Celebrating St. Patrick's Day

My children have decided to add St. Patrick's Day to their lists of things to celebrate.

They really like celebrating things.

Azia designed a leprechaun trap a few weeks ago, complete with trap doors and ladders and miniature notes and clothes and prizes and money to lure them in. She added some syrup the night before. It appears the leprechauns were able to break out through the windows or possibly climbed back out the hole they made in the roof  by way of the shamrock necklace left behind. Azia is getting pretty crafty with her designs though; they may not be safe for many more years. Later in the day Michael advised the children that what they really needed was some whiskey, a bag, possibly a cat, and a way to lure the leprechauns into a drinking contest. It's nice to have uncles around for advice.

I'm pretty sure we started of the day with some sort of Irish luck. Just before midnight the ambulance was dispatched to a car wreck, where we ending up assisting a patient and doing some back boarding and splinting right in the middle of a giant ant hill. A half a dozen members of our crew, some firemen, and of course the patient, were covered with ants. We spent the whole transport to the hospital killing them. When we got to the hospital our ambulance floor was covered with dead ones. We apparently brought in a large number of live ones into the hospital as well. Soon the doctors and nurses were also pulling ants off themselves while trying to assist the patient. A few hours later we returned to the hospital with another patient and they had maintenance in the ER with chemicals trying to get rid of the insects.

And then a few hours later, it began to snow. . . so much for the nearly Spring thing. Everything was covered in white, including my car when I needed to drive it a few hours later. I thought we were done with the window scraping for the year.

As I was standing in my living room in the middle of the night surveying the kids' leprechaun traps and considering what I needed to get done before the morning, all the power went out. It was difficult to get very much done not being able to see anything so I decided it was probably sensible to just go to bed.

And then a little while later the ambulance radio went off again. There was still no power, which makes getting into our garage (where the doors are all automatic and operated by power) more difficult than usual. And once we were in, getting the ambulances out proved another challenge. We do have systems in place for things like this, but they don't always work as smoothly as we'd hope. Also, it's difficult to troubleshoot in complete darkness. Picture #1 illustrates our crew members (standing on the hood of the ambulance) trying to unlock the manual door opener. It seems a simple task when illuminated by the flash on my camera. See picture #2 of what the actual working conditions were.

We did get everything sorted out and the ambulance to where it was needed, but by the time we all got home it was pretty much time for all the enjoying of  St. Patrick's Day.

The kids woke up early and began reading notes painted around the house and examining the leprechaun chaos. Apparently leprechauns can paint and escape from traps in total darkness. They're quite crafty. 


After church we had a giant Irish dinner. Most of the credit for that meal goes to Deva, I think, which is quite a lot of credit because it takes an awful lot of food to feed our giant crew. Corned beef and cabbage and baked alaska for desert.

My kids and I ran up to the parade in Ronan, which was pretty freezing, but still fun.

Lex was possibly a little too brave when dashing into the middle of the road to retrieve candy.

Later in the evening we had shamrock pasta and Guinness brownies and Lex made a green pistachio cake. (Because ice cream and milkshakes were just not enough sweets for the day. . .)

While Azia spent her time designing a crafty trap and putting together a stylish outfit which included a lot of green, Zoran wrote letters to the leprechauns inquiring about their favorite NBA teams.

Before the end of the day the kids needed to watch Darby O'Gill and the Little People to begin strategizing for next year's leprechaun catching. 

76: St. Patrick's Day!

St. Patrick's Day 2012 (via InstaGram)

My kids really like St. Patrick's Day, and usually we have fun with finding different Irish foods to make and watching all the green on display in the parade in Ronan. Sometimes leprechauns even visit. (Like last year, and the year before.)

Michael gave everyone in the family shamrock plants for Christmas last year. We were supposed to see whose was looking the best by St. Patrick's Day. I would have accused him of not actually giving us a seed in the pot of dirt, but ours actually sprouted and looked really good about mid-January.

Then, I believe it must have been stolen by leprechauns because it suddenly disappeared.

Leprechauns probably understand we aren't real great with plants around here. I can grow philodendrons and. . . well, pretty much just philodendrons. So, I don't really hold any grudge over them rescuing the plant.

But since we were without one to submit to the contest, Azia and I decided to solve the missing Irish luck plant problem by creating any other one. The rules never actually stated the plant must be alive. I actually didn't help at all beyond letting Azia use my craft supplies and offering positive reinforcement. But, I sort of like our plant:

This year wrestling sort of took over the majority of the holiday. We had to be up and out of the house a little after 7:00am. This is very early for a house full of non-morning people, especially on a weekend.

We did have a big fruit rainbow for breakfast.

