Celebrating St. Patrick's Day

I decided rather last minute, like this afternoon, that I was actually going to try to make a special dinner for St. Patrick's Day. And since our day is ending when America's day is beginning, that means there is still more than enough time for you to decide to do so as well.

I had read some posts on Life as Mom that sounded like easy ideas, and when they actually still had good beef roast meat when I went to Walmart on Saturday afternoon, I thought why not. Patrick was quite an awesome guy, even if the modern associations of luck and drinking aren't so cool. I am a tiny bit Irish, and my husband is almost 1/4 Irish, which makes the boys about 1/8 Irish.

Also I vividly remember my mom giving us green milk on St. Patrick's Day as a kid, and thinking it was the most awesome thing ever, and that she was so cool to give us green milk. I think I'd like to be remembered that way someday too.

So, I made some Irish Stew, and even threw in the green peas, so it had orange, white, and green, all of the colors of the Irish Flag. Andrew loved, loved, loved this stew. He ate about 8, albeit small, helpings, and would have kept eating all night if we didn't put it away.

I made some Irish soda bread. I used all white flour, because I was out of whole wheat. It was great though, and it tasted like buttermilk biscuits. Nate thought this bread was amazing.

 

Then I let Aaron help me make mint chocolate chip cupcakes. Aaron thought it was awesome that blue and yellow made green in the batter. We need to do more with color mixing I guess. I also let him help add some chocolate chips which our sweet parents sent us from America and our gracious guest carried all the way here for us. I even let Aaron eat a few chocolate chips plain, another thing I always remember my mom doing when we made cookies. Andrew was napping, but he got to enjoy cupcakes later.

Then I let him mix turn some milk green too. Both the boys thought that was an amazing treat.

 

I picked some clover and put in on the table, and we talked a little bit about Patrick and the legend of his explanation of three in one using clover. There can't be a perfect picture of this concept on this earth, but it is a cool illustration.

 

This was a very fun, easy, and low key last minute celebration.

Family Fridays: Last Friday's Trip to the Zoo

Last week, my husband had a friend from elementary come to visit for the week. We we're a little busy last week, but here are a few pictures from Friday's trip to the zoo.

Family Fridays: Family Goals 2012

I've been talking all this week about setting goals for 2012. Here are a few things I want to be intentionally trying to do throughout my days this next year.

In thinking about my role as His child this year:

• I want to continue to make my own daily reading a priority
• I want to continue to make reading to my children and as a family a priority
• I want to increase my memorization and relearn some of the verses I have forgotten
• I want to be more intentional about daily talking to my Father about my husband and children
• I and my husband want to carve out more time to study the Word deeper without the kids

In thinking about my role as a wife, mother, and homemaker (in addition to the above goals) this year:

• I want to be more intentional about fulfilling all these roles with a joyful heart
• I want to continue to make reading books to the boys everyday a priority
• I and my husband want to consistently have the boys help with the small chores they are now able to assist with
• I want to be more intentional about making sure that I take some time to just play with the boys, at least a little daily, and for longer periods with my undivided attention at least weekly

Christmas Eve Fun

Today, we were invited to a coffee shop that was having a Christmas party. It wasn't something we were expecting to do, but it turned out to be lots of fun. The kids got to decorate cookies, get balloon animals, and watch movies. Andrew got a snowman painted on his face. I got an awesome peppermint mocha. And we all got to play games and sing songs with friends.

Holiday Fun with Kids: Cutting Out Sugar Cookies

One of my favorite holiday traditions is cutting out sugar cookies with family. I can remember making cookies and gingerbread houses with my mom and grandmas as a little girl, and now it is fun to make them with my own kids. So I really wanted to make sugar cookies when my parents came to visit for Thanksgiving. I think everyone had a lot of fun. I found a great recipe, and the boys had fun cutting out cookies for a while. We used all the shapes we had, mainly shapes from their shape sorter toy that we thoroughly washed first. Grandpa John even got really creative cutting out Christmas Tree shapes free hand.

Family Fridays: Playplace Fun

Today, a friend of ours needed help babysitting a little girl named Zoe. Our friend was unexpectedly asked to babysit and needed some help because she had to go to work. Our friend felt really bad asking for help although it was no big deal to us. However, I think we may have ended up getting the better deal because our friend insisted on treating all three kids to a playplace for the morning and pizza for lunch. Zoe was generally very easy going and all three kids had a really fun time. Here are some pictures from the cool playplace.

Cozy coupe

Giant bouncing balls and crawling tunnel

Andrew and Zoe riding cars

Aaron and Zoe playing in the plant sand

Andrew climbing

Aaron about to go down the car slide

Aaron swinging all by himself

Slide and ball pit

Zoe and Aaron on the teeter-totter

Andrew riding a green horse

Aaron jumping on the trampoline

Look at the giant Fly, Pooh, Bounce, Pig, and Your

The kids loved the tiny western potty,
having to flush it by scooping water from the bucket
seemed to just make it more fun for them

Dinosaur Themed Preschool Activity: Dinosaur Sensory Bin

I haven't done much with sensory bins for the boys before, in part because I just heard about them not that long ago, and in part because our little boys already love to explore everything with their hands anyway. Playing outside and eating seem to give lots of opportunities to explore with their senses, without making anything special, but this dinosaur unit seemed to lend itself well to a sensory bin, and we already had everything on hand. It really didn't take any time to throw the dinosaurs, fossils we made and hunted for, and some plastic shovels in a tub with sand after all.

