Tricky little leprechauns!

We woke Thur. morning to find our kitchen had been turned topsy turvy by those tricky little leprechauns! How do we know it was them you ask?


I think their little green footprints they left across the kitchen floor gave them away!


A whole trail of them as a matter of fact that led to...


...the refrigerator!


"What did he do?! What did he do in the fridge?!" Tyler was screaming. We opened it up to find that the leprechaun had turned our milk green! They thought that was so awesome-especially Tyler since his favorite color is green-and thoroughly enjoyed drinking it and having it in their cereal that morning for breakfast!

When Tyler went into the bathroom to get dressed he screamed to me, "MOM! There is green pee in our toilet!" What?! That tricky leprechaun went potty in our toilet and we thought it was very rude that he didn't flush away his business!


We were so excited when we saw this green footprint on the fireplace since our trap is sitting up there and hoped that we had caught the tricky little man that had wreaked havoc all over our house!


Awww! It looks like we almost caught him!! Better luck next year!


After we picked Tyler up from preschool we went to our friend Lindsey's house where a couple of us moms had put together a little St. Patricks day party. We had a yummy green lunch by Lindsey and then I was in charge of the activities. We started out by heading out to the patio (loving that we can be outside in short sleeves!!!) to paint some Blarney stones!


While they were doing that I painted some clovers on the older kids cheeks-Tyler loves to have his face painted!


squinty eyes=lots of sunshine=lots and lots of happiness!


While our rocks dried we went inside to play a scavenger hunt game lindsey put on and the boys found hats at the end and the girls found princess crowns! This was the BEST pic we took of all the kids cause they're all at least in it! ha ha


Next we made some clover necklaces...


Macey's cheesy grin!


After that we had one more scavenger hunt in store (I didn't know lindsey was going to do one, but I had planned one too). We heard a knock on the door and found this clover from Larry the Leprechaun...


We followed 5 more clues till we found the last one where Larry had left the kids a pot of gold!


They had an awesome time and had lots of fun stuff to bring home!


I feel like the LUCKIEST mom in the world to have these two bugs in my life!

Feeling Lucky!

LUCK, as defined by Merriam-Webster's online dictionary, is a force that brings good fortune or adversity. If this be true...I be a lucky person.

Just ask Bob Barker from the Price is Right. Me and him was smoochin' it up on stage (okay more me fanatically kissing him-on the cheek...c'mon people I have boundaries) before-and after-I won my SIX prizes just over 7 years ago. The Force was bringing me all sorts of good fortune that day. My mom, my sister, myself, and a couple hundred people showed up to the Price is Right studio at 4 am on a bright dec. morning for Alisa's 18th bday. After some loooong hours of waiting in lines, interviews where I was more bubbly, perky and energetic than a cheerleader on steroids, more looooong waiting, getting to know the people in line next to us better than I know myself, and being placed in our seats the show finally began! The music started in, all 80 years of Mr. Barker himself walked out on stage, and someone called my name from the loudspeaker. Twice as a matter of fact because it was so loud in the studio I couldn't hear them.

I got up on stage after the second round (bidding on the fireplace you see in all my holiday decoration pictures)-thank you Force- And won my game- thank you Force-(don't remember the name of the game, but it was about having a credit limit and having to buy a certain number of prizes within that limit). Totally failed miserably at spinning the wheel so lets not even talk about how I was basically booed of the stage -this would be the force that brings adversity-but either way...the Force of luck was with me.

Call it Luck...call it Awesomeness...either way, I'm kinda a celebrity.

Unfortunately over the last 7 years my luck has gone somewhat south and although I wouldn't say The Force is bringing me adversity; I could use a little-bitty extra dose of the GOOD kind of luck so it was totally necessary that we take advantage of this lucky little holiday we call St. Patrick's day!

These are the backside of the wood blocks that spelled LOVE for Vday.


