St. Paddy's Day Come and Gone

I realize after all the hype I created with my last post, this post is super late! St Patrick's Day was quite fun, as it always is. We dressed in as much green as possible! After hitting some errands around town, I was super impressed with other Green Enthusiasts. At the Dollar Store, this girl had on every shade of green from her scarf all the way down to her shoes! It was awesome. Spencer got his green on and wished me a Happy St. Patrick's Day!....he knows just how much I love it. I worked the accent in wherever I could without scaring too many people. We had our fun scavenger hunt for our pot o' gold after Spencer got home from school. Which was really just for Spencer. Carter raced around behind him, always too many steps behind, but still got excited about the delicious pot o' gold Spencer found. We colored our shamrocks, did some Irish puzzles and pages, danced some Irish jigs, practiced Spencer's Irish accent, had our delicious Irish feast of corned beef, cabbage, sweet Irish soda bread, green Koolaid, kiwi fruit, (they're green ok) and our green oreos for dessert. During our dinner I quizzed the fam on some basic St. Paddy trivia. Did you know that they originally wore the color BLUE to celebrate St. Patrick's Day! The phrase, "remember to put your green on"-meaning a shamrock pin or something, turned into wearing green and the color blue no more. *Just thought you'd all like to know that. The week before St. Patrick's Day, Rob took me and Spencer to a Celtic Music and Dance Festival. It was amazing! So many bagpipes, drums, Irish dancing, and wonderment! We had so much fun and the little beginner dancers of about 4 were so cute! If I have a girl, I'm afraid she won't have a say in whether or not she takes Irish Dancing! Now if I could only learn how to play the bagpipes, Rob the drum, and Spencer could just dress up as a Leprechaun and provide the entertainment, considering he already has the hair for it. The only missed out festivity was I was going to have the boys wear green, shamrock bow ties to Church and Rob a shamrock/beer jug tie. But since Carter and I weren't 100%, it didn't happen. Rob promised he'd wear it next year. -What a guy. Willing to wear a beer jug tie to Church and took me to an Irish Dance/Music festival this year all on his own! Now that's love.
Yummy rolos in a green bowl, .....that's our pot o' gold!
This is for you Mandy, notice Spencer's dancing, that Celtic Festival sure paid for itself. Spencer's moves are priceless and pretty good, not to mention he knew exactly where his hands were supposed to go.

Let the Countdown Begin!

So many of you who know me, know that I really enjoy St. Patrick's Day. It is such a fun holiday to me. Maybe it's enjoying the bright, vibrant color green after enduring such a long dreary, gray winter. Maybe it's the feeling of warmer weather, knowing flowers are about to spring up and bloom. Maybe it's the amazing, fantastic accent the Irish have or the awesome music that just makes you happy! Don't you want to jump up and dance an Irish jig after hearing the music on my blog?!
After last year's celebration, many of you out there commented on how next year (this year) you wanted to do something fun...and really get into the "green" holiday. Well now's your chance. You have 15 whole days to decide how you're going to do it. Tell Irish tales, dress crazily all in green, talk Irish (it's so much fun!), go on a hunt for yer pot o' gold's! Color your food green or make a traditional Irish feast: corned beef, cabbage, soda bread, ....there are tons of good recipes! Turn your front room upside down and blame it on all those mischievous Leprechauns! Just have fun and get into it! And post on your blog's with lots of pics, so I can relish in all the Irish craze/love I've inspired!


Irish Blessing:
May your day be touched
by a bit of Irish luck,
brightened by a song in your heart,
and warmed by the smiles
of the people you love.

Carter's 3!

