Hey look at me - It's March 17 and I'm outside with no coat! And I love to be outside, there is nothing I'd rather do. Don't tell anyone, but my Mom closes the garage door as soon as the car pulls in, so that when I get out of the car I don't run out into the driveway and then refuse to come in the house!Hey look at me, I'm riding my bike, with no coat, and no mittens! I am wearing boots, but only because we still have plenty of snow and I like to crunch through it and splash in the puddles
Hey look at me, I'm wearing a sweater my Mommy used to wear, and I look so grown up that my mom keeps telling me I have to stop growing!

It's St Patrick's Day and we have had a great day. We woke to find that the neighborhood cat had visited and left a surprise on our front porch. The cat goes between our house and our good friends next door. It's always fun to see what "Kitty" has been up to when she comes back. Inside the large beer mug was an empty bottle of Jameson - apparently Kitty started the party last night!

I spent the morning in 1st grade cooking potatoes with 2 other moms. It was actually pretty fun although we felt like we were on a Food Network show, trying to cook about 800 pounds of potatoes in a tiny faculty kitchen with limited utensils. We probably cheated by sending one mom home to get a mixer to mash the mashed potatoes, but heck, we got the job done. 8 pounds of hash browns, 2 huge stock pots of mashed potatoes, and 4 trays of baked potato pieces. The idea was the kids were going to taste each kind and then the afternoon math lesson would be tallying favorites and making graphs. Maggie reports that they never got to that lesson because of the Irish Dance assembly in the afternoon. Maybe tomorrow. I was just happy that of the three options, my hash browns were completely devoured.

We had naps this afternoon and then had an hour or so to play outside as it reached 68 degrees today - Heaven! It feels so good to be outside!

On Sunday we visited the Mitchell Domes for their annual Irish Festival. Traditionally, I have been at work and Chris has taken the girls to this event. But we raced from Church to get there so I'd be able to enjoy it before work. It was very fun and the girls were so taken by the dancers this year that they will probably take an introductory class with the Glencastle Dancers this summer.

The past few weeks have been quite busy. The construction project at our church, which Chris is managing, is almost complete. But there are hundreds (thousands?) of details that have to come together at the last minute, so he's been spending a lot of time there.

On top of that, his students had 2 concerts in the last 2 weeks. Concert season is a busy time, but it is very fun for the girls to see Daddy with his students. All three sat very well through the 2 concerts. And they were rewarded by having some free time with the instruments after each concert.

Chris also received the exciting news that he was chosen as a Kohl Foundation Fellow, which is a very prestigious teaching award. As his principal explained to his students, "It's like winning the Super Bowl for teachers" Perhaps not the Super Bowl, but it is always nice to be recognized for hard work, and I think we can all agree that Chris works very hard in everything he does, Hooray for Chris!

And finally, after my last blog about farts, how about some poop? This evening, Abby came over to me saying "STINKY STINKY"

I offered her the potty, and she agreed and had success! Hip Hip HOORAY! YAY!

Knowing that we were about to go up to bed, I let her run around for a few minutes without her diaper on.

Bad choice!

A few minutes later, Katherine exclaimed, "WHO POOPED ON THE FLOOR?"

A post about Katherine....

I wasn't sure if I should share a story about farting on my blog, but a much more experienced blogger advised that it's my blog, and I will want to remember this story in a few years. If farting offends you, skip down to the pictures.

So, every morning we pile into the car and drive to the end of the block to wait for the bus. We could walk, but usually we are on our way to our next destination (preschool, gymnastics, etc) so we drive. Maggie's bus is NOT consistent. Its arrival varies by as much as 10 minutes. Some days we're barely there in time, other days we sit and wait for far too long.

Thursday was a sit and wait day. Abby was squirmy, so I tossed her the ipod. Maggie and I chatted about her day, discussing things in her backpack, that I'd be at work after school, yadda yadda. After the first 2-3 minutes of waiting, Katherine started wiggling and whining a little. I ignored it. Then she did it some more, and I asked "What's the problem?" After a bit more wiggling and whining, she said "Someone farted and it was Maggie and it smells bad!"

Maggie denied it, and Katherine moaned that it smelled so bad she couldn't stand it. She was wiggling, as if trying to escape her car seat. She looked like a tortured prisoner. I will admit the smell was not pleasant, but in the grand scheme, I've smelled much worse. She continued her wiggling and moaning about the smell until the bus arrived. When I got back into the car after getting Maggie out, the smell had intensified, and I wondered aloud if Maggie had left us one giant fart when she got out of the car? Katherine said she thought so.

But then, as I was helping Katherine out of the car, she let out a loud fart.

Turns out, she'd been farting all along, and just couldn't stand her own stench. She tried to blame it on Maggie, and failed. I wish I could have taken a picture of her face as she realized she was busted, it was just too classic!

Now, lest you think that Katherine's only claim to fame this week was her bodily functions, I will share with you one of her other accomplishments. While I was doing laundry, she asked if she could go up to get some plain white paper from the printer. We've been trying to discourage this habit, asking the girls to use the back of other paper for their drawing. She insisted that she was going to write a whole book, and therefore, she needed plain white paper. A little while later, she came to me with the following story.

Here is a girl and her house is on fire and she is sad and the siren is purple and the sky is blue.

This is the firetruck, but the firefighter is sad because she is all alone and she lives so far away from the fire and she has no other helper firefighters and her truck has a ladder and wheels.

This is the firefighter using her hose to shoot the water on the fire and she is happy because she put out the fire and saved the girl.

I think we'll keep her, farts and all!