The Irish Jig is Up
The kids' slack-jawed response at being reminded that they are a bona-fide one quarter Irish was only the preface to our St Patrick's Day festivities. Holden was so thrilled that he was determined to rub in his genuine Irish descent to all of those unfortunate Nelson and Klingler and Thompson and completely non-Irish-blooded kids at school who don't have holidays with pinching involved in their genes. (WE LOVE YOU, DEVINE FAMILY!!!)
Their part-Irish eyes were doing more than smiling when they breezed in from school and smelled the corned beef and cabbage that had been happily bubbling away like some Celtic tune in the kitchen all day long. They devoured every scrap, leaving their poor Swiss-German mother with no leftovers to look forward to for lunch the next day.
Notice Ethan's greedy mitt in the corner of the roll picture and Eric's protective knife above it.(We really are a peaceful people. . . unless food is involved.)
Some Day My Caleb Will Come: The Second Grade Fairy Tale Ball
Caleb had been painfully rehearsing the Teton Stomp and the Waltz for days during PE in preparation for the Annual Second Grade Fairy Tale Ball, but forgot to ask me to help him with his costume until the night before the event. I smiled at Eric and said, "If you've got to have a costume in a hurry, you've come to the right house!" It took me about seven seconds of digging through our graveyard of Halloween costumes in the storage room to transform Super Woman's crown, Han Solo's Jedi Robe, and Alladin's Genie's golden belt into a costume fit for a king.King Caleb's misery at having to dance with cootie-infested girls was not masked in the least as he mouthed the one, two, three of each waltz through the grimace on his royal face. The only time he smiled was when he got to dance with his sweet Princess Marie who was swept off her chubby feet by her older brother, whom she refers to as "Bug." Unfortunately, her clothes also got swept off in the festive mood and I had to hurry and redress her issues before we got kicked out of the kingdom for immodesty.
I Love Paris in the PARTY-TIME!
Truthfully, Eve's 6-year-old birthday party had been years in the making. When I was seventeen and stood in the shadow of the graceful lines of the Eiffel Tower for the first time, the feeling of artful elegance in the presence of those stately spires was destined to make its way into a party some day.
Eve and six of her friends received Paris Party Passports and a Boarding Pass for Princess Airlines' round-trip to Party-Town flying out of the d'Evegnee Airport. The hours of party preparation were enough to give all of us a collective blast of pre-party jet-lag as my poor sous-party-planners helped to make our house into a Parisian paradise, but to their chagrin and my somewhat evil delight, it was all worth it.
We finished off our French-couture inspired skirts (by we, I mean "I" because "I" was extremely naive about how difficile threading elastic through a waist-band was for little fingers), beaded french bracelets, learned French, ate fondu, and ran around and shrieked until the grown-ups came to pick us up (Eric being my "grown up" and, in my case, by "pick up" I mean scoop up off the floor). I say we and I mean OUI! I think I had more fun than any of the petites filles and they had beaucoup de fun! I still haven't wiped the satisfied French smirk off of my face. And I still pretentiously use French vocabulaire in everyday conversations for no reason whatsoever.
They are five and six year olds, but they knew how to pose like French models beyond their years. 