And good luck treats for the wrestlers (Beedo & Robbie stayed Friday night with Israel) and Azia and Lex, too. Not sure what they needed luck for Saturday, but they like rainbow treats, too.

Azia and Jenna really like the outfit creation part of the holiday. They  had a few different variations, changing it up a little each day for pretty much a solid week before St. Patrick's day. I think these are actually the outfits from last Sunday.



We had to drive all the way to Whitefish and then sat in the gym for about 10 hours. That is not even an exaggeration. Zoran wrestles in the lightest beginner weight class and Israel is in the oldest group. On top of this time span, the tournament was running way behind schedule by the end of the day. It was soooo long.

We took a break to go get lunch and the only thing close and economical was McDonalds. I'm not really a fan, but I do like Shamrock milkshakes. Zoran and I shared one for dessert.

The good thing about this marathon day of sitting on uncomfortable bleachers was that Zoran and Bryce both placed in the tournament. (This is one of two unit tourneys for the state. . . only 16 kids from each weight class from our half of the state even qualify to get into the competition!) Pretty cool for their first year!

After the end of the day, we had the couple hours drive back home. When we got back we did have a nice surprise in the refrigerator:



Deva left us a whole plate of these: chocolate cupcakes with Irish creme frosting. A few brownie/ caramel covered pot of gold little treats, too. Deva is pretty awesome.

The kids had some sweet treats and then more fruit.
 

The kids all had St. Patrick's Day t-shirts. Azia and Lex had festive socks, too.

But, apparently, leprechaun fruit rainbows are best eaten wearing only rainbow socks.

72: leprechaun drawing

Lex working on a little artwork. This is his leprechaun.

(It would not be complete with that pot of gold he is drawing.)

St. Patrick's Day 2011

Israel and Lex figuring out their green outfits the night before.

My kids love St. Patrick's day. Actually they love holidays or celebrations or occasions of pretty much any kind.  If they involve dressing up, chaos, parties or community events,  even better.

 St. Patrick's Day involves all of these things and the idea of small, mischievous little leprechauns, so it's pretty exciting. My children are also small, mischievous creatures so I think they feel some sort of kinship with the little people. Azia and Zoran were arguing yesterday about whether or not leprechauns were real. When they asked me, I told them I'd never seen one so maybe they were just made up. But I also told them I didn't know how to prove they weren't real either and asked them if they knew how. They thought about it for awhile but apparently couldn't think of anything because then they started designing their trap. 

They have been trying to catch a leprechaun for a few years and just this year Zoran asked me, "What do we do with it once we catch one?" I told him I had no idea. He then walked off thinking about it. Not sure if he ever figured it out.

Since they didn't catch a leprechaun again this year, I guess he has another year to figure it out. I heard Zoran and Azia arguing about it and Zoran thought it was Azia's fault because he wanted to make the same trap as last year but put it in a better spot. Azia blamed it on me & told Zoran I made the lousy trap this year that again didn't catch anything. (I didn't, but I may have suggested strongly Azia go with the super-simple design of a hidden trap door rather than begin weaving a cage she would disguise in fake clouds and rig to a pulley system that she'd run from her bedroom through an outside window and into the living room where she'd set up the bait: a diorama sort of set up including rainbows and fake money. It was 10:30 at night after all. )

Lex is probably more trouble than a leprechaun. When Zoran got up and was surveying the chaos caused by leprechauns he found a few other messes that Lex created after everyone else went to sleep & they were attributed to the leprechauns as well. I'm pretty sure Lex didn't have any help from leprechauns.

Lex also has a strange mischievous temperament. He loved the upside down, overturned furniture all over the house. Israel asked him if he did it and he just looked around from his perch on top of the crooked couch, shook his head yes, and said "Yep!"

What's wrong with him? You aren't supposed to willingly take credit for trouble you don't cause!

The kids seemed to think the rainbow the leprechauns painted was some sort of speed track. They were all running in little circles around it all day.

It was also more fun to lay on than the regular, non-painted ground.

I didn't realize how how much the kids liked the rainbow until they were very sad when I scrubbed it off the floor after they went to bed. The older kids thought we should've painted over it with clear paint so it would stay there forever. Lex was mad when he woke up and it was gone. He wouldn't talk to me for 15 minutes or so when I told him I washed it off. When he saw these photos, again he told me he wanted to put it back on the floor.

I think KaNana had the fanciest St. Patrick's Day outfit. Though Paisley did have miniature little leprechaun hats in her hair.

We had a green toenail painting session.

