Top of the Morning to you!

This is our 3rd St. Paddy's day in Henderson and we've never been to the big parade down water street.  This year I got Brianna and Cord to agree to go with me this year.  Even though it got cold (down into the 50's from the nice 70's we've been having), we had a good time and got our green on.

The horn was cute, and I thought it was a good idea at first, but after 1 1/2 hrs of him blowing it, I was ready to "loose" it big time. 

Brianna had a great idea for Cord's hat, he turned it upside down to catch all the candy thrown from the floats.  It was perfect. 

Cord ran right out for a chance to pet the little horse.

BAD IDEA - do not ever buy your kids a cute horn for a parade!

There were lots of doggies in the parade.  Cord loved it when they would walk down the side of the road and he could pet them. 

 

We got to meet St. Patrick.

We loved the bagpipe bands.  Super Cool!

Nothing says "Happy St. Patricks Day" like..... a band of Star Wars characters. 

Some parts of the parade were a little strange. 

Cord gives St. Patrick a High 5!

After the parade, Brianna and Mike headed to the car show.  She's totally a car girl and it was a good daddy-daughter bonding time.  There were also lots of the cars in the parade, I think she took pictures of every single one.  I'm sure there was a lot of "grunting" as they checked out the cars and engines.

My favorite part of the day, threatening to pinch my kids.  I found this cute shirt for Mason which he put on first thing in the morning.  Mike always says "I'm a McKelleb, I have green in my blood".  Doesn't work for me.  I still like to pinch!

I'm lucky to have these adorable boys!

Geneology

We had arranged to do a temple trip with the Relief Society sisters and do baptisms and take some sister who had not been through the temple before. We found out last Wednesday that if we had been through the temple before, we had to bring our own family names. We started to panic a little. But I decided to get onto family search and see if I could find any family names that needed work done. All the work on both of my parents side has been done, but there was nothing entered for Mike's family. We are lucky in the fact that Mike's sister, Cindy, has done a lot of geneology and researched out the family lines for several generations. She has all the birth, death, and marriage dates on a website she created with my father-in-law. It is a goldmine. With Cindy's help, we spent 2 days entering in the family names into the family search site and before I knew it I had 33 females and 31 male names that needed temple work done. I have gotten so excited at the thought of being able to do work for family. After talking with my in-laws I had permission to do both of Mike's grandma's, great-grandma's, etc. We went to the temple this morning and were baptised for 23 females in his family. It's such a great feeling. The kids are going to do baptisms next week and I'll have them take the rest of the names with them. Then the rest of the work will begin. My sister-in-law said she's going to help me. I have learned some interesting things about the McKelleb family this week. This picture is of Mike's father's parents.

The unique McKelleb name has not been found elsewhere on the planet. It mysteriously appears with the birth of William McKelleb in 1787, 1788, or 1789, of unknown parents, and continued with one male each generation to carry on the family name, until the current generation. Today there are five McKelleb males under the age of 17 to propagate the McKelleb line - the name will survive! Known descendants currently live in Arizona, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, Utah, and the UK. Our first listing of the Harmon family begins in Ireland in 1767 with the birth of Robert Harmon, who married and settled in Fleming County, Kentucky, where the Harmon line continues to this day. Descendants are known to be living in Arizona, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, Utah, and the UK.

Camping in Logandale

It's a good thing Mason always wears the same white jacket when he goes on the campouts.  That way I can always identify which pictures he's in.  They all look exhausted when them came home from this outing but Mason was really excited about the animal skull he had in his plastic sack.  Gross!

Paint

I'm progressively feeling better and hoping to get some progress done on the house before I go back to work. It's incredibly stressful trying to choose the right colors to paint your living spaces. What kind of feeling do I want to create in the home? Trying to find something that we all like is difficult. We have been pouring over all kinds of books trying to find the right combination. I have a rug that I really like that is serving as an inspiration but it kind of clashes with the fireplace. We've been buying all kinds of samples and playing around with it trying to find the right combination. Yesterday I finally decided to bite the bullet. I painted above the fireplace. I didn't tell Mike, I just did it and hoped he liked it when he came home. It's amazing the difference a little paint can make. Luckily everyone in the family likes it. One corner down.... a million more to go.

More about Cord

Cord continues to crack me up every day. The other day I saw him spreading out his blanket on the floor. He was very careful to make sure all the wrinkles were out and it was straight. Then he lured Chester into the middle of it. As I watched carefully and grabbed the camera, I saw him trying to fold up the dog in the blanket and then hug him. Chester is so patient with all the love that Cord still tries to show him.

I also love it when he puts on his "action figure" outfit. He puts on his gun holster (loaded with a plastic trophy), his super hero cape, some kind of black thing that he uses to house his sword, his shield, sun glasses, cowboy hat, and today..... one shoe (it's usually his black cowboy boots and no socks). He spends the day looking for bad guys and is very serious about his duties to save to world. I feel so safe!

Another project completed

This latest project was a collaboration between both Mike and myself. He put together the frame and I had to sew the fabric strips to weave in between them. If you'll remember from a previous post - I can't sew. But I persevered and got it done. I even got ambitious and made 3 pillows with the left over fabric. We are both excited about the finished product and so is Chelsea. It's been a long time since she's had a real headboard.

What did you do today?

Cord asked me if he could make a sword and shield today. Sure, why not. We started looking through all the crafty crap I had to see what we had to work with. After I cut the things out, I set him up with the stickers and markers and let him go to town. The design was completely him. He even found almost all of the right letters for his name (he ended it with a "h" instead of a "d".) We then glued some velcro to strips on the back to hold it on his arm. I'm so impressed because it's something I've always wanted to do with my kids, but never had the time or energy.

He likes to keep the foam board we cut them out of and puts it "away" like a puzzle. 

You can be my date

Mom: Cord, should we have a Cord and Moma day?
Cord: Yes! You can be my date!

This kid keeps me laughing. We had another field trip planned with his preschool today. We went to the Bass Pro Shop and had a scavenger hunt. The kids had to find certain animals as we walked around and explored this massive store. Fun (cheap) morning. I love our one-on-one time. We are hoping to get him into an all day kindergarten program so I can go to a day shift but I'll really miss our afternoons together. I guess I had better enjoy it while I have it.

The diver cleaning the tank was more interesting to Cord than the huge fish swimming in it.

Cord was posing like the moose was going to come attack him.

He is imitating the attacking lion.  So funny.

He was so good at the store that I bought him a "treat" which happened to turn his tongue blue :)