Last Thursday we celebrated Carter's birthday. We had a Thomas the Train theme and poor Carter was put through a bit of torture before the blessed day. I bought everything a month in advance with Carter: Thomas plates, cups, balloons, party favors, cake mold, and pinata: and came home only to stuff it in the closet and made him wait 4 painstakingly long weeks for the day of his party. It didn't help that our house is so small that every time we opened the closet for a coat he saw his train pinata just sitting there. I will definitely not purchase party supplies with the birthday boy ever again...what can I say, I'm not too bright.
I was getting really excited for Carter's birthday....I found a train table loaded with tracks already nailed down in place on Craigslist which my friend told me to check out (Thanks Shanda) and it's been a big hit. Not only with Carter, but Spencer too. And thanks to my great friend Debbie who let me store it in her garage until the birthday party, it was a fun surprise. We invited a few of Carter's friends, had pizza, cake, ice cream, and just let the kids play. He loved all his presents and thanks everyone for remembering! One of his highlights was his special call from his cousin Hannah. He has a special place for her in his heart!
The whole day was fun and filled with Carter telling all friends, family, and strangers that "Today's my Birthday Party!" and of course that he's Fweee!. He is so not shy! He's such a great boy. I love his enthusiasm for everything! He makes me laugh and is just a sweetheart. I can't believe my baby's 3 years old!

Random Thoughts

Okay, so I haven't had a whole lot I've wanted to post about but seeing as it's been awhile, I thought I'd ramble for a bit....
I'm kind of in a funk right now. My arm is hurting, I see the Doc today, find out if something's wrong (again!), or I'll get the okay to start up some more PT. I'm a little nervous, not too excited, but I'm getting frustrated and wanting to get back to my workout routine and just plain normalcy! My arm just isn't right and I hate doing everything one-handed! Plus, since I haven't been working out lately, I thought it'd be a good time to eat everything in sight! Uggghh! Now I've recently started watching my intake(meaning this is day 2) and trying to do what I can at the gym, but honestly! if only I could be a little more consistent!

Okay, on to better things....Spencer & Carter. Spencer's great and wonderful. He's been going out of his way to do nice things for me, and help me before I even ask. He is an amazing kid. And he's quite the runner. They've been having a Junior Jogger competition between classes at school and every Wed. they run laps around the field behind the playground, and Spencer just runs and runs! Parents could come help out and earn extra laps for their child's class, so I went and ran with Spencer. He could keep up the entire time, 30 min. and even carry on a conversation! (with all his friends, not me, I was extremely out of breath) The kid has some wind. All the other kids just sprint and stop and sprint and stop- trying to not get passed by any of their friends, but in the end can't hold on...Spencer just keeps going and going. His last Junior Jogger day, both Rob and I came to help ensure that his class would win 1st place, and Spence could even keep up with Rob! I think we may have a little track star on our hands. Of course that's only if football doesn't work out.

Carter is super-excited for his upcoming birthday. He tells everyone when it is and then asks when is your birthday? His little voice is super sweet and always makes me smile. His latest wonderful is that he said to me, "Mommy, you're my best fwiend." Oh, I loved that! And I think that he's told everyone else they're his best friend too, even the cat, but I was his first...so I'm holding on to that.

I'm hoping this little funk of mine doesn't last too long. Maybe it's the weather, I would really appreciate a little sunshine and warmth. Tired of the overcast thing.
Send some rays my way!

Our New Bedtime Routine

After our trip to Idaho/Utah over Thanksgiving, Carter got used to someone (ME)sleeping right next to him every night, that ever since we got home he would plead and ask me to, "pease lay wif me mommy?" I love snuggling with him, and I can't say no to those words combined with his sweet little voice and please?! But after awhile, -2 weeks straight-, both Rob and I decided that this routine needed to change. So instead of laying with him after we said our family prayers, I decided to kneal next to him and sing some Christmas songs. What started out as a few random songs has ended up being these 3 favorites in ALWAYS this order: Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, Jingle Bells, and Santa Clause is Coming to Town. After doing this every night since the beginning of December Carter has learned many of the words. He loves to sing along to his favorite parts, ....well shout really. For example in between the pauses of the Rudolph song, ....Then one foggy Christmas Eve, Santa came to say, Carter will yell, "HO HO HO!" AND oh what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh.... "Hey!" AND, especially when he starts shouting the lines, "ya betta not pout! ya betta not cwy! Santa Cwaus is coming to town!" --that I'm willing to sing these Christmas songs well into the summer! Hopefully, I can capture it on camera in the next few days and you can all hear how enthusiastic he gets!

Spencer Carving Some Snow

Fun in the Snow