Moon Shot!

Tonight the moon is the closest to earth that it's been in 19 years so Murray requested a shot of it. Trying to work outdoors in the dark, freezing cold at midnight when you're overtired is no walk in the park! I'm lucky to have any equipment left after a record breaking number of close calls! LOL

But I couldn't refuse a request from my Rocketman!!

Leprechaun Hunt! (Part II)

Here they are in action! This was just after we picked up "Girl #4", aka Tulip, at her house. Notice they are not interested in waiting for Tulip's mother to catch up! They are on a mission these girls!

Here they are at the end with all their loot & bling. Stylin' bunch or what????

and in case you missed the St Paddy's day parade, here's our version!!

I asked them all to give me their best pose, and you can see they chose wisely! :))) Love my girls :)))

They had a blast chasing down all the treasure on the road....... what was left of it! The leprechaun apparently laid the trail in the morning, just after the girls got on the bus. I was home doing some cleaning up when Tulip's mom called me with some alarming news. She had seen crows swooping down low to the ground, lots of them and they were all excited about something and seemed to be going down the road in a fairly straight line. Apparently 6 year olds aren't the only ones who like shiny stuff! The leprechaun didn't have time to survey the damage but just in case, picked up a couple extra things to put out in case the crows had ruined the trail.

Later that day, I got another call from her. Her brother in law was taking stuff out of their mailbox & I knew the leprechaun had left some things in there & put a note on the outside. Penny also noticed that his hands seemed to be full of shiny stuff, like chocolate coins and leprechaun green gold! I told her she'd better get out there as the bus was coming in 20 minutes. After talking to him, she phoned me back. He thought the candy & toys just happened to fall out of the back of a garbage truck in a nice line all the way down to the farm and back, on both sides of the road. So he decided to clean it up! Penny made him put it all back before the leprechaun hunt started.

What an intense day!

Leprechaun Hunt!

The girls built a trap, in hopes of catching a Leprechaun today. The one from last year was unsuccessful. Some design changes were implemented and the trap was relocated to the basement. They added a bit more bait & worked on enticing him a little more. They got everything set up and then used their Leprechaun gold from last year to make a trail from the front door right down to the trap. They made sure I wasn't going to pick up the coins after they went to bed or off to school.

First thing this morning, Honey headed downstairs to see if the Leprechaun had been there yet. Her sisters reminded her that he usually comes while they're at school.

Here's the set up for 2011:

Sweet talking note! I like the part where he has to fill in his information for them! LOL
Quite a lot of coins in there for a little green man, surely he'll go for it???.....

or maybe not! Here's what greeted them when they got home! The little bugger trashed the trap!!!

I guess he didn't care much for their paperwork!

(click on poem to enlarge)

and that's not all!!! He turned my new batch of chocolate chip cookies green while I was out shopping. Then he went on a little rampage in their rooms and tore their beds apart, tipped mattresses, hung their pj's from the curtain rods and strung the sheets through the railings of the stairway! Lucky for him their beds needed changing anyway ;)))

They were quite impressed with his "rage" and were excited to go out hunting for him with Tulip!

Trespasskating!

New pasttime for our house! Sneaking onto the neighbour's property to skate on their flooded lawn! I can't believe we haven't tried this before! Murray noticed on the way home that the ice was pretty smooth looking and with the cold weather lately, the thickness was perfect. He tested it out with his boots on and it seemed fine. I was worried about falling through until he reminded me that the worst case scenario was getting my feet wet in a puddle on the grass. He wasn't sure if we should attempt taking the kids out anywhere after supper. It's usually such a battle to talk them into doing anything. So what's the easiest way of getting a kid interested in something? Use your mummy trickery & give them the impression that they CAN'T do it. ;)

Me: hey! Girls!!!!!! Daddy's going skating on E&J's lawn!!!!!!!! Come see this!

3 Kids with their noses out of joint: Huh???????? HOW COME???? why is HE going??? Can I??????

Me: welllll, you probably can't get ready fast enough, he's going right now. (and Murray leaves)

Wham! they were in & out of the bathroom and snow pants on faster than Bunny can hug Baby Pinecone!

