St. Patrick's Day

I write this post for two reasons...

The first reason is to share a cute idea.

The second is to get more ideas. Selfish, yes, but I need some help or my kids will figure out who the real leprechauns are.

Last year I came across this idea on Family Fun. I saved the little story, so just in case any of you want it, here it goes:

"This St. Patrick's Day, let your child in on a well-guarded secret and start a new family tradition in the process. The fun begins with the leprechauns and leads to a treasure box filled with goodies and gifts. Here's what to do. On the day before the holiday read aloud the following tale:

Full of magic a trickery, the leprechauns remain in their hidden world until the night before St. Patrick's Day. On that one night of the year they appear throughout the world to dance and sing and frolic.

Disguising themselves as leaves and grass, and sounding like the wind and crickets, they come and go unnoticed, but sometimes they drop coins or jewels on the way.

However, it is said that if a decorated treasure box is left empty under the moon, the leprechauns must fill the box with gold or jewels or gifts. But then they will hide the box in the most unlikely places.

If the box is found on St. Patrick's Day, the treasure remains in our world. If not, the leprechauns may retrieve what is rightfully theirs. And though the leprechauns are very clever, it is not impossible to find the treasure because, unknowingly, leprechauns often leave a trail of greenery behind them.

Now, have your child decorate an empty shoe box or tissue box with paints, glitter glue or stickers. If he/she tries to bargain for a bigger box, tell them leprechauns are tiny and if they can't reach the top of the box, it will remain empty. Just before bed, he/she should place the finished box on a window sill where the moon will shine on it.

Once he/she is sound asleep, the resident leprechauns can fill the box will small treasures, such as foil-covered chocolate coins, costume jewelry, or a bag of marbles, and then hide it in a special place. All that's left to do is lay a trail of green leaves or paper shamrocks from the windowsill to the box. Your child may even enjoy the challenge of several trails to follow, some with dead ends (you know, the trickery of leprechauns!)"

Whew, that was a long type! So, anyways, we did this last year with a few modifications. Here are our adventures from last year:

First, we made the boxes. I covered them with green wrapping paper, and then let the kids go to town with all sorts of stuff. They had lots of fun. So this is the boxes from last year. (I kept them just in case I am too lazy to do the project again.)

Then I read the story to the kids and put them to bed the night before St. Patrick's Day. They were so excited!

The next morning, instead of leaves all over, there were trails of gold coins leading to the boxes, which were hidden in the bathtub with this rainbow I found at a party supply store hanging on the wall. (You know, treasure at the end of the rainbow!)



The kids thought that was great! They loved finding their boxes filled with goodies. It was lots of fun. Then we had even more fun playing leprechaun throughout the day. Here is where I need your help! I need more sneaky things I can do this year!



Last year, I carried green food coloring in my pocket and put some in the toilet and used a paint stick to stir the water so it had "Leprechaun pee" in the toilet. The kids thought that was hysterical. It was even more funny when our real little leprechaun named Hayden got a handful of the gold coins and threw them in the toilet when no one was looking. It really made the girls fall for it because they knew where Bill and I were and that we couldn't have possible done it. Classic!



Then while we were all outside in the yard, I ran in the house and to the backyard where we had the little kids' table. I made a fist and painted the pinkie side of both of my hands (make sense) and dabbed them on the table, adding little toe marks with my finger so it looked like the leprechauns had run across their table. See below picture:

I then quickly washed my hands and went back outside and the kids were shocked to go outside for a picnic to find the footprints. They tried so hard all day to "catch" the leprechauns. Rylee even made a sign to go on the bathroom door with a picture of a leprechaun and a circle with a line through it and it said "STOP" at the top to try to stop the leprechauns from peeing in her bathroom. So when they peed in the master bathroom, she was busting a gut. Cutest laugh!

If you really want to go nuts, you can have green homemade bread, green twice-baked potatoes, green jell-o, green salad, and a white cake with white frosting sprayed with air brush frosting in the Irish flag (really easy to do). It is fun. See, I am trying to like St. Patrick's Day and make it something other than "Pinching Day" (I hate that!)

So if any of you out there have any fun ideas we could do to be sneaky little leprechauns, let me know! I only have a week to come up with more ideas! And if you do any of these fun little things, I would love to hear about it!