St. Patrick's Day Parade!

This weekend we went into Pittsburgh to spend time with family and enjoy the St. Patrick's Day Parade with everyone.  Carter and Ava spent most of the parade down on street level while Dawson enjoyed the view from inside the parking garage with a cookie in hand!

 

We saw so many things:  Irish Dancers, green fire trucks, Star Wars impersonators, zombies, Irish Santa, SWAT trucks, dogs, goats, horses and unicycles!

 

 

Uncle Ron visited with his motorcycle and all the kids were enthralled.

 

Dawson's favorite part of the parade were the Star Wars people!

 

A picture of Daddy and Dawson enjoying the parade.

 

Daddy's favorite:  The Ghostbuster car, although I was just informed it's called Ecto 1.

 

 

 

My St. Patty's Day Cutie.  It was freezing, but they wanted to stay front and center instead of getting warm in the parking garage.

 

Ava's favorite was the horses in the parade.

 

 

 

Here's Carter in his German Irish Hat.

 

Carter fell in love with the BMX bikes and he really wants to try it!

 

Meme's Caption:  A Chester Cluster

 

The cousins were all sitting in a McGann truck to get warm. I see Emma, Megan, Riley, Ryan, Sara and Brendan.  It was a sauna in there and it felt really nice to get in and warm up.  I spent at least half an hour in there after it cleared out with Dawson on my lap. 

 

What a fun, crazy morning!  Carter was glued to the parade for the entire three hours.

 

 

 

Ava was also really interested in the parade, while Dawson spent time trying to warm up in the truck or running away from the family or eating cookies.

 

Erin Go Bragh!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Things we've learned this week.......

 

Having a little brother means that your doll house very often becomes a truck house.

 

 

This kid can make it all the way across the monkey bars at our little neighborhood playground.

 

 

 

Three kids can fit in the backseat of the jeep with two boosters and a convertible.

 

 

 

This Daddy is a pro at cuddling two kids at a time.

 

The sun may just come out tomorrow.

 

Dawson can get his teeth cleaned successfully!  A+ report from the dentist for all three kids!

 

 

I don't have a picture of it, but we have also learned how to finesse Dawson into his pajamas at night.  Some nights he just really does not want to cooperate, but we started mixing and matching his jammies.  First it was his Christmas pajama pants with sports pajama shirt and we would call it Santa playing football.  Now his favorite part of the evening is picking the most terribly mismatched pajamas to wear to bed.  It's pretty funny to see the combinations he comes up with, and you know he loves making everyone laugh and being a ham.  Win/Win!

 

More Liturgy According to Dawson

During Church:

Mom, are you going to com-minion?

(not to be confused with the little yellow beings from Despicable Me)

After receiving ashes for Ash Wednesday:

That was fun, he rubbed something on my face.

Preface: Dawson went to the bathroom directly before church and then about five minutes into church had to go again.  Of course in the bathroom he couldn't go again.

Mike:  Dawson, I don't like that you lied to me.  You really didn't have to go to the bathroom.

Dawson:  Daddy, I didn't lie to you, I lied to myself.  And I believed it. 

Mother/Son Bowling Event

Last weekend Carter's school held a mother/son bowling event.  It was a fun event, and I realized it was his first time bowling EVER!  We had discussed going bowling before but with three young children and the youngest being very curious and accident prone we had always put the kibosh on that idea.  But, I think a bowling trip might be on the agenda soon!

 

 

 

 

Carter surprised me with his super sweet bowling skills!  He got two spares his first game and even beat his momma with a score of 95 to my 91.

 

 

 

 

We had a fun date together and enjoyed the company of our friends.

 

 

 

HOORAY FOR BOWLING!!

 

Judging by his enthusiasm and begging for more, it's safe to say he enjoyed his first bowling experience.

 

Little House in the Big Woods Family Dinner

***By the way I've used this idea of a Family Dinner Book Club and modified it to the book we were currently reading.  I did not come up with this supremely awesome idea.***

Last night while the snow was falling, we had a cozy dinner and Family Book Club.  We just finished up Little House in the Big Woods this week, so along with the kids we brainstormed some ideas and set them into motion on Saturday.  We choose a menu based on foods that Laura ate in the book: 

 

Roast, johnny cake (corn bread), mashed potatoes and peas

Peas were never directly mentioned but they had a garden so I just assumed ?????

 

Ava and Carter decorated place mats with favorite scenes from the book.  Although they both like the same story of Pa attacking the bear with a club and discovering it was just a tree stump.

 

 

We made butter!  Salted Cream and a marble and shake shake shake!

 

 

We looked at pictures of butter churns online and then made butter our own way.  (Full Disclosure: Daddy did most of the shaking.)

 

 

For our centerpieces we made the log cabin and the barn. 

 

 

Here is the barn:  Suki the cow was outside, and the bear is in the pen.  Look there is Ma (Belle) about to come and slap the bear thinking it is Suki!

 

 

Here is their house.  Pa and Mary are standing out front (Ava decided to use Mary from our little people nativity) and the horses hitched up to the Lincoln log wagon.

 

We had some really good conversations during dinner about the book.  I was pleasantly surprised some of the details that Carter and Ava remembered.  Most of this is all over Doc's head right now, but he's there slowly soaking it all in.  Mainly we discussed the differences between Laura's life and our own, such as how often they went to stores, how they took a bath, how they treated Sundays and why they had to work so hard to make food in the summer and fall. 

 

Daddy was very much on board with this whole project because PUMPKIN! PIE! FOR! DESERT!  He was singing about that all day long. 

 

Our next book we are going to read for our Family book club:  Charlotte's Web!

 

(Mike has already planned out a dinner of ham and bacon.  We'll see about that!)

 

 

My Sweet Little Girl

 

Ava was very proud, a local restaurant hung up her artwork in the restaurant.  (Good marketing, we saw so many families from her preschool there tonight.)  She felt so special because she wants to be an artist when she grows up, and this was her first show!  On the way to the restaurant I heard Carter say to her "Ava, I didn't know that you were kind of famous."  

 

I also heard Ava say "Carter, did you know that Taco Bell makes a pancake taco."  He replied "Yup, I'm going to put pepperoni on it."  WHATTTT!?!?!?

 

Unfortunately I'm having technical difficulties right now, but I took a picture of Ava at a birthday party she went to this weekend.  It was a painting party and each child got their very own easel with a canvas and an artists palette of color.  She was in seventh heaven and created quite the little masterpiece.

 

She also recently told me that she wanted to take ballet instead of gymnastics.  She can be so indecisive sometimes!  So instead I put her in a ballet/gymnastics combo class.  She really enjoyed it, it's at the same location but she does half a class of ballet and half a class of gymnastics.  It has worked out wonderful, except that Dawson decided that he does not want to do gymnastics anymore.  So I have 55 minutes of time to keep him occupied. 

 

Speaking of indecisive......this morning I asked her if she wanted a piece of toast or oatmeal for breakfast.  Her response?  a piece of oats.  Hmmmm, not sure what to do girl.

More about Dawson Boy

Some silly Dawson stories:

 

 

The good people at Webster's are contemplating putting this picture in under the word INSISTENCE.  Mom when are we going to make cookies?  Can we make them now?  Mom let me bring you your cookbook.  Mom I'm going to pick a cookie cutter.  Ok, well I guess we are making cookies this afternoon.

 

And now the liturgy according to Dawson:

 

Church (singing):  Hosanna in the highest

Dawson:  Hosanna in the burp

 

Priest:  Let us proclaim the mystery of faith

Dawson:  The mystery of fake!  He's fake!