St. Patrick's Day

Hope you all had a wonderful St. Patrick's Day - did you all wear green? Eat green food? Drink green beverages? If you said no to any of the above questions, then you OBVIOUSLY were not at our house or visited by our leprechaun! Seriously - March 17 is a bigger day in our house than Easter! Between our little green-wearing trickster and celebrating our anniversary, it's a big day.

Liam had been anticipating the day for quite some time, as well as getting Ceana all fired up with tales from previous years' events. And it didn't seem to disappoint either of the kids!

Liam woke me up Wednesday morning, saying that the leprechaun had left a scavenger hunt for the kids, along with a trail of itty-bitty shiny green shamrocks on the floor. He wanted to know if he could wake up Ceana, to which the answer was a resounding NO. So, he did the scavenger hunt himself, then helped Ceana when she did get up. It started with this clue, sitting on his lacrosse bag with a new t-shirt:

"Happy St. Patrick's Day!
First you must get dressed,
Then be on your way!
PS. Liam, here are your friends,
And now they can play!"

(For those not in the know, Liam had everything taken out of his room last week - legos, Bakugan, Pokemon, stuffed animals...everything but his bed, bedding/pillow, one stuffed animal, nightlight and clothes. It was his third visit to the office at school, this time for fighting. So, the leprechaun gave him back his stuffed animals a little bit early...tricky little thing!)

The next clue was posted on the wall between Ceana's room and their bathroom with a foam shamrock sticker and said:

"It's March 17,
Head to the room
Where Ponyo you've seen."



(Ponyo being a new Miyazaki/Disney collaboration - which translates into, head into the playroom where you've watched the movie!"). In the playroom, sitting on the dress-up toy box, were shamrock tattoos and a whole pack of shamrock pencils. Plus, a little leprechaun hat with 2 gold dollars in it. Oh, and the next clue of course:

"Now you have stickers & pencils of green,
So head to the place
Where your socks get so clean!"

Of course, the laundry room - where a mini-pack of Legos was located, along with another hat and pair of coins for each child. Liam got the Star Wars pack and Ceana got the City pack...along with yet another clue:

"Now head OUT to a couch
Where you can sit,
And listen to frogs,
Croak for a bit."

(We've been over-run with frogs in our backyard pond. We love them, but they're LOUD.)  Anyway, outside on the patio couch was a stepping stone kit for each of them, along with another hat and coins. Then there was the final clue:

"It's time for one last clue.
Go look in the fridge
And find breakfast for you!
Green shamrocks on a plate
Oh-So-Blue."

Liam looked in the fridge and saw the green applesauce (silly leprechaun!) and assumed that was breakfast...until he got a look at the green shamrock chocolate chip pancakes that the poor leprechaun had slaved over until the wee hours. Well, of course you have to have milk with chocolate chip pancakes, and our friendly trickster had gotten to that with his magic as well.

By this point, Ceana was getting up, so Liam led her through the hunt to collect her "treasure" and finish up with some breakfast. She also got a t-shirt (a dress on her) to be wearin' the green, as well as a whole bin of foam stickers to play with.

So, the kids had a pretty good morning. Then Ceana went off to Ms. Tonya's and Liam went off to school, and I went grocery shopping so that I could come home and make corned beef and cabbage, Irish soda bread and chocolate eclairs with Irish Cream filling. In between picking up Liam at school, and 1 1/2 hours of lacrosse practice. It was a crazy-busy day, let me tell you.

The big question is - what in the world is the leprechaun going to do next year!?