St Patrick's Day - Green Treats

St Patty's Day reminds me of green, so filling out a meal with green is a great way to turn anything into a festive meal. A few green options

• Green Grapes
• Green Apple Slices
• Green Salad
• Green Beans
• Broccoli
• Asparagus

Dessert is another great way to introduce green. It is easy to dye frosting green or green sugar crystals. You can also find shamrock chocolate molds and I am sure there are St Patrick's Day sprinkles around.

So gear up for a St Patrick's Day Irish Menu and add a few Green Treats to fill it out.

See the previous blog posts in this series: St Patrick's Day Leprechaun Mischief and St Patrick's Day Hunting Rainbows.

St Patrick's Day - Irish Menu

Creating a St Patrick's Day menu with my 4 year old in mind is quite the challenge. Obviously, Guiness is out. None of us are very fond of corned beef or cabbage so we will be passing on that.

A definite for the day will be the milk that the leprechauns turned green (see Leprechaun Mischief). Breakfast is also fairly easy with Lucky Charms cereal.

I am leaning towards grilled cheese and soup for lunch. I'll get some Irish cheese, make grilled cheese sandwiches and use a shamrock cookie cutter to make them shamrocks. My preschooler loves soup, so I may try making this potato bacon chowder.

Ideas I have for dinner are: Irish stew, pulled pork, shepherd's pie. I may even consider making spaghetti "snakes". St Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland, so I can tie in something my preschooler loves to St Patrick's Day. Of course she will gladly settle for fish and chips if I use fish sticks.

What are you planning to serve for St Patrick's Day?? Share your meal ideas here.

See the previous entries in this blog series: St Patrick's Day Leprechaun Mischief, and St Patrick's Day Hunting Rainbows. Stay tuned for the next blog post: St Patrick's Day - Green Treats.

St Patrick's Day - Hunting Rainbows

Everyone knows that leprechaun's leave a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. For St Patrick's Day, my 4 year old is going to be going on a rainbow hunt culminating in a pot of gold.

Since we are going to be searching for the end of the rainbow, we will have color clues for each color of the rainbow. For example, the first clue will be for something red - in our case a red sofa in the family room. Hidden under the sofa will be the second clue, for something orange. I have not finalized what the clues are yet. For orange, maybe carrots or oranges in the refrigerator. Each clue will be on a shamrock. The clues will be for Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, and the pot of gold.

For the pot of gold, I found yellow Easter grass at Target. The Easter grass will allow me to fill the pot with a prize and still have it look like a pot of gold.

See the previous post in this blog: St Patrick's Day - Leprechaun Mischief. The next post in this blog series is: St Patrick's Day - Irish Menu followed by St Patrick's Day - Green Treats.

St Patrick's Day - Leprechaun Mischief

St Patrick's day is fast approaching. This blog will be the first in a series of St Patrick's Day Activities over the next few days. Each year, in the wee hours of St Patrick's Day, the leprechauns visit our house to make mischief. My daughter loves finding the mischief they have made. My daughter usually wakes up after my husband heads to work, so we have started the tradition of the leprechauns returning the next night to set everything right so she can show it to Daddy & anyone else who stops by.

First and foremost, we have green milk. A few drops of green food coloring into the milk. I hope to have only part of a gallon so we can finish it in a day or so, but have been known to dye only one glass worth for my daughter.

Other ideas we have used or plan to use:

• Swap throw pillows between living room and family room
• Move chairs between dining room and kitchen
• Move place mats around the table
• Hang things upside down - pictures, things on the refrigerator
• Move refrigerator magnets to the front door or the washing machine
• Park cars on the opposite side of the garage, even swapping cars for the day
• Move the car seat to a different position in the car (still in a safe location)

When she was young, I marked each bit of mischief with a section of green streamers to make it easier for her to find. You could also leave a small treat at each location (a shamrock sticker, a piece of "gold"). For pieces of gold, you can use yellow M&Ms or jelly beans.

What type of Leprechaun mischief is done at your house?

See the subsequent entries in this blog series: St Patrick's Day - Hunting Rainbows, St Patrick's Day - Irish Menu, and St Patrick's Day Green Treats.

Yummy Day!

This has been a yummy day so far.

My sister used to live near an Original Pancake House and my parents have been wanting to go to one. There is one about 40 min from our house near a mall with a Disney Store, so we set off on a day trip this morning. If you have never been to an Original Pancake House, it is delicious and the portions are not huge. I highly recommend sharing the apple pancake (which takes up to 30 minutes). It is gooey, apply deliciousness. For children, the restaurant that we were at offers 3 free buttermilk pancakes or 5 dollar pancakes as free kids meals (limit 2 kids per paying adult). There were other kids meals that were in the $3-4 range. The kids meals did not include a beverage. Since my daughter likes pancakes, she opted for the silver dollar pancakes. My father and I split a western omelette which came with 3 pancakes. The omelette was huge (4 eggs) with generous ingredients. The omelette was fluffy, but with a crisp outside which I really enjoyed. The accompanying pancakes were good, but nothing special. The prices are a bit high for breakfast ($34 for 3 adults & 1 child), but you get a lot of food. Even with sharing the omelette my father and I each took some home as well as some of our pancakes. We also took home some of my daughter's pancakes, half of my mother's egg scramble, and about 1/3 of the apple pancake. If you are going to go, prepare to wait. We arrived at the location in Toledo, OH about 10a on a Saturday morning and were able to be seated at a table right away. However, when we left at 11a, the lobby was quite crowded with people waiting for a table.

After breakfast, we went to a mall with a Disney Store. My daughter loves Disney and we do not have a Disney Store in our local mall so this was a treat for her. She also got to explore a new mall play area. We stopped by Auntie Anne's for our free pretzels since it was free pretzel day. We had to wait in line for about 5 minutes for our pretzels. My daughter and I shared a cinnamon sugar and an original. This was her first taste of the cinnamon sugar pretzel (which I love) and she was hooked. Glad I have someone to share a cinnamon sugar pretzel with in the future.

After our pretzels, Grandma & Grandpa took her to Build-A-Bear Workshop to build a St Patrick's Day bear. She loved picking out the unstuffed bear and then helping to fill it by stepping on the foot paddle. Then she got to decide if it was stuffed right or whether it needed more or less stuffing. She also got to pick out a heart or in this case a shamrock to put in it. They do a whole routine with the heart where the kids rub it, kiss it, spin in a circle, and several other things all symbolizing different things. She did convince Grandma that the bear needed clothes, although we talked her out of shoes. After we fluffed the bear, we registered it online to generate the birth certificate. She got to name the bear herself, choosing the name Clovers. She loves the bear. She carried him through the mall herself and hugged it in the car while she slept. I tried to get her back to sleep when we got home without success. After laying in bed for awhile with me, she said she was done and got up, kissing Clovers and telling her she would see her tonight at bedtime.

We had a great day. I am still full from breakfast and the pretzels.