I am LOVING wreaths right now. I think if you do nothing else for a holiday, a wreath is the perfect simple thing that brings in some fun without being overwhelming.


I got the idea for this rag wreath HERE. I started with 2 different colored green fabrics (less than $2.50 at Hobby Lobby), some green tulle I had leftover from Kylee's Halloween costume, a green wreath, scissors and hot glue. I cut the fabric into about 1x9 inch strips and just started tying it around the wreath.


I alternated 2 dark green, 1 light green, and then after the whole wreath was done went back and added in the tulle randomly where I thought it looked good.


This is the back.


I just did this about 2 weeks ago so JoAnns had all their decor 50% off so I got this to hang in the center for $1...


...and these cute little picks (I broke off the pick part) for the same price.




Hang it with some pretty st patty's ribbon and it's done!




I love this subway art from eighteen25 (they totally have the best subway art!). I picked up the frame at DI for a dollar and spray painted with green paint I already had left over from a project I did back in Sept. (that I'm just realizing I never posted about!)


About a week ago we noticed these hats popping up all over our house-a new one everyday! We know those tricky leprechauns have been leaving them here and we've been trying to catch them ever since!


I didn't have any St. Patricks decorations to start out with this year so was just trying to start with stuff I already had or could find for cheap at DI and whatnot. This is what I came up with:


Starting on the right side is another cute subwary art I found Here. When I found this little wood plaque at DI for a $1 I thought it might be a fun, different way to display the art.


The print was only available in an 8x10 so I just trimmed the edges down with a paper cutter (and had to cut off a word-but I don't think you can tell), sprayed some spray adhesive to the plaque, and glued the picture straight on. pretty simple.


I already had that little easel to rest it on as well as the black candlesticks. The green ball is one I made for my kitchen awhile ago (story/pictures to come) using beans, and the candle is one I had and wrapped scrapbook paper around (the paper was given to me and is the same paper I used to do the lucky blocks). I tied on some gold ribbon that I had and stuck on a little foam sticker ribbon thingy. :)


And what would St. Patrick's day be without a pot of gold?! Jar I stocked up on from the dollar store back in Oct., Leprechaun is a foam sticker (you'll see these on few things and I got all the stickers in one package for $1), and the "ribbon" around the top is actually a shoelace I got for a $1 at JoAnns-it was cheaper than buying ribbon!


I found this LUCKY printable here and thougth it would be fun to display some different pictures of us from awhile ago. (these pics are usually up in each of the kids bedrooms)


With all those hats lying around we knew we needed to make a leprechaun trap, and fast! I got the idea from the Family Fun magazine.


Hopefully the gold at the top will entice those tricky little men!


And lastly a banner! These are pretty much all over blogland for all the different holidays and since I had a little extra time this month I thought I'd try my hand at one. This is the tutorial I followed. I'm not crazy about it, but it was quick, easy and cheap to make so I'm glad I did it.


For the center I cut up a shamrock from cereal boxes. I cut about 1 inch strips from the fabric I had leftover from my wreath and just started wrapping it around the shape, hot gluing it in place whenever the strip would end.


I glued each piece together and it looked like this:


Then I added a 4 inch lollie in the middle and glued a green bow in the center (I promise it's not really this ugly grey color in real life...it really is green-not sure what's going on with the camera)


A couple 3 inch lollie's on either side with foam stickers in the middle...


And yep, that sure is the same shoelace holding it up as was on our pot of gold!


And that's a wrap! Hopefully all this green and gold will bring some Irish luck our way!


I'll just leave you by saying...may the force be with you. (gosh my husband would be proud-someone tell him to read this)

A spiderific birthday party!

Since Spiderman decorations and party supplies are ridiculously expensive I wanted to make pretty much everything for Tyler's party myself. I attempted to make the NYC skyline-using my cricut to cut out shapes to make the buildings-that I then glued on a poster-board and hung on the wall.


