Little Leprechauns

Typically in March, our house is visited by leprechauns. They do things like turn milk or pancake batter green. Sometimes they turn the toilet water blue so that when you pee in it, it turns green. They're clever like that.
This year, they went too far.
Last Friday was a day off of school. I had visions of a sleeping-in, peaceful kind of day. Unfortunately, I was woken at 6 am by giggling in the bathroom. Wouldn't you know? Leprechauns had turned the water very very green with an entire bottle of food coloring and then leprechauns had stuffed an entire roll of toilet paper in the bowl so that green water was flowing out of the toilet and onto the floor.
Leprechauns had done this to two other toilets in the house also!
Unfortunately, the leprechauns forgot to flush one of the toilets before doing this so THAT toilet was a bit malodorous and had other things in it besides toilet paper. Whoops!
Leprechauns had also toilet-papered the hallway. Oh, those silly silly leprechauns! They are so funny! They definitely did NOT make me very angry or extremely grumpy. I love putting my hands into cold, green, disgusting toilet water to fish out toilet paper tubes!
The poor boys had to use towels to clean up after the leprechauns. They also had to roll up all that toilet paper and put it in a bag to be kept by the toilet and used.
The leprechauns are banned from our house until next year. It's too bad, the boys set up some really cute traps. Maybe I'll let them come back on St. Patty's Day. Maybe. If I do take down the charms of leprechaun warding and let them in the house they better be bringing me chocolate. Or gold jewelry. Or both. We'll go with both.

OriGabi

Gabriel loves origami. The obsession started with a children's book titled Origami Grammie about a paper-folding grandmother. Gabriel folds fortune tellers, paper airplanes, suns and moons and is trying to memorize other things. He had a brief business at school selling his paper products but now he just folds for fun. I took this picture last month, but forgot about it until I was going through pictures looking for something else.

I was walking down the basement stairs when I saw it. I have no idea why he set them up that way but it was kind of beautiful and adorable. It was one of those moments that just makes you love your kids even more. Maybe we have a future installation artist on our hands.

Watch This!

Our boys love to watch shows. They sometimes have questionable taste. We try to be careful about screen time, except when we are desperate for some peace then we give in. Usually, the rule is that to earn watching a show you have to read for as many minutes as the show is long. Pretty much that means 20 minutes. So we set a timer, they read, and then they get to go watch a show. Of course, once they've watched one show, they inevitably want to watch another episode. Remember when there was no Netflix and you had to wait a week A WEEK! for a new episode? Crazy. Anyway, they typically send an ambassador upstairs to plead their case of why they should get to watch another one. Lately, they've been sending Tobias. This is a smart move. Tobias is cute and charming and when you tell him "no" he crumples to the floor and makes heart-wrenching sobbing sounds. He's very good. The problem with sending Tobias is that he isn't great at relaying a message back to the delegates in the basement. When the answer is "no" he's often so distraught he just doesn't go back at all. When the answer is "yes" there are usually caveats. For example, "Okay, you can watch one more show if afterward everyone puts their shoes on and gets in the van so we can run an errand." or "Okay, you can watch one more show if everyone promises to go outside afterward." Tobias will smile at me at run down to the basement where I hear him shout, "She say yes!" Good job buddy. Nailed it.

They watched an entire show this way. Doesn't that look comfy? Also, look how clean that carpet is. Dang! That was a good carpet day.

3 is a Magic Number

Yes it is.
Tobias turned 3 this month. We knew it was coming. Not only because he has a birthday on February 16th every year, but because he was just starting to act more "3". People call year 2 of a child's life the "terrible twos" and certainly it comes with challenges but in my experience 3 is even more challenging. Year 3 should be called the "thrashing threes" because they throw so many temper tantrums and because sometimes, as the parent, you too want to thrash around in mental agony over trying to get a very unreasonable person to do something very simple and very necessary. Like eating.

Tobias believes in deconstructionism. He likes to take his food apart so that it LOOKS like he's eaten something. I'm pretty sure he lives entirely off of stolen candy.

Live, Laugh, Love

Being a Mom is tough but since love is in the air I thought I should share the things that have made me laugh recently which makes me love my boys even more.

Picture This

Gabriel recently drew this picture for Marc and me which he said is a picture of us on our honeymoon.

This just cracks me up because I don't think he has any idea what the connotations of the word "honeymoon" are. I'm guessing he thinks it has something to do with the actual moon which is why the moon dominates the picture. You can even see the craters. There are also some very random details like a bird that has an invisible body but visible legs. However, there are some things which are closer to the truth than he probably intended. There seems to be an odd lack of clothing. And there's a shower. There are even speech bubbles for the guy in the shower.
"Sorry to disturb you. My bad."
"Did you know there was a shower out here?"

It was enough to make these two immature adults giggle a little.

Settin' the Night on Fire

Last week I was craving some serious comfort food because, well, I live in North Dakota and it's winter. Anyway, I had all of these green chilies from my bountiful basket food co-op so I decided to roast those babies and cook up some green chili macaroni and cheese.
I am pretty much a pro at roasting chilis now and I have never used gloves. My fingers get a little tingly sometimes, but it's no big deal. Usually. Moving on, I did indeed make some amazing looking and smelling green chili mac and cheese which I baked to perfection in a cast-iron skillet topped with bread crumbs. Oh man did it look good.