Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Today, we celebrated with a fruit rainbow served with whipped cream clouds and real Irish soda bread. None of that raisin and caraway stuff here! According to the Society for the Preservation of Irish Soda Bread, once you put raisins in it, it ceases to be soda bread and becomes tea cake. My kids love the real stuff.

My only complaint is that I find it hard to get a good, deep cross in it. Oh well, I guess I just have to try, try again. (My kids are cheering for joy. This is good soda bread!)

Just a quick reminder… if you want to order something from my Etsy shop, you have until Friday to do so. I'm closing up shop on Saturday, March 21st for a few weeks in order to give everything a chance to arrive before Easter and to prepare for Holy Week with my family. Thanks for understanding!

Happy St. Paddy's Day!

The other day, Cupcake saw her very first rainbow in the sky! She's always loved rainbows thanks to Rachel Coleman and the colors of the rainbow song. In fact, for a while, I thought her first birthday was going to be a rainbow themed birthday.

I know that rainbows don't really have anything to do with St. Patrick, but since the rainbow is linked to leprechauns and Irish folklore, I decided that we would have a Rainbow Day. (Next year, we'll cover the theological symbolism of the shamrock, I promise!)

I found this tutorial about making a cute little cloud and rainbow softie and whipped one up yesterday.
Not your typical Roy G. Biv rainbow… we go with Rachel's version for the littles because it fits with the song: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Purple and Blue. If you've ever heard Rachel talk about why her song is out of order, you know that she says, "If you can think of a rhyme for 'purple', you can have my job!"

Miss Cupcake has also reached that age where she needs some "busy work". Since our weather is so unpredictable, I can't always rely on her getting outside to play everyday. I've seen ideas for toddler busy bags and similar things and if you have any suggestions, please send them my way. The first one that seemed super easy to do was the idea of a fabric scrap box. Many ideas said just cut scraps of fabric and put them in a old wet wipe box. I decided to make it a rainbow box.

Simple scraps of fabric cut with pinking shears.

I'm thinking we might paint some rainbows later and make some sticker rainbows. We are also planning on Potato Soup for dinner with Irish Soda Bread and a Rainbow Fruit salad. The big kids are going to watch this documentary, St. Patrick: Apostle of Ireland,  on Amazon. (I've previewed it and while it could be better, it's not that bad, once you get past the weird St. Patrick's Day Parade featured in the first few minutes.)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Soda bread on the counter, colcannon in the pot, St. Patricks on the table and that's about all I've got.

Nobody is sick, but our allergies are making little things like, oh...gee... breathing kind of miserable right now. But we did enjoy the nice weather enough to get some things cleaned up in the yard (well, Sean and The Professor did) and to get the grill fired up for the first time this season! So, no corned beef here, our cabbage is mixed into our potatoes and our dessert was picked out by the 15 year old man child who guessed correctly in the family pool that it would take 5 ballots to elect the new pope. We should take that child to the racetrack.

Oh, and if you haven't yet had the joy of your children dancing around singing "Give me a beer!" then you must show them this immediately. (Feed readers might have to click through.) So that mine aren't the only ones. (Yes, we think this is funny even though Sean is allergic to beer and I don't like it.)

Happy Feast of St. Patrick!!!

St. Patrick's Day

Irish Beef Stew

Oh, Paddy, dear, an' did ye hear the news that's goin' round?

The shamrock is forbid by law to grow on Irish ground!

Green eyes? Maybe?

No more St. Patrick's Day we'll keep, his colour can't be seen,

For there's a cruel law agin' the Wearin' o' the green.

Pistachio Cake

When law can stop the blades of grass from growin' as they grow,

An' when the leaves in summer time their color dare not show,

 Then I will change the color, too, I wear in my caubeen;

But till that day, plaise God, I'll stick to the Wearin' o' the Green.

Colcannon Irish Potatoes

Happy Feast of St. Patrick, everyone!

Just for fun, check out this little ditty.

If you let your kids watch this, you might or might not hear them singing later, "Give me a beer!" I'm just sayin.

St. Patrick's Day

~the K.I.S.S. version! (Keep It Simple, Sweetie!)

After a morning trip to the dentist for 5 out of 6 of us and an afternoon filled with sinus headaches for most of us and fatigue for the pregnant mommy, our St. Patrick's Day festivities were significantly simple. Some potato leek soup...

...and soda bread was a welcome sight on the menu (easy on the mommy and easy on the teeth!)

(I love the beautiful cross that formed on top!)

...followed by a scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream (hey, it's green!)

...topped with Shamrock Shortbread cookies I found at a local grocery store a few weeks ago and had stashed in my pantry.
(The kids thought I had made them so BigBoy wondered why they had chest hair.)

I call it a day! Happy Feast of St. Patrick to you!

May the love and protection St. Patrick can give,

Be yours in abundance as long as you live!

Letter of St. Paul to the Leprechauns

It's Larry D. having a lot of fun on St. Paddy's Day (either that or he hit the Guiness extra early this morning)!

St. Patrick, pray for us!


HT: Red

Got Your Irish Up?

In a good way, of course!

We've got some friends to visit tomorrow and a Saint to honor. And if you are looking for a healthy treat, my Irish Veggie Flag is a favorite around here.

 Here is an online flag to color or print off and this St. Patrick coloring page is the nicest one I think I've seen. It's was drawn by Andrea Helen Smith and is available from Catholic Heritage Curricula here along with some others. (Scroll down to Coloring Pages and Activities.)

Our days are warmer but still have a lovely little nip in the air. Hope you have a blessed St. Patrick's Day!  

May the Strength of God pilot us.
May the Power of God preserve us.
May the Wisdom of God instruct us.
May the Hand of God protect us.
May the Way of God direct us.
May the Shield of God defend us.
May the Host of God guard us.
Against the snares of the evil ones.
Against temptations of the world

May Christ be with us!
May Christ be before us!
May Christ be in us,
Christ be over all!
May Thy Salvation, Lord,
Always be ours,
This day, O Lord, and evermore. Amen.

St. Patrick, pray for us!