Post St. Patty's Day

"There's green pee in the toilet!" Marissa screamed from the bathroom, during her morning "I gotta go" ritual. I ran in...

"Where did it come from?" she asked.

"Probably those little Leprechauns."

"You already told me that Leprechauns aren't real. There's no such thing" (Mind you, she's only 5!)

"OMG! Maybe Mommy is wrong!" I gasped. (Trust me... this was extremely hard for me to say.)

And so that started our fun day. We had been to the library the other day for "Story Time." A cute little story was read to the kids about the mischievous Leprechauns and their fun times going across the country. And so... I thought I'd bring the fun times back to our house. I had the intention of doing silly string on the kids... It didn't happen.

Some really creative and cute moms painted their kids' faces green while they slept, and others gave green Leprechaun kisses on their foreheads. This is from Katie Scott (thanks, Katie!)

"May your pockets be heavy & your hearts be light & good luck follow you all day & night!"

I procrastinated and didn't get to do any of that other fun stuff. I didn't have these wonderful things on hand. But I did have green food coloring, so the little Leprechaun went wee, wee, wee (and didn't flush the toilet)!

All over the blogging world (and Facebook, too), moms made rainbow (or green) pancakes and other fun stuff. My kid (at least the 5-year-old) is REALLY picky and won't eat or drink anything that looks out of the ordinary to her. The older ones just don't really care. They think it's silly and stupid. So...

I made rainbow cupcakes! The HYPY (Helping Your Preschool Youngster) class was having St. Patrick's Day fun yesterday, so I geared up to make these awesome cupcakes from Family Fun Magazine. They were supposed to turn out like this:

Pretty, right?

The Lazy in me looked at the 6 bowls hanging around the table (all empty) versus the one big bowl with the cake batter in it and won out. And so, instead of making a bunch of different colored batters, I made a "swirly" batter and prayed the colors wouldn't blend so much.

I dropped a couple drops of blue and folded. A couple drops of red and folded. A couple of drops of green and folded. A couple drops of yellow and folded. It didn't look like a rainbow... yet. So I "folded" a little more... I got pastel swirls (kinda) and shrugged my shoulders.

Putting them into shamrock paper liners (had to have some festivity, right?), I let them bake into little mounds of flavor. They were smeared with canned vanilla frosting and sprinkled with yellow sugar (to make the "pot o' gold" - my 5-year-old's idea).

My daughter donned a Shamrock hat, insisting this was enough green (she was going to wear a green fairy costume, but claimed it "itched" her). So I quickly put a ribbon-covered barrette in my hair. (I don't own anything in green.) Off we went. And thought there was no humiliation in that.

Once we arrived at the school, Marissa's talk was of toilets and green pee and a Leprechaun that doesn't know how to flush. Some moms were mortified, while others thought it was funny. All I wanted everyone to know was... MY TOILET BOWL WAS CLEAN!!! So, if you don't like it and can't get it, then know it wasn't from being dirty. It was all in a little CLEAN fun, so stuff it.

The cupcakes? They were okay. My older girls were a little disappointed in them... they were hoping for the Family Fun version (see pretty picture above), but had to settle for these:
They might not see the swirls, but I do!

As for dinner, I changed my original plan and opted for rotisseried chicken (made at home), broccoli rice au gratin, and steamed chopped broccoli. So, they didn't get the all-green or Irish-inspired dinner, but they did get some of the elements. And... It was GOOD!