Leprechaun Traps are for the Birds

Sara decided last year that leprechaun traps don't work. Instead she tries her best to entice our leprechaun "Lucky" to stay in the house she made for him and has kept for 3 years. She makes new improvements each year. This year she read the novel Green by Laura Peyton Roberts about a girl who gets a present full of leprechauns who whisk her away to their world and she eventually becomes their keeper. She had all sorts of questions for him and wrote a long letter explaining that she understands he has to guard his gold on St. Patrick's Day, but maybe he could come for Thanksgiving.

Lucky responded that he probably would be busy on Thanksgiving, but to keep her eye open for mischief because it means that he's been there.  This year's mischief included writing with a green dry-erase marker on our family pictures, turning other pictures upside down, coloring our milk green and flipping my calendar backwards.  He also left coins in their shoes and a breakfast treat.

Half way up the enticing trail - note the tin foil treasure on each step for Lucky

Her note for him, with a snack and a jar so he can leave some treasure for her

The trail continues

A bed for his family member sits neatly outside the house, in case he brought someone with him

Coins in the shoes

Sweet breakfast and some leprechaun punching pens

All I want for Easter is.....

MY TWO FRONT TEETH!!!!!!

Drama Club

4th grade is the year at school when the kids can sign up for clubs. Sara signed up for quite a few and she has enjoyed all of them. She signed up to be in the Stage Crew in Drama Club. The teacher in charge of drama club makes serious work of their production. They needed a lot of parent volunteers for supervising and make up and things.  It's hard for me to volunteer for things like that because of the baby and so I volunteered Sean to make a throne for the play.  I thought it was fitting since Sara was on Stage Crew.

 She's had to stay after school about once a week all year, but the 2 weeks prior to the play she had to stay after school each day and wear all black each day. Sara decided she doesn't have enough black clothes. I tried to explain to her that most people do not have enough black clothing to wear all black all week long without washing them. Thankfully the two weeks ended before she insisted on buying an entire black wardrobe.

 After many dress rehearsals they were ready to put on the play. They did 5 showings of the play. That's right....5. Serious business. The play was adorable. It was entitled "There's a monster at the end of this play" and was a compilation of a whole bunch of mini plays. It was fantastic.

Sara mid scene change

A sleeping King in the throne we built - It really sparkled under the lights

Take a bow

Balloon Art

The people at www.airigami.com made a balloon art exhibition in town that was free to the public.  We happened to find out about it in it's last weekend and were able to sneak a peak before their balloon popping party the next day.  (you had to buy tickets to attend the popping party).  This year's theme was an underwater wonder land and it definitely impressed us all.  We attended one of their events at our library last summer where Larry Moss teaches some principles of physics and simple machines with balloon art and creates a giant mouse trap.  So fun and engaging.

Red vs. White Basketball

We attended our Elementary School's Red vs. White basketball game tonight. Each year the two teams are comprised of 5th graders and teachers. Sara is in a singing group at school and they sang the National Anthem at the game. The game was a blast even though our family was divided on who to route for.

Getting ready to sing

Singing the National Anthem

Matthew was routing for the Red team because his teacher was playing on the red team.

Someone gave Lily a sign to hold, so she decided on White

Eve decided she LOVED holding a sign so she was in the white team camp as well

In keeping with her character, Sara decided to route for PINK.  That way she would be happy no matter what the outcome.  

In the end Red won making Matthew very happy.  Sara was also happy because she had routed for both teams, and both Lily and Eve can't read so they didn't know they routed for White so they were happy as well.  Here's Matthew's teacher making a free throw shot.

Ski Club

Sara participated in ski club at her school. As part of the club, she was able to get lessons and go skiing 4 times this season. It has been a fantastic experience for her and she comes home so pumped and excited after each trip. Here's a few pictures of her and some friends. Sara loves her purple neck warmer thing because she discovered that if she puts it up you can't tell if she's smiling or not.

Frozen Niagara

We've been living in an arctic tundra here in Rochester for the last couple months. In that time a good portion of Niagara Falls froze. We didn't want to miss this "not very often" chance to see it. (I say not very often instead of once in a life time because who are we kidding?...it'll probably be this cold again here.) It was really awesome. FREEZING, but awesome. I couldn't quite capture it on camera. 

We spent several hours there and at the end of our day we stopped by the visitor center and there were some people with some bird seed trying to feed the birds. They were nice enough to share with my kids and Sara and Lily were patient enough to stand still with bird seed in their freezing hands. They were rewarded with several birds eating right out of their hands.

This guy was tempted, but he never came down to eat from their hands.