Ghost of St Patrick's Day Past - 2004

When Audrey was in kindergarten, we learned about the importance of leprechaun traps! 

Our camera only took 30 second videos at the time, so here we go.   I would say only Grandparents and Great Aunts are probably up for viewing all of the videos!  :)

Waking Audrey Up and Having Her Check Out the Trap

Following the Trail of Lucky Charms

I think we just missed him!

The Note Paddy Left

He Turned the Potty Green!!!!!

More Green Water

My favorite is when Audrey yells, "MOM!  THE TOILET IS GREEN AGAIN!" in the last video.  :)

A fond, fond memory of later that morning is having our 5 year old little girl, who doesn't miss a thing, remark that the change that was in the ziploc bag in our bedroom looks like it has less money in it.  And she thinks we went through the Lucky Charms box and took out all of the marshmallows.  And the only thing she thinks is real is the note Paddy left us.  I responded with, "REALLY?  You think I have the time to go through a box of Lucky Charms and take out the marshmallows and make a trail?" 

Ghost of St Patrick's Day Past - 2001

This is such a fun holiday!  I love St Patrick's Day.  Maybe it's because I'm married to a real live Mick and maybe it's the years of hanging out at Barry O's, but I think this is one of the most fun holidays!  :)

 One of my fondest memories is St Patrick's Day 2001 in Camp Pendleton.  Mick came home from work and we had corned beef and cabbage and we played Irish music and he danced with our little girl and I remember thinking I was so happy that my heart could quite possibly burst.  I went to bed early that night (tax season) and was awakened around 9:30 or so (it was a Friday) by bagpipes.  A few friends had been at the Officers' Club, 3 doors down (they should name a band that) and had enlisted the help of a few of their friends who played the bagpipes and marched through "Snobby Acres" (the Major/Lt Col/Col housing area that we lived in).  I came out in my robe and watched giggling while our two friends, who had had a few Guinness that evening, stood wavering at attention while the bagpipers played the Marine Corps Hymn.

Mick hopped on the bagpipe bandwagon and I went to back to bed and I could hear them, in the distance, for the next several hours, stopping to play the Marine Corps Hymn each time someone came out of the house.  Such a great memory!

Marine Corps Hymn on Bagpipes

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Winefest was this weekend at Park Square Wine Cellar here in Fabulous Fishhawk.  We made the most of it and went both days.

Mick is always hard for me to find when we get separated.  I mean, there are so many people with a fez on.

I'm wearing my wine glass necklace that Amy gave us Burnet Commons Babes for our girls' weekend a few years ago.  It is such a conversation starter.  I wish I knew where to buy them!  People LOVE it!

We'll miss this when we move!

Fun St Patrick's Day Crafts and Recipes

Family Fun is the best place when you want fun ideas, crafts and recipes for holidays.

St Patrick's Day Fun Ideas from Family Fun

And here's several pictures of Leprechaun traps if you need some inspiration!  :)

Leprechaun Trap Photos

Leprechaun Traps

All of the kindergarteners were assigned the task of making leprechaun traps!  Leprechauns like shiny things, green things and gold things and Olivia, Mick and I put hers together this weekend. 

He will be enticed by the beautiful rainbow and gold coins atop the shiny package and will climb up the ladder that leads to the trap door, disguised with tissue paper!  :)

Olivia's friend Lauren made hers very sparkly and used a toilet paper roll as faux slide lure.

I hope they catch one!!!!!!!!  :)

Mick sees Skynyrd

Mick got to be the third wheel on a Higgins date night to the Plant City Strawberry Festival which is basically a county fair but the diff was legendary native Florida and legendary Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd was playing. To see Skynyrd in "rural" Florida is about as cracker as you can get so I thought I should see this extravaganza. It was quite the show on many levels.  On the good side, one can forget how many famous songs these guys, or the original guys plus 46 years, yes 46 years later this band is still going with one "original" member have put out. The encore of course was Freebird, and they actually rocked it pretty hard and it was pretty good on the guitar part.  Now the reasons why I probably won't see them again.

  It started when they invited the crowd to join them in Orlando in a month or so when they host a fund raiser for the troops with special friends Sean Hannity and Oliver North. This was quickly followed by their newest single, "God and Guns" hint, they like both. Then during "Gimme three steps" the lead singer went backstage for what I thought was a beer, I was wrong, he came back with a confederate battle flag on his mic and then the battle flag game up on the background for Sweet Home Alabama.

