St. Patrick's Day

After seven and a half years up here, we've become quite fond of celebrating St. Patrick's Day.  People up here go crazy for this holiday, I guess because there are so many Irish descendants around here.  Every year we get lots of books from the library about Ireland in general, leprechauns, and of course, St. Patrick himself.  A few years ago we got an Irish cookbook that had a menu for what they called The Irish Farmhouse Breakfast.  We made it and it stuck.  Now, that is what the kids look forward to the most on St. Patrick's Day.  It consists of home made Irish Soda Bread with plenty of butter and jam, sausage, bacon, eggs, fried tomatoes and sauteed mushrooms.  St. Patrick's Day is always on a Sunday, so we spend most of the day just hanging out as a family and playing games.  The last few years, we've started having dinner together with our other neighbors who live in this house.  I always make Corned Beef and Cabbage and Claire always makes Dublin Coddle.  The kids run around together in all the green they can find.  It's super fun, and I love it especially because it's our own holiday that is not from any family tradition that either I or Shelby came from.  It's our very own.  

 I made the kids these rainbows for lunch the day before St. Patrick's Day.  I think I saw it on pinterest, but I'm not sure.  It's guacamole for grass, bell peppers and cauliflower, with carrot slices for gold.  

 Mia's clover hair do.  On the table, you can see the clover we made out of toilet paper rolls.

When Bianca saw Mia's hair she just had to have hers done the same way.  They were very cute and choreographed a dance routine for the adults to watch at the end of the day.  

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

This and That

 Lennon working on his latest water filtration device.

We had a couple of friends over for a sleepover-make-your-own-pizza party

 I gave each of the kids a ball of dough and put bowls of ingredients on the table so they could make it however they wanted.  I did require that my kids put at least one veggie on their pizzas.

 Note the awesome new pizza stones from Gaga

 Lennon definitely had the most massive pizza.  He had layer upon layer of vegetable and cheese yumminess.

 They started watching a movie that I would not recommend called The Tiny Kingdom.  That only lasted about fifteen minutes before we turned it off and watched a live action Peter Pan instead.

 Ice cream sundaes were very popular

 Out of order, but here are the finished products.  The girls made their pizza stuffed crust

Mia is getting pretty good at the guitar.  She and Shelby were jamming together one day on a weekend and it was too cute not to snap a picture of.

Valentine's Day

We had a fun little Valentine's Day party this year, but somehow I didn't snap even a single picture.  It was supposed to be a short 9-11 kind of thing after which I would pick up Lennon from school and drop Mia off at a sleepover.  The sleepover was rescheduled though, and everyone ended up staying until almost 5 o'clock.  Everyone was having so much fun that we didn't even notice the time flying by.

 Mia and Chloe having a little tea while making some valentine's cards.

Here's a picture of Mia and Chloe from one of their very first play dates.  I think they were 6 years old.

 The kids holding their Valentine's doggies they got last year, waiting patiently to come down and see what loot they got this year.

This years loot

Just a Few More Holiday Pics

 Mia and Boo with their American Girl dolls and matching jambes

 Christmas morning out in the back yard in our new matching jammies from Nana and Papa.  Thanks, Nana and Papa!

 Lennon with his Contraptions masterpiece.  He's doing what he calls "In Bolting"  I'm not sure how he came up with that, but it's sort of like silly meditation.

 Mia rocking her awesome new Dallas Cowboys jersey

 Mia and Uncle Jeremy in the hurricane simulator at the Shipwreck exhibit at The Museum of Science

 The time just around Christmas was so wonderful.  We had very little to do and the Lima's had a similar schedule, so we did a lot of hanging out and playing at home.  Here, the kids are having an old fashion tea party.  Somehow I caught Bianca just at the wrong moment and it looks like she is gagging herself, but she wasn't.  These kids love old fashioned anything and tea parties.

 I believe this was our first big snow storm of the season.  The kids are going out to enjoy our new sleds for the first time

 We had a New Year's Eve party with a few friends, and this is all the kids who were at the party.  Most of these kids have been friends all their lives, or at least as long as they can remember.  Going back at least 7 years and more for some of them.

 One of our friends had a Harry Potter birthday party at our house over the holidays.  Here, the kids are at the table making "potions."

 Lennon with a giant snow ball he was making into some kind of "machine."

 Going to the hot tub at a condo in NH

 Me and my girl

Lennon playing on the lap top Holly gave him for Christmas.  Thanks, Holly!