Happy St. Patrick's Day

Our kids are a little bit Irish, from both sides of the family, but neither family really gets into the celebrating of St. Patrick's Day.  I remember one year going to school wearing a paper 4 leaf clover my mom had cut out of blue paper.  She spent the whole morning trying to convince me that it was green.  I got pinched.

I don't really go all out either.  We usually make green playdough and green jello for dessert.  Occasionally I'll make green rice krispies, but oh well.  You can't go all out for everything, especially with Easter and Merit's birthday right around the corner.

But here are the cuties playing with their green playdough.  I'll let you guess who ate some:)

Cute Pictures and a Couple of Stories

 I can't really get enough of this picture.  I know everyone thinks their kids are adorable, but MY KIDS ARE ADORABLE:)

And this one is funny. I was trying to take a picture of her crazy bedhead, but she kept smiling so big that her eyes would close.  I took probably 5 or 6 pictures trying to get one with her eyes open, but no luck.

I'll include a couple funny things that Chap has said lately.

Yesterday he found a large manilla envelope in a drawer in the office and he wanted me to open it for him.  When I opened it, he looked inside and said, "Hmmm.  My email is empty." We almost died laughing!

Also yesterday, he was completely convinced it was my birthday.  He wanted to get me "bouncing thing" for my present (we later figured out it was a trampoline), balloons, a cake, and decorations for my party.  He said all my friends would come, and when I asked him who my friends are he couldn't think of any haha.  He told everyone all day that it was my birthday.  So silly.

Sidewalk Chalk

 This is Chapter's "Sheen" (Machine) notice the flag on top.

 Chapter drew a tree.  I was actually pretty impressed with his drawing.  Maybe we start working on drawing people???

 Mer got in on the action too.  I think she ate as much chalk as she colored with:)

Here's Chap tattling on Merit for eating chalk.  Oh help me get through the tattling years ahead haha:)

Sand Box Fun and Unseasonably Warm Weather

 Chap has pretty much lived in the sandbox this week, which is kind of awesome since he spent the majority of his 2 week flu watching tv, and I really don't like that.  It's good for kids to get a little sun, fresh air and sand in their hair:)  This was Merit's first time in the sand box and she thought it was pretty amazing.  She had sand on every inch of her tiny body, haha, and when I changed her diaper there was a fairly sizeable pile of sand on the blanket when I was done:)

Also, check out the pergola Logan built us last summer.  Down below is a graveled area for chairs, our small slide, and our outdoor swamp cooler.  It's a pretty great set up to spend the summer playing in our back yard.

Don't do it!  Eating sand is definitely the downside of letting a baby play in the sand box.  I'd like to say that Chap hasn't sampled it this year, but he did too.  At least I think he learned his lesson:)

11 Months

Since it was Leap Year, Merit actually got an 11 month birthday.  We had some fun; we went to Target and the park.

(This one is taken by Chapter with his little kiddie camera)

Merit is 11 months old and I can't believe it!  This month was a fun one! Merit started taking just a couple steps right around the 10th or 11th of February and by Valentine's day, she had it down pretty well. She still crawls a lot, but she seems to prefer to walk.  She's tons of fun and just the sweetest little girl we could ever ask for.  Yesterday (on her 11 month birthday) she seemed to grow up over night.  She did better drinking from a sippy cup and she acted more interested in real food.  It's so fun to see all these tiny changes that add up so quickly.  

Here's a picture to showcase all of those pretty teeth she worked so hard on last month:)