St. Patrick's Day 2011

What's St. Patrick's Day without some Irish inspired food. These were made for Morgan's class.

This is a big chocolate chip cookie that was made for the neighbor who cleared out our driveway last weekend after the snow storm.

Irish Soda Bread-YUM! :-)

Of course we had to do a few crafts too!

The kids' uncle sent them candy bars so they used the wrappers to make pots of gold...

...as seen on the Frugal Family Fun blog.

We also melted down some styrofoam cups....

...painted them....

...and made some mini leprechaun hats.

We also saw fingerprint shamrocks on Frugal Family Fun blog and each made one of those as well.

We also attended a parade in the neighboring town. They had Irish names on all the lamp posts and this one happens to be a family name :-)

These girls are walking in the parade for a place that I actually used to work for :-)

The kiddos waiting for candy (which wasn't allowed to be thrown for the kids' safety???) They enjoyed it anyway :-)

Some very festive dogs riding in a remote control cart-cute! :-)

On St. Patrick's Day the kids woke up to a fun little task. They used some special binoculars...

....to look for clues....

....that we pieced together (using the numbers on the backs)...

...so we could go to the mudroom...

...and find this little guy with his pot of gold! Sneaky little guy anyway!

Then the kiddos got dressed in green (to keep from being pinched throughout the day) and posed for a picture with their new little friend.

I don't know how much I've heard about what St. Patrick's Day is really about. I'm sure I've heard bits and pieces before, but never really remembered any of it. Anyway, I got an e-mail from Focus on the Family with a little history that I thought was really interesting. Go HERE to read it. (It will only take a minute if you're interested.) It seems strange that something so good was turned it into something totally different....maybe next year we can find some way to celebrate the real reason for St. Patrick's Day!