April Fools Day

This holiday always seems to creep up on me without giving me any notice.  Every year I feel as though I'm rushed to figure out a trick for Emma to play on Eric, and then another (of course more evil and devious) one for me to play on him.  This year I was actually thinking about it several days ahead, but I still just couldn't come up with anything.  Sadly, I didn't play any tricks on Eric (which I'm sure he enjoyed).

Emma played one on him though.  We were having some mashed potatoes with dinner, so I had Emma take Eric an ice cream cone with potatoes instead of ice cream.  He, of course, knew what was coming, but as always, he was a wonderful sport and played along perfectly.  And Emma is so funny when she is going to try to trick someone.  All day long she had been telling him she was going to give him an ice cream cone, and she always seemed to have a wicked little smirk on her face while she said it.  Too funny.

Eric and I played several tricks on Emma too.  Ahhh, it was so great.  I didn't get very many pictures though.  That's the only trouble with pranks.  Having your camera out and ready to capture the moment usually is a dead giveaway that something is about to happen.  Anyway, onto our tricks.  1- Last night after she was asleep we went into her room and flipped her around so her head was where her feet usually are.  We moved her sheets too.  So this morning she was very disoriented.  2- Her bedroom door opens into her room, so we were able to stretch crepe paper back and forth across her doorway blocking her in.  She had to tear her way through to get out.  But first she tried crawling underneath it.  3- When she entered her bathroom and tried to turn on the light she couldn't because we had taped it down.  In the dark she had to try to figure that one out.  4- I drew a funny picture on the toilet paper that I had seen on pinterest (this one was mostly just for her entertainment).  5- Then when she went to go out, we had put a glob of vaseline on the underneath side of the doorknob, so it started smearing and made it impossible for her to get out!  Ha!  6- I had sewn all her panties together too, so that when she went to grab a new pair they would all come out.  7- And then for breakfast, we had filled a bowl part way up with water and frozen it.  We poured a little cereal on top of it.  When she tried to put her spoon in she hit the ice.

8- Later in the day I told her I made some brownies and asked if she wanted one.  She LOVES brownies.  Of course she said yes, while sort of freaking out with excitement.  She came into the kitchen and saw a pan of brown E's.  Her face was awesome.  To be fair I then had her help me make some real brownies for us to enjoy.

Our last prank was right before bed.  9- In a friendlier and cleaner spin on the bucket-of-water-over-the-door trick, Eric had propped up some pillows on her door, so when she went in her room they fell on her head.

I loved today.  I got so many eye-rolls from Emma.  And that's just about my favorite thing.  It lets me know I'm doing my job properly.  She did laugh at all of our jokes.  She seemed to love being on the receiving end.  Nice to know she can take a joke.

Little Miss-Matched

This past week at Emma's school they've been talking about drug awareness, and there was a thought or saying for each day.  Along with these sayings all the kids were supposed to wear certain things.  For example, Monday's saying was "Drugs give me the blues", and everyone was supposed to wear blue.  On Thursday the saying was something about Drugs and us not mixing (I don't remember exactly), and the kids were supposed to wear mis-matched clothes.  Emma had lots of fun with this.  I snapped a couple pictures of her after school because her clothes looked so terrible together.  It was great!  And only after school I realized I should have braided half her hair and left the other down or something so that even her hair was mis-matched.  Oh well.  Next time for sure.

St. Patrick's Day

Sometimes I think the "lesser holidays" are the most fun.  All the little things you can do don't take a lot of work, but add up to lots of fun.  We've always liked to try to do fun things, but this year I added a few things from pinterest.  I feel like I'm giving an acceptance speech or something: "I'd like to thank pinterest, without whose help I wouldn't have been so busy this week, and whose countless ideas continued to inspire me all week."  But there were several things I saw there that I decided to do with Emma.  It wasn't possible to do all the things I wanted to do, but next year I'll get around to them.

One of the ideas I liked was doing a countdown to the actual day and spreading little activities throughout the entire week.  We've been particularly busy lately, and this week was no exception, so I didn't have time to do one each night, so we combined a little.  It didn't help that I started a day late.  I just hadn't planned correctly.  I didn't want my last day to be on the holiday, but rather the night before.  Oh well.  I told Eric I think it's because I have Scottish blood in me, not Irish, and was subconsciously trying to sabotage this holiday.  

First we talked about rainbows, made a balloon rainbow, used a flashlight and some water to make a rainbow, and ate a rainbow fruit pizza for dessert.  

I originally had a light blue balloon as well, but it popped as we were hanging this up.  In fact,
you can see a bit of it on the bottom part of the frame of the middle picture.

Our next night was all about Saint Patrick himself, and snakes.  We went to the library for a Lego activity they were having there, and while there I picked up some books about snakes for Emma to read.  She particularly liked the one called Giant Snakes.  Along with pizza for dinner, we had some breadsticks and marinara sauce.  I sprayed the breadsticks green before baking them and tried twisting them up a little so they looked more like snakes.  Yes, I could have added something for the eyes or a tongue to make them look extra snakey, but I didn't feel like it.  This was the extent of my ambition for the night.  But Emma still loved it.  We also made a snake using Easter Eggs.  I did add eyes and a tongue to this one, but mostly just so it wouldn't look like some weird row of Easter eggs.  Before making it Emma had fun trying to figure out what the Easter egg she pulled out of the countdown bag had to do with St. Patrick's day.  

