Happy (Late) St. Patrick's Day!
Growing up in the east there are a lot of people with Irish roots
(myself included) so St. Patty's day as we call it is a big holiday.
Most people get "soused" on some good Guiness along with
making traditional Irish dinners, wearing green and playing
tricks on each other that they blame on those naughty leprechauns!
When I was little in Elementary School our teachers would
always make up these little mischevious schemes like having
little leprechaun footprints all over the classroom, which led to
the blaming of missing belongings and a messed up room.
One teacher even went so far as to make us believe that there was
a leprechaun actually living inside the classroom walls!!!
.
She had some music rigged to play in the wall and everything!
I remember thinking that it was all so magical so I try to make it
a fun holiday for my kids every year with some traditional
and non-traditional fun!
This year we didn't get to do as much as I had wanted. The cake
that I tried to make was too dry (I overfilled the cake pans) so it
wasn't going to hold up for frosting to make the rainbow. I had
also planned on making some shamrock cookies I just got too tired!
.
Here's what we did do! (we of course wore green!)
.
I treated Brady and my two cousins, Megan and Josh who were
visiting to a GREEN eggs and ham breakfast with a side of
green juice (food-colored orange juice!)
.
Josh (who is 18) even thought that it was quite good although
he did ask if it was edible when I slid it infront of him!
(yeah, the eggs do look a bit sketchy! Next year I'll do scrambled!)
.
Brady LOVES to rip/cut paper and paste so I thought that this
next activity would be PERFECT for him...however, as things
often go, he was completely bored with this and only finished
a little section (hence there is no picture from Brady!)
Megan did a GREAT job on her rainbow art and LOVED it!
She even got extra creative and made a pot of gold!
We had a fun treasure hunt later. I made up some clues and
hid gold coins all over the apartment complex for the kids to find!
They caught onto the clues much faster than I thought and had
so much fun that we had to re-hide the coins two more times
for them to continue to game!
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For dinner I made Corned Beef and Cabbage with boiled potatoes
and carrots. This is your basic Irish traditional meal and I like it
but I don't think the corned beef is as good as it would be over
in Ireland. It's quite rubbery and I think next year I'll try either
Mulligan or Lamb Stew. I also have a friend Nels who served his
mission in Ireland so I'll ask him about some traditional meals.
.
I also made some Irish Soda Bread with golden raisins,
called "spotted dog" or "spotted dick" interestingly enough!
I liked the addition of raisins but thought that some craisins
and almonds might be good too, although not traditional.
Also, this bread is very plain and I thought it would be much
tastier with some cinnamon mixed into the batter.
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