St. Patrick's Day!!

I think one of the best things you can do as a mom is to create fun quirky traditions for your family. The kind your kids will roll their eyes at but secretly miss when they're all grown up and have their own families. Soooo, I have decided to make St. Patrick's Day our Holiday. I get the strangest looks when I tell people that St. Patrick's Day is considered to be a special day to my family. We spend all of the other Holidays with extended family: grandmas, grandpas, aunts, uncles and cousins....while it's fun it's also chaotic to say the least. Both sides of the family come from Ireland/Scotland (of course there is a myriad of other ethnicity's, that's how it goes when your ancestors were some of the first to come to this Country..but I feel somehow more connected to the Irish side...perhaps it's my big green Irish eyes). I love history and how it connects with my ancestry (I'm always so shocked when I hear there are people who don't share my enthusiasm for history). So you take my love for my genealogy, my love of rich history, and my desire to have fun family traditions and what do you get?? St. Patrick's Day! This year I tried out a few new recipes: Colcannon, meat and potato pies, soda bread, and a few other things that have no connection to Ireland whatsoever...they were just green. I spent most of the day cooking and, sadly, I don't think I'll be able to use these recipes next year thanks to my hubbies incredibly bland taste buds and the fact that he won't eat anything that even hints that it might be from the vegetable portion of the pyramid. I'll post pictures later, I'm not quite sure how to do it on this computer.

When Are you Coming Home?!?

My poor husband absolutely hates it when I call him and ask him when he'll be home. Yes, it's true..sometimes I call because I want to...no..I need to know when he'll be home because it's like having my light at the end of the tunnel (especially after a really hard day of never-ending screams and crying)- I need him to take the kids so I can breathe. But that's only part of the reason why I call. I like him. I like having him here. I like seeing him come through the door and Mikayla rush to greet him. Before we had kids it was me who would be like a little puppy dog just waiting to hear the sound of his truck pull into the driveway. I would always get so excited. I would always (and still try to) make my hair look a little nicer and touch up my make-up. So there you have it sweetie...I love you...that's why I call. (now that I've thoroughly embaressed him!!Sorry!)

So what spurred this seemingly random thought? I found a blog that gives fhe ideas and she had a talk on there and this caught my eye:

"Your Refined Heavenly Home" by Elder Douglas L. Callister.
"We must not “let ourselves go” and become so casual—even sloppy—in our appearance that we distance ourselves from the beauty heaven has given us. Every man has the right to be married to a woman who makes herself as beautiful as she can be and who looks in the mirror to tidy herself up before he comes home. Every woman has a right to be married to a man who keeps himself clean, physically as well as morally, and takes pride in his appearance. A husband should hurry home because of the angel who awaits him, and that angel should be watching the clock awaiting his arrival. "

I LOVE that last part and I really do hope that he thinks of me as his Angel and that he looks forward to coming home.