Preschool (or Tot-school) Activity: Dinosaur Sensory bin

• A bucket or bin with some sand or rice in it
• Dinosaur fossils, plastic dinosaurs, or even dog bones
• Small shovels if desired

Arrange the items in your bin, and then call the kiddos over to explore it. We put this on the balcony so sand wouldn't get all over the house. We practiced naming dinosaurs for a while and talking about other things like the different colors in the bin as well. The boys played for much longer than I thought they would with this simple set up. Andrew played with it for about 1/2 an hour, and Aaron spent almost 2 hours straight playing with the bin the first day I put it together. They kept asking to play with it for quite a few days afterwards too. Perhaps I should try sensory bins more often, as they had so much fun with it.

Dinosaur Themed Preschool Activity: Archaeological Dinosaur Dig

In August, we studied dinosaurs and did so many fun projects that I haven't had a chance to write about them all yet. For this project, we took the dinosaur fossils we made to the park in our apartment complex and buried them in the sand, and then the boys got to dig through the sand to find them.

 

Preschool (or Tot-school) Activity: Dinosaur Fossil Dig

• Dinosaur fossils, plastic dinosaurs, or even dog bones to dig up
• An area of sand or dirt to dig in
• Small shovels, rakes, and/or pails to dig with

1. Hide the "fossils" in the sand.
2. Have the child dig through the sand or dirt to find them. Tell them how many they are looking for, so they can count them and be sure to find them all.

Family Fridays: Family Fun

Nate's summer break has flown by. Both Nate and I had important projects that we had to work on for part of it, and finished those early this week. We've done lots of fun things with the kids over the summer too, but wanted to make these last few days of our summer break family fun days. Some grandparents wanted to still be able to spoil the boys from afar and sent some extra fun money too, so we used a little of that for some special fun things for the boys too.

Thursday we went to KFC and got ice cream and chicken nuggets. Sadly, the play place was out of commision because they were cleaning the floor that day and the mats hadn't been put back together, but I think the boys had almost as much fun playing with the automatic sink and hand dryer. We also let the boys ride some of the little play vehicles behind Walmart and play a game of wack-a-mole. They both really like these rides and this game, although Andrew would rather play with the moles than wack them. After that, we had to do some grocery shopping, but we got a small set of lego-like toys at Walmart. The boys have been having lots of fun building towers and cars with their new blocks.

On Friday, I made pizza for lunch and sloppy joes for dinner. Nate wanted to eat all of the coleslaw by himself in one sitting, but managed to restrain himself. We also got some popcorn and popped it on the stove for our family movie night. We had lots of fun watching Piglet's Big Movie together. We like that it weaves in some of the original stories by A. A. Milne that Aaron loves to read to over and over.

We've also just spent lots of time playing and reading together around the house. We'll see what other fun things we are able to do as a family before Nate has to go back to class on Monday.

Family Fridays: Family Hike

Edge of Kunming

We really appreciate a lot of the conveniences available to us in this big city of Kunming. The ability to get dairy, whole grains, and clean chicken (without having to kill it myself) is truly appreciated. But at heart, we are not really city people, so sometimes we like to escape to nature. God's beautiful creation is so refreshing.

So Thursday we decided to do just that. We walked quite a ways to get to the edge of the city. Kunming is basically in a bowl of hills and mountains. It is very beautiful. Whenever you get to the edge of the city, you pretty much hit a hill or a mountain. So after walking to the edge of town we started going up, up, up.

Temple

Nate and Aaron had taken a bus part of the way before and done a little exploring to find a nice path so we started walking up the road. We walking past a temple and heard some chanting. Walked past a few more buildings to the much smaller walking path. A lot of it was paved, but it had a lot of steps. Nate had his work cut out for him with the stroller, and I carried Andrew part of the way.

Easy flat part of the path

I am amazed had how much of the trail that the little boys actually walked themselves. Aaron walked the whole trail by himself, holding onto a parent's hand when it was a little dangerous. And Andrew walked all of the flat parts holding onto my hand and a lot of the steps. He allowed me to carry him some of the way up, but insisted on walking almost the entire way down himself.

Andrew doing it by himself

Of course they had been riding in the stroller all the way up to the path, and back through town as well. So they still didn't have nearly as much walking as we did, and they still had plenty of energy to run around when we got home.

Mommy and Andrew

It was a fun afternoon in the woods. The boy really like hiking in the hills. Aaron and Nate went a little further up and got some more pine cones for us to use for crafts. Aaron is really excited about making something with the pine cones. And yes we did check everyone over really well for any bugs. None to be found.

Daddy and Aaron

Looking back at Kunming