Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Our St. Patrick's Day!

I love holidays! I love traditions! And now that I have my own little family to enjoy making traditions with! I have never really had very many traditions for St. Patrick's day other than to wear green and spend some time with family. This year I decided to look into what St. Patrick's day is really about and make some traditions with my little family.

First, I want to share a little summery of what I found out about the meaning of St. Patrick's day. I never knew that St. Patrick was a person, until last year when I read about him on some one's blog. All I knew growing up about St. Patrick's day was, you wear green so you don't get pinched, the clover was a symbol, that leprechauns had something to do with it and it had something to do with Ireland.

Anyways this is what I found out with the help of google.

St. Patrick was a person who's name wasn't Patrick when he was born. He was born in Britain, was kidnapped and taken to Ireland at he age of 16. He was made a slave and his job was a sheep herder. He was there for 6 years and returned to Britain. He then started to have visions that he needed to go back to Ireland and be a missionary to the people, to bring Christianity to the Irish. He took on his priesthood vowels and became a priest. He took on the name Saint Patrick and brought Christianity to the Irish. He died on March 17th, that is why we celebrate it on March 17th. My reason now to celebrate St. Patrick's day is that he brought Christianity to the Irish!

Why the color green and the clover. It is a myth but could be true that St. Patrick taught the holy trinity with a clover. Green comes from the land in Ireland. It is covered in hills of green.

Leprechauns and how St. Patrick's day made it to the U.S. There was a potato famine in Ireland and the people left Ireland to take care of their families. A lot of them came to New York. They celebrated St. Patrick's day and it caught on in America. As for the leprechauns, people came up with this by the way the people were dressed when they came from Ireland.

There you have a short version of what St. Patrick's day is about.

Anyway, this what we did on St. Patrick's day.

I noticed last year from people's blogs that one of their traditions was to dye food green. I decided to take on this tradition. I made green waffles for our breakfast!


Ayla enjoying her green waffle!


I enjoyed mine with the usual strawberries and whip cream! Yummy!


Then we got dressed in our St. Patrick's day shirts!


We headed out the door to go shopping with my mom that day!


My Mom and I took Ayla to McDonald's so she could play!





I think I will make this a tradition, to take my kids to eat somewhere, where there is an inside play ground! Ayla had so much fun!


I also made some green chocolate chip cookies! We had them after dinner of course!


Ayla enjoying her cookie!

For an activity, I came up with a tradition, to have a pot of gold hunt!

I had these fake coins that I hid in certain parts of the house. Each coin had a new location of the house written on the back that Ayla knew. She had to find the coin in that location and have her daddy read the next one, until she found the pot of gold.


Here was the pot of gold.
I just bought some simple things from the dollar store and wrapped them in yellow tissue paper. I couldn't find any yellow wrapping paper, so the tissue paper had to do.

I recorded the whole pot of gold hunt on video and so the pictures down below of the hunt were taken from the video.

Ayla at the computer desk!


Handing it to Daddy!


I hid one on Kermit!


She found the one by the sink!


One in the apples!



One in her room on her doll house!


One in Mrs. Potts, that she loves to bathe with!


She had to find one in "Toy Story 2!"


She found the pot of gold in her closet!


And opened her gold!
This was a little fishing rod with fish.



At the end she was asking, where the gold was!
I guess she was wanting a whole pot of those gold coins! I guess she had more fun with those than opening the gifts! LOL!! It is the simple things in life that make us happy!


Then we played with the bubbles that she got from her pot of gold!


I love this picture!

We had a fabulous St. Patrick's day! It has a whole new meaning to me now!


10 comments:

gigi said...

Wow!!! I think you really out did your self on St. Paddy's day!! I always try and make it fun for the kids too. I always make green fluff out of pistashio pudding and coolwhip for after school snack. Girls had green sprite too. /they can't handle green milk, yuck! Loved all your pictures, great post.

CB said...

Heather as you probably know I do not do St. Patrick's day - tee hee - but I love your green waffles especially with the red on top - Looks great!
Ayla is getting so big and she is beautiful!

The Hartle's said...

Man! YOu are a way cooler mom than me! I wish I lived at your house!

Sovic Clan said...

Love it:) We did green waffles too!

LKP said...

she is getting so danged grown-up! blows my mind entirely. glad you guys had a ton of fun for st. patty's day! :)

Jared and Laura said...

Heather, you're such a cute mom! I love the idea of your little 'treasure hunt'. Looks like a very fun day for Ayla!!

Ann Marie said...

LOVE that you made the holiday fun!
I love that you started your own traditions.. and made it fun!

Love you...

Welcome to the Garden of Egan said...

I made green spaghetti one year.
It wasn't a hit.
Looked nasty.

Love your green cookies!

Looks like you are an AWESOME mommy making memories for Ayla!

LKP said...

i know what you mean about katie & kevin's dance! so cute. :)

as for softball, yeah we used to play with my dad when i was younger. and i LOVED church ball. i miss it tremendously. my fave positions were 1st & 3rd, where all the pressure's at i was once told. makes sense considering i apparently don't do life without pressure and stress, lol.

happy tuesday, my friend!

Nancy Face said...

Love your green food! The treasure hunt was a great idea!