St. Patty's Day and beyond...

I have to laugh at myself that here it is, Easter night, and I'm updating about St. Patrick's Day events! My good friend Sachia commented recently that my blog updates could be characterized as "slow, but steady." Yes, I guess that would be the perfect description. It doesn't help that our little Mac is getting up there in age (3 or 4 years maybe?) and slowing down a bit, which makes iPhoto and updates not as quick as I'd like them to be. But here we are still...

All things green for St. Patrick's Day, including breakfast...green milk and pancakes. For all the millions and millions and millions and millions of tough things that come along with having a 5, 3 and 1 year old, one of the best parts is how exciting every holiday is. Add a little green coloring to a basic glass of milk, and the entire morning is awesome.

We partied, Irish-style, with some good friends from Church, and chowed on corned beef, cabbage and potatoes...I never knew how good corned beef was...

Charlie may be all boy, but he enjoys a good Little People dollhouse play session...he sat like this for a long time, opening and closing the playhouse door and arranging the family...

We've been furnishing and re-furnishing most of our house over the last few months, and on a recent Saturday we had 3 separate people come into the house for various reasons and ask, "so are you moving in or moving out?" Neither, but that's certainly what it looks like. Luckily we are not sleeping on floor...I am also saying good bye to all shades of brown paint in my house...GOOD BYE! The side wall is still primer from the closet, so hopefully this week will bring time to finish painting the master...

Our apricot tree is blooming again...trees without leaves really just aren't that pretty, and it gets LONG staring at bare trees for the few months that we actually have winter here...the kids love to swing on this rope although we now have a tire swing hanging in that same spot that we just put up this weekend. I have a very real fear that the tire swing may bring the end of the apricot tree...I hope not. I tell myself that a kid swinging on a rope tied to a branch isn't any heavier than a kid on a tire swing hanging from a branch, but Lauren is just so aggressive with her spinning--it makes me ill to watch, but she doesn't seem to mind...

The dirt patch in the bottom right corner is where we pulled out grass to plant a garden...Andy and the girls did that this weekend...it's our first time really planting a garden--we did zero research and very little soil preparation, so hopefully the garden gods will smile on us and give us some carrots...

A recent impulse buy--a new sand box. We love it, but honestly, this is not for the neat freak out there...with it comes sand...EVERYWHERE. I consider myself a pretty clean house wife, but I realized quite quickly that I had to let go of some of that when I chose to buy this...the entire backyard is gritty with sand, as is my kitchen floor. And I can't count how many piles of sand I've already vacuumed off the carpet because Charlie walked in with a bucket of sand and dumped it out. But seriously, the kids love it, especially the little boy in the photo. We just bought a new swing set and realized that it, too, comes with a sand box...do I exponentially compound my problem and have 2 sand piles in my backyard? Jury is still out...TBD

We recently found ourselves with 2 huge cardboard boxes, and each girl claimed one...tons and tons of fun...

I love post-dinner popsicles and ice cream cones, and so do the kids...