St. Patrick's Day

This year we had quite an eventful St. Patrick's Day week... A couple of days before, we invited over Skyler's friend Megan & had a little "St. Patrick's Day Party". I'm not a big party-thrower, but the idea kind-of came to me one day as we were driving in the car, so I decided to go with it! Skyler & Megan both had a blast & Skyler was SO excited to be inviting someone over to HIS party...

First we played a "Hide the Shamrock" Game & then they ate a GREEN little lunch.

(Skyler LOVED helping me figure these out!)

I was impressed how many green foods we could come up with that weren't veggies!

Then, after the kids played for awhile, we went outside & followed some mysterious green Leprechaun footprints that led into our shed, where the kids were delighted to find a stash of green cookies that the Leprechaun had hidden! Our little "party" was pretty simple, but pretty fun! Maybe we'll even attempt to do one again NEXT year!

And THEN, we went to "Storytime" at the Library the day before St. Patrick's Day, where they of course talked all about Leprechauns... Specifically how to catch Leprechauns & about how tricky they are. So, of course, Skyler was anxious to set up our OWN Leprechaun trap that night, hoping to catch a Leprechaun & ask him where his gold was buried. Skyler wasn't sure that we had the right trap-building materials like in the Library book story, but Laron & him came up with this...

I was anxious all night for Skyler to wake up, after having learned all about Leprechauns the day before & how they make big messes & try and trick you out of telling you where their gold is... And so, after some quick last minute work, Skyler woke up to this:

He came into our room bright & early, with his shoulders hunched & his head hanging down, saying rather disappointedly, "Mom, I thought I caught the Leprechaun, but I didn't", he said with a shake of his head. But then his face brightened up with a mixture between horror & excitement, "But that Leprechaun made a terrible, horrible, super-duper mess in my room!" Of course, Laron & I expressed our amazement & condolences.

Then Skyler looked around OUR room & noticed clothes laying all around on the floor by Laron's side of the bed... "Dad!" Skyler exclaimed, "The Leprechaun made a mess in YOUR room too!" Then Laron had to explain that HE actually had made that mess, not the Leprechaun. Skyler got a funny expression on his face & said, "Dad, then YOU'RE kind-of like a Leprechaun!"

After Kimberly woke up, they both took a closer look at the mess the Leprechaun left behind...Kimberly was VERY worried about her diapers that were scattered all over...

Then Skyler noticed the note that the Leprechaun had left him under his "trap." After that he was determined to find where the Leprechaun had hidden his gold (especially after he realized that the Leprechaun had taken his money that we'd left as bait under the trap!).  So he went searching all over his room, and finally found a bag of GOLD candy hidden in one of his drawers... Boy was he excited! "Ha Ha!," he said, "I tricked him! I found his gold!"

And then, in the fridge that morning, we found a fun green pudding treat left for us from the Leprechaun. Skyler was in shock... "Maybe Leprechauns aren't mean," he said, "Maybe they're nice... I thought they were mean!" I was glad I had taken the time the night before to do this one last finishing touch, because I think Skyler was starting to get a little worried about what kind of terrible creature a Leprechaun must be (or the "Leopard" as he sometimes called it).

And then, once I thought the St. Patrick's Day fun was over, Skyler found a bag of GOLD screws under his bed, so he spent the rest of the morning looking all over the house for any more gold-treasures that the Leprechaun might have left behind... I think Skyler was almost MORE excited about finding the screws then the candy as he exclaimed, "Oh yeah! Now I can build stuff with Dad!" He was a little disappointed when I explained to him that they were actually screws to put together the diaper-changing table under his bed & that the Leprechaun must have just thought they were gold-treasure on accident.

So, all in all, we had a pretty eventful St. Patrick's Day. The day was full of questions from an inquisitive & excited Skyler all about Leprechauns. By 11:00, Laron commented to me, "We're going to be talking about Leprechauns ALL day long, aren't we?!" I just gave him a grin as I thought to myself how much funner kids make the holidays. I've tried to cook green food or something for Laron in the past on St. Patrick's Day (if I remember), but nothing could compare to the "St. Patrick's Day Party" & Leprechaun-catching fun we've had this week with Skyler!