St. Patrick's Day + St. Joseph's Feast 2015

 Different years, we do different things for St. Patrick's Day.  Some things (like the basic components of the dinner meal) we keep mostly the same, but other things (like kid crafts etc.) we do differently from year to year.

One year we made shamrock shaped cinnamon rolls, fruit loop rainbows, and learned about the Holy Trinity using candles.

Another year, we had Lucky Charm parfaits, made a mosaic shamrock Irish flag, and a Trinity shamrock

Some years, we have done a mash-up of the above posts or I've pulled random ideas from Pinterest for a craft.  When my oldest was little I made orange and green finger paints for St. Patrick's Day.

This year, my friend and I decided to plan a little party playdate at the park for St. Patrick's Day.  We created this Pinterest board with fun ideas and chose a few each to make and bring for our St. Paddy's Day picnic.  And then we invited some other friends to join the festivities.

It's hard to tell from the pictures, but my friend made the White Chocolate-Mint Oreo Bark and the Spinach Dip Tortilla Chip boats and provided the bright green plates and napkins (plus the cauliflower for our Irish flag veggies).  

I volunteered to make the fruit rainbow with marshmallow clouds and pot'o'gold Rollos and the rest of the veggie Irish flag tray, plus several other green vegatable options (cucumber, green pepper, and celery).  

And because I can't live without fun crafts, I brought stuff for the kiddos to make cute Mosaic Shamrocks.  

Everything was delicious and the crafts were totally cute, so head over to that Pinterest board and pin some stuff for next year! Thanks, Jacinta, for all your work to bring this together!

This year, I thought I'd also share more of the recipes from our traditional dinner meal.  My parents never did corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick's Day, but my grandma always made it (my grandpa loved it!), so when we lived up near them the 2nd year of our marriage, we began the tradition through them.  Some years, we've spent with my grandmother (my grandpa passed away on St. Patrick's Day 5 years ago) and she'll make the corned beer and cabbage and potatoes and carrots, and I'd make this Pistachio Mallow Salad  and this amazingly easy Irish Soda Bread .  Both recipes are great and have always remained part of our St. Paddy's Day dinner meal even when we aren't at Grandma's and I have to make the corned beef and cabbage on my own.

I have used this Crock Pot Corned Beef and Cabbage recipe before and it's pretty darn good and very moist.  Unfortunately, though our family has continued to get larger, my crock pot has not.  So I went looking for a recipe to cook the corned beef and cabbage in the oven.  I found this delicious-looking one cooked with oranges, celery, and onion (for flavor, not for eating).

Sadly, I was distracted because my oldest daughter came home from the park complaining that her tummy hurt, so I was late getting dinner on, and I was rushing (never a good idea).  In my haste, I did not read the directions carefully and forgot to add the water in with the meat.  I realized several hours into the cooking and added water, but the end result was corned beef that (as my husband put it) had great flavor, but was dry. Needless to say, I was bummed.  I love a moist, falling-apart corned beef and cabbage and I totally botched it.  Next year, it's my hope to try this recipe again because the flavor was delicious.  I also hope to have purchased a bigger crock pot for our bigger family and adapt the recipe to make in in the slow-cooker.  Easy and keeps the house cool.  I will say that the cabbage with golden delicious apples was delicious and turned out perfectly.  Mmmmm. 

 These Oven Roasted Potatoes were delicious.  I didn't have Onion Soup Mix on hand, so I used this recipe to make my own.  And we like our meal to include carrots too, so I just made a little extra and threw in carrots with the potatoes.  Instead of cooking them for 450 degrees for 40 minutes, I threw them into the roasting pan next to the foil with the corned beef at 310 degrees for about an hour and 20 minutes or so.  They were perfect.  Saving that for next year too, and maybe adapting that to cook them in my current smaller crock pot.  :)

I made the Pistachio Mallow Salad (recipe in link above or here), but skipped our usual Irish Soda Bread.  Instead, because on St. Joseph's Day (tomorrow) it's traditional to have a variety of fun breads, we'll have it then.  Instead, to finish off our St. Patrick's Day meal this year, I made another of the Fruit Rainbows which was yummy and made the table look especially festive.  

Looking for some fun ideas for St. Joseph's Feast day?   Just click on the link.

This year, I found "Song of the Swallows" by Leo Politi which tells a story of the San Juan Capistrano Mission (which incidentally is quite near) and the swallows that arrive on St. Joseph's Feast each year.  I'm not brave enough to head down there with 4 littles this year, but reading the book will be fun.  We visited the San Juan Capistrano Mission back in January and it was beautiful.  

image found on kathleendeady.com

        

Happy Feasts, friends!

Saint Patrick, pray for us!

Saint Joseph, pray for us!

Letter Q projects

1. Queen of heaven pictures

The easiest thing to do if you have a printer at home is find free printables of Mama Mary.  In the Bible it talks about "a woman clothed with the sun, with a crown of twelve stars" so we made Mary a crown of twelve stars using glitter glue. If you prefer, you could make her a crown of flowers or one with jewels.

     

2. Queen crowns

We made simple crowns with paper.  Color and add stickers/glitter before you attach the two ends together. 

     

 

3. Paper Quilts

Just cut out squares using different patterned and colored paper and let the kids make a patchwork, paper quilt.  You could work on patterns if you wanted to and use triangles instead of squares for more detail, but I just let them make their own design for our alphabet book project.

