A Shamrockin' St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day! 

This is a holiday that, I think, is less frequently celebrated when you are a parent to young children. St. Patrick's Day pre-kids consisted of lots and lots of drinking. Now, the only green beverage we've been gulping in this house is milk! (And it was dyed that way, not rotten or anything). But, I love any excuse to celebrate and do fun things with my kids; and when our van started to make some worrying noises I knew I was going to be spending the day inside with the kids while Mr. Bee took it to his cousin's.

Our St. Patrick's festivities started last night after the kids went to sleep. After the kids were soundly asleep I made a leprechaun made and delivered mini green cupcakes! That same leprechaun also hid some St. Patrick's Day gold around our house with a special pot of gold to be found at the very end. Imagine The Toddler Bees' surprise when they woke up this morning!





After the excitement of a treasure hunt we were able to sit down to a delicious pancake breakfast. But not just any pancakes! We had shamrock shaped pancakes! I attempted a leprechaun hat, too, but it didn't quite turn out. And the batter was dyed green but it was hard to tell when they are cooked. But, hey, a pancake is a pancake and I'm not one to turn down buttery-syrupy-cakey goodness.




Once breakfast was over I pulled out a game of St. Patrick's Lucky Bingo. Bingo is very popular with Toddler Bee and he managed to beat me 5 times (I only won twice!). We used the Leprechaun gold from our hunt as markers for our game so we could play multiple times.

Green coins were found at our dollar store. 

Next came snack time:

Carrot stick beard, raisin eyes, cucumber and celery hat, and an apple slice smile

Shamrocks out of cucumber and a leprechaun man! So my leprechaun is a little beady-eyed and broad-mouthed...we can't all be super models.

We even made some special green dessert for after dinner! It's Oreo cookie crumbs on the bottom, vanilla pudding dyed green, topped with whipped cream, and a mini-cupcake. (Mr. Bee is not a fan of whipped cream, the crazy man.)

Even our lunch today was green! I added green food colouring to a pot of water and made pasta. At first I tried using my neon green dye but that didn't seem to be making any colour changes. So, I went with a darker green (about three/four drops) and it turned out perfectly! We had skewers of pickles and cucumbers, too, and a cold glass of green milk.

We played a few more rounds of Lucky Bingo before Mr. Bee was able to make it home (with a repaired vehicle, I might add). I was even a nice wife and made our roast dinner since I knew Mr. Bee wouldn't be home in time to do it.

It was a great St. Patrick's Day and even though The Toddler Bees didn't really know what was going on it was a fun way to break up the monotony of winter and a great excuse to have fun with the kids!