St. Patrick's Day morning

Sometimes it is harder to get Abi dressed before pre school. Usually she just wants to stay in her jammies or dress in some crazy thing. Today it was easy. I told her that if we caught a Leprechaun in our trap and she wasn't wearing her special St. Patricks Day green shirt that he would pinch her. She gladly got dressed after that. She loved her shirt so much that she stood in front of the mirror for a few minutes.
We went down to the front room and saw that the trap had indeed been set off. Abi was so excited and a little nervous too I think.

Then we opened it and realized that the little Leprechaun had been able to squeeze out the hole in the side of the pull ups box but his hat hadn't been able to fit through so he had left it behind along with some gold coins, some green chocolate, and a little clover notebook, pencil, and stickers. She was SO excited!

She quickly opened up one of the chocolates.

For breakfast we had Lucky Charms of course.

I found out that Abi does not like Lucky Charms. She asked for a leftover waffle (yuck.. they never taste as good the day after!) instead. I put some of the hat marshmallows on it but she quickly threw them away. 

Then we put on The Happiest Millionaire (I know it's not a great shot but it was the best I could get of our tv) and danced around to the "I'll always be Irish" song about 5 times.

Abi then made a little fort on the floor to wait for Alisse to get here for Pre school.

Alisse was excited to put on the Leprechaun hat!

We made Leprechaun puppets with paper bags. I thought it was funny how Abi was coloring with a crayon in each hand. I used to do that too.

Then I gave them blank rainbows and we colored a different colored stripe in each one so they could glue on mini marshmallows onto the appropriately colored stripe. They did really well at this and seemed to enjoy it a lot although it took a long time.

I had originally planned on doing this rainbow instead and had put it aside when I decided to do the other rainbow, but Abi found them and really wanted to do them. So, she and Alisse used the dot painters to color in the white circles on these rainbows...

Then we played bingo. It was funny... I said we were going to play Bingo and they immediately ran for the music box and pulled out maracas and the microphone and streamers and started singing, "There was a farmer had a dog and Bingo was his name-o". The bingo cards had a picture of a Leprechaun and a rainbow but the rest of the squares were letters. They used Skittles to mark them.

In the last few minutes while waiting for Andra (Alisse's mom) the girls decided to dress up. I had to wait in the front room to be surprised. They came out like this...

Alisse was the bride and Abi was the bride's mommy. I'm not sure what they are doing in this picture...

It was a really fun morning and I really got a kick out of their dress ups.

Getting ready for St. Patrick's Day

Today we ran a bunch of errands getting ready for tomorrow but I had to take this picture of Abi washing her hands because I thought her hair looked so cute. I took it out of the braid bun she had it in yesterday and it had those curls.

After getting home we made a Leprechaun trap. I had planned on making a really cute one but Abi and I was so exhausted by the time we got home that this was as good as it got.. but Abi was thrilled with it anyway.

We made a trail of Skittles to the box and then stuck some money under it since we all know Leprechauns love money! So, tune in tomorrow to see if we catch one!

We hurried to put Doug's lunch together before he got home so it would be a surprise when he opens it tomorrow. We stamped little clovers on the bag (they are hard to see...) We filled it with a big Mountain Dew, a green egg salad sandwich, some Sour Cream and Onion pringles, applesauce, Mint Oreos, green pixie sticks, and some green gum.

Randomness

This afternoon I knew that Abi was going to get her prize for getting a hundred good behavior tickets either today or tomorrow and thought I'd head over to Goodwill to see if they had any cool things I could use for her next prize. I don't know what made me think of going to Goodwill but I am so glad we went. I found this....

It may not look like much but it is a baby doll cradle that rocks. I am going to clean it up and paint it pink and then make a little bed set to go in it. I'll post pictures as soon as that happens... it may be a while.
After that Abi asked to go to the new pet store. We like to go there to look at the animals we won't buy....
oops my pictures are out of order and the next two are random ones from like a week ago. How cute is my kid? She always wears her sunglasses upside down. If they are right side up, I put them on her.

Okay, here we are back at the pet store today. She was pointing to that yellow bird and said she wanted it because it is yellow like her yellow hair. She says that constantly. She wants a yellow bowl like her yellow hair or the yellow shirt like her yellow hair. It's hilarious. I had to tell her that we will never own a bird, but they are pretty to look at outside of our home!

This little guy I would take home but I wouldn't want to spend close to a hundred bucks for a pet so....

The two coolest parts of our trip to the pet store were the chameleon and the cats. There was one cat named Elizabeth that was playing with a ball and kept looking at Abi with its head upside down. She was laughing hysterically. People were stopping to watch them interact with each other. I would gladly bring home a little kitty. I love them so much and she has obviously inherited that from me, but again, the $100 price tag is a bit too much plus I don't know if it's very nice to keep an animal in a garage in this weather and I am not a house pet person.
As for the chameleon, Abi has two books about them but had never seen one in person. It was so cool to show her how his color altered a bit when it went from the branch to the leaf and how its tail looked exactly like the leaf stems.
Afterward she asked to go into Target to ride a bike. I figured why not... we have a few hours until Doug gets home. Let's go kill some time knowing that if we were home I wouldn't be able to get anything done anyway... late afternoons are her restless hours..

This was the first time she has been able to really ride the bike. It was so cute. She even rode backwards!

When we got home she had earned enough tickets from being great in 3 stores and for keeping her shoes and socks on in between them to finally get her tool set! I bought this about two years ago when I thought we were going to have a day care in our home. Since then it has sat in the basement and a few months ago I noticed her interest in Doug's tools and decided to use it for a prize. She had to earn 100 tickets to get it which has taken about 2 months.

She was thrilled! She played with it for about a half an hour uninterrupted... a miracle at this time of day. Seriously.

Her first creation....

Then she was back to herself and making a nest for herself in the couch in between bouncing off the walls and hanging from the chandelier... (okay, not really)

Playing outside

I was trying to decide which of these pictures to post and thought that since I usually do a thursdays 13, why not post 13 of my favorite pictures from today!
So, it was finally warmer today. It was warm enough to go out in light jackets! Abi and I went on a walk to the park and played there for awhile and then walked home. It was heavenly.
These pictures were taken in front of the house as we left:
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4. Do you notice how her boots are on the wrong feet!

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6. Running to the park

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8. Shortly after arriving, this little guy (he was 5) attached himself to Abi. He was there with his mom and baby brother but he wanted to be wherever Abi was.

9.

10. Every time she would go down the slide she would do this. She would swing a few times before swinging forward and catapulting herself down onto her bum on the slide.

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13. Her little friend taught her how to swing her legs to help herself to keep going in the 'big kid' swing. He was a funny kid. At one point he said to me, "I am certain that today is the windiest day of my entire life." Abi said, "Yep. It's windy."

C is for Cookie

Today we were finishing up C week. Abi and Alisse really enjoyed making the King Cake for Mardi Gras so I decided to have them make cookies.
We made sure to sound out all the C's .. cookie, chocolate chips, etc

Alisse loved putting the cookie dough on the baking sheet but Abi hated it.. she didn't like getting it on her dainty little fingers. She is the messiest eater alive and usually ends up with whatever we eat covering her face and clothes and usually in her hair and eyebrows... but she can't stand to have her hands dirty!

We took advantage of the nice weather to go outside for a few minutes. They each had to 'Copy' something the other did.. Alisse chose to be an airplane flying in circles.

Abi coached her on how to do the 'ostrich run'.

Then they pretended that the big letter C's were giant cookies they had to decorate with multicolored chips.