St. Patrick's Day

The weather outside was gloomy, but that didn't stop us from having a bright and fun St. Patrick's Day.  The excitement began when the kids woke up and saw a trail of four-leaf clovers starting in the hall outside their bedrooms heading into the dining room. 

Leah, especially, was excited.  (This is such a fun age!)  The kids found a stack of presents with a note from the leprechauns attached. 

"Leah and Aaron:  Sorry we can't let you have our
pot of gold but we have left some treasures for you.
  Happy St. Patrick's Day, The Leprechauns."

The leprechauns left them each a package of Star Wars Angry Birds mini figures and then to share, a strategy game called Blokus and It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown DVD. 

After church & Leah's CCD class, we came home and had an indoor picnic and watched the DVD.  I don't know if you've ever seen the Easter Beagle or if you have, it's been so long you don't remember it, but one of the subplots is Peppermint Patty trying to teach Marcy how to dye Easter eggs.  In a case of poor judgement, Peppermint Patty delegates the task of boiling the eggs to Marcy, only she doesn't tell Marcy to boil the eggs; she just tells Marcy to cook the eggs.  As you might imagine, hilarity ensues and Aaron just thought this was the funniest thing he's every seen.  He laughed so hard every time Marcy would cook the eggs (frying, baking, putting them in a waffle iron, etc.) and Peppermint Patty's increasingly frustrated reaction.  He was almost crying he was laughing so hard.  He did cry for real when he lost at Blokus. 

I bought Blokus at the recommendation of a friend--I had never even heard of it before.  It is an easy game to learn and even Aaron could play.  Leah did really well for her first time playing but after Aaron burst out in tears, we decided to switch from a strategy game to more of a luck game and we played two rousing games of Uno.  Aaron didn't win those either but getting down to "uno" was good enough for him

I can assure you there was no corned beef and cabbage for dinner in this house.  In the past I've tried green eggs and bacon (the kids don't eat eggs) and pesto pasta (not well received).  So tonight I made "shamcakes," green shamrock-shaped pancakes.  Well, at least I tried to make them shamrock-shaped.

The batter must have been too thick for the pancake pen because I had a difficult time getting it to flow out of it.  After a few tries I just went back to good old circles.  The batter was plenty green when I poured them on the griddle but after they cooked they became brown with green edges.  I was a little disappointed that my great idea didn't come out as planned, but it didn't stop Leah from eating four pancakes (plus turkey bacon, applesauce and a piece of cheese).

Leah gives "shamcakes" a thumbs-up.

No green BEvERages or Irish music as I might have celebrated BK--Before Kids--but I still had fun.  Maybe I'll just put on a little U2 before I go to bed tonight....