St. Patrick's Day Party

St. Patrick's Day has arrived and of course it is as good a reason as any to have a class party at school. Back at the end of the summer I had intelligently volunteered to handle Avery's preschool St. Pat's party and help out with Emma's class party. Luckily, Avery's party consisted of putting together a few party foods, juice boxes and plates and napkins and dropping them off with her.

Emma's class parties are a little bit more elaborate with crafts, food and activities. Parents are invited to come help set up and hang out during these occasions.

After perusing the Internet for cute St. Patrick's Day kid ideas (and finding very few that didn't involve pistachio pudding), I decided to make shamrock sugar cookies, mini cupcakes and a Lucky Charm snack mix.

I guess once you enter first grade, St. Patrick's Day class parties are passé. His class did a little bit of leprechaun writing and artwork instead.

So after dropping Avery and Emma off at their preschools and conducting a hour's worth of marathon grocery shopping, I hurried over to Emma's school for the party.

When I arrived, all of the children were canvassing the school yard for leprechauns. Although they were never able to catch one, they were fortunate enough to find the pot of gold and each child brought home their own bag of chocolate gold coins.

While they were looking for mischevious little green men, we were able to set up the food for the party. The kids enjoyed their food and then broke into small groups for a few craft activities.

This, pictured above, is what I had the pleasure of helping small 4-year-olds piece together with glue. These little "flower pot" leprechauns were very tricky indeed. I am not sure most adults would voluntarily attempt to put these together with their many small parts and pieces that needed to be individually glued on, let alone small children with glue impairments.

However, we managed and hopefully when the children bring their crafts home to show Mom and Dad, they won't breathe a word that there were actually adults that helped because it certainly didn't look like it.

I snapped a few pictures of Emma in her surroundings while I was there. As usual when it came time for me to leave (I had to rush home, unload and put away the groceries that had been idling in my trunk for an hour), she of course, broke into tears and grabbed onto my leg.

Fortunately, one of her teachers took her along on a visit to the work room to retrieve more paper so I was able to sneak out!

As customary in our household, I have our corned beef, cabbage and veggies simmering away in the crockpot for dinner tonight. It should