Saint Patrick's Day 2023

We didn't do much for Saint Patrick's day, but we did learn about him and Ireland in history that day. 

I also tried to make our meals that day fun and festive. 

I left out a little cauldron full of treasure in the morning.

For breakfast I made the green waffles for the kids...

For lunch I made green egg salad and put the sandwiches out with green Pringles and applesauce.

And for dinner I made roast, rolls, and put out some Ginger ale since it has a green label. 

 

More March....

Maddy played in the snow a lot, because we have had a lot of snow!

She made a snowman of Roboppi from You-gi-oh!

This is the character... she did such a good job.

We had apple pie and banana cream pie for pi day.

And... finally, I finished the middle grade mystery book I have been writing forever. I made it to use as a course for Abi, so it has places for her to stop and solve codes along with the characters before the answers are revealed. 

 

Valentines Day

The week before Valentines Day, we started out by having a Valentines themed poetry teatime with some donuts from Krispy Kreme. I was right next to the store, and we don't get them very often, so I grabbed a box. 

The day before Valentines day my parents stopped by with some goody boxes for us. They gave each of the girls a cute little plush gift. The animals did school with us for the rest of the week...

I couldn't find the little Valentines gift holders I made, so I grabbed some last minute Valentines bags for the girls' surprises. They didn't need bags this big, but it was kind of funny. 

I set them up with some heart shaped waffles for breakfast (Doug's mom gifted us a mini heart waffle maker the day before). 

We usually do teatime on Thursday, but that week we did it on Valentines day so that it could be another Valentine's themed one. I made some heart shaped cookies, and then put out some mini-cupcakes from Target. We also had some fruit punch for a nice, red drink. 

 

4th of July

We had a fun Fourth of July with my parents. 

I took the girls in their front yard for some pictures....

We had a fun lunch with some festive books.

I watched Hamilton for the first time and enjoyed it, so my mom and I watched it together on the fourth. 

We watched other patriotic movies throughout the week as well, which all add to the pride and fun of the holiday. 

During the week we had one of our poetry teatime's. This one had a fourth theme of course. These tend to be one of my favorite things we do, so it was fun! We had festive cookies and we ate our lunch picnic style with it as well. 

My mom reading one of the books to us..

My parents are fun and festive, so it's always fun to be with them for our celebrations!

 

The 4th of July

We wanted to spend a pretty low key 4th of July this year so we decided we wouldn't go to any fireworks shows. 

I asked my parents if they had any plans and if they wanted to get together for lunch. They did want to and asked if we would come to their house for a barbecue. 

So we drove there in the early afternoon. 

We had a really fun barbecue. 

 

My mom even made us red, white, and blue ice cream sundaes. 

 

After that we drove home and we went out back to do poppers and sparklers. 

 

 A few moments after Maddy was holding out that sparkler, she forgot that she isn't supposed to touch the burning edge when it is done burning. She grabbed it right by that end as she put it down on the table and burnt her hand resulting in lots of pain and a big blister. I felt so bad for her.

Since we didn't plan on going to any fireworks shows we just hung out at home all evening and let the girls start watching a film in the playroom. But then there began to be booms everywhere and we went to the windows. There were people doing huge fireworks shows all over our neighborhood. 

We could also see a few of the big professional ones from afar. 

So we went outside and watched for a while. The girls loved it!

Valentines Day

The girls both celebrated Valentines day in their classes a few days before Valentines Day. 

This was Maddy's first school Valentines day and she was so excited. 

They both wanted to make Pokemon themed boxes so we printed off faces of the Pokemon they wanted, wrapped shoe boxes in yellow construction paper and taped on the characters. They were both very happy with their creations. 

I forgot to take a picture in the morning so I made them pose with their boxes after school. 

 

Valentines morning I set up the table with some roses given to us by Doug's parents, a hedgehog we named "Hedgy Potter" given to us by my parents, some disposable sticky place mats made by Mark and Callie (you can buy them here)  , a few gifts for the girls (a book for each, a small Lego set for Abi and shopkins for Maddy as well as chocolates), hot chocolate and cinnamon rolls. Then we called the girls out. 

 They were so excited.

We had a really nice family day and then I finished the day by watching Austenland. 

 

New Years Eve

We spent New Years Eve at my parent's house again this year. 

We took along the balloons to decorate the tree. 

Throughout the night we popped them for money!

 

Maddy could not pop hers!

 

We finally popped it with a pen and then continued to do that with all of them. 

 

 My mom made yummy hoagies and we watched Matilda (after finishing the book with the girls). 

Then we played Trivial Pursuit. 

Maddy won!

 

I had the girls fill out little 2015 sheets. 

 

We made ice cream sundaes!

 

Maddy went crazy with the sprinkles!

 

 As midnight loomed, everyone was still awake! 

It was Maddy's first time making it to midnight. 

We got our crackers and sparkling cider ready. 

Happy 2016!

 

Abi got a parachute guy in her cracker. 

Making him fly....

It was a great New Years Eve and we are so excited for 2016!