As a mother, I try to make the holidays memorable for my cuties. Last year Rich, the hoodlums cuties and I loaded up in the van at what felt like was the crack of dawn, donning our best St. Patrick's Day garb, and headed to downtown Savannah. If you want to actually get a decent parking place and a place to actually set up camp, you have to get there early! So there we were, all five of us, finally in our chosen spot, ready for the parade to begin; did I mention we still had two hours to wait until the parade began?! Yeah, the kids definitely got antsy, not to mention that we were freezing! Overall, it was worth the headache, but I didn't deem it tradition worthy; I'm thinking maybe it can be an every other year event for the Maseda clan.
Of course, along with the decision, came guilt; St. Patrick's Day is a HUGE deal where we live! We are talking closing schools for this holiday! Yeah, I had never heard of such either, until we moved here! Growing up, we just made sure to wear green in order to prevent the dreaded pinching, and that usually was the end of the festivities; that however would never do here! Considering that now I live in the land of the St. Patrick's Day lovers, and due to the fact that I have a lot of Irish blood in me and in my family tree, I couldn't let the day go uncelebrated. So, how did we celebrate this auspicious occasion you ask, or maybe you didn't; I'll tell you anyway. We began the day with an attack from our resident Leprachaun O'Reily; he wreaked havoc on our house: knocking over chairs, spreading Lucky Charms all over the table, and leaving us a green urine treat in the kids' bathroom. As a way to apologize and in an attempt to rectify his wrongdoing, he left the family a note, some of his magic powder, and instructions on what to do. We decided that since we didn't have a bowl with a lid that fit on tight enough, we would just stir it; I'm also glad that the kids also overlooked the fact that I Leprachaun O'Reily forgot to change class to family, oops!
(Braden just noticed the pistachios; I told him that was the Leprachaun's magic.)
Once the "magic powder" was thoroughly mixed and chilling in the fridge, we moved to the next thing on our festivity to do list, scavenger hunt.
So what was the prize waiting for them at the end of this Scavenger Hunt?
Binoculars!!!!!!
I thought this would be much better than candy, and I think the kids agreed with me; they had me rip open the packages immediately, so they could go outside and take them on a test run.
After the test run, we decided to go inside and see how the "Magic Powder" tasted.
Following our magical treat, we decided it was probably time to get dressed for the day, so we could move on to our next activity, Skittles Math!
During our Skittles Math activity, Colton kept trying to pilfer skittles from everyone, so we decided it was time to take a small break and snack on our
The kids absolutely loved them, but I have to say they are a BEAST to make, especially when you have a hoodlum like this stealing your batter that you desperately need!
After devouring our cupcakes, we decided it would be a shame not to share one with Rich, so we all loaded up in the van and headed to Georgia Pacific to share some rainbow deliciousness. Once back home, the cuties played outside, while I prepared our lunch: sandwiches with clover cut outs, apple juice "green" juice boxes, and our Fruit Rainbow.
Before ending our festivities and dining on our St. Patrick's Day lunch, we decided to do a little experiment. Did you know that if you take a glass of water and drop in a few Skittles that the S on the Skittles will float to the top? It's true, we tested the theory today. The S is white edible paint and does not dissolve, there you have it, a random fact for the day.
Speaking of facts, it is a fact that the cuties and I had a lot of fun, and it is also a fact that I will remind myself of that when I look at my friends' pictures of the parade we missed! There is always next year, but for this year, it was nice staying home and just having fun together!
