St Patrick's Day

Years ago, when we lived in MD amidst all the amazing community events, we attended several St Patrick's Day thrills. Except for dyeing the San Antonio River on the Riverwalk green, there isn't much to do here. So I decided to make our own little fun event. Because of the dynamics of our ward (ie 120+ primary kids), we had to find some line of demarcation on invitees. I opted to limit the invitation to our neighborhood boundaries. We still had a good 20+ kids in attendance.

I originally wanted to split the families into 4 groups to rotate among the activities. Then I remembered that I am not really a true proponent of agency. I am the dictator in my family and when we do parties, I love to extend that dictatorship to those around me. With all the moms looking on, I spent the next hour making a slight fool of myself and loved every minute of it.

The stations were more glorious in my head than in actuality. We started off in a group explaining the stations and that after we became St Patrick Day experts, a leprechaun might lead us to the rainbow's end. The first station was Leprechaun training. Training meant picking pretend clovers (although my grass has plenty to pick, it was on the wrong side of the yard), whistling, dancing a jig, ducking into small hiding places, and clicking your heals into the air. I wish I could have taken a video.
They were adorable. Some kids were really concerned about their abilities which made me giggle. Then we went to get face painted and color St Patty coloring pages. After they finished, they dug for gold coins (which are surprisingly hard to find in stores the day before St Patricks Day). I buried them in our rock pile. Each time they found a coin they had to tip toe up the stairs to the slide. They would have to slide down and drop it into the Leprechaun's bucket. Finally they got to design a Leprechaun's home via chalk drawing.

While the children drew their pictures, I pulled on of the older girls aside to dress up like a Leprechaun and lead the kids around the block back to my house to get some otter pops (thanks wendy for the supply). The older girls only had whistles to communicate and the kids were strictly warned not to touch the leprechauns. Too bad the follow the leader bit lasted for only a few moments. When I came outside, I found a crew of moms walking back the way they went hoping to meet the kids at my home as they ran full speed around the block! Talia came in very last, but was still really proud of herself. I can't wait to try again next year.