The Luck of the Irish

I may have a lack of enthusiasm for Valentine's Day, but I just love St. Patrick's Day!! It's just fun. My hubby and kiddies are all Irish so it's kind of a day we can celebrate some kind of heritage thing and claim it as our holiday! Kinda silly, but I'll take it! I've wanted to make St. Patrick's Day extra fun for a few years....last year we went to Disneyland and all....so that did it. But this year we really needed some fun around here to cheer up some heavy hearts, so I decided to bring in some leprechauns to spread around some fun for the week leading up to St. Paddy's itself!

The first day the leprechauns were pretty awesome and left us Lucky Charms, which we never have, already in the kids' bowls, and spread all over. They kind of made a mess! They also dyed the milk green! The kids thought the leprechauns were pretty cool though, even if some of them did not want to drink the green milk!

The next morning was Sunday and everything around the house seemed just fine. We got ready for church and jumped in the car to find that the pesky leprechauns had been messing around in there. They had even stepped it up a bit and gone a bit crazy. They had turned over the booster seats, buckled all the seat belts, left the radio turned up really, really loud, and even left little footprints all across the windshield.

When Ben used the windshield wipers to clean off the footprints, they made a rainbow across the windshield! It was pretty cool!
Day 3 was an attack on the bathrooms! The loony leprechauns tp'd the bathroom, filled the bathtub with ballons, wrote on the mirror with toothpaste, and even used the toilet....leaving footprints on the seat and the water green! Alexis came running in our room in the morning and yelled, "The leprechauns got green toothpaste on our brush teeths (toothbrushes)!" I guess she thought that was the craziest thing!

The next day those naughty leprechauns really went wild! They opened all of the cabinets in the kitchen (Ben's total pet peeve), left balloons and footprints in the kitchen sink, dyed the milk(again!) and the cream cheese green, and we even had tears when we found out the Lucky Charms they left had no marshmallows! Someone was soooooo upset!!

The tears didn't last long because we soon found all of the marshmallows in the ice dispenser! Silly leprechauns!!
The leprechauns were downright mean on Wednesday morning! They had attacked the kids' rooms while they slept and strung green string all over the rooms, left all the dresser drawers wide open, left balloons all over the rooms, tied green string in the girls' hair, painted orange beards on the boys' faces, and painted everyone's fingernails green!! One of my kids was super mad at those stinkin' leprechauns. Can you tell who?
It was definitely not Kade! He loved it!! He insisted on wearing both the beard and the fingernail polish to school. Silly boy!
Those preposterous leprechauns wreaked havoc on our living room on Thursday! They spread green confetti and streamers all over the room, pulled all the pillows and couch cushions onto the floor, turned over furniture, and put all of our pictures face down except for one.....
....our family picture....which they scribbled silly faces all over!!
By this time the kids were pretty darn peeved with the leprechauns so they decided to set a trap so we could stop them! They made a trap and filled it with chocolate gold coins and left a trail of coins leading to it. We all know leprechauns love gold coins!!
Just in case the leprechauns weren't sure it was for them, Nick wrote them a note that said, "This is for you lepre chan. From, the Jordans." Isn't that too cute?!
The next morning the trap had a leprechaun in it, but not the kind we were expecting! It was just a little plastic leprechaun. The gold coins were all gone out of the trap and led all the way downstairs to where the kids found a giant pile of their shoes! Those annoying leprechauns had stolen all of their shoes! But instead of taking them with them out the window (where the gold trail led), they had actually left them with some St. Patrick's Day goodies...lip balm, hair glitter, and even some of the chocolate gold coins in their shoes. Maybe those leprechauns are nicer than we thought!
Apparently the leprechauns weren't done yet! On St. Patrick's Day Ben and I woke up super early to elephants (I swear) running around our house, up and down the stairs, and into every room looking for gold on the treasure hunt the leprechauns had left for them! They eventually found the pot of gold, not at the end of the rainbow, but in the fridge!! Since maybe I was in on a few of the leprechaun tricks (someone had to let them in, right?) I left the kiddos a box of Lucky Charms and a note that said, "I am 'cereal-sy' LUCKY to be your mom!" Which, of course, is totally true!!
The rest of the day was crazy busy with Kade's birthday party (still to come), and 3 soccer games! For dinner we always, always have corned beef and cabbage which has to be my least favorite meal ever! But, I make it once a year to appease the Irishmen in my family (mainly Ben & Skylar) that love it! This year I ran out of time to make Irish soda bread, the only redeeming part of the meal, so instead we made a rainbow of fruit. Then I had a brilliant idea that we order green curry take-out from our favorite Thai restaurant because heck, it stayed with the theme of green, and I knew I'd eat it and enjoy (LOVE) it. So we added some green curry, white rice (Kade's favorite) and noodles (Nick's favorite) to the menu and everyone was happy to eat our St. Patrick's Day dinner! It was so good that we've decided it is a new tradition for us to have "Thairish" food every St. Paddy's Day!!

I'm so darn lucky to have my wee Irish lads and lassies to have so much fun with.....in fact, I'm not really lucky at all, just incredibly blessed!! I love you kiddles!!

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!!