Luck of the Irish

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Justin, Zayden, and I had a lot of fun with the festivities of this holiday. First of all, it's a day where everything is my favorite color. It doesn't get much better than that, but it did! This is our little leprechaun of the day. Smiling and ready for fun!

The day before St. Patrick's Day, I had bought fruit to make some neat platters but I needed to make some clouds for the end of the rainbow. So I found a fun idea on a blog that dipped blueberries into honey flavored greek yogurt. I got the Chobani brand, but I didn't really like the flavor of it. I think next time I might try the Oikos. Maybe it has a bit more honey flavor. Anyways, you dip the blueberries in the yogurt, put them on parchment paper or wax paper, and then put them in the freezer. It will be fun to nibble on a healthy snack! High in protein and antioxidants.

Justin started out the morning making green shamrock pancakes. I got a three-leaf clover and it was yummy!

My handsome husband hard at work making delicious green scrambled eggs

They look really funny in this picture, but they looked better in real life. It's amazing how much green food coloring you have to use in order to get a "tint" of green. There were no true green colors today in our food.

Justin also made green maple syrup. It looked really neat on the pancakes! I'm so glad he got into dying everything green today. It was a blast! As you can see, our milk is also green. Just a little green so it didn't gross us out to drink it.
Breakfast was delicious. Mmmm mmmm!After we ate breakfast, I made rainbow fruit kabobs

Our pot of gold made from a styrofoam cup and Rollos

My first attempt at being creative with icing :) The cupcakes were made from a white cake mix that I split into two parts. One part was dyed green and I swirled it into the white part to create a fun swirl of colors in each cupcake!

Justin's parents brought a pick up from the farm for Justin to have. Since it was a beautiful day, Justin thought it was a perfect time to vacuum it out and clean it up. Known as "Papa Smurf" on the farm, we are still trying to decide what to call it now. I think it's a man truck but Justin says it's a girl. We'll see what it ends up being :)

It was a relaxing day for us all. Lexus enjoyed the sunshine and laying on the cool grass. The weather was excellent! 80 degrees and sunny, but also very humid. (The evening ended with an awesome rain storm)

Our little leprechaun was decked out in green and got to wear a baseball cap for the first time! I wasn't sure how he would react to wearing one, but it didn't bother him one bit. He's almost 8 months old and finally fits into a 3-6 month hat. Sporting a baseball cap reminds me of his father. Like father like son I guess!

This hammer is his pride and joy. He loves banging it and watching it light up and make noise. He is figuring out how to drop things over the side of the couch, the high chair, or a stroller and watch mommy pick it up and make him happy again. This can only lead to more trouble and mischief making.

After mommy wouldn't pick up the hammer anymore, he decided the strap was pretty tasty and helped his teething gums. He has also discovered my diaper bag handle and Justin's backpack straps and does the same thing to those. It must be that texture and easy to handle that appeals to him.

During the rest of our holiday, we babysat for a friend of mine while they went out on a date. We have a babysitting swap going on with them so we don't have to pay for baby sitters. We were going to just have a baked potato bar in celebration of the Irish ancestry in our family but decided we wanted to use the new grill Justin built last semester. (see below - this was a shot of when Justin first brought it home and we had to grill his excellent Ribeye steaks!)

We grilled up BBQ chicken, had loaded baked potatoes, the fruit kabobs, salad, sunkist sodas with green straws that had shamrocks attached to them, and the green cupcakes. Justin was curious where all this food was going to go. So we invited the couple we were baby sitting for and I had a little bit of inspiration. I was getting all the food prepared and kept chopping more and more and more food. Putting lots of potatoes in the oven and marinating lots of chicken and thinking to myself why am I preparing so much food?! Well about thirty minutes before all the food was supposed to be ready, Justin gets a call on his phone. The caller id says, "Elders". This is how that phone conversation went when I picked up the phone.

Me: Hey elders, how's it going?!

Elder: We're pretty good Sis. Maughan. How are you!?

Me: Doing great, what's up?

Elders: Sis. Maughan are you guys out of town for spring break?

Me: Nope, we're staying here. Do you guys need dinner?

Elders: Well, yeah that would be wonderful.

Me: Come on over, we're having BBQ chicken and baked potatoes and it will be ready in half an hour!

Well, We ended up feeding six people and still had leftovers. We had a great evening and an excellent dinner. It couldn't have turned out better. After the missionaries left, we played The Farming Game with the other couple and had a fun evening. I'd say this was one of our best holidays yet! I can't wait for future holidays with my little family. It can only get bigger and times can only get better!