This year, the Leprechaun made a mess in our house! During the night, the sneaky Leprechaun moved our furniture around and tipped some chairs over, and made a mess in the bathroom!
When Cal looked in the toilet, he wasn't so sure what to think, it was green! "EWWWW! Gross!" he said. My favorite was "That stinkin' leprechaun!" which he said over and over. It was halarious! When Emma woke up, that was the first thing he told her about. Emma thought that was pretty gross that the Leprechaun would use our toilet but not flush it, and she was shocked by how such a tiny dude could move our furniture around like that!
The Leprechaun also left a note for the kids, along with a trail of gold and his hat. We have started a tradition where we make a trap trying to catch the visitor, and we do it the night before St. Patrick's Day. But this year, we ran out of time, so he left us a note that said "You forgot to set a trap so I made out like that. I really have a temper, you should've all known better. You still have a chance to catch me if you can. If you can trap me tonight, I'll leave some gold for you! Happy St. Patrick's Day!"
We don't do what most do to celebrate St. Patty's Day around here and that is drink, drink, drink. So instead, we eat, eat, eat! We made Shamrock pancakes, green eggs, green hashbrowns and had some green fruit for breakfast. My Mom always used to make green shamrock pancakes for breakfast, and I'm trying to carry on many of the fun traditions we did growing up as well.
In the afternoon, we went out to the mall to shop and play, and to Old Navy, where they were having a little fun St. Patrick's Day event going on. They had kid's coloring, gave out prizes and did a little game. The kids had a great time. And we got some shopping done, including this shirt for Cal there, they didn't really have any cute girl St. Patrick's shirts.
When we made it home we got busy making the lephrechaun trap. The kids had their own ideas of how to construct and decorate it. So, we got a tissue box and decorated it green and gold with a rainbow, which always attracts a leprechaun. Then, the kids cut out a piece of felt to cover the hole in the top of the tissue box so when the leprechaun stood on top of the box to look for the gold, he'd fall in the box and get stuck. Here are the kids painting and decorating.
We then carefully and strategically set up our trap and left it to see if we'd catch the Leprechaun. All day the kids were saying, "I think I hear the Leprechaun" and "Where do you think he is right now?" (: It's so much fun to play along with these things, I love it and will take it while I can!
We then made a traditional Irish dinner - steamed cabbaged, red garlic mashed potatoes, glazed corned beef, and Irish soda bread. We also used to have this (or some other festive meal) for St. Patrick's growing up. We also drank "shamrock juice".
Later that night, the Lephrecaun came and went, but left some gold for the kids! They were a little dissapointed they didn't catch him, but even more happy to get chocolate and they stuffed their pockets.
The neighbors also brought over some shamrock sugar cookies. Lucy enjoyed that!
We made some cupcakes as well to enjoy and to take to the neighbors. We funfetti rainbow cupcakes and turned them into pots of gold by using the leftover black frosting from Lucy's birthday and topping them with yellow fruity pebbles. Then we used green frosting and topped them with edible pearls for the other cupcakes.
We also had the St. Patrick's day preschool party over here. We read "St. Patrick's Day in the morning", did some Irish jiggs, did a science experiment with skittles, and made handprint shamrocks with pistachio pudding.
Creating! We did some other finger painting as well. And we had all kinds of green fruits and vegetables for snacks - cucumbers, broccoli, celery, kiwi, grapes, apples and pears. They looked at me and said "this is our snack?" So we went to plan B instead and ate rainbow gold fish and rainbow fruit snacks.
We did musical shamrocks, and the kids had fun playing that.
We did toss the coins into the leprechaun hat as well.
I think all of the kids had fun time and learned a thing or two as well. And isn't that what it's all about? Happy St. Patty's Day!
