Friday Favorites

Happy Friday, friends!  We had a lot of St. Patrick's Day fun this week.  We're just hours away from Spring Break and I can't wait!  We had a fun week with lots of favorite moments.  The highlights were:

1. When you love Notre Dame, St. Patrick's Day is the easiest holiday to pull together.  Walmart came through for us with the cutest clover gear.

2. St. Patrick's Day in kindergarten was so much fun.  We made Fruit Loop rainbows, played pass the gold coin, wore green and did lots of rainbow art.

3. We can't quit laughing about this.  Leo got a gold coin in his rainbow treat cup.  I was shocked when he said his gold coin was disgusting.  Then I realized he ate the wrapper AND the chocolate.  No wonder he didn't like it.  Silly guy!  I guess I should have told him to unwrap and then eat his gold coin.

4. My favorite Irish guy.  We have no trouble finding green and clovers to wear in March.

5. I made rainbow jello.  My favorite tradition.  12 layers of rainbow jello goodness.  Nevermind the fact that it takes HOURS to make.  20 minutes per layer.  It's worth it.

6. I invited my parents over for St. Patrick's Day dinner.  My mom decided that I shouldn't have to cook after teaching all day so they brought dinner with them.  So sweet and so yummy.

7. I LOVE seeing this guy at chapel.  It's precious to see him with his class.  He usually says "Hello, Mrs. Jordan!" hahaha

8. Fletcher started soccer with all of his school buddies this week.  Our school offers tons of rec sports options and he's loving being able to hang out with his friends outside of school.  None of our kids have ever wanted to play soccer before so we learned about all the gear and got him set up for the season.

9. Sweet notes from my kindergarteners will always be a highlight of my week.

10. Another thing I love about our school - we get to celebrate kid's birthdays!  Families can send in treats, favor bags, etc to celebrate their kids.  We missed that in public schools.  Look at these cute favor bags Fletcher is giving to his class - Hubba Bubba + WWJD bracelets.  Plus I'm sending in chocolate chip cookies.

11. Nosey 24/7.  Extra whiskery.

You'll likely never see Pearl if you came to my house, but when it's just us at home, she's very friendly.  You can usually find her sitting on top of whatever you are currently doing.

12. We dropped Olive to hang out with friends and I took Fletcher to run some errands.  He LOVES samples at Sams, trying new flavors of his favorite foods and enjoys any quality time together.  The weather was gross, but the company was sweet.  He always makes fast friends with the cashiers and sample ladies.

13. Tuxedo cats are nuts.  Mr. Mittens can be found tight rope walking our garage door tracks.

14. Rainbow treat cups for our kids and our neighbor friends.  I look forward to making these every year.

15. Spring pictures!  Olive and I woke up extra early to make sure everything was just right for picture day.  The boys don't have this level of care for picture day.

Linking up with Momfessionals

I hope you had a great week!  I'm taking a few days off for Spring Break.  Maybe the whole week!?  See you back here soon :)

St Patrick's Day Rainbow Candy Cups

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  I'm so lucky that you enjoy reading my blog.  Thanks for stopping by today and always :)

Making these rainbows in a cup is one of my favorite St. Patrick's Day traditions!  I made them for my own kids, our neighbors and friends.  I had the kids deliver them and they were a big hit.

The Sweet Tart rainbow ropes turned rainbow are my favorite part.  They you can find chocoalte gold coins, mini marshmallows, Skittles, Sour Patch Kids, mini marshmallows, Andes mints and any other rainbow candy I could find.

I hope you have a wonderful day!  I'm doing some really fun rainbow, spring activities with my class this week :)

Happy St Patrick's Day!

I hope you had a great weekend!  We had fun celebrating St Patrick's Day all weekend long!  One day we'll make it to a big city to see the river dyed green, but until then we'll be enjoying all the festivities from home.

Lucky to love them!  They all wore their new St Patrick's Day t-shirts to church Sunday morning.  Matching kids always and forever.

These pot of gold glasses were such a fun Dollar Tree find!

I love festive fun, but I don't want to pay boutique prices for it.  Walmart usually has the cutest holiday t-shirts for $6.98.  I love that I can get them in toddler to tween sizes.  I like to do one fun gift like these glasses and then something practical - light up basketballs!!  The kids were so excited about them.  Once they play with them for a few days, I'll come back with a real review of them.

A sink full of dirty Crocs was an unexpected rainbow.  I know I'll be sad one day when I'm no longer washing dirty kid shoes so I'm thankful for the sink full of color.  I noticed this time that the shoes are getting biggger and filling up my sink fast.

The easiest lucky breakfast.  I don't buy these often so it was a treat.

The rainbow treat cups were a big hit at our house and with our friends.  We enjoyed the leftover rainbow candy all weekend.

The kids were big enough to help me make some festive food.  Rainbow jello was a team effort this year and the kids are old enough now that they are genuinely helpful.

A new neighbor friend baked me the most beautiful loaf of bread!  I baked her welcome desserts when they moved in and she's returning the favor with homemade bread.  I like this friendship already!

Our backyard was the prettiest colors of spring this weekend - green grass, purple fields, blue skies, clouds and sunshine.