4. Quail Mosaic picture

I made a simple outline of a quail and cut it into a few pieces.  You could just leave it as one if you prefer.  The girls used the left over green scraps from our St. Patrick's Day Shamrock mosaic to make some grass for our quails to walk on.  Then they glued on the quail and added brown paper and felt (you could just do paper) to make it look like the picture of the California quail I showed them. 

 

 

     

   

Have some fun with letter Q!

St. Patrick's Day idea + Musical Monday: When Irish Eyes are Smiling

Last year I wrote a post with some fun ideas.  You can find it here. This year we are doing a few of the same projects, and adding a few new ones.  We couldn't head to my grandma's this year for our usual St. Patrick's Day party, so I'll be making the corned beef and cabbage myself this year.  I'm going to use this slower cooker corned beef and cabbage recipe.  I'll also make a simple Irish soda bread and this pistachio mallow salad .

A lovely Irish blessing:

"May the road rise up to meet you, 

May the wind always be at your back. 

May the sunshine warm upon your face, 

and rains fall soft upon your fields. 

And until we meet again, 

may God hold you in the palm of His hand."

The girls are dressed in just about the only green (and orange; that's Irish too, you know!) they've got today.  A good friend crocheted the girls some little shamrock hairbows.

For breakfast I made these fun Lucky Charm parfaits I saw on Pinterest.  We always have green eggs and read Green Eggs and Ham too.  

 

We did two projects after reviewing some information about Saint Patrick here .  

1. Mosaic Shamrocks Irish Flag- 

You could easily adapt this to fit your own preferences.  You could do a big shamrock, perhaps using bits of green paper in different shades or you can use our idea and make three shamrocks to form an Irish flag.  To make the shamrock just trace a heart to make the shamrock and add a little tail.  

 

 

2. Trinity Shamrock- 

a very simple project to show the kids the lesson St. Patrick taught about the Holy Trinity using the shamrock. 

And for the musical selection for Monday, I had to choose my favorite Irish song sung by my 

favorite B-B-B-Bing Crosby!

"When Irish Eyes are Smiling"

                        

Top o' the mornin' to you all and have a blessed Saint Patrick's Day!

What I Wore Sunday- Feb. 23 and Scripture Project

This week the girls and I picked new Bible verses to memorize.  There has been a lot of whining going on around here, so we chose some verses we thought might help to remind each of us to be more Christ-like.

The projects were simple.  I just cut out scrap booking paper into pieces and the girls glued it to a piece of white paper.  We used old Christmas cards to add artwork featuring Jesus and Mary and then I wrote out the Bible verses in colored markers of their choice.  And now we are displaying them and working to memorize them together each day.

"Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly beloved children, and live a life of love just as Christ loved us."

Ephesians 5:1-2

"Do everything without complaining or arguing so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God"

Philippians 2:14-15

Check out some of our other fun Scripture projects in previous posts Scripture gifts for your Children and More Scripture Gifts for your Children (such creative titles, I know.  :)

This week, I have been playing around a lot with navy and green combinations.  I wore the cardi with the belt over top for Mass, with the sweater loose at home afterwards, and without the sweater when the sun began really shining as I made blueberry muffins for brunch.  

The look:

Green cardi: Old Navy

Navy and White polka dot dress: Ross

Chunky white belt: hand-me-down

White sandal heels: Target (Ooooold!!)

Earrings: Color Pop from Jacie's Premier Designs

The girls received a box in the mail from some friends at our old parish in Northern California with some very spring-y clothing items.  Of course they were dying to wear them this week, and I wasn't going to argue.  There  is no such thing as winter here- so the girls wore white sweaters on the way to Mass and by the time we came home, most of them had already peeled off the sweater layer.   Adorable, right?

   

Link up and add your own Sunday style with the ladies over at Finelinenandpurple.com

More Scripture Gifts for your Child(ren) and Family

Last week I posted about a project we are working on in our mom's group to help our children know and love Scripture more.  You can find some fun ideas in that fun post here.

This week I have a few more to share that we worked on.

1. Mosaics

I found that I had some old matting that I hadn't used when framing some pictures, so I pulled them out to see if I could find a use for them....and I found one.

First the girls and I tore up colored construction paper and glued it on like a mosaic.  Next we looked through piles of unused photographs that were extras from scrapbooking and the girls picked some of their favorites.  I cut them out and we glued them on top of the mosaic.  Later in the evening after they'd gone to bed, I put a layer of Modge Podge over the top.  In the morning, I read the girls some different Scripture verses and they each chose one for their matted frame.  We used pretty scrapbook paper for that part and glued them onto the back of the matting. Then I poked a couple holes in the top, let the girls choose a pretty colored ribbon and we were done!

   

Hang them on a nail on the wall....

on a doorknob....

Or stick it in a frame.  Easy and the kids loved helping to make their own Scripture verse project.  

2. Chalkboard Picture Frame

This project is really simple, but could be made a bit more pretty if you chose add extras.  I kept it super simple because we had several projects going at once.  I covered the cardboard back of a picture frame with chalkboard paint (2 coats) and let it dry.  Then use chalk (I can find nothing but sidewalk chalk since we moved so forgive the not-at-all-cute writing, but you get the idea) to write a Bible verse for the week.  

3. Scrapbook Bible Verse Frames

Find some scrapbook paper scraps and get creative making a cute little design.  Leave a place to write a special Scripture and put it in a frame.  I'd like to make a dozen or so of these and switch them out for each month of the year.