top o' the mornin' to ye!

Those googley eyes kill me every time!

I heard a knock yesterday when the kids were due home from school. I opened the door and there was Nina wearing this leprechaun mask.

"Hello!" she said in her best leprechaun voice. Funniest thing ever!

We had some serious laughs taking turns with it. I emailed these pictures to Clayton, who has been out of town on business {in Nicaragua, of all places!}.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Our rainbow fruit salad {since everyone knows leprechauns hide their gold at the end of the rainbow}. My mom and dad, and my sister Hailey joined us for our Irish dinner, then we watched Waking Ned Devine.

ben's leprechaun trap

Look what Ben made the other day {all on his own, of course!}. Determined to catch one of those wee folk, he found some boxes and green tissue paper and went to work. Lollipop sticks and toothpicks were glued together for the ladder on the side. He sat it on his bedroom floor so the leprechauns would see it when they came to scatter gold chocolate coins.

A jewel inside to tempt the little guys...

This way, you say?

A-ha! The jewel!

Little do they know about the looming pit hiding beneath the green tissue paper.

Despite Ben's good efforts, I'm sad to say that no leprechauns were caught this year. They are just too smart and quick! They did bring gold chocolates though, and a box of Lucky Charms and green milk. They even turned the toilet water green!

wee leprechauns

Look what I pulled out of the spring decorations box, haha! Ben and Hannah made these a few years back, when Nina was just a baby. I need to go buy some more green craft foam so Nina and Olivia can make some too.

Here's the project in case you are feeling both Irish and crafty this week.

P.S. This old Irish potato dish is what we have for dinner on St. Patrick's Day every year, along with a rainbow fruit salad {because everyone knows there's a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow}. Just a big platter of strawberries, oranges or mangoes, bananas, kiwi, blueberries and purple grapes, piled into a rainbow shape. Sometimes we do green veggies and dip too.

We are hoping the leprechauns will bring us gold chocolate coins and Lucky Charms and green milk for breakfast again!

:)

Tonight Nina said that if she found a pot of gold, she would use it to buy gold chocolate coins.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

I woke up this morning to bedhead Nina, an inch from my face, saying, "Mom, they brought us tocolate toins (chocolate coins) and they even turned our milk GREEN!"  Her eyes were popping and her mouth opened into a big surprised kind of smile.  The leprechauns came!  As always, they brought a big box of Lucky Charms too.  The only thing missing was our green hats, because they are buried somewhere in the garage this year.  (We are working on finishing the basement, so everything that was downstairs is now in the garage and impossible to locate.) 

It was such a busy day.  I was scheduled to help out in Hannah's class at school today and it was so funny seeing ALL the little kids in green.  It's such a fun, no-stress holiday, I love it.  Plus, Clayton and I both have Irish ancestry, so it makes it that much more fun.  

We had our weekly Scout den meeting at our house tonight.  Clayton was working so I was on my own, but it was okay, at least I had something planned!  I put together a St. Patrick's Day treasure hunt for the boys...they were so crazy hyper, they would start running around trying to find the next clue before they even read the clue they had just found!  I put together little bags filled with chocolate coins and Skittles (the rainbow of fruit flavors, see the connection?) for them to find in the mailbox at the end.  They were so excited I was laughing the whole time watching them.  I put some clues up high on our street lamp and stop sign, so they took off their shoes and socks so they could climb the poles to reach!  Ha ha!  It didn't last as long as I thought it would, so they played Capture the Flag for 20 minutes in my backyard afterward.

For dinner we always have "Rainbow Fruit" and green veggies (peppers sliced cross-wise to look like shamrocks), and an old Irish potato dish called Colcannon.  I saw it a few years ago on Tyler's Ultimate on Food Network...it's really good.  Basically, mashed potatoes with ham, cooked cabbage and green onions mixed in.  I know, it doesn't sound amazing, but it is!  Hannah had three bowls full.

We listened to our "St. Patrick's Mix" while I cooked, and watched The Secret of Roan Inish while we ate.  Clayton and I kept laughing at the little Irish sayings throughout the movie, like, "He was makin' honey in his heart,"  "I'll be cur-fill," and "Don't stop stirring that pot or it will become stiffer than an old man on a cold night..."  Clay added (in an Irish accent of course), "...an old man on a cold night in the middle of a snow storm in freezing October trying to sleep in a snowcave..." He said, "If Tadd were here, we'd be going on for a while with that one!"  It's true!  Funny boys.

During the movie, Nina asked me, "Mom, why did you always marry my daddy?"  She's so funny, the things she says these days!  "Because I love him!" I told her and she scrunched up her little nose and giggled.