Happy St. Patrick's Day

Here are the kids sporting their green for St. Patrick's Day. Aaron thinks his shirt is so funny. It says, "This is my lucky shirt." He also has one that says, "Kiss me. I'm Irish" which cracks me up when he wears it because he just looks so Irish. Wink, Wink. Hannah's shirt is hard to see. It has a shamrock, rainbow and a heart made out of pink and green sparkles. They made sure they had green in their pajamas when they went to bed last night so they would have green on first thing in the morning.

Each year at our house the kids make Leprechaun traps and set them out the night before St. Patrick's Day in hopes of catching a Leprechaun and getting his gold. Hannah told me if she got the Leprechaun's gold she would buy me a new Beth Moore book.

On Sunday afternoon we spread an old tablecloth over the kitchen floor and got to work making the traps. These are our decorating supplies. Lots of green and gold.

Hannah is hard at work. She worked for a solid four hours on her trap.

Rachel doesn't "believe" but she likes to have fun. Plus if you don't catch a Leprechaun he leaves a little gift. This year Rachel scored a High School Musical 3 dvd. She hasn't seen it yet, so all her hard work on her trap paid off.

Aaron's trap was probably the most thought out. His had a trap door and inside the door was an old jar. He put double sided tape all over the inside of the jar so if the Leprechaun fell through the trap door it would get stuck in the jar.

Last night the kids put the finishing touches on their traps. What does one use as bait in a Leprechaun trap? Gold and...

...Leprechauns favorite cereal.


Aaron and Rachel did such a great job on their traps they almost caught a Leprechaun. They each found a little shoe stuck in their traps.

After one of the Leprechauns ate all of the cereal out of Hannah's trap, he lost his hat.

They always leave the kids Leprechaun dust for breakfast.

Aaron thinks it is delicious and helps him to have a lucky day. Hannah was not about to eat anything left behind by Leprechauns. Those pesky little critters also turned the toilet water and the milk green.

Scripture Memory March 15

Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen

I Peter 5:6-11
(NIV)

HOP ON POP

According to Hannah's teacher, when her class came back after Christmas several of them kept getting their clip moved to yellow or red. In case you are not familiar with this discipline system. that is not a good thing. Thankfully, Hannah has always stayed on green.

At the end of January her teacher told the class that if they all stayed on green for the entire month of February they could vote on something special to do. That was quite a challenge for a class of nine 4-5 year olds. They stepped up to the challenge and were very well behaved. They each got to vote on what they wanted to do for their special reward. Hannah couldn't decide so in true Hannah style, she just refused to vote.

The class decided they would have a "Dress as a character from your favorite book day." Hannah and I talked about it and her first decision was to go as the Very Hungry Caterpillar. I had the costume plan all in my head. On the Saturday morning before she had to dress up, I confirmed her costume selection before putting any effort into making it. She said, "I'm not sure that is what I want to be, but we don't have to dress up until Monday." Each Monday her homework is to bring in a picture or flat object that begins with the letter they will be studying that week. We have had many days where we have forgotten to do this until Monday morning. I had to explain to her that unlike clipping a picture from a magazine, I could not create a costume between 8-9 on Monday morning.

We started looking through some of her favorite books. We love Dr. Seuss at our house and she had narrowed our library down to Fox in Socks, Horton Hatches an Egg and Hop on Pop. She finally decided to be the little girl who hops on Pop. This is a true family favorite. One year at Christmas before Hannah was born I bought P.K. a Hop on Pop ornament because it reminded me of Aaron and Rachel attacking him. It is a wind up ornament and the two little kids actually hop up and down on Pop.

I can't sew. Well, I own a sewing machine and sew the kids' scout patches on their uniforms. But that is pretty much where my talents in that area end. This costume was all cutting and hot glue. I bought a hooded sweatshirt on clearance for about $3 at WalMart. I traced the hoodie on the material, cut it out and hot glued it to the hoodie. At first it was too tight, so I cut it up the back hot glued on some extra material and added velcro to close it. I wish I would have spent some more time fixing the hood and made it a bit cleaner, but it worked. We had planned to cover her pants in the material as well, but it took a lot longer to do the rest of the costume than expected. It looked pretty good from a distance.

Now Hannah and I are trying to talk the rest of the family into dressing up as Dr. Seuss characters for Halloween. I know it is over 7 months away, but did I mention that it takes longer to hot glue fuzzy material than one might think?

My 9th 29th

Last year I convinced Hannah that I was turning 29 when in actuality I was turning 36. We celebrated my birthday last week and I tried my best to convince her that I was turning 29. She wasn't buying it because she has counted to 167 by herself. At that point she grew tired of counting. So obviously 29 doesn't come after 29. This was one of those time when I wondered why I get so excited when one of the kids reaches a milestone such as counting by themselves.

P.K. planned a party for me. He even thought to order a cake in advance.

He had "Happy 9th-29th Jody" written on it because this is the 9th time I have celebrated turning 29. If you read my list of 100 things on my 100th blog post, you know that yellow roses are my favorite. I also do not have much of a sweet tooth, but I do love buttercream frosting. He even found some cute candles with yellow and green circles that coordinated rather nicely with the cake. He was nice enough to only put on four.

P.K. provided goody bags for the kids.

The goody bags included candy, balloons, those squishy ball things and the fireworks that shoot out confetti when the string is pulled.

Evidence of the fireworks already pulled is on the table and if you look closely you can see confetti shooting over P.K.'s head.

I suggest aiming away from people and lights.

And my gift...

Jesus the One and Only by Beth Moore. I started it the next morning and love it.

Great job, P.K.!!

The Book Fair

I often tell my friend Becky that she should start a blog. She always has the funniest stories. Yesterday we were talking on the phone and she had a couple good stories that were so blog worthy so of course I told her those were blog worthy. I think she even beat me to saying it once. She told me that she didn't think she would have enough things to write about. She also said she only checks three blogs and she is so disappointed when they are not updated. Ouch! I'm pretty sure mine is one of the three.

I have several things I was going to lump together in one post, but just for you Becizzle, I will break them up into several different posts. I was actually wanting some of them to have their own special post anyway so this will work out well.

That said, I give you my decorating contribution to the 2009 Spring Book Fair. The theme was Lights, Camera, Book Fair.

I was very happy with the way this sign turned out. It is made from foam board, plastic solo cups and white Christmas lights. There is a little hot glue and packing tape mixed in there as well. It was really easy to make, but a pain to hang. Someone else did the Oscar cutout and the area around it had some decorations attached later. I don't have a final picture.

This is the bulletin board I made for the teacher's wish lists. Scholastic had something similar on their website. I printed out the template for the popcorn buckets from their site onto red paper. I found the big pieces of popcorn at a teachers store and the 1, 2, 3 poster came with information for the book fair. The teachers put little slips with the names of books they wanted into the bucket with their name on it. This was put together on a trifold board so it stood up. This is laying flat on my floor, so it doesn't look just right.

Prayer Request For Angie

I received word this past week that one of my college friends has grade 3 breast cancer. She said that grade 3 means it is a fast moving cancer. Her specific cancer is Ductal Carcinoma (in the milk ducts) and Invasive Ductal Carcinoma (cancer that can spread). I received the following email from her this evening.


Hello to all.
We met with the specialist today. My surgery is planned for this Thursday at 2:30 in the afternoon at Blodgett Hospital.
I will have my left breast removed, as well as one of the lymph nodes. During surgery this lymph node will be screened for cancer... if it shows cancer then more lymph nodes will be removed.
In April, I will begin chemotherapy.
IF the lymph nodes show cancer... I will also have to do radiation.
I am asking of each of you to pray that the lymph nodes are free and clear!
I will mid summer do reconstruction surgery of my left breast, as well as possibly removal and construction of the right.
I TRULY appreciate the prayers, thoughts, concerns, cards, flowers... everything!!!!!
This has been two of the longest most emotional weeks we have ever undergone.
I KNOW that GOD is SOOOO much BIGGER than THIS! He is in control. Knowing that the next 6 - 9 months are going to be stressful... your prayers are greatly appreciated.
I will do my best to update by email as soon as I can.
Thank you again for everything. Please especially keep my girls in your prayers, and my husband.
God bless each of you.

I know she had an MRI over the weekend to see if the cancer had spread to the right breast so I am assuming since she is not scheduled to have it removed as well on Thursday that it has not spread to the other breast. She did say in previous email that her lymph nodes are swollen.

Each email she has sent has asked for specific prayer for her husband, Mike, and their two daughters. Mike also attended the same college. Her oldest daughter is around 14 (I think) and her youngest is about 11ish. The years run together so I can't remember exactly.

Please keep her in your prayers. Her name is Angie Cook. Besides praying for healing, I have been praying for courage and extreme peace to be over her and her family. She also teaches school so I'm not sure how this will effect them financially. I'm sure that is the least of their worries right now, but I would ask you to pray for that area for them before they even think to ask for it themselves. Like she said, God is so much bigger than this.

I'll update you all as I hear anything.

HANNAH IS IN CHARGE!

Rachel had gymnastics this evening. When we were ready to leave, I thought Hannah was going to be upset that she had to stay at home so I told her she could be in charge. The following video is her talking to P.K. while I was gone. She apparently was taking her Mom given authority very seriously. I know she was not on her best behavior, but this is funny and life with Hannah.