Caroline's "Lucky Seven" Birthday Party!

We celebrated Caroline's 7th birthday on St. Patrick's Day, which was actually her due date, although she was born four days later.  So we themed it her "Lucky Seven" St. Patrick's Day birthday party!

Here's a sign I made using a Celtic/Irish style font found free online somewhere.

Caroline decorated the table with this St. Patrick craft she'd made. Cecilia made one as well.  

This shamrock sign greeted guests at the door.

We decided to have a whole day of the Irish theme, beginning with...

~Breakfast~

Irish Oatmeal (the maple cream, while far from being Irish, makes this soooo good!)

Shamrock Eggs

Caroline enjoys her special breakfast!

After everyone had arrived...

~Lunch~

Shamrock Punch (just chilled Sierra Mist and lime sherbet)

Cabbage Salad, brought by my mom (she also brought corned beef, but I don't have a photo)

Irish Flag veggie tray

Irish Fruit Salad, in the colors of the flag

and for the adults, Irish Stout

Yummy!

Cecilia eating... we used St. Patrick's Day plates and birthday cups!

Caroline made herself the crown - golden with green accents

~The Cake~

I made, at her request, a mint chocolate cake using a Wilton shamrock cake pan.  The frosting is just whipped cream, so edging the cake in green M&Ms defined the shape better.  I was lucky to have had about half a bag of leftover Christmas M&Ms; otherwise I never would have had enough greens!

~The Guests~

(who I'm sure appreciated being photographed while eating)

My mom and dad

Chris with his dad and mom

My brother Mike and his wife and their baby, Chloe (missing the elusive Julianne; maybe that's who Mike is looking at!)

See how everyone wore green?

Lucy was in attendance, of course, even in a green carrier at times.

Here's Caroline about to blow out the candles!

She wanted the seven candles to be stuck on top of the number 7 at the bottom of the cake.

Here's Julianne, still for the few minutes it takes to have a little cake!  She was a few days away from turning two here - her birthday is the day after Caroline's.

~The Gifts~

We gave Caroline a little pair of purple glasses for her doll.

We also gave her a nightgown, which she'd been wanting.  I found a handmade one that is a pioneer style... she's into Little House on the Prairie!

Cecilia wearing some ribbons

Caroline received many other nice gifts from her extended family.  Thank you!

Lucy with a bit of sticky-uppy hair

Her onesie says "Made in America with Irish Parts."  I like it because she can continue to wear it all spring/summer because it's not just for St. Patrick's Day!

And what would an Irish party be without a good old-fashioned brawl?

Those red-headed Irish babies can get pretty violent when they've been drinking too much! ;)

(of course, you know I did not let my baby drink beer.  exclusive breastfeeding, virgin gut and so forth)

Happy St. Patrick's Day, and Happy Birthday, Caroline!!!

A bit late... next goal, Easter photos!

St. Patrick's Day

Late in posting this, but here are the girls on St. Patrick's Day wearing their shamrock stickers that came in the mail from Gran. It was a beautiful day, so we spent lots of time outside!

Dinner: Irish Brown Bread and Irish Guinness Beef Stew - yum!!!

100% Whole Wheat Pretzels (and St. Joseph!)

A couple weeks ago, before we went on our trip to Illinois, we made a different pretzel recipe, one for 100% whole wheat pretzels from the La Leche League Whole Foods for the Whole Family cookbook. It was much easier to roll out into ropes than the King Arthur recipe (and tasted almost as good), and so the pretzel-making was more kid-friendly, and the pretzels actually looked like pretzels are supposed to look... and they are even a bit healthier due to more whole wheat flour!

I couldn't resist posting the photo above because of the look on Cecilia's face!

