St. Patrick's Day

I LOVE celebrating holidays with the kids and decided last year that it was important to make the holidays and birthdays special because it gives the kids good memories... and maybe when they are older they won't just remember me yelling and screaming all the time... lol

Last night I decided to kick St. Patrick's Day off with a St. Patrick's Day family night (we couldn't do it Monday night). We talked about St. Patrick's Day and how it came to be and about clovers and how they can represent the Godhead with their 3 leaves. For treats, Andre and I made a fruit rainbow - we used strawberries, mandarin oranges, pineapple, kiwi, blueberries, and grapes - and some fruit dip.

I got the idea from Michelle at Someday Crafts and it was definitely a hit with the whole family! I can't wait to do a family night on Noah's Ark and do this as the treat again!

Last night, we had a naughty little leprechaun sneak in (as he does every year) and dye our milk green. And then this morning, I made green eggs (a tradition) and also green shamrock pancakes (something new this year). I also dyed the orange juice green.

And a trick I learned, although it's probably obvious for most people (I'm a little slow)... for the eggs and the o.j, I added blue food coloring instead of green because yellow and blue makes green! It worked much better! lol

When I saw these muffin tin advents here at Sumo's Sweet Stuff and here at Somewhat Simple I just HAD to make one of my own!

And it was actually quite a quick and easy project!

Because my kids get PLENTY of sweets and candy, I decided to do activities in each day written on paper (I hurry and trade them before the kids pick if it is something that just won't work for the day)...

Need some ideas for activites? You can see my list right here...

This was definitely a fun and easy project that added to my Christmas Decor and that the kids LOVE!

Great Gift Idea: Crayon Roll

What a fun gift idea for your little ones? My daughter LOVES her crayon roll and it isn't even hard to make! (If I can do it with my limited sewing skills, you can do it!)

I followed the tutorial on Skip to My Lou (but cut out the ric rac trim because of my limited sewing knowledge, although I LOVE the trim!)

I had intended this to be for my daughter to take to church, but she uses it constantly and my son even likes it! They love that they can see all the colors in front of them...

And I love that we can fold it up and put it all away!

Lunch Note Cards

Last year when Andre would take his "cold lunch" from home, I would always write a little message or love note on his napkin. He seemed to like it but I worried about it embarrassing him and worried that he'd ask me to stop. So this year I decided I needed to make it something he DEFINITELY looks forward to...

Andre LOVES jokes - so I started writing jokes on little note cards and putting my message on the cards, but that got crazy trying to come up with a joke in the last couple minutes before he ran out the door... He LOVES it though and enjoys telling all his friends that sit by him the joke...

So I've pre-designed some note cards with jokes already on them and a place in the middle to write your love note. They turned out great! We used the first one today and it was fun, easy, and most important... He LOVED it!

So I thought I'd share them with you...

Here's the ones with the pre-printed jokes...


And here's a blank page in case you want to write your own jokes...


You can also download a PDF file of them here.