from ordinary household materials and uses lures and baits drawn from the latest research in leprechaun psychology. But please take our designs and customize them to make something unique: leprechauns, as we all know, won't be fooled by the same trap twice!"

More ideas:
green bath water

For fun St. Patrick's Day food ideas, check out my cooking blog.

Happy St. Patrick's Day to ya!

Wow, I can't believe it has been a week since I blogged. I am just enjoying being home with my kids for Spring Break. More on that later.

I've had the house decorated for St. Patrick's Day for a few weeks now. I picked up tons of stuff on clearance at Hobby Lobby last year. We have cute little figurines, wooden signs, a banner, and window clings. This morning we started our day with shamrock shaped French toast on green plates. Yup, French on the day of the Irish. Anyway, I let the kids sprinkle..I mean pour green sprinkles on top and they all devoured them. Abby had 1 full piece of bread plus scraps, Lauren had 2 shamrocks, and Caleb had 3 which is unusual for him because all he eats is peanut butter and quesadillas.

I made some green Jello. I hate to admit that I have never made Jello for my kids before. My mom made it for me all the time. I thought about making jigglers and using the shamrock cookie cutter again but there was just too much going on. For lunch we're going to a friend's house and we'll have shamrock shaped sandwiches. Then the kids will have cookies and if we're really brave, we'll let the kids decorate them.

I don't have anything special planned for dinner...ran out of creative juices.... but we'll have mint chocolate ice cream for dessert.

On to a boring topic- Spring Break and cleaning. Saturday morning I jumped up and started cleaning. I must have done 10 loads of laundry because I decided to do ALL the linens...mattress pads included. Between loads I started working on the kids' bookshelves and decluttering. I don't know what got into me, I just didn't stop. Sunday morning I kept going. I just don't want to spend my ENTIRE break cleaning. I just want to get it done. I made notecards of all that I want to accomplish. I put tape on the back and taped them in a column on one of the kitchen cabinets. As I complete a chore, I move the card over to the right. I can not believe that the kitchen looks a little better every day and I've managed to have an empty sink before bed each night. I have decluttered the top of the microwave as well as the window sill above the sink. I just hope I can keep it that way.

I have really enjoyed being a stay at home mom this week. I love being with the kids. It seems like Caleb is obeying more and more every day and Lauren is obeying less. Well, only on the days she doesn't nap. Abby has started talking. At 14 months old! I'll have to look in Lauren's book to see when she was talking but I don't think it was this early. She has been saying, "Boo Boo" for baby and "buh buh" for bubbles. Yesterday while doing the sign for 'bath,' she said, "baaa." And in the tub, she wanted the ball so she said, "Bah." I also noticed that she calls Lauren, "Ahhhh Nahhhh." I could hear her in the monitor when she was in her crib and Lauren was in her bed in the same room. Later I tested her by calling Lauren and that's what she said.

Right before bed last night, Abby was walking and just fell. I thought she caught herself with her hands but when I picked her up, her mouth was bleeding. I felt horrible. She split that piece of skin from her lip to her gums. It looks awful. I wonder if her bottom teeth came up and split it and if it will grow back together. We all showered her with kisses until she felt better.

The break will be gone before I know it. We still want to get out and take pictures in the bluebonnets, plant flowers in the front flowerbed, get Caleb's 3rd birthday pictures taken, take the kids bowling, and go on a date ourselves. So if I'm not back for a few days, you'll know I'm just enjoying my family!

March is quickly approaching

It seems that with each child we have, it gets harder and harder to keep up with what the date is and decorating for each holiday. Every year I start making lists of ideas for the next year but I haven't been successful at keeping all my lists in a good place. We do have a major clutter problem and 3 kids plus my husband's office all in our 3 bedroom home does not help. This is my attempt at getting organized for March, ha! I've decided to try to declutter my home of all the lists I make and fail to get into my organizing binder and instead keep one list here for each month. I'm way OCD about that (read earlier post). See, I can come back and add information any time..from home or work.

1 Decorate for St. Patty's Day buy plates, etc... Print activities for kids
2
3 Caleb's birthday (2006)
4
5
6
7
8
9 Caitlyn's birthday (1999)
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11 Aidan's birthday (2004)
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13
14
15
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17 St. Patrick's Day - have green clover pancakes for breakfast; grasshopper pie
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19
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22 Owen's b-day (2007)
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25 Lexi's b-day (2003)
26 Ashton's b-day (2005) & the day I met Stephen
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31 Mom's birthday

St. Patrick's Day activity websites-