Hey I get it, they are from the south, but as an American, it was over the top. I think I was the only person in the crowd who voted for Obama. I'm a bit surprised they didn't call me out in the crowd of 6000 or so, that and the only person of color I saw was a Plant City cop, who I don't think volunteered to work the show.

I can say I heard Freebird but I don't need another encore.

Claire, Little Big Sister Extraordinare

We worried TERRIBLY about Claire being dethroned as the baby before Gigi was born, but she has really embraced her new role.

If she hears her crying in her crib, she will fly up the stairs, knock open the door and climb into her crib, all the while yelling, "MY BABY SISTER IS CRYING!!!!!!!!" As you can imagine, this is a big help to her Mother. 

But who can resist such a pretty sister?  :)

Not Claire!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gigi - 4 1/2 months

A few weeks ago, when my Mom and Dad were here, we got the crib moved into our room and Gigi was able to graduate from the pack 'n' play into her real bed!  :)

We even bought her a new mobile, which she loves!  :)  When she was in the Children's Hospital a few weeks ago, they put a similar mobile in her hospital crib and she was just captivated.

The blanket that she is laying on was her birth gift from Aunt Katy and Uncle Dario and funny enough....it's from a company of a high school friend of Aunt Nico's called http://www.fillintheblankie.com/  They are such beautiful blankies!  :)  LOVE IT!

Just to keep you informed, that little bump that you see above her left eye has been there, growing a bit, since she was a few weeks old and the doctor initially said we should go to a dermatologist sometime, but to wait a bit, and now, at her 4 month check-up, she has said that it will probably need plastic surgery.  Both Gigi's regular pediatrician and the one who saw her in the hospital said that they probably won't want to take it off until she's a year or older, but we are going to have a consult with a plastic surgeon this month.  If they recommend waiting, then we will most likely need to be flown to Hawaii to have it done as they don't do things like that at our base and they would rather have us with American doctors than in the Japanese hospitals out in town.  We will keep you informed, of course!

She is such a sweet, pleasant baby and we, of course, can't imagine life without our little Gigi! :)

Her name is Gigi!

In one of the "Your Baby This Week" e-mails that we received the last week or so we were told that our little four month old will soon know her name.

Enter Mick, about a minute ago, flipping on the light in the dark room while I typed with Gigi on my lap and said, "Gigi, your Mom is trying to make you go blind before you can read." (Which, by the way, is a total wives' tale.  Did they have worse eyesight in the days of candlelight?  I don't think so....not that I actually researched it, but it sounds good.)  And our little babbler looked up at him!  She started to play with my bracelet and he again called her name and she looked up at him again!

Beautiful and a genius! Lucky number four!  :)

Saturday night mass, bunnies and Jesus

Since my most fervent desire right now is to sleep in on the weekends, Audrey, Claire, Gigi and I went to the 4:00 mass today while Mick and Olivia were at a birthday party.

All the girls were really good or as I told Audrey, Claire was really good considering she is two....and Claire.

Waiting to go up for communion, the baby was getting a little fussy and Claire shook her (special) bunny at her and made Gigi smile.  It was really the sweetest thing!  Audrey had been pointing out the word Jesus in the hymnal to Claire and when we stood up to go to communion, Claire, very proud of herself for making her baby sister smile, announced proudly "My bunny talks to Jesus!"

A holy bunny indeed!  We knew it was special, but we had no idea!

Mick's First Half Marathon

Mick ran his first half marathon on Sunday with a bad ankle (sprained in a few weeks ago in a 10K race), but did well.  He ran 2:06.39 for a per mile time of 9:39.  He wants to do another one to break the 2 hour mark.

Way to go, Mick!

GOOOOOOOOOOOOO TEXAS!

Claire is such a funny little girl.  Whenever she sees ANY sport on television and someone gets excited about it she yells "GOOOOOOOO TEXAS!!!!!!!!!  HOOK 'EM HORNS!"

As an example, this weekend we were watching the Olympic gold medal hockey game between USA and Canada.  When Mick shouted in excitement when USA scored a goal with 24 seconds left to tie the game she yelled "GOOOOOOOOOOOOO TEXAS!"

Mick had run his first half marathon that morning and had come home with his "finisher" medal around his neck.  So, further charming us, when the medal ceremony was going on for the hockey game, she yelled excitedly, "DADDY!  THEY GETTING MEDAL LIKE YOU!" and fetched his medal from the table and had him bow down and she put it on his neck.

