Happy St. Patty's Day!

We started our morning with Lucky Charms cereal for breakfast. It didn't go over as well as I thought it would. Oh well. Next year I'm going to make beef stew and Irish soda bread for dinner on St. Patrick's Day, but we recently had beef stew so I wasn't going to make it again today. It's one of Paul's most favorite meals, but Nadia does not like it (Ian eats it, but it's not his favorite either to be sure). Last night I had Nadia and Ian eat "real" food for the first time in 48 hours (meaning something more than a cracker or pretzel), and they kept it down so I decided that today life would return back to normal for those two, which primarily meant eating normally (fruits, veggies, dairy, etc.) and greatly reducing the amount of time the television was on during the day. Paul came down with the stomach virus early yesterday morning, and Oliver threw up once after lunch yesterday and after breakfast this morning. Even though I felt queasy all day, I stuck with my plan to make Irish soda bread and Irish flag sugar cookies.

Before 3/17/15 I want to buy some shamrock cookie cutters. We experienced mixing colors to make orange frosting for our cookies. Oliver's contribution was to eat two of the cookies. I made a small batch (1/3 of the recipe) because we already had some yummy pineapple cookies on hand. We listened to the Irish national anthem in both Gaelic and English and read about Leprechauns and such today to wrap up our unit on Ireland. All five of us were wearing green today!

Paul was supposed to go to the dentist today, but I went instead as he didn't think he was up to doing that yet. I told the hygienist I was feeling queasy today and didn't feel up to doing the flouride treatment at the end. I was supposed to go this Wednesday; I am sure Paul will be feeling fine by then, and he can get his teeth cleaned that day. I'm hoping that all of our bellies will be doing well tomorrow. It's nice to have at least Nadia and Ian back to normal! Oliver hasn't had the runs today, which also is an improvement. He hasn't had much of an appetite today, and he did throw up once this morning; so I know he's not 100% back to normal yet. I felt badly that Paul got the bug the kids had, but at least he was able to make it to the toilet in time and didn't produce copious amounts of laundry and messes to clean up like the kids did. I hope it's a LONG time before they get that sick again. Yuck. Yuck. Yuck!

Paul even had a fever yesterday, and he almost NEVER gets a fever no matter how sick he is. I on the other hand get a fever with almost every illness I have. The kids were of course wanting to cuddle even more than usual. I love to snuggle, but it became a problem at times because they were fighting about who was on my lap, and Oliver in particular doesn't like to share my lap (although there's definitely room for more than one child at a time on my lap). I love all the hugs, kisses, and snuggles. I dread it when the kids get older and these become less frequent. I am trying to soak it up as much as possible while I can! When both kids were throwing up at the same time I thought to myself it could be worse, I could have six children all throwing up at the same time, but truth be told, I would love a fourth baby even if it meant I might have four kids with the stomach virus at the same time at one point or another. I love these kids dearly, even though I can't stand cleaning up vomit. I am so grateful for my three precious blessings!