Making A Leprechaun Trap!

According to legend, the night before St. Patrick's Day is known for leprechaun mischief!  This year Grace, Jack and Eve are ready because earlier today they made a leprechaun trap.

To make the leprechaun trap Grace first covered a cardboard box lid with green and cold paper.

Next, Grace, Jack and Eve decorated the trap with stickers, jewels, buttons, beach glass and tissue paper to attract the leprechaun.

Here is the finished leprechaun trap.  We propped up the trap with a ruler at the top of our stairs, just outside of Grace, Jack and Eve's bedrooms.  After doing some research today we learned that leprechauns love tea and nuts so we filled a tiny teacup, pitcher and a plate with these.

 I'll let you know tomorrow whether our trap worked!  :)

A Special End to the Indoor Soccer Season...

We were so glad to have Memere and Pepere with us today as Grace and Jack each played their final indoor soccer game of the season.  It made our day all the more special!

Eve enjoyed some special time with Memere and Pepere.

 Jack and Eve looking on as Grace takes to the "field."

 

Here is Grace with Coach Drew.  Drew was also Grace's soccer coach in the fall and we just love him...he is the best coach.  Every one of his players and all of the families adore him!

Jack finished his indoor soccer season with a big smile.  We are all so proud of Grace and Jack's hard work and are looking forward to the fall when soccer resumes!

Our Last Winter Activity - Making Snowflakes!

We made paper snowflakes today but we all agreed that this is it...there will not be any more activities or projects that have anything to do with winter!  We are moving on to all things spring starting tomorrow.  :)

    

 Grace

 Eve

 Jack

While Grace and Jack were working on cutting out their snowflakes Eve kept walking around the table putting the paper scraps into a wastebasket.  Eve has always been my little cleaner upper!

Here is our finished snowflake garland that we hung above our sliding glass doors.  We are officially saying goodbye to winter (and what a winter it has been!) and are welcoming spring a bit early.

Ice Skating

Winters in here Maine can be quite long.  For some extra winter fun this year Bob built an ice skating rink right in our backyard for us to enjoy.  Recently, Grace and Jack have been having some extra skate time in the evenings after dinner.  Here they are last night enjoying skating with Bob.    
 

As for Eve...she prefers skating during the day but in the evening she becomes Grace and Jack's biggest fan by cheering them on from the tall snowbanks surrounding our rink!

Cows & Chickens

We spent this very cold Friday morning (brrr!) collecting eggs, milking a cow and visiting with the newest calves at Pineland Farms.  Wishing everyone a happy weekend. 

Tick Tock

Jack LOVES to take things apart to figure out how exactly how they work...he has the mind of a little mechanical engineer!  This afternoon I gave Jack a box of several old clocks that his Poppy had given to him.  I told Jack that he could use his tools to take them apart.  Jack had the absolute best time using every tool possible to disassemble the clocks.  He loved studying all of the tiny pieces inside and analyzing how those pieces all fit and worked together.

The Olympic Rings

The day before the Olympics in Sochi began Grace, Jack and Eve made their own set of Olympic rings by painting the colors on cut out paper plates.  We discussed how the five rings represent the five major regions of the world and how every country in the world has at least one the five colors of the rings represented in their flag. 

Cross Country Skiing at Pineland Farms

 

We went cross country skiing at Pineland Farms today!  This was the first time that Grace, Jack and Eve cross country skied and they did such a great job!  We can't wait to go again.  Here are some pictures from our fun day...

 

Gracie Girl!

My Gracie girl has been on school vacation all this week and it has been so nice having her home!

Winter Wonderland

This is what the side of our driveway looks like right now.  We now have our very own sledding hill!  This afternoon we only had a 30% chance of a few little snow showers but that ended up turning into yet another big snowstorm, which dropped several more inches of snow today.  Although the snow is very pretty I think I'm just about ready for spring.

Jack, on the other hand, wants winter to last forever.  He loves everything about it!

Fortunately, we have Eve...she said she would plow our entire driveway (all 350 feet of it!) with her little grader truck this afternoon!