St. Patrick's Day 2012

As the Hubs is somewhere between 1/4 and 1/8 Irish on his mom's side, every year on March 17th, I try to throw together a few St. Patrick's Day activities. Due to our faith and convictions about many things, we choose not to focus very much on the leprechauns and magical elements of the day, but instead just focus on the fun green traditions and the history behind the holiday.

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To start things off, I served up bowls of Lucky Charms for breakfast complete with "Irish Milk" (milk dyed with a few drops of green food coloring.)

Next, we read St. Patrick's Day by Gail Gibbons, a very simplistic explanation of who St. Patrick was, why he is remembered and celebrated, and even some of the legends surrounding his life.

Then it was on to a simple craft. I cut up various shades of tissue paper and created St. Patrick's Day pictures with permanent marker on sheets of contact paper. I decided it might be easier for the youngest two to work on shamrocks while the older ones made rainbows.

After removing the white paper backing from the contact paper, I placed it sticky-side up on the table and secured it with a few pieces of tape.

The kids took pieces of tissue and pressed them onto their pictures.

Then I helped them press another piece of contact paper over top of their creation.

I cut around the border of each picture to remove the excess clear plastic. Our dining room window is now decorated with four colorful "stain glass" masterpieces.

After lunch, we headed downtown in our GREEN for the annual St. Patrick's Day parade.

Later, Sweetie Pea and Super Boy sat down with me to read St. Patrick's Day by Joyce K. Kessel. There were a few elements that challenged our faith, but it made for a nice discussion and an opportunity to talk about the Truth that we believe.

Tonight for dinner, we will be joined by a family friend to have Corned Beef and Cabbage, soda bread, and a yummy dessert of Grasshopper Mint Brownies. Although I pretty much stick to these two recipes every year, I slow cook the corned beef and cabbage for about 8 hours in my crockpot and I skip the chocolate glaze on the brownies and sprinkle chopped Andie's Mints on top for the Hubs who is a bit of an Ande's Mint-aholic.