St. Patrick's Day

Last Sunday we were all Green!

Green for St. Patrick's Day that is...okay and we just wore green.

St. Patrick's Day hasn't been a big holiday to us traditionally since we are both of Welch decent and honestly not aware of any Irish in our blood. We also don't drink so that means we don't get into that part of the holiday. So we have thought of ways of making it a fun family holiday. Last year I found a great kids book called The Leprechaun Trap. It is all about how a leprechaun comes to visit a family for awhile before St. Patrick's Day.  He is full of mischief and every night he makes some sort of mess/trouble for the family. Each night the kids set a Leprechaun Trap to try and keep him from making mischief and because they know that if they can catch him, they will get his pot of gold. 

The next day after we read the book our own leprechaun named Shamus Reilly. No he comes back to cause mischief for us each year for the week before St. Patrick's Day. He causes the same kind of mischief like spilling boxes of Crayons and dumping out folded baskets of clean laundry on the floor. Ava really gets into the idea of trapping him and came up with some good ones like putting him in the refrigerator and then stacking all sorts of stuff in front (I wish I would have gotten a picture of it...still getting use to this blogging thing). When Shamus got out this is what he did. 

We also found him like this one morning.

The girls love it so much and Ava is getting super clever. On the night before St. Patrick's Day we went out to dinner with some friends (see next post about our fun time). The girls fell asleep in the car on the way home and when Tyson went to put Ava to bed he found Shamus tucked into her pillow case.  I guess she figured she would catch him escaping. We didn't know where he had disappeared to so... Whew! good thing dad noticed a lump...if you know what I mean (wink wink). He was gone for good on St. Patrick's Day morning and I guess we won't see him until next year.

Ava was disappointed she didn't get his "real" gold but the girls have fun finding golden chocolate coins around the house and they each found a little pot with some chocolate coins as well.

We started our morning out right with chocolate and some Lucky Charms before church (okay Claire had Reese's Puffs because she couldn't understand why we were having Lucky Charms). We made sure to incorporate some green in our outfits to avoid any pinching. When we got home the girls played beauty parlor while we made dinner and I let Ava paint Claire's finger nails and toe nails. Claire was so cute showing them off and Ava was so proud of herself.  She is growing up too quick!

 We have decided that each year we will do something different for dinner, either Irish themed or green. This year we had corned beef. I could hardly believe when Tyson suggested it because he vowed he would never eat it again after an overload of it on his mission.  I guess 16 years is long enough to wait (wow...16 years...he is old...j/k). We had red potatoes, carrots, rolls and a store bought rainbow Jello thing (not nearly as good as home made). Oh and to wash it down we had Apple Beer...yum.  It was good and Ava loved the corned beef.

Claire dazzled us with some dinner entertainment.

She learned the song in her nursery class and has been singing it for weeks.  We love to hear it and request shows over and over again.
Overall St. Patrick's Day was fun even though we aren't Irish or Catholic.