Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We've been celebrating since Sunday. Well... actually since last week if you count our rainbow craft and shamrocks on the mirror.

After our hike at the nature center, I served Will his very first "muffin tin meal". These are all-the-rage right now and kids love them. Lots of moms use all kinds of cute, silicone pans or individual muffin cups to present cute meals in kid-sized portions. Often, they create a meal around a specific theme. Ours was an all-green lunch (except for the sandwich) and Will really liked it. Top row: green pepper, Granny Smith apple, peas. Bottom row: kiwi, pbj, yogurt with green sprinkles.
Even Sophie ate some green food for lunch that day: peas and avocado chunks.

And for dessert, I made a rainbow fruit platter with marshmallow clouds and a "pot of gold"-en raisins. :) This idea was compliments of Family Fun magazine. Love that subscription!

Will is telling daddy that he's going to eat the whole rainbow by himself! Actually, we carried this over to dinner and a little for the next day too.

Here's the game Craig and I put together for Will during his nap on Sunday. This idea is all over the blogosphere so I can't take credit. And actually, the other (craftier) mommies are making them out of felt and adding all sorts of cute details to the fish. I can't sew to save my life, so mine are made of two layers of construction paper with a paperclip poking out between the layers at the mouth. They're rainbow colored and each have a number so that not only does Will have to practice precision and steadiness to "catch" a fish, but he can also specifically select a certain color or number that we suggest. Craig drilled a hole in an old yard stick as well as a spare magnet to make the fishing pole.

Will loved it!

He caught blue for daddy, purple for me, yellow for Sophie (he assumes yellow and pink are her favorite colors), and red and orange for himself (his constantly declared favorites).

Last night, we also added a hoola hoop for an "ocean".

And at one point, after dipping his toe in the ocean, Will announced he wanted to swim with the fishies.

On Monday night, we used these mini-shamrock window clings for practice with counting.

He covered them up for a short time, but he didn't get that he was supposed to count in rows and he didn't like this game. Shortly after this picture, he asked for a new game.

So I flipped over the foam paper and revealed a different set-up for the same skill practice. Counting in little boxes. This was a little better but it wasn't his favorite either. I've found that he doesn't really enjoy counting activities all that much. I'm still determined to keep trying new ways. I think rows and columns can be confusing, but maybe just breaking it down to one number and one group of things to count and keep it simple like that for awhile.

I think this just looked like a busy page of confusing lines and shamrocks to him. He actually does much better with counting on the pages of his big counting book, so maybe it just has to be something that interests him.

Ah, but then he discovered they stick to the window and that became a whole lot more fun!

So I tried making counting columns on the window and we did this for a short time.

Another cute file folder matching game. I think you can catch the idea just by looking at it. But they are very similar and a two year old has to look very carefully to see if both the leaves and the centers are exactly the right shade to be a match. He did very well with this.

And I have got to do more with sequencing. He loves this and is so effortlessly good at it!

He lined them up instantly and pointed to smallest/biggest etc. when I asked him.

Then he could turn them over to check his work because I numbered the backs.

Tuesday we did a shamrock craft. I saw this several times on other blogs in the fall with pumpkins and back-to-school apples. I just used an empty cereal box to cut out a shamrock shape and then took a couple shades of tissue paper from my gift-wrapping drawers and cut them into squares. This was the tray set-up.

First, he colored the shamrock with marker.

Then we crumpled a handful of paper squares.

And then he got his first opportunity to try his hands on a bottle of glue! He liked it and did pretty well. We applied the glue and then stuck the crumpled paper on top.

Our finished product. It's a little cuter in person, I think. Here's what I learned about crafts with Will:

#1 - he's not overly excited about them... but the more freedom he has, the more it holds his interest.

#2 - it takes A LOT of willpower on my part not to jump in and "help" him to avoid making a huge mess and also to make it look the way I think it should look. I'm really trying and I want to focus (in the future) on more "open-ended art" where there are interesting supplies for him and no real goal in mind. He hasn't gotten much opportunity to venture beyond crayons and coloring books in his life so far, so I'm excited to introduce more fun, art tools and let him create his own thing.

While we had the glue and paper squares out, we covered an empty plastic container (until it looked totally tacky) and cut a hole in the top to create a "leprechaun bank". I picked up these green coins at Big Lots for a dollar and he enjoyed dropping them one at a time into the bank. He loves putting real coins in his own bank so I knew he'd enjoy this.

Then I had him wait in his room while I hid 10 of them around the living room for him to find and drop in the bank. It's early practice for egg hunting, which he LOVES!!

For bedtime, we read this cute book that our pediatrician gave Sophie at her last appointment.

After he went to bed last night, I made up a Shamrock Treasure Hunt for him to do when we got home from work tonight and hid each clue and the final "treasure" around the house.

He and Craig went to work hunting down the clues as soon as we walked in from playing outside again in the lovely 60's weather. His first shamrock led him to find a second clue in his barn.

There were eight total and he had such fun discovering them and then asking Craig to read off the next message.

Finally, he found his prize in his bedside table (which I had placed while he slept last night!) and hurried to unwrap it.

A new jigsaw puzzle - without a frame - for big boys. I got it at the dollar store for... $1. Duh.

Showing off his work (with daddy's help).

Then for dinner, we ate our corned beef Reuben's and had the rainbow fruit parfaits for dessert. Will's had more of the golden raisins on top again. And Craig just raved about the fruit cut up all tiny like that so he could get a little of everything in one bite. Finally! Some praise from my guys!

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone!!