HERE'S TO YOU, ST. PATRICK!!!

On March 17th, the Garfields (minus the Hirschi clan and the Head of the Family) gathered at the family's historical estate for an evening steeped in Irish customs and traditions.

Of course, we all wore the appropriate amount of green.

We also had course after course of Irish beef stew (for those who were first in line) and Irish veggie stew (for those last in line), rainbow fruit salad, pot o' gold muffins (Suspiciously missing the cheese, aka the gold, and replaced with apples and cinnamon. Hum.....what's up with that?), and washed it all down with an assortment of sodie pop which happened to be contained in green liter bottles (meaning, Sprite, Squirt, and some weird Grapefruit number).

Then, the annual Running of the Cousins. Well, actually, it's a search for our very own house Leprechaun's pot of gold (I believe his name is Dobie). Every year, he hides it, but he leaves behind clues. This year, each Cousin received a puzzle piece. Once all the pieces were fitted together, the location of the gold was revealed! But the Cousins were distracted by the Matron of our clan, aka Gram Kimmy, who led them astray for as long as she could. While Jake, the oldest of the Cousins, was waiting patiently at the site. Quickly, he cries of discovery over-powered Gram Kimmy's pleas to follow her aimlessly about. The gold was retrieved and distributed---10 pieces of chocolate gold per Cousin. What lucky kids!

The evening ended as soon as it began. It came to a close as the Cousins sucked down chocolate coins and the adults indulged their taste buds with some Shamrock BTS dessert on Fruity Pebble crust. Yummy!

Yes, we are indeed a family who honors their Irish ancestry.

We hope we did ya proud!

HAPPY 7TH BIRTHDAY LIV!

A few Fridays ago, our home was filled with the ear-peircing screams of little girls running giddily throughout our home. Maybe it was the grape floats? No... it was Olivia's 7th birthday party.

She chose a "purple butterfly" themed party and invited some classmates and her cousins. She and I wanted to do something different, so we hired a very talented lady we discovered last summer, Julie Christiansen, to come and paint faces. (Obviously from the pic above, she does a bit more that a tiny flower on the cheek with acrylic paint.)

While waiting for everyone to get their face done, each girl got to paint and decorate her own frame. And before the party ended, I took individual pics of the girls. Later in the week, I developed them and put them inside the frames and passed them out as Liv's "thank you" gift to her guests.

Happy Belated Birthday Wishes on the blog, little Bear-bee Boo!

NDPA SCIENCE FAIR

First place, three years in a row!


Jake and Liv's project was "Which Cereal Contains the Most Iron?" They each took a box of Total and Lucky Charms breakfast cereal, blended 10oz. of each cereal with 5 cups of water and then took a very powerful magnet and stirred it in the cereal liquid for 45 seconds. The black stuff that caked the ends of the magnets was the iron extracted from the cereal. And the cereal with the most iron.....Total!


Congratulations, kids!

READ-A-HOLIC???...

(....not quite yet! But there is still hope.)


I have found that I'm not a real goal-oriented person, meaning, I don't intentionally sit down and write out things I want to accomplish. Though I don't dismiss the value in setting goals, I feel that most people, myself included, are too disappointed too often because we fail to reach our intended goals.


Having said this, in January, I decided that I would challenge (that's the operative word here) myself to read more. I've always enjoyed reading, but I tend to go in spurts. And sometimes there are more periods of non-reading and lots of soap opera watching than there is of having a good read. So far, I have to say I've done quite well. I'm averaging a book every two weeks.


Currently, I'm reading Gregory Maguire's Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister. Some of you may know his more famous work, Wicked. Like many, I picked up that book, only to put it right back down. I know it has received many accolades, but I don't know of anyone who has acutally liked it. Anyway, this other book of his came highly recommended (well, so was Wicked) and I thought I would give this guy another chance. Last Sunday, I started reading and couldn't put it down. I'll admit, it's not a book for everyone, but it sure is an interesting version of Cinderella.


Below, I've copied a summary of the book:


Is this new land a place where magic really happen?


From Gregory Maguire, the acclaimed author of Wicked, comes his much-anticipated second novel, a brilliant and provocative retelling of the timeless Cinderella tale.


In the lives of children, pumpkins can turn into coaches, mice and rats into human beings.... When we grow up, we learn that it's far more common for human beings to turn into rats....


We all have heard the story of Cinderella, the beautiful child cast out to slave among the ashes. But what of her stepsisters, the homely pair exiled into ignominy by the fame of their lovely sibling? What fate befell those untouched by beauty . . . and what curses accompanied Cinderella's exquisite looks?


Extreme beauty is an affliction. . .


Set against the rich backdrop of seventeenth-century Holland, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister tells the story of Iris, an unlikely heroine who finds herself swept from the lowly streets of Haarlem to a strange world of wealth, artifice, and ambition. Iris's path quickly becomes intertwined with that of Clara, the mysterious and unnaturally beautiful girl destined to become her sister.


Clara was the prettiest child, but was her life the prettiest tale?


While Clara retreats to the cinders of the family hearth, burning all memories of her past, Iris seeks out the shadowy secrets of her new household--and the treacherous truth of her former life.


God and Satan snarling at each other like dogs.... Imps and fairy godmotbers trying to undo each other's work. How we try to pin the world between opposite extremes!


Far more than a mere fairy-tale, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister is a novel of beauty and betrayal, illusion and understanding, reminding us that deception can be unearthed--and love unveiled--in the most unexpected of places.