Leprechauns!!

Prior to having kids, St. Patrick's Day was just another day to us... maybe we'd wear a green shirt or drink a green beer but otherwise never celebrated much. Now we have a 5 year old who is OBSESSED with it. I think part of it is that they talk about it a lot at preschool. Last night he told us (about 15 times) that he wondered if a leprechaun was going to come to our house during the night and mess things up. So before Josh and I went to bed we made a little mess in the living and dining room. This morning Joey came running into our room and said "MOM! Get up! You HAVE to see what the leprechaun did to our house!" When we were checking out the damage, he said he was going to look in the refrigerator. He opens the door and says "WOW! Check out how clean our refrigerator is!" (I cleaned it last night) and then said "Sometimes leprechauns just want to be helpful." He went on to talk about leprechauns for the next 15-20 minutes...

"Margoux told me leprechauns are not real but I know they are."

"Did you know leprechauns leave green footprints?"

"Leprechauns leave candy after they make a mess." Oops!

"Leprechauns are SO sneaky!"

And on, and on and on...

Then we were on our way to the St. Patrick's Day parade downtown and got stuck in traffic. While we were waiting we saw a group of people dressed in festive outfits, getting their float ready to go and Joey yells out the window "It's a leprechaun party!! It's a leprechaun party!!" 

This kid seriously cracks me up... I don't care what anyone says, 5 is a really FUN age!

Rare Opportunities...

This weekend we had the opportunity to meet Joey's biological brother, Zach. He's 13 months older than Joey and was adopted by a family in Montana when he was 5 months old. We've known about Zach from the time we received Joey's referral but have only recently been in contact with his family.

Zach had a break from school so his parents asked if we could meet them in Bismarck for the weekend. I will be the first to admit I was a little nervous for this meeting. We've been trying to prepare Joey for awhile (as much as you can prepare a 5 year old) but all it took was about 45 minutes and they were best friends and my nerves were quickly put at ease. His mom and dad are two of the nicest people we've met and Zach is a complete sweetheart. He and Joey have so much in common. Not only do they have similar physical features but also many of the same mannerisms and expressions. We spent the entire weekend watching the boys bond (Sam included) and enjoyed visiting with his parents. We've already made tentative plans to meet up again this summer and are so excited to build on this relationship. Here are a few pictures from the weekend.

Joey introducing Zach to his Nintendo DS. They took turns playing Mario Bros. and talked about it all weekend.

BIG hugs!

Getting ready to hit the pool.

Sam had an absolute blast in the splash pad. 

Joey and Zach playing under "the mushroom"... just like Mario Bros.

We took the kids to a science museum that turned out to be really cool.

All the boys loved the bottle rocket exhibit.

It wasn't easy getting Sam away from the tool exhibit.

This picture warms my heart!