My parents came over for a St Patrick's Day dinner and it's always one of my favorite meals.  I made a berry salad, homemade bread, rainbow jello, Irish stew, Keilbasa and bacon wrapped smokies.  Then lemon bundt cake and Rice Krispie treats for dessert.  Yum!

And my favorite tradition: Rainbow Jello!!  It takes hours to make - 20 minutes per layer - but the kids helped and we were all proud of those 12 layers.  

I'm determined to look for the rainbows in my days this week and have a great week!

Friday Favorites

Happy Friday, friends!  I hope you've had a nice week.  Our week was funky.  Lots of weird or stressful things that just kind of added up to a week that we're ready to say goodbye to. Does that ever happen to you?  Did you catch my blog posts this week?

High End Items on a Budget - my favorite places to shop!

Creating Margin in My Life - this feels SO GOOD!

Preteen Parenting: Practice Gives Confidence

Now onto my favorite moments of the week:

1. Happy St Patrick's Day weekend!!  It's one of my favorite holidays thanks to our love of all things Irish and Notre Dame.  I put together these rainbow candy cups for my kids and our friends.  It was so much fun to add all the rainbow candy to my grocery pick up order and assemble them.  They were a big hit!  I found the gold coins at Dollar Tree and saw them at Hobby Lobby.  It's not too late to grab the supplies to make them this weekend.

Or you could put together a rainbow treat board for your family!!  My crew loved this!!  I added Keebler Thin Mints, Lucky Charms and all the rainbow candy from the rainbow cups.  

2. Can I help?  That's Leo's new favorite phrase in the kitchen.  It melts my heart!  He helped with smoothies, rice krispy treats and dinner.

3. Excused from jury duty!!  I got called for jury duty for the second time this year.  I was really hoping to get called off, but no such luck.  I had to report early Monday morning only to find out that they were selecting the jury for a big murder trial.  Yikes!  It was so interesting and I knew it would be a major time commitment.  Thankfully for me, I knew a police officer involved in the case and my Dad being a retired Sheriff, State Policeman and such for 40+ years meant the judge knew him and I couldn't be a fair and unbiased juror.  I was dismissed and relieved.  I've enjoyed following the news reports all week.  I have a new appreciation for people who are serving on juries for a long period of time.  One morning was stressful!!

4. Rainy day fun.  Leo is in charge of his own umbrella and loved it.  Friends invited us to play and that always feels good!

5. Spring flowers!  I really thought it would get cold again, but it seems as though Spring is here to stay.  We don't have any daffodils in our yard.  I love the white ones with orange centers.

6. Crumbl Cookies.  I celebrated being kicked out of the jury selection process by getting Crumbl cookies for everyone.  They were delicious.

7. Freckles are popping!  I always wished that I could have freckles and my dream came true with Fletcher.  All this time outside means that his freckles are popping up everywhere.  I gave the boys haircuts mideweek just in time for Spring pictures at school.

8. Leo is always doing the silliest things.  This is his latest trick which is actually a pretty impressive balancing act.

9. My mom found some cool rocks for Fletcher and one was a geode!

10. Hands and feet out the windows as we enjoy the sunshine this week.

11. We got to have dinner with Grandma at her favorite spot.  She chose the restaurant and the kids enjoyed their first Chinese buffet.  They loved trying new foods and finding new favorites.  Leo only liked the almond cookies.  I think he ate 4 for dinner.

12. The 5th grade celebrated Pi Day this week with their Spring Party.  I was glad my dad could watch Leo so that I could go celebrate with her.  She was hoping for pie party, but they had Pi cookies instead.

Have a great weekend!  I'll see you back here on Monday.

Linking up with Momfessionals

Rainbow Charcuterie Dinner Board

My family loves when they see a charcuterie board on the menu!  I don't make them as often as I used to, but they feel like the perfect warm weather dinner.  

You can prep everything ahead of time.  Chop the cheeses, fruits, veggies and prep the meats the night before or earlier in the day.  Leave everything in containers in the fridge so that your board will come together so quickly at dinner time.  That means I can play outside with the kids and help with homework up until dinner time and have very little work to do to assemble my board.  This kind of meal also means very few dishes to mess with.

We had this for dinner last week and it was a hit!

Wouldn't this be such a fun rainbow dinner for St. Patrick's Day this month?

Prettiest, yummiest dinner ever!

A good board at our house includes 4-5 cheeses, meats, fruits, veggies, crackers and dips.  I also plan to have this meal twice in one week to make sure that none of those meats and cheeses go to waste.

I buy some things just for board dinners (salami, cheeses, rosemary crackers) and then use up lots of things that we already have on hand.  We finish up bags of chips, crackers, the last few mandarin oranges, etc.

I have one kid who will try anything if I present it on a charcuterie board.  It's such a fun way for him to try new foods and find new favorites - pepperjack cheese & rosemary crackers!  I think it's because there are tons of foods he knows he loves on the board so he feels no pressure when he tries some new foods.

I made a loaf of crusty bread to go this meal to make it a little more filling for dinner.  Then I put all of the leftovers in the kid's school lunches for the next day.

You've got to add charcuterie boards to your menu now that the weather is getting warmer!  Start small with just 1-2 meats and cheeses and a few other fruits, veggies and salty snacks.  Then add more to your board as you feel comfortable.