When did St. Patrick’s day turn into a real holiday?  I always thought it was just an excuse to go buy a new cute green shirt and get shit faced for the day.  You could start drinking early and just go all day.  Apparently there is more to it now.  There are leprechauns that need to be caught so special traps need to be made.  Your food and milk need to be green….it is quite a production once kids are involved.  I had no clue until my pals came home from school all excited about building a leprechaun trap.  Don’t get me wrong, it is right up my alley. I love doing crafty, creative things with my pals.  Not because I am super mom but more like super nerd.

So we started by naming the Leprechaun that we were going to catch after he slid down the chimney like Santa.  Apparently Santa is friends with all the Leprechauns, who knew?  We named our guy Leonard and we got to work getting ready to catch the little critter.

There were a few tears shed over the creative direction of the trap.

Then we also had a few tears shed when we were setting up our trap.

A certain someone wanted to eat the skittles that we used to make a trap to catch Leonard.

We tried to catch the little sucker but he was just too quick.  He did leave behind some treats though because he felt bad that we couldn’t catch him.  When we lifted up the box the next morning, we were hoping to find a one foot tall guy with a white long beard but instead we found bubbles, sidewalk chalk and some green candy!  We would have preferred finding Leonard under that box because I was ready to get him going on my 8 foot high pile of dirty laundry.  I have heard leprechauns are great workers and God knows I could use an extra set of hands.

So just when we thought we were in the clear, my pals went to use the bathroom and found out that Leonard whizzed in our potty and did not flush!  That little shit.  This got the kids wondering why he didn’t poop too because they have never seen green poop.  I have seen green poop more than once in a diaper.  You know when you open it up and get a poop surprise?  You sit there mentally trying to figure out what the hell the kid ate to turn it that color.

Then it was time for some of our favorite pals to come over for Guinness, green noodles, rueben pizza and corned beef and cabbage.

We turned the noodles green by adding about 10 drops of food coloring in the noodles before we added the noodles and cooked them as we normally do.  They were so fun and we will for sure be doing this again with other colors.

So we had the traditional corned beef and cabbage but I also thought about doing something different so as I was tossing and turning with my insomnia a couple nights ago I thought of Reuben pizza.  I bought Naan at Costco and made a homemade thousand Island dressing (2/3 cup mayo, 1/3 cup ketchup, about 1/2 cup chopped dill pickles, about 1/4 cup onions, 3 cloves freshly grated garlic and salt and pepper to taste).  I layered the dressing then topped it with a mix of cheese – swiss and munster, then sauerkraut then the corned beef.  It was awesome.  I will certainly make this again.  The key is making the homemade sauce.

It was a great day that I got to get my crafty nerd on and celebrate with some good friends.  My tiniest leprechaun pal even got in on the green action.

Up next, Easter.  We are psyched to have a real yard this year to do an easter egg hunt.  Last year we did it in the house and it was about as lame as Star Jones.  Now I need to get out there and pick up all the dog shit.  If I would have caught Leonard, he would be out there doing that job too.  Damnit.  There is always next year.