Just to ensure we didn't get in trouble, I phoned the neighbours before we headed over.

Me: Hi! We're going skating & wondered if you guys wanted to join us?

Melissa: oh! sounds fun! where are you going????

Me: your front yard!

They weren't long in joining us and the kids all had a great time. They were out there for an hour zipping around, falling over lots but getting right back up and chasing each other around. I wish we'd tried this earlier in the season! We could have had some great afternoons out there, a bonfire at night even! Although with our winter it was rather hit or miss and I don't remember the lawn being so nicely frozen & visible before. They say they've snowblown it off before but I didn't notice I guess.

Usually at this time of year, I'm hoping for warm weather to melt everything & get on with spring. Now suddenly, I'm checking the forecast hoping for a good freeze so we can get out skating more! Our time is running out!!!!

On the way home, I noticed this gorgeous sunset, what a perfect way to end the day!

Two Timbits To Go Please!

Mean Mummy on the rampage today! Lovey's violin lesson has been changed to Mondays now and so I had to pick the girls up from school as it would be too late by the time they got home on the bus. However, dismissal time is too early to go to the lesson. I thought we'd have the unusual treat of getting a snack after school and went to Tim Hortons. We were just washing up when they started talking about doughnuts. Since we all know their supper habits are less than stellar, I told them they were only getting 2 Timbits each. Lovey & Honey were not impressed and immediately flipped into full whine ahead!

H: but I want a doughnut!!!!

L: why are we only getting Timbits???

H: I don't want Timbits!

and some other annoying, unappreciative comments like that accompanied by the whiny voices and I made a fast decision.

Me: well, that's fine. You don't have to have any. Whiners get nothing.

They quickly looked at each other and got quiet realllllllllllly fast. Sweetie came out of the stall to wash her hands and didn't say a word about wanting a doughnut. That girl catches on really quick!

We went to line up and I told Sweetie to go look at the Timbits and decided what she wanted. The other two followed her to make their selections, apparently unwilling to believe that I really wasn't going to get them anything. They came back to tell me what flavours they wanted and their mouths fell open when I reminded them that they weren't getting any Timbits.

We got to the counter and I'm sure the other customers were watching & waiting to see if I was really going to buy a treat for just ONE of them. You bet your sweet bippy! I requested two Timbits and the poor cashier didn't know what to do. The math didn't add up at all. You can't exactly split those things! She came back with the doughnuts in separate bags and looked apologetic. I told her we'd just be needing one bag and she took the empty one back and we left. Sweetie trotted along quite happily while Lovey & Honey followed. Once out the door, Honey worked up a good cry but Lovey didn't say a word. After a couple minutes of no progress, Honey turned off the tears and we got to the car and headed out.

It was a tough call. What's the big deal right? Two timbits, who cares? It wouldn't have killed me to buy 4 more! I felt awful only buying a treat for one of them, I was really tempted to change my mind and tell them "ok but NEXT time there won't be anything!". Then I remembered how much and how easily they launch into these annoying whiny voices when they don't get their own way. I thought they'd probably learn more from not getting those two little doughnut balls than they would by getting them with a vague threat about "next time!".

Bunny's Worried!

I was telling Murray at suppertime about the death of the mom of an instructor at the gym. She died of cancer and had a terrible struggle and a great deal of pain that morphine couldn't even touch. Sweetie overheard and asked how people get cancer. We explained that sometimes it's random but that sometimes it can happen to people who smoke.

Bunny got very concerned when she heard about this. She insisted on phoning up Baby Pinecone immediately to break the news!

Bunny: Baby Pinecone!!! People who smoke might get cancer and die!!!! and I wouldn't like that AT ALL!

Experimental Fruit Day

I've been looking at these for awhile and finally curiosity got the better of me. Today I bought one! Dragon Fruit is no longer a mystery to this household!

Unfortunately they're all looks and little taste. They remind me of a mild kiwi fruit. It was fun to try and the kids were really excited about it but Murray and I were the only ones that actually ate theirs! shocker huh?