St Patrick's Day!

I might be one of the few, but I really like St. Patrick's day! It is usually such a forgotten holiday, but I have lots of fond memories of celebrating St. Patrick's day as a kid. Now that Collin is a part of our family I am trying to make an extra effort to celebrate the holidays and make them special.

One tradition from my childhood is a "New England Boiled Dinner" aka corned beef and cabbage. Michael and I have been doing this each year since we got married and this year we decided to share it with some friends! Unfortunately I forgot to get some pictures, but we had such a fun night with the Bradshaw's and Swindler's! None of them had ever tried corned beef, so it was fun to introduce them to a new food and they all seemed to like it- there weren't any leftovers! We also enjoyed a green salad, green lemonade and for dessert a yummy green jello cake. The Swindler's have a little girl about 4 months older than Collin. It was so cute seeing them play together. I see a lot of play dates in the future!

I also made a fun little shamrock banner for our home. I'm excited for next year when I'll be able to enjoy it a little longer than just the few days before the 17th :)

Hanging above our kitchen sink. 

Close up- the shamrocks are sparkly!

Every (well most) Monday I get together with a couple friends and we cook. Sometimes we make bread, or freezer meals, or just a yummy lunch to enjoy that day. Since St. Patrick's day fell on a Monday we decided to make BYU mint brownies- you know, because they have a green layer ;) They were so delicious (and very rich)!

St. Patrick's day morning a little leprechaun left Lucky Charms for Michael and dyed his milk green! It was a bit selfish because the leprechaun wanted some too ;) There was also an invitation for a "magical" date night that night. I had seen a fun idea on Pinterest to have a date night where you do magic tricks for each other. Unfortunately, Collin was a stink bug during the day and only slept a whopping 20 minutes (in the car) between 10 am to the time he finally conked out for bed around 6:30. He probably cried in his crib for close to an hour when I tried to put him down for a nap, but just wouldn't fall asleep! Anyway, I was exhausted and didn't have time to look up any magic tricks, and neither did Michael so we bagged that plan. But we did have a yummy green dinner- pesto pasta!

Michael's surprise. I felt so sneaky that night :) 

Sad I didn't get a picture of us all in our green- Michael even wore his green tie to work- but all in all it was a fun day with just enough celebrating to make it a special!