Super Fun St. Patrick’s Day 2010

Okay, so I’m kind-of known in my family for taking millions of pictures, but unfortunately, it’s been brought to my attention (again) that people rarely get to see any of those pictures.  Somehow, even though being a stay-at-home mom with no kids in school shouldn’t be very time consuming, I’m ALWAYS, EXTREEMLY busy.  And blogging has been, unfortunately again, lower on my priority list.  But it is important to me, and I do REALLY want to do something with all these millions of pictures I take.  Pictures to me, really is how I journal.  Events and activities anyway.  I do keep a journal as well, and I put other thoughts and feelings down in there.  But pictures is how I chronicle (is that how I’d say that?) my and my families' lives.  I’m going to try to better, but I’m just going to start with these.  They were what were up on my photo filter on my desktop when I was reminded that my family don’t get to see any of the pictures I take.  And since it was such a fun day for us, and I took the pictures really looking forward to sharing them, I thought it was a good place to start.

I’ve been blogging officially for over a year now (I can’t believe it!).  A few posts ago, I pointed you to last years’ ‘Super Fun St. Patricks Day,’ and I thought it would be fun to show you this years.  If you know me and/or keep up with my blog at all, you’ll know that I love holidays.  I love doing a bunch of activities focused on a theme of any kind really…. (I’m going to be a great preschool teacher some day. :)  )  As I’ve said before, I love the opportunity they give for teaching and learning, and doing some fun and special things with my kids, and making memories.

I want you to know also, that I don’t post these pictures to get a hundred ‘good mom points’ and comments about how awesome I am.  I post (this post in particular, and also all posts) for a couple reasons…. 1) To share my ideas with anyone who can use them in hopes of letting you have a little more fun with your family, 2) just to share with my family, far away friends, and close-by friends some snippits of our lives, and 3) to journal/record/scrapbook some of some of our day(s).

With (all) that said… here we go with our Super Fun St. Patrick’s Day 2010!!

For first breakfast: the leprechaun turned our milk green, and left us a box of Lucky Charms!  A special treat because we usually don’t get sugary cereal like this.  Note: I really am a very health-conscious person… I try really hard to eat and serve healthy foods every day.  But I also do special things at times, especially on special days.  So… I’m sure we ingested more than our fair share of green food coloring this day… sorry if that disgusts anyone… lol… we had fun doing it though.  :)  

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next, we made green jello, so it could be ready for a snack later.

      Snack:

 

We didn’t get to this last year, and I missed it, so I made sure we did it this year.  For second breakfast.  :)  (Don’t worry… my kids definitely eat enough for two breakfasts… and they were a couple hours apart…)

 

 

Amazingly, the kids scarffed them!  I didn’t think they would, but they loved them!  Score!  That was a really fun activity… getting to watch the food coloring change the eggs color.  And any time I can bring reading and books into activities, I’m in heaven.  I love connecting literacy to life.  Its the teacher in me I guess.  Readers are smart kids.  Smart kids struggle less in school and life.  Who wouldn’t want that for their kids?  I want, more than most anything, to raise readers.  Readers and artists.  (That’s a soapbox for another day. :) )

 

So… Moving on, (and yes, most of our activities centered around food… most of our day centers around food actually… I swear these kids eat more than I do…)  Anyone who knows my kids knows they’re ALWAYS hungry.

So next is lunch: clover shaped sandwiches with green mayo, & kiwis.  Yumm-o!

Then we did an art activity… mixed green glitter in glue and painted a shamrock with it.  After they dried and we cut them out, they turned out so pretty!

Next, more food coloring!  Green cream cheese bagles with green sprinkles!  Huge hit, of course.  What couldn’t be with sprinkles involved?!

A CD I picked up at a thrift store a month ago, that we listened to… literacy, art, and now music into the picture!!  I can just see my kids’ brains enlarging!!  :)

Another activity – coloring a picture and filling the ‘pot’ with gold.  Great fine-motor!  (Yes, I am a teacher… what can I say?)

And, after a day-o-fun, we finished it off with a delicious green dinner, complete with green shamrock napkin rings!  The menu: Green Chili’s Casserole (remind me to post that recipe sometime… Delish!), Green beans, green salad & green jello.  Want to be even more impressed (I know I said I wasn’t posting this to impress anyone, but this part is definitely impressive…)?  I didn’t PLAN any of this until the night before.  All the food I already had!  Yay me!  (It probably would have been better to have planned before, but that’s besides the point.  That’s with the exception of the Lucky Charms and green jello, which are not staples in our home, and I’d bought the week before  in anticipation.  But everything else, for all the other meals and snacks, I had on hand.  Lucky me!!  (Since I DIDN’T plan ahead of time…)  I got creative.  You’d never have known' I came up with it all as I went though huh!

And, finally, for dessert, one last treat/activity.  Making a pot of gold snack mix (darn!  I just thought about these little black pots I have for putting salsa and guacamole in that would have been perfect to put this snack in!  I’ll have to remember that for next year!)  Anyway… Lucky charms, pops for the ‘gold nuggets’ and green m&m’s (which were left-over from Christmas m&ms… resourceful!

 

Yeah… I’m a little chincy on the candy… there are a couple down there though… see them?

And finally… two happy children and a fantastic day.

I know it’s April now, but Happy St. Patty’s Day Everyone!