Make a Smilebox slideshow

Happy Birthday Aunt Bert!

My kids are so lucky to have Aunt 'Bert' in their lives.  She must be really special when little Jack remembers Britt in his prayers, cause his prayers are short and only full of his favorite things!  In Jack's world, you're right up there with doughnuts, and that's sayin' something!  You are definitely loved by us all. 

 Have a Very Happy Birthday!

Kiss me....I'm 1/4 Irish!

Happy St. Patrick's Day to everyone!  I love this Holiday, (or any holiday really), just because it makes this day of the year different than any other typical day!  Last night we had a couple of little Leprechauns visit during the night while we were fast asleep.  They left little green footprints all over that lead to a pot of gold chocolates on the table along with a note to the kids.  (Don't judge the footprint cut-outs, we started making them at 11:30 last night and we were super tired...Big thanks to Dan for making them for us!  Who knows, maybe Leprechauns have weird shaped toes, we had some great laughs over this!)  Apparently they left sprinkles of 'Good Luck' all over our house. Let's hope it works for us this year!!  We didn't get a chance to make a real green breakfast, we had a 'short-cut' for breakfast this morning because Jack has to be at his O.T. appt. by 8:45.  But we did manage to have Lucky Charms with magic green milk!  Then for lunch we had 'Leprechaun mini burgers', kiwi, and green Super Food juice.  Keaton was able to give Green Carnations to his teachers and a pot of gold chocolates to his class, he was so excited!  His class had a fun day as well, everyone was wearing some sort of green and everyone loved the shamrock hunt!  It's great that kids really believe most anything you tell them.   The whole "Leprechaun" story is pretty crazy, but we'll keep telling it as long as we are able to!  To finish off our day we had our traditional Irish dinner; Corned beef, and cabbage.  We also made green mashed potatoes, green jell-o with green whipped cream, green drinks, and shamrock sugar cookies!  Here are some pictures we took throughout the day.  Here's to hoping everyone who reads this has the 'Luck of the Irish' with them all year long!  

This is what the 'Leprechauns' left during the night!

Olivia loved the green flowers!

These were our mini leprechaun burgers

The kids were so excited to show off the 'green' dinner!  "Come on Dad, hurry inside"!

The best part about St. Patrick's Day,  corned beef...mmmm

We ended our night with shamrock cookies and an Irish jig dance courtesy of Dan, I wish I had a video of this, it was so hilarious!! (Notice he's wearing his 4 leaf clover pants!)

There is Beauty All Around....

We were able to be blessed with the presence of my parents yet again last weekend and the first part of this week.  I love having company, and my kids especially do!  One day while they were here we took a long walk along the river trail.  I love to be outside in beautiful Bend, Oregon!  It was a chilly day so we had to keep up the pace to stay warm.  I am so grateful to live here and have the chance to see some of God's beautiful creations everyday (and no, I'm not just talking about my kids!).

We saw this Buck Elk on our walk right by the trail.  He was HUGE!

After the walk we let the kids run and play at the park.

Bragging rights....

I know that most of us hate it when all parents do is brag about their kids.  If that is you, just skip this post cause I'm ready to brag a little bit about KJ!  This post is mostly for Dan's parents and my parents, since they like to keep up on how he's doing in school.

I had my parent-teacher conference with Keaton's teacher yesterday and it went great.  Keaton passed every subject/skill with flying colors!  We get a print-out to go over with everything that they are working on, what the goal is, and where they are on the scale.  I am very proud to say that he has passed all the requirements needed to pass kindergarten and has even passed the goal for 1st grade reading!  Go KJ!  The goal for Kindergarten is to be able to read at least 25 words and he is over 200!  They are going to put him in a special reading group so he can push himself a little bit more.  His teacher has been reading separately with him for now and he's moved on to the chapter books.  Her only complaint is that he gets really shy when she reads with him.  He's not shy in groups but when he's put on the spot, he holds back.  Keaton continues to make us so proud!  

Here is KJ at the publishing table, writing a book about space.

I get to work in his class on Friday's, I love being able to be involved in his class.  Getting to see what they are working on and learning about is so much fun.  He loves it when I get to come in and I love watching him learn and play with his friends.  He's really blossoming this year!

Amen....

Jack is finally blossoming spiritually...... 

Here was our conversation with him tonight at bed time: 

"Jack, it's time to say your prayers".  (Dan and I)

Jack said, "Okay. -  Dear Heavenly Father......Amen" 

"No Jack, you need to say more than that in your prayers, okay?"

"Okay. -  Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for doughnuts......Amen".

I guess he likes his prayers short, sweet, and right to the point!  This kid is always surprising us with his crazy sense of humor.  We couldn't help but laugh, how can you keep a straight face after that?!!