Good ‘Green’ Fun for St. Patty’s Day!

March 13, 2012

written by Cathy Baker, mom of two amazing daughters, from Missouri

The thing I love about random holidays like St. Patrick’s Day is that it gives me an excuse to break from routine and add a little fun to our life!  Here are some of the ways we have celebrated St. Patrick’s Day around our house these past few years.

Leprechaun Traps – To catch those sneaky leprechauns!

We’ve built a couple of different styles. It’s fun to see their brains coming up with ideas! Here’s a couple of our traps, but you can easily do a google search for different ideas.

{source: Moments on the Journey}

Of course…we never seem to catch those allusive leprechauns, but we always find evidence that they’ve been around. They knock over the ladders on our trap, they leave green mm’s and green glitter and gold coins.

Oh, and a few tips – rumor has it that leprechauns like shiny things…so anything shiny will attract them to the ‘trap’ – and also – Leprechauns don’t like following rules – so if you put signs like ‘do not climb’ – they will want to climb in! And they also love rainbows, ‘cuz they are always searching for the pot of gold at the end of it!

Speaking of Leprechauns…

They also like to sneak around our house.  They pretty much leave a trail of green glitter and green mm’s everywhere… window sills, kitchen counters, and in the refrigerator. (psst – if you are lucky, they will leave the rest of the bag of mm’s – so you’ll just have to munch on them when the kiddos aren’t looking, so they don’t see the green ones missing!) I will warn you though…you will probably still find green glitter in your refrig in the summer…just smile, and remember all the fun you had when the leprechauns visited!  The leprechauns also like to turn random things green…like the milk, or the sour cream.  Oh, and they have even been known to use our bathroom while sneaking around (yes, my girls look to see if the toilet has green it each year!).

Lots of green food! Here are a few of the things we’ve enjoyed in the past. tip: make sure you have some green food coloring on hand.

For Breakfast, lucky charms with green milk (notice green mm’s and green glitter the leprechauns left).

For lunch – green yogurt (key lime or just color vanilla green), green peppers, cucumbers, ranch dressing colored green, green chips, green grapes, green apples, kiwi, green juice

For dinner – We’ve had spinach colored pasta with alfredo (green food coloring added), and broccoli. We’ve also had homemade chicken nuggets (use Italian seasoning – it has green flakes in it), green mashed potatoes, green beans.

For dessert – mint chocolate chip ice cream, key lime pie, pistachio pudding – or if you are feeling creative, there are lots of cute rainbow dessert ideas out there. Check out these ones…

Rainbow Cakes in a Jar (can also do cupcakes)

Layered Jello dessert

Or if you want to opt for a healthier choice for dessert, check out this cute fruit rainbow from Apartment Therapy. I’ve also seen this same idea with a pile of marshmallow clouds at the end of the rainbow too.

Last Year, I made an entire ‘mystery dinner’ – you can read all about it here. The menu says, Welcome to St. Patty’s Diner, where you will experience a four-course dining experience filled with mystery, silliness and giggles galore.The girls have begged me to do it again. It’s a bit of work. And when I do it again, I’ll shorten it to a 3 course meal – but it’s definitely worth the effort! Here are the ‘menus’ from our dinner .

Hope you have some good ‘green’ fun around your house this St. Patrick’s Day – and if you are lucky enough to catch a leprechaun – please do come back here and share how you did it!

 

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Category: Holidays
Tags: St. Patrick's Day Fun |