pot of gold

When you have a husband whose name is Patrick, you have to do something for St. Patrick's Day..well at least a fun craft with your three year old.

I hope you are all on Pinterest. I am hopelessly addicted to it.  I highly recommend figuring out this new way of organizing your life if you have not done so already!

So anyway, I found this really fun St. Patrick's Day craft on Pinterest and decided that Matthew and I would have to do it. 

Here goes...

Some things you will need.

 a rainbow

 some bags

some gold

Start by having your little helper wash their hands.  

There...nice and clean!

Next, let your little helper sort out all of the Skittles by color.  In my case, a second helper came to the table when he heard the bag of candy opening. This will fascinate your helpers and they will be very happy.  They might even sneak a Skittle or two.  But all in good fun.

 "Can I have one, mom?"

"I'll just help myself."

See...very sneaky.

"Mom look. A green one."

Here are the sorted Skittles.  Aren't they pretty.  I am not a Skittles lover but they look much tastier sorted like this.

Once your Skittles are sorted you can start filling up your bags.  Put 4 rolos in first.  

Make sure they are all facing the same direction. 

This is your pot of gold.

Then add about one tablespoon of each color of the Skittles. Don't forget to check the order of the rainbow.

 purple

TIME OUT...

HOLD THE PHONE...

when  you see this happen...

 Ahhhhh!!!!!

and this happen....

What can I say, he's a three year old.

you gotta do this again...

 You can tell he is really scrubbing this time.

 scrub, scrub, scrub

rinse, rinse, rinse

Ok, now that we are all clean again...where were we...

Ah yes, green.

 green

 yellow

 orange

red

To finish them off, find a cute cloud clip art, or draw one yourself and print out Happy St. Patrick's Day.

Super cute.  Super easy.  Super fun.  Super impressive.

And last but not least....

...put them in a cute basket and send them to school with your little helper. All of his classmates will be so happy and all of the moms and teachers will be so impressed...which is why you did this after all, right.?.  Just kidding.  

Hope you all found your own pot of gold!

pizza! pizza!

So lately we have been on a pizza kick.  The boys and I enjoy making pizza at lunch. It is so fast and easy and Matthew enjoys it so much. I buy individual size pizza crusts from H-E-B.  They are thin and get crispy in the oven.  Matthew spreads on the sauce and then loads it with pepperonis and lots of cheese.  We have so much fun!

The other night as I was starting to think about dinner, I thought pizza sounded good. However, we were unfortunately out of pizza crust.  In an attempt to be creative and resourceful, and mainly to avoid another trip to H-E-B that week, I pulled out a sheet of puff pastry from the freezer.

 I mean how could butter holding hands with a little bit of flour be a bad idea.

I pre-baked the crust then spread on lots of sauce and layered on cheese, pepperoni and hamburger meat. Which is by the way my favorite pizza. Then I popped it back in the oven to cook the rest of the way through.

Well my friends, let me just tell you what a horrible, no good idea this was.  I am ruined for life! I will never be able to eat pizza any other way.  Ever!!!

This is what came out of the over...

Here's another view...

Move over Mr. Gattis. (Some of you may be thinking...Mr. Gattis?  This girl has no tastes! But I just happen to love a good cheap pizza from Mr. Gattis. Don't judge me.)

This is definitely one of the best pizzas I have ever had. And to think, I made it!

The puff pastry was a brilliant idea! It was crunchy and soft at the same time...flaky and buttery and perfect and wonderful and delightful!!!  My taste buds danced for joy!

If you have never made pizza with puff pastry, TRY IT!  Then you can be ruined like me.

He Lives!

This Easter we were challenged with an inquiring 3 year old that wanted to know "why those men put Jesus on the Cross". I knew the day would come when all of our talk of Jesus at home would ignite his curiosity.  I mean can you imagine a 3 year old wondering who this person is that we talk about all of the time but never see?

Isn't that a great question?

It has really given us an opportunity to talk to Matthew about a Savior that loves us and lives in us.  I was glad that Easter was more than an egg hunt this year.

What a gift we have as parents to get to teach our kids about a God that loves us unconditionally and sacrificed his life to make us whole.

So why did those people put Jesus on the cross?

We really had to come up with creative ways to simplify our answer.  Instead of shying away from talking about death, we embraced it and told him that Jesus died. But the good news is that three days later he rose and walked out of the tomb.  We actually called it a hole and a cave because he didn't understand tomb.

We started out by saying that those men did not know Jesus. They were very unkind.  They did not know that Jesus loves them very much.  Jesus loves us even when we disobey. We kept our explanation very short and simple. After all, he is only three.

Then we asked him where Jesus lives.  He placed both hands over his heart and smiled.

And we smiled too.

It will be exciting to expand on this story as he gets older...to talk about how Jesus overcame the cross and now is alive in us. To tell him Easter is about new life...overcoming death.  And that my friends, is so exciting! A man died on the cross for us, rose from death...conquered death...and is alive today...because he loves us!

How exciting that we have an opportunity to know that person every single day and I get to teach my kids about him...about how wonderful he is...about how he loves us and lives in us.

We all had so much fun hunting eggs this year. Samuel got to join in on the fun.

Matthew got the most.

Patrick did a good job of hiding them all over the place...on the fence, in the trees, on the truck, on the water table.

...even in a pot.

Matthew did a good job of hunting all of the eggs before he started eating chocolate.

I can not say the same for Samuel.

We did manage to get a few good pictures of the boys though before their mouths and hands were completely covered in chocolate.

We had a wonderful Easter. Lots of candy. Two happy boys...who could ask for more?

Dear boys,

As you grow older I am looking forward to more opportunities to teach you about our Lord Jesus. He is alive and lives in us. We have a Savior that wants an intimate relationship with us. He is interested in all that is going on in our lives. He will never leave us or forsake us.

Love,
Mommy