She's our little girl with the curl.  When she is good, she is very, very good, but she is bad she is horrid!"  Luckily, she's mostly good!  :)

Audrey's Lenten Promise

Audrey called me from the school office this morning and asked me to bring her lunch that was sitting on the counter.  I told her to just eat hot lunch and she said, "I gave it up for Lent." 

This is her first year giving something up and I can thank our friends the Higgins as they have been the ones (mostly) getting her to church on Sunday mornings since, sadly, I have given up sleeping for the time being due to my sweet Gigi and I just cannot seem to get motivated to get out of the rack on Sunday mornings. 

So, I was charmed by her commitment, although still puzzled why hot lunch was an extravagance and went and got her a Taco Bell cheesy bean and rice burrito to secretly replace the jelly sandwich and took it to her. 

I called Mick when I got home and he said that she told him that she was giving it up to save money and she figures she has already saved $60 by now.  But she confessed that one day she was still starving so she had her friend Julia go buy her some French fries.  Which made me laugh hysterically and I'll definitely reimburse Julia's Mom today when I see her. 

Love that little girl and the 10 year old loopholes!

Can you say spoiled?

Living in Tampa, we have had our share of Disney the past few years.  Mick's Dad gave us the money for season passes in 2008 and then again in 2009.  2009 was a wonderful military deal where we get 5 days at the parks and 5 visits to a waterpark/Disneyquest/golf.  With the chaos/exhaustion of this last year, we had 4 visits left with the parks.  So we come to Orlando for 6 days during Thanksgiving week.

Reservations at Chef Mickey at 9:25 on Tuesday morning.  Audrey begs off and asks if she can stay with Nana.  I read "Sibling Rivalry" the last few weeks and they say that you don't have to have family togetherness all of the time, so I let her stay home.

We go to the breakfast, have a fun time.  All of the big stars are there.  Goofy, Pluto, Donald, Minnie and, best of all, Mickey. 

We hop the monorail and went to the Magic Kingdom.  We walk in and Mick breathes deeply and says "Ahhh!  The most stressful place on earth!"  :) 

We try and show the kids a good time and Claire screams her way through Mickey's Philharmagic and then the Pooh ride and we make an exit. 

We come home and Audrey tells of her day.  She slept until 10:45, watched some television, went to the pool, it was cold, sat in the hot tub and then played cards with Nana. 

Olivia starts crying and yells, "IT'S NOT FAIR!  AUDREY GOT TO STAY HOME AND DO ALL THIS FUN STUFF AND I HAD TO GO TO DISNEYWORLD!!!!!!!!!"

Not the Most Efficient Travelers

Mick and I.....we're not the most efficient travelers.  We're at peace with that.  We try to set low expectations and then we don't meet them.  But we really outdid ourselves a few days ago.

Thanksgiving week.  Kids off all week.  Leaving for 6 days for Orlando to use up our Disneyworld passes before December 23rd.  Mick didn't go to work on Monday, I had a few things to do, Claire went to "school", pack and go.  What could take so long?

So we didn't begin packing until 3:00.  Audrey went out to the car to sit and wait for us to go, like a dog, around 4:30.  Olivia joins Audrey around 4:45.  Claire joins the two of them at 5:00.  Spike at 5:05.  5:15.....are we leaving?  Working, working, working at getting that "one last thing" in the car.  Many trips back to the house.  Then we are off, 2 block away to take Spike to our friends' house.

Walk into my friends' house, throw Spike's blanket down in their office (their house is exactly like ours) and turn around and notice the stunned faces before me.  It was a misunderstanding that they were watching Spike.  Spike back in the car, back to our house.  Ask our neighbors, "Can you watch Spike?"  Back in the car, off to get Claire, 5:40. 

Get Claire, walk to the car and say, "Forgot to pack my and Claire's swimsuits." 

Back to the house.  Mick goes in to get the swimsuits and for some reason, decides to clean Spike's water dish.  Distracted.  (I am secretly getting three things that I forgot while this is going on.) 

Back in the car, off to Arby's, an inordinate amount of time in the drive thru where they forget to give us our popcorn chicken and we're back to the road where we're passing Claire's school and Mick realizes......he left our swimsuits on the kitchen counter. 

It's 6:45.  I tell him I'll skinnydip and away we go. 

8:30 and we arrive in Orlando.  We made it!!!!!!

Well, now we're blogging again

So, I tried to blog before and didn't make it a priority.  Now I hear that the blog can be downloaded and printed into a photo album.  So here I am.  Now what should I write?  And how do you post pictures?