Whole Grain Soft Pretzels

from Whole Foods for the Whole Family

1 T yeast

1 1/2 cups warm water

1 T honey

1 tsp salt

3 T oil

3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1/2 cup wheat germ

1 egg beaten w/ 1 T water for glaze

Dissolve yeast in water with honey in a bowl until bubbly. Stir in salt and oil and 2 cups of flour. Beat until smooth, then add wheat germ and remaining flour to make soft dough. Knead until smooth and elastic. let rise for 45-60 minutes or until doubled. Punch down and divide into 16 equal pieces. Roll into 16-inch long ropes and form into pretzel shapes (or whatever shape you wish, as we did!). Place pretzels on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and let rise 20 minutes, then lower them gently into a pot of boiling water and baking soda (8 cups water and 2 T baking soda) and allow to boil about a minute, 3 pretzels at a time, if you want them to have the characteristic chewy texture. Otherwise, just bake them without boiling. Brush the glaze onto each pretzel and sprinkle with coarse salt, sesame seeds, poppy seeds, whatever. Bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes or until golden brown.

The much more discernible pretzel shape, unlike our last batch.

Caroline made some pretzel dough into "snakes" and said they were for St. Patrick, since is said to have driven all the snakes out of Ireland! So I followed her theme and made a bishop's crozier to honor St. Patrick as well.

Then Caroline made this cross pretzel. She was excited to make different meaningful shapes.

Mmmm, fresh out of the oven!

And the last photo I have to share is from St. Joseph's feast day last Friday: we made the mini St. Joseph's altar found here. It was fun and cute - Caroline enjoyed it a lot! It made a nice centerpiece along with the daffodils that finally bloomed in our yard and the new St. Joseph holy card given to us by our priest at our church's weekly dinner before Stations of the Cross:

I can't believe Lent is almost over! Time to start planning for Holy Week and Easter! maybe we'll get in one more batch of pretzels, too! ;)

St. Patrick's Day Party!

We had a St. Patrick's Day party at our house this weekend! We invited several families from our church with young children as well as our deacon and pastor - unfortunately, most everyone got sick, and it was a busy weekend for the clergy at our church, so it ended up being just us and one family... so we also invited a couple of our neighbors at the last minute to come share some of the food we'd prepared!

We had shamrock mint cupcakes (seen above) with some slight alterations due to my misunderstanding the recipe (they still tasted great!), along with other snacks that had a green or Irish theme. We also celebrated St. Joseph's feast day (a solemnity), which was on Friday - but the food and decorations were definitely a St. Patrick's theme!

Veggie and cheese tray arranged to look like the Irish flag (idea stolen from here!)

Here's our table, with shamrock stickers all over the tablecloth courtesy of Caroline... there is guacamole in a bowl alongside a bowl of tortilla chips, and another bowl of green grapes!

These shamrock toasties were last on the table once they came out of the oven... yummy!

Katelyn, Caroline, and Brianna enjoy their snacks!

We did a craft with the kids a while later. I saw the idea of a shamrock kit from Oriental Trading - it had symbols for the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to be glued onto each leaf of a shamrock. So I put together something similar. I bought two colors of green cardstock and found a pattern for a shamrock and traced it onto the darker green cardstock. Then I drew a smaller heart and traced it onto the lighter green cardstock three times. The hearts were then glued onto the leaves of the shamrock to give it some dimension and visual appeal. Then I found this image of the Trinity and resized it and printed off several copies. I cut all this out and put them into individual baggies along with the Irish poem below and a piece of shamrock ribbon. Then all the kids had to do was glue it all together - which is good, because all of them were age 5 and under, so they didn't need something that required cutting and such.

Good St. Patrick traveled far to teach God's Holy Word.

And when he came to Erin's sod, a wondrous thing occurred.

He plucked a shamrock from the earth and held it in his

hand to symbolize the Trinity that all might understand.

The first leaf for the Father, the second for the Son,

the third for the Spirit, three of them in one.

Cecilia and Leah, the two year olds, needed some assistance, but the others were able to do most of it with just a little guidance.

I did call Chris over to help Caroline - she tends to be hesitant about doing some things herself.

Here she is holding up her completed shamrock - the poem is glued to the back. We also had some coloring sheets of St. Joseph out for anyone who wanted to do them.

And here are all the kids just before the party was over - my girls love when their friends come over for snacks and playing!