Cousin Crew & St. Patrick's Day

Jenna was in Mexico with our parents and Grandma Knowles acting as grandma's companion. Remember when Jenna watched my kids for a week when I got to go to Hawaii and be grandma's companion? That was such a special trip for me and I loved it very much - I was so so so happy to be able to return the favor so that Grandma could go and enjoy Mexico, too. They went back to our favorite resort Xcaret and even the thought of it makes me crave tacos, or any food from the Mercado restaurant. (Seriously, that's some of the best food I have EVER eaten.) We had a good week with the Haderlies and then Juniper came and joined us for the weekend for "Cousin Weekend." 

We love our cousins and one of our favorite things to do with them is to celebrate holidays together. Our favorite holidays to celebrate together include RainbowDay (our made up holiday), April Fools Day, and St. Patrick's Day. 

The night before St. Patrick's Day, the kids made their leprechaun traps and left them out. A side note: I do not know how this became a thing. I think that Lydia learned about "Leprechaun Traps" in kindergarten and because our kids are creative kids who like building things, it's something that really appeals to them. We've now been celebrating St. Patricks Day by making traps and eating green things for several years. For someone who is so opposed to "Santa", it's odd that I've allowed this holiday to evolve as it has -but I figure that the kids love it and it's not taking away from anything so it's just fun. 

David and I went all out this year and wrote each child a note from "Lucky" the Lephrechan. I was a little grumbly about it - but they turned out so fun and cute and the kids loved them - so it was definitely worth it. We had some little green candies and gold coins that we set out in the traps and the kids were thrilled. 

We also then had some green treats that we ate throughout the day - and that was the extent of our celebrations. (I had them watch a couple of picture book read-alouds on the computer about St. Patrick related topics, but that was all.) 

We went to the Children's Museum and explored. We loved the "Travel to Africa" exhibit, and the kids especially loved that they got to ride the carousel. (It's been $3 per ride since it opened, but I haven't been willing to spend that, however, this weekend they opened it up to be free for members and there was celebration.) 

We went to the Family Search Building for a Field Trip, which all of the kids loved and then we came back to our house and the kids, plus our friend Quincee, asked to do a "cooking contest". (One of their favorite activities.) They did a great job and had a lot of fun. 

Lucy and Sadie "did their makeup" with the makeup kit that Lucy got for her birthday and were so proud of themselves. Yikes. Cal came over this same night for his weekly Thursday dinner and he played Frozen music on his phone while the girls danced. His other granddaughter Olivia had recently been in a middle-school production of Frozen and he had flown back to Indiana to watch her. He was showing them the video and then playing them the songs. They loved it and he was a good sport to be so kind to them. 

These kids are just so good together. They play so well, they are so kind to each other, they bring out the creativity in each other. Sometimes we look like a production when we are taking 9 kids around with us during cousin weekend, but honestly, it's not that much more work because they are all just such. good. kids. 

Saturday we went to cheer on Matthew at his Triathalon in American Fork. We are so proud of him and how hard he has worked to train and prepare for this. "Go Uncle Matt!" 

And last, but not least - the best part about this week was the care and attention Lucy gave to Molly (pictured here with her head stuck under the gate, because as a two year old she thought it was a good idea and this is the only picture that I have of her, ha). Remember when I went to Hawaii with my mom and grandma and Jenna potty trained Lucy while I was gone? Well, this week when Jenna was gone - Molly started acting like she was VERY interested in potty training. We spent a lot of time on the potty and I asked David if he thought I should try to potty train Molly for Jenna while he was gone. We both agreed, NO. I am a terrible potty trainer and I didn't want to make it worse for Jenna when she got back. However, Lucy took the duty upon herself to help potty train Molly. She took her potty multiple times in the day, helped her get on and off the toilet, and all around took charge of the whole potty training process. When Jenna got home, she was so surprised. She sent me a text the next day, "Molly hasn’t needed a diaper change. She went poop by herself and has gone pee on the potty a couple of times! You guys must have done something! " 

I wish I could take credit for it, but I can't - it was totally Lucy. Now it's a running joke: Jenna potty trained Lucy for me, and Lucy potty trained Molly for Jenna. 

We love these kids and loved spending time together! 

St. Patricks Day

My goal with holidays is to have them be simple and fun, with a heavy dose of simple and just enough fun to add to the magic of childhood. St. Patricks day is one of those minor holidays that I usually celebrate with green pancakes and wearing green and call it good (with some rainbow fruitloops thrown in for good measure if I'm feeling really festive). However, this year Caleb came home from preschool talking about leprechauns and wanting to make a leprechaun trap. I didn't do much to encourage him but was happy to let him explore what that would look like on his own. He eventually asked me for some specific help and I helped him set up a box with a stick on top and some candy underneath to "trap" a leprechaun. Lydia and Austin both got interested in what Caleb was doing and decided they wanted to make their own traps, too. We ended up with five traps ranging from an empty cardboard box sitting open on the floor to a trap built with magnatiles, to an elaborately decorated trap with a pool of maple syrup designed to lure a leprechaun in and stick him to the trap. It was awesome. 

The kids set out their traps and I remembered at midnight, right as I was drifting off to sleep, so I woke myself up, printed out a little note (thank you google search) from a leprechaun eloquently saying "good try, better luck next year" and stuck some little green candies and a "lucky buck" which was a little green leprechaun dollar. I had some hesitency because we don't even do Santa - do I really want to encourage the thought of a little green man roaming around our house at night? Weird. But the kids were so thrilled when they woke up and checked their traps in the morning that I feel like it's fine. Childhood. 

Because we did the whole leprechaun trap thing, I felt like we needed to read some books about leprechauns that morning. I clearly hadn't planned on celebrating so thoroughly so I didn't have any books from the library, but we've just discovered recently that you can look up books on Youtube and there are people that will read them out loud. It's really a great discovery and we've really enjoyed reading some books on specific topics that we couldn't get from the library! We pulled up a handful of St. Patricks day books, including one about the real St. Patrick from Ireland, and a couple of fun leprechaun ones. 

We also (unrelated to St. Patricks Day) read a book about color and a painter who loved to use color, and the kids asked if they could paint. So I pulled out our paints and let them explore with color, which also seemed fitting because = rainbow. 



Austin doesn't typically like to paint, (or do anything of the sort) and watching him explore color with big swaths across his paper, dripping from his brush, and mixing on his palette was such a huge joy for me. 

I had planned to make fruit loop necklaces for St Patricks day, even before the kids set the tone for the celebration day, so I felt like the whole day was a huge win for me. The kids thought it was the best St. Patricks Day they've ever had, and I only spent a few minutes printing out some leprechaun notes, making green pancakes, and remembering to add fruit loops to my grocery order. Simple + Magical.