What a great St. Patrick's Day it's been this year!
The night before the big day, the kids made their leprechaun traps, a tradition in our family. Emma made a really cute one with a trap door, a gold glitter ladder, and a pipe cleaner rainbow on top. Cal made a rainbow Lego one, and was hoping the leprechaun would try to get in and not be able to get out. Lucy used an oatmeal container and decorated it with green tissue paper, glitter glue and a rainbow and shamrock picture she colored. She cut a hole in the oatmeal lid and covered it to look solid and then placed a gold coin on top. She used a hot wheels track for a ramp. Cov wanted to make a "Pool party". He was very specific on what he wanted. He used the St. Patrick's day ducks we have and put them in some water (along with a little toy jet ski), and used the Marble Works chutes as a water slide and put in a box to hold it up. He even got a green little washcloth for a towel for the leprechaun. The signs said " " and " ". He got really into it and loved talking about what was going to happen. The thought was it would go down the water slide and not be able to get out. I love seeing their creativity!
We woke up to several inches of new white, not green. So everything is still white, though we're thrilled with the "warm" temperatures (it's amazing how warm 35-40 degrees feels here). The kids checked out the traps that had been tampered with, and though no leprechaun, they were excited to get some mint chocolate truffle candies. For breakfast, we had "hulk" Spinach muffins. The kids mostly liked them. We've been on a healthier eating kick lately and have been trying to get more fruits and veggies in, though we do pretty well, there's always room for improvement!
The kids played all day, made some "nests" out of blankets and pillows to play in and read some St. Patrick's day books. I went to my boot camp fitness class, where we had fun doing an Irish inspired workout with celtic rock music, good times! We did Saturday chores and made some green velvet cupcakes.
Then I had a St. Patrick's Day concert with the Prairie Symphonette - "a call to celebrate our vintage Irish heritage". We played some great stuff - from Leroy Anderson's Irish Suite, a fun arrangement of "A Wonderful World", some Scottish and other Brittish Isles music and Riverdance, too. Such a great group and always a good time. I got a bad migraine during the rehearsal right before, but luckily it went away mostly during the concert after I took something for it. The kids thought it was SO long, and they said they liked the songs but didn't like sitting. They did like dancing along to the music, especially the one they renamed "the fastest leprechaun". Overall, they did pretty good when I looked over anyways. And I enjoyed playing my piccolo and flute with the orchestra. Afterwards we had goodies and drinks and visited in the lunch room. Fun to talk to neighbors and friends and fellow orchestra members.
We went home and Dave and I tag teamed to get dinner ready the rest of the way, and the kids went out and built a St. Patrick's day snowman. It was pretty cute! They put a green beard on it and also said they had to trim his armpit and nose hair, haha! I love that it's warm enough again for them to actually go outside. For our dinner, we had orange glazed corned beef and cabbage, red mashed potatoes, green jello and Irish soda bread. Then the other cupcakes for dessert. It was all good!
We ended the night with a rainbow scavenger hunt around the house. The girls got some nail stickers at the end and the boys got some froggy flingers. They were quite happy and it was a good day. I was thinking about extended family and the way my family celebrated growing up and the upbringing I got. I was thinking of my ancestors. I was thinking about how I'm not just lucky, I'm blessed.
Cov and I did a St. Patrick's Day theme for Mommy preschool and I was looking up some things about St. Patrick, and found this thought by the man himself that I loved:
“Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.”
―
St. Patrick
This fit right in with a focus we had last Sunday to always remember Christ. My little (and one big) cuties and Christ are the pots of gold at the end of my rainbow!
