St. Patty's Day and Pirate Carnivals

The Thursday before St. Patty's our local moms club took a tour of a new organic grocery store, Earth Fare, that opened up in town. It was fun to see what they have to offer and their philosophy on food. Here they are about to make some instant natural peanut butter for us to taste. On Thursdays kids eat free in their prepared food section. All you have to do is pay $5 for something and all the kids with you get a big ole organic healthy meal for free. Yes, please. Guess where we have eaten the past two Thursdays?!

Friday morning moms club had a St. Patrick's Day themed craft get-together. Pepper was excited to paint and get messy and to play with her friends.

Finally, the big day arrived and we spent St. Patty's at the park with Daddy having a picnic and feeding the fish. All week Pepper and Morgan were waiting to wear their matching shirts.

These two are just too cute sometimes.

Pepper sporting some festive attire herself.

The water in the creek is super disgusting but throw some bread in and it gets very interesting.

There are some monster, nasty looking fish that come up from the deep. They start jumping over each other to get to the bread. It is crazy and very entertaining but still kind of gross at the same time.

Hazel just being chill and taking it all in as per usual.

A friend from church told me about a Blue Heron nesting ground near us when I told her how much Cody loves birds. So last Sunday afternoon we took the kids for a drive to check it out. Cody thought we'd see a few nests somewhere but had no idea how amazing it would truly be. This picture is just a small sample. There were at least five huge trees full of birds. AMAZING!

There was a little plaque across the street that explained about the birds. It said that the males come first and start building nests trying to lure in the ladies. Once the females arrive the males keep bringing them sticks until they decide to get together. Fascinating.

The babies arrive some time end of April beginning of May. So I guess we will have to go back to check that out as well.

This Saturday, Woodland Preschool had its annual fundraising carnival. The kids have been so excited for this day and even though Daddy is out of town we still had a great time.

Heather was the brainchild behind the carnival this year and made it a very fun pirate themed event. All the kids got a loot bag and treasure map when they arrived and all the games had a pirate theme. Heather is also Ohio's Outstanding Mom of the year so she wore her hugely awesome, sparkly crown and sash for all the kids. Such a great smile.

My kids spent quite a lot time in the bouncy house, especially near the end when I was busy trying to make sure we were not outbid on our silent auction baskets. Pepper didn't get a nap on Saturday and worked out pretty hard between the bouncy house and dancing while Zobopago played. She started falling asleep in my arms watching a movie around 5pm and was begging to go to bed around 6. I managed to keep her awake and hold her off but this girl crashed fast and slept in late. Maybe getting rid of her nap isn't a horrible idea:)

The cutest pirate ever!

Hazel was a trooper and just hung around in the Ergo for most of the time. She did jump up and down in my lap for most of the concert. Then she gave up and went to sleep because once again I was taking too long at the silent auction. But no worries, we prevailed much to Cody's dismay. I bet you next year he will make sure he is not out of town for this!