Sunday, May 6, 2012

Chalk Board Wall!

 We put up a wall in our basement making our playroom much smaller but also creating a new bedroom.  We decided to paint this new wall with both magnetic and chalkboard paint.  It was a very smelly task but sure looks good now that it is finished!
 The first words on their new wall - all three of them wrote their names!!


Ivory Soap Experiment!

 We put a bar of Ivory soap in the microwave and watched it grow, and grow, and grow!
 Once it was finished and cooled down, my son snuck off to his room with it and this is what I found when I went into his room! 
I guess scooby is looking for a clue in the mountain of soap!  I must say it did make his room smell nice too!!!:0)

Glow in the Dark Bath!!

                  Who knew glow sticks in the bath tub could be so much fun!
                              I picked up glow sticks from the dollar store!
                                          We will definitely do this again!

St.Patrick's Day 2012


My niece Kendra was down this year!  My pictures loaded backwards so this was towards the end of the day.  I am now officially addicted to Pinterest  and I got many of my ideas from there.  
Here we are having balloon leprechaun races!!



Abby getting ready for her race!


I tied string to two chairs.  We taped pictures of a leprechaun to straws.  Blew up a balloon but did not tie it.  With one hand hold the string.  With the other hand hold the balloon (that gets taped to the straw).  On go let go of ONLY the balloon and see who wins the race!!!


Kendra and Emma getting ready!  They all loved it so much that I did it again for Jesse's birthday!


This was the finish line - a rainbow made out of streamers and a pot of gold!  
I did see more creative ideas on the internet, but I was a little short of time! 

 I let each of the kids pick out a colouring page of a leprechaun that they wanted.  They each coloured their own for the races!!







 It would not be St. Patrick's Day without rainbow pancakes!!  Yummy!!

  


I also made rainbow fruit to add a little something healthy to their lunch!  Rainbow cookies and mini marshmallows were desert!!!



Cinnamon buns for breakfast with green icing and green milk.  Green grapes and green apples too!!



This is what the leprechaun left behind that the kids found at the end of their treasure hunt!
They sure are lucky today!! 


This was another treasure hunt that I found on pinterest.  The cloud was the first clue and each colour of the rainbow is another clue!



Here they are piecing together the rainbow and trying to figure it all out!!


Abby is checking her leprechaun trap to see if she has caught anything.  Sneaky little guy got away again this year!!!;0)


Here they are looking at Jesse's trap.  Instead of a leprechaun there is a note left behind!!!




     This picture was taken the night before St. Patrick's Day.  Jesse made his leprechaun trap from the game mouse trap!!




Abby covered a basket in green and some rainbow streamers.  She put some gold coins under it to lure the leprechaun in!




Emma tried to catch the leprechaun using her safe.  She thought he might like the idea of finding lots of gold inside!!  No such luck this year!!



This was also the night before.  A leprechaun left each of the children a small bag of magic beans that they had to plant in the garden.  The following morning rainbow lollipops had grown from those special beans!!!!



Here is a picture of the magic beans they were planting!!


A note and magic beans that were left on our front door by the leprechaun!!



Each of the kids made a paper leprechaun holding a sign.  They got to finish the sentence themselves.  

This is a close up of Jesse's - melt. my. heart!! 



Jesse's leprechaun at age 5!



Abby's at age 7.  She wrote:  "I feel lucky when I am with my whole family"
So adorable!!! 




Emma is 9 years old.  She wrote:  I feel lucky when I am around my parents!  Very sweet, but we will have to show this to her again when she is a teenager and is embarrassed to be around her parents!!!! 


I feel so lucky to have three amazing children who I love to the end of the earth!!  We are so blessed to have healthy happy children!!  I am trying to treasure every moment - it goes by way too quickly!
 
                                We hope everyone else had a great St. Patrick's Day too!!!!

Thursday, March 8, 2012

St. Patrick's Day Ideas!

St. Patrick's Day from last year, apparently I was feeling very festive and energetic!!
Here is Emma age 8 with Lucky the Leprechaun!!
Abby age 6!
Jesse age 4!
Have you ever tried to catch a leprechaun? If you have, I would love to hear all about - just leave me a comment!! My own kids shocked me with their creativity and each came up with their own Leprechaun trap!! Boy were they determined to catch this tricky fella!!

Jesse made a "movie theater" and put gold coins under the leprechaun's chair. He had a string attached to the box which would flip and capture!!
Here is Jesse demonstrating how it will work!!
Abby's idea was to make a "cozy bed with some books" She made miniature books out of paper and put lots of cotton balls for a soft bed. He could climb in the box with a ladder but hopefully not be able to climb back out!!!;0)
Emma set up a little house for the Leprechaun and put sticky tack on the chair. She just about caught him, because the next morning tiny green pants were stuck to her chair!!!:0)
This was our family Leprechaun trap! The idea here was that the Leprechaun would pick up the gold coin on top of the clothes pin. The clothes pin would then open up releasing the string attached to our cup disguised like a tree and voila he would get captured!! However, we had no such luck - maybe next year!!
Our Leprechaun was a mischievous and busy little guy. He pulled out all the rainbow and green toys and left us with a big mess!!!Sheesh!!
You will need to turn your head to see the shamrock!!
He left behind some gold coins, bead shamrocks, and rainbows in our water table!!
He also left a few notes with clues to where the children might find their own treasures!!
Ta Da!!! Treasure is found!!!!!
Next we had green pancakes and green milk for breakfast!!
Also some green apples and green eggs!!
We made our own leprechaun's out of toilet paper rolls!
Did a few colouring pages!!
And made this fun St. Patrick's Day decorations!! (again sorry about the sideways pic)
Lunch time was another version of a leprechaun with some gold chocolate to eat!! Yummy!

Along with lunch I made a fruit rainbow!!! Strawberries, oranges, pineapples, kiwi, blueberries, purple grapes, banana's for the gold at the end of a rainbow and mini marshmallows for the clouds!!!
Emma made a sign - "Cheer for St. Patrick's Day!"
After lunch all the kids made their very own books called "The Leprechaun's Walk"
Each page they get to write down where the leprechaun walks and draw a picture of it. They also added sticker to the book.
When everyone had finished making the books, they all took turns reading it to the group. I was so excited by how much work they each put into their books and they all did a Fantastic job sharing with everyone!!
Here is an example of a couple of the pages: (grr - sideways again)
For the three youngest kiddo's, I wrote the words they told me they wanted and then I let them draw and decorate the page!!

We also coloured mini leprechauns and glued them onto popsicle sticks so they could act out their books!! The kids were so proud of their work!!
For afternoon snack we had rainbow jello!!!! Very cool looking but wow did we ever have A LOT of jello left over!!!
We also had 'gold' fish crackers
and green cupcake from the store!!!
After snack we made these fun hats and enjoyed some outside time!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day from my three munchkins!! Hope you have a lucky day!!!