I just printed off a couple spiderman images I found through google and put them on the poster and a few throughout the front room.










Made a couple words on poster-board to fill in some white space.


The only thing I bought-this spiderman poster-that Tyler is currently obsessed with! One of the best 5 bucks I've ever spent. :)


I hung up a spiderweb made from crepe paper and put up a few of the ping-pong spiders I made at Halloween.


Outside I was hoping to put up some signs (similar to the dinosaur ones we had up for his party last year) that said, "No Villans allowed", etc. and make a big spiderweb that stretched between the 2 pillars, BUT it snowed LOTS every day for days before his party and we weren't sure what the weather would be the day of the party so I opted not to make anything to go outside (except for a few red, black and blue balloons). It turned out that it didn't snow the day of but this is the pile we had in our yard. (which was later turned into a snow cave!)




I made the party favor bags which said, "Thanks for swinging on over to my party." Inside there was spiderman fruit snacks, pop rocks, a spiderman 'magic' towel, a silly straw and a party popper (those things where you pull the string and it makes a bang and confetti explodes-which by the way-Bobby popped one right behind me and I screamed fairly high pitchedly while jumping so high I think I pulled something when I landed. It was the highlight of Bobby's day. Ugh.).


The party was in the middle of the afternoon so we just did Cake and Green Goblin punch-Lemon lime soda and lime sorbet.


Bobby was super busy with school the week before so I did everything except for the cake. I gave him full responsibility for designing it, baking it and creating it.


I think he did a pretty awesome job! And Kylee had 3 pieces-which if you know Kylee is A LOT.


Tyler was STOKED when we surprised him with a spiderman costume to wear to his party the morning of. (Thanks to our friend Lindsey for letting us borrow it!!!)


We started out by having the kids make superhero masks while we waited for everyone to arrive. (PS I cant wait till we can get a full size table so we can do stuff like this on a table instead of the floor! ha ha)


Cute Macey and Mindy




The first game we played was the Web walk. Like a cake walk, but I made webs for the kids to walk on during the game and numbered each one 1, 2, or 3. When the music stopped I would call one of the numbers and whoever was standing on that number would get a prize.


Everybody walking and silly Macey just dancing in the middle. Her and Kylee didn't quite get the hang of the game. :)


They loved the webslinger that was their first prize. (strips of yarn hot glued to the tips of each finger on a glove. They put their hand in the glove and then ball up the yarn in their palm and then sling their web!)




The next game was the Spiderman Super Powers test. First we tested their spidey vision...


...using pictures like this:


and this:


and this...

I took pictures of 15 random objects throughout my house upclose and had them guess what they were and then would reveal the actual object. The ones above were some of the harder ones. Can you guess them?

Next we tested their spidey hearing by playing short clips of different sounds (train, helicopter, brushing teeth, etc.) and had them guess what they were.


I was also going to test their spidey taste (blindfold them and have them taste different foods) but the party was only an hour and half so I decided to cut this one due to time.

The last game we played was pin the spider on the web. Lindsey blindfolded them, Bobby handed them their spiders...


...and I led them to the web.


Some of them got it SO close to the center of the web! I was seriously impressed! The prize for the winner was a spiderman book.


I had also planned on doing the game: Web wrap (put them in teams of 3 or 4 and give each team a roll of toilet paper. The team chooses one child to wrap in TP and the first team done wins) but ran out of time so it didn't happen, but I think the boys really would have liked this!

Next was cake...


Which, as previously mentioned, Kylee loved.


And then on to presents!






Such a fun group of kids! L-R
Seth, Logan, Luke (Tyler's BF), McKensie, Paul, Kate, Jake, Tyler, Emma, Macey, Finlee (Kylee was getting cleaned up from cake)


I think I'm starting to get the hang of this boy thing. I see many more "hero" parties in our future!


P.S. answers to the above pictures :) :
#1-eggs
#2-carrot
#3-balloon