Since no one likes corn beef (except Dev) or cabbage, we stuck with variations of the same meal we had last year. Lucky Charms for breakfast (my kind of cooking!) and soda bread and chicken stew for dinner. Last year after the leprechauns dyed everything green and the kids were not that interested in drinking the green milk (or eating any of the other various green foods). They also think our green eggs on Sr. Seuss day are a bit strange. They are, however, a fan of green shamrock milkshakes, especially since we don't generally have desert with lunch. I guess ice cream is good no matter the color. I also made Guinness brownies which I didn't share with the children. Zoran found them the next day and ate some anyway. He was a fan of the super dark chocolately stuff. Israel thought it was weird to put beer in brownies. I thought they went pretty well with milkshakes.

We headed up to the parade in Ronan in the evening. It was pretty short this year. Not even any green horse!

Still candy though! Lex had his older siblings retrieve it for him and fill up his green hat.

I got Azia this headband a few weeks ago and when she got it out to put it on & found the dollar price tag she asked me. "This is only one dollar? It is much too beautiful to only cost one dollar!"

This photo is just strange. I have no idea what that green stripe is. I've never seen anything like that on any of my digital photos and it isn't on any of the others I took at the same time. It almost looks like one of those leprechauns is trying to tie up Israel up with some mysterious floating green magic rope.

I once again tried to get a photo of the kids together. So, naturally Lex went flat to the ground. I wonder if I'll ever be able to get a normal photo of them together.

Zoran didn't come to the parade because there was a wrestling meet that night. He didn't want to be late to warm up. Azia, on the other hand, didn't even want to go to the wrestling meet once she knew there was a parade. She's not quite as devoted as her brother. She did make it back in time to wrestle, wearing her plaid socks, her headband, and with three St.Patty's Day buttons pinned to her singlet. At least I let her keep the socks on.

Day 157: Leprechauns Beware

The kids were busy building their leprechaun trap. . . at like 10:00pm. They've been planning and discussing and building versions everywhere else they go for the last week, but of course didn't ever get around to doing theirs here.  Today with school and wrestling and the church activity they didn't have much free time. So, Azia went with a rainbow and gold coins to lure them up to towards a trap door hidden by even more gold coins. Not as fancy as the one they made last year, but not too bad for a 20 minute job.

St. Patrick's Day 2010

 

Still looking for the Leprechaun...

Azia and Zoran spent quite some time the night before St. Patrick's Day designing their Leprechaun trap. They were pretty excited to see if they'd actually caught one as soon as they got up in the morning. They didn't have any leprechauns in their trap, but within a few minutes had used their detective skills to figure out how the leprechauns had just narrowly escaped. 

 

Zoran examining the trail of leprechaun footprints (and "gold") to figure out how big the leprechaun was and which way he went.  

The "trap." The little detectives figured out that once the leprechaun fell in trying to get Zoran's candy he got stuck. Unfortunately, he had a friend with him who helped him out. He stacked the gold candy up inside the trap to climb back out. Azia thought it would be Lucky the Leprechaun that showed up, but Azia and Zoran both got little notes (the rolled up little scrolls in the photo)  from Gerald Fitzpatrick and Patrick Fitzgerald.

Mmmmm....chocolate....this is even better than real gold when you're two and have a sugar obsession. 

 

Chocolate first thing in the morning and THEN Lucky Charms with green milk for breakfast. The leprechauns also stole some of the Lucky Charms and turned the milk green. Lex loved the green milk. Dev was very disturbed and told all the kids the leprechauns peed in the milk. 

Cupcake Creation 

We decided to make Rainbow cupcakes to eat after lunch. The boys had fun mixing up the colors and making different designs with the colors, but next time I think we need to use two cake mixes. We barely had enough for 20 or so cupcakes and we didn't really have enough to do more than 4 colors. We didn't even get around to frosting them because after lunch they were instantly gone. I couldn't figure out how the kids ate all of them in like two minutes and then I realized there were 18 kids here after lunch. (Early out at the elementary school...) No wonder it seemed like a tornado went through the house. I think all those kids are much more destructive than the leprechauns. 

Ronan Parade

 

Zoran and Jack check out the green horse. 

Dinner

 

Since no one in our house likes corned beef or cabbage, we had to find a different Irish meal to make. I decided to make an Irish chicken stew and soda bread. Israel thought the stew was weird because it had big hunks of onion in it. Dev thought it looked like some sort of "witch's" food. He also though the onions were weird and so were the peas. (Yes, for my family these are strange and bizarre ingredients.) Since my timing was all off (my lack of domesticity + those 18 little people previously mentioned) I had lots of food since I made enough to take up to Grandma and Clark and and then didn't have it done when we went to the parade. But when we came back, everyone did actually eat it. Israel changed his mind and decided it was actually good enough to have a few bowls. He told me he "loved this poor people's food." I asked him why it was poor people's food and he explained, "all you need to make this meal is a chicken and a garden."