Thursday, March 17, 2011

Make Your Saint Patricks Day a Magical Day to Remember

***Disclaimer****
Apologies in advance. The blog needs lots of work and I'm finally getting it updated, so be patient with it's lazy style and lack of organization. I'm working on it!
I'm going to use this space as a way to document and share the fun family traditions we have in my house.
I love making life magical for my cute kiddos and my neighbor kiddos and why not share in on the fun! Email me if you have any ideas you want to add!

So, let's start with today! How we make our St. Patrick's Day a day to 'dye' for!


The house is exploding in food dye! Seriously, this day alone is probably going to give my children food-color poisoning... or ADD or whatever else is linked with too much color!

Saint Patrick's Day is such a fun and amazing opportunity to create some mischief and magic in your kiddo's lives. Since the Holiday is kinda nonsensical in the States, we have some flexibility to not attach any serious meaning to any of it! I'll show you the ideas on how I make this one of the most look forwarded to days of our year!

For breakfast:



(Food aside, I highly recommend buying liquid food coloring which is a lot less messy and more versatile.)
http://www.amazon.com/8-Oz-Color-Splash-Liquid-Watercolor/dp/B000GPRO0I


Those tricky Leprechauns!They've been up to no good playing tricks on our house today! They dyed all of our toilet water green! (Here's a tip, if you're using generic food coloring, you'll need to add a few drops of yellow with your green to make sure it doesn't turn blue after sitting a while!)



My favorite part of this day is seeing how close we can get to those Leprechauns. We always make a trap out of something green (like frozen peas) string, blocks and whatever else my kiddos find, and put it on the porch.



I went to the craft store earlier this month and bought some hats that look like the ones below, only a lot tinier. When the trap gets set off, and we find no leprechaun but we're not disappointed! Instead we find a note in one of the mini hats. The note leads us on a treasure hunt.



And usually our treasure is in the oven, but today it was outside under our porch. The Leprechaun left us this, this year:


If you need some quick "Leprechaun Gold" do what I do, spray paint some rocks you find in the yard. Kids are no dummies, plastic coins won't cut it, but rocks 'feel' like real gold!




Of course, every clue should be accompanied by green glitter or green sprinkles you have in your cupboard!


***Barbie dolls and action figures make great tool for making footprints in the mud outside if your kids need some Leprechaun clues. If you don't have mud, mix some white glue green sprinkles and walk the doll across your counter or table. When it dries, it peels right off and won't stain like food dye would!


My Jack wants to be outside all day today looking for clues, and since I don't want to spend my entire day doing that, you can find some really fun online games for kids to play to keep them busy.

Here's a link to a variety of games and skill levels


or


Games and puzzle like Tic, Tac, Toe and Find the Leprechaun

This is a fun dress up game for girls, but the doll you dress starts in her undies so if you're not comfortable with that either skip or preview before your kids do it.


Dress Up Alice the Leprechaun



For dinner tonight we're doing this.
Another family fun recipe found
here.



We did these last year, but using paper plate bowls in an easy way to make Leprechaun hats: (Paint 'em black and doubles for pots of gold.)





The cupcakes I haven't tried yet, but I'm going for it tonight. Don't they look fun?
Recipe here

Here's a fun video to watch with your little kiddos if they want to see a Leprechaun.



Also, as a side note (Don't tell dad!) the Leprechaun is planning on playing a trick on dad when he gets home from work to take a shower. The floor of the shower is going to be covered in slimy pistachio pudding.


And here is the pic of that. It turned out so well! The neighbor kids have been over all day setting traps!

4 comments:

  1. Love it!! You are an awesome mom- how do you find the time and energy! I love the traps though- Berlyn was talking about the party yesterday, she had a blast!
    ....

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  2. How fun! I've gotten so lazy with the creative stuff as my kids have gotten older. I didn't know you had a blog. You are such a multi-talented woman!

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  3. I didn't know you had a blog, how fun! If only I was half as crafty as you are!

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