Traps

The kids made leprechaun traps on Thursday night.

I love to see their creativity.

Inside these boxes is another box with the top balanced on a few sticks to fall and trap them.
Luke added a flashlight and a large piece of gold (a painted rock) to draw the leprechauns in.

Ally put upside down duct tape down to try to get the leprechauns to stick.
(She'd first used glue but Anna told her it might dry.)

Anna's trap was more of a comfortable home.
She cut up some strawberries, grapes, and red peppers for the leprechauns to eat and gave them some water to drink.
 She served it all on doll plates and bowls with silverware, as well.  
She even had some pillows for them to use for lounging.

Ally painting a rock gold.

There has been some disagreement, particularly between Anna and Luke, about the height of leprechauns.
Anna set out to answer the question definitively, but there was no answer.
Apparently the leprechaun wanted it to remain a mystery.

In the morning, Anna found that a lot of her food had been eaten
and that the leprechauns had left her some chocolate coins.

Wait...what?

Ally was so confused when I told her she should wear the St. Patrick's Day shirt I bought her because we're Irish.

She kept saying, "Wait...what?"  Then she asked, "We ARE Irish?  You said we weren't..."

I wondered when I'd have said we weren't, but I just reiterated that we were.

She looked completely flustered.  Then she asked, "But... then why don't we celebrate Hanukkah?"

Apparently Irish and Jewish sound a lot alike to a six-year-old.

Two against one

Finley and the twins were playing.  

The twins would tackle Finley, and she, in return, she would steal their hats.

 Finley always won!

Doesn't she look so proud of herself!?

I cup

Ally tried to get me with the classic, "Say I and spell cup" joke.

"I'm not saying that!" I told her.

"Please...."

So, I gave in, and she giggled.  Then it got a little more involved.

"Okay," she said, "Now spell 'I'm' without the 'm' and then spell 'put' without the 'u' or 't.'"

It's not so bad...

Growing up, whenever anyone would have a flat tire, on a car or a bike, my dad would joke, "It's not so bad.  It's only flat on the bottom."

Yesterday the van got a doozy of a flat tire... in the pick up line at school in a blizzard.  The kids and I walked home and I had to leave the car in the school lot for a while.  Later when we came back and took off the tire, it had frozen.

For the first time in my life, I saw a tire that was so bad it wasn't "just flat on the bottom." 

I was actually wearing matching gloves.  I just had on two sets, and I took the second one off my right hand so I could my hand it better.

Alzheimers?

Luke was home sick and we were playing Risk on the iPad.  He asked me to let him take out the last country the computer owned, but I accidentally took it because the red and orange on the computer looked a lot alike.

When I realized what I'd done, I said, "Oh, no!  I'm so sorry.  I didn't realize that was the computer's army.  I'm sorry, Buddy."

"It's okay, Mama," he answered, "Sometimes people get mixed up when they get older."

He ended up winning anyway.

Attitude

Dave and I made an appointment to talk to a therapist about how we could better help Ally handle her emotions.

This morning I was filling out paperwork for the appointment and Ally asked, "Is today my appointment?"

"Today is the first appointment," I explained, "but just Daddy and I are going to go.  We want to tell him about you and see what he thinks Daddy and I can do to help you."

Ally nodded and went back to eating her cereal.

After a minute or so, she just looked at me and said, "What if the guy says, 'It's just her attitude.'"

Sunshine in my pocket

I have a history of misunderstanding song lyrics.  I know it's not uncommon, but I have a true knack for really embracing my mistake, and belting out the wrong lyric just loudly enough for everyone to hear what I said.

After Kate's piano lesson yesterday she and I were looking for a book of contemporary songs for her to play from.  We'd find a book and she'd tell me which of the songs she knew.  We got to a book we thought was good.  We both knew most of the songs, but I said, "Ophelia, by the Lumineers?  I don't know that one."  I thought this was strange, since I love the Lumineers.

She said, "It's the one that goes, 'Oh, Ophelia..."

"What!?" I said, surprised, "I know that song!  I love that song."

Then, a little sheepishly, I explained, "I just never knew it was called Ophelia, because I always sing, "Oh, oh, feel the lo-ove."

We got home and Kate and I told the story at dinner, and everyone laughed a little.

Then Kate went to play a few of her songs while we guessed what they were.

She got to the third one and began to play Justin Timberlake's Can't Stop the Feeling.

Luke guessed it first.  Instead of saying the name, he proudly burst into song.  He sang out loud and proud,  "I've got that sunshine in my pocket.  Got that cole slaw on my feet.*"

That's my boy.

(*The lyrics are actually, "I've got that sunshine in my pocket.  Got that good soul in my feet.")