On Tuesday we didn't have time for anything because Emma had Tai Kwon Do and both Eric and I had to be at the church for different activities.  But I did make some cupcakes for the girls there.  I love making cupcakes, but don't do it as often as I used to because Emma doesn't like frosting.  Seriously.  And it's just sad to make cupcakes and not frost them.  She prefers other treats anyways.  But I took the opportunity to make rainbow cupcakes in honor of St. Patricks day.

I wanted to make sure I had enough cupcakes for the girls, so I didn't cut into one,
but this is a picture of the inside of one I made a couple years ago.  

I don't have a picture from Wednesday night, but we talked about Ireland, the culture, Celtic music and Irish dancing, and the potato famine.  For dinner we had a potato bar with all the fixins.  We were going to make a more holiday appropriate dessert, but since it was Pi day we opted for pie instead.

The next night we talked about Shamrocks and why they are associated with the holiday.  We tried making a shamrock using 3 green balloons, and for dessert Emma and I made a treat using pretzels, hershey kisses, and green m&ms.  Yum!  Cute little shamrock treats.  They were seriously good, especially since the m&ms were minty!  Excuse me while I wipe up some drool...

Yes, you can see my sad attempt at making stems.  I only had a little
 green frosting in a tube left, and this was as good as it worked.   

On Friday we talked about Leprechauns.  We watched Darby O'Gill and the Little People, a holiday must.  Then Emma set out her trap.  This was the fourth year she has tried to catch a leprechaun.  There has been a little success, but we've still never actually seen one.   She wanted to make a new trap, but we didn't have time (it's been so busy lately!), so she just used the same one from last year, but added an additional note of warning about not climbing the ladder, just to further encourage the leprechaun to ignore the sign and go ahead and climb up.

On Saturday morning Emma woke up to find that we had indeed been visited by a leprechaun, and that he left our home worse than he found it, including leaving some foot prints and not flushing!  Emma thought that was pretty gross!  I guess the leprechaun thought Emma was getting too clever to just leave his "gold" in the trap, so he sent Emma on a treasure hunt all over just to find it.  She was able to figure out every clue and did eventually find her reward.  For breakfast Emma enjoyed some Lucky Charms (we only buy them this time of year, so it keeps them a special treat).  We made sure to wear green so Emma wouldn't pinch us.  Eric and I went to dinner with some friends that night, and while dropping Emma off at the sitters she saw our Bishop (who wasn't wearing green) and pinched him.

Emma sporting one of her leprechaun hats.

And here's the other one.

We decided to have our St. Patrick's day dinner on Sunday since we weren't home to enjoy it on Saturday.  Of course we had corned beef and cabbage.  And you just have to enjoy a good shamrock shake!

Famous

Emma is now famous.  Okay, not really, but her picture was in the local newspaper this past week.  The story wasn't about her, but about her school class.  Actually it was about a lady who came to visit her school class.  But who cares!  Emma thought it was cool having her picture in the paper, no matter what the story was about.  Here is the picture and the article.  (FYI - I've left out her school name and the last names of the other kids mentioned).  Emma told me that the other kid in the picture was trying to have his troll kiss Emma, hence her face.  He wasn't simply showing it to her as the caption indicates.


First-graders find Norwegian trolls fascinating

Jordynn shows his troll puppet to classmate Emma Meadows, whose fingers are covered with black hair from making her own puppet during a presentation about the creatures to Jill Jensen's first-grade class Tuesday morning.

Troll fur was flying in Jill Jensen’s first-grade classroom on Tuesday morning, as students explored the history of the mischievous Norwegian creature.

As the sun streamed in the windows, Sons of Norway Hafrsfjord Lodge member Gerry Lachman, 79, sat in a small chair and read “The Little Troll” to a rapt group of 26 children.  Lachman has been sharing her love of Norway and trolls with children for years, first at Southport and Somers schools.

“Trolls are so ugly, they’re interesting,” Lachman said. “The children love to hear stories about something unusual.”

Trolls, Lachman and fellow Norwegian Celia Walther said, can be found in forests, trees, mountains, and under bridges; can have more than one head, which makes them loud and fierce; can be thousands of years old; and have all kinds of unlikeable traits (stinginess, ignorance, clumsiness, and sneakiness). The message resonated with the kids.

“Trolls live in tree trunks and under bridges,” James, 7, said.

“I would be scrunched up if I lived in a tree,” said Madison, 7.

“They don’t like sun and they don’t like people,” Bailey, 7, said. “They are very weird.”

Madeline, 7, knew just what to do to get rid of one: “I would get it into the sun because they turn to stone.”

The children wrapped up their morning by making troll puppets with fake fur.  Some of the kids used their safety scissors to give their trolls haircuts and ended up with glue and fur stuck to their fingers — looking a little like trolls themselves.

Jensen is the secretary of the Sons of Norway Hafrsfjord Lodge, and has Lachman and Walther give annual presentations on Vikings, Norwegian Christmas traditions, and “Syttende Mai,” the patriotic 17th of May “Constitution Day” celebration.  For Tuesday’s visit, Lachman came bearing more than just stories — she also brought sandbakkel, which are Norwegian shortbread cookies baked inside individual tins.  The finished result looks like a small pie shell with no filling.

Walther, who was named the K----- News 2011 Person of the Year, beamed at the children as she and Lachman waved goodbye.

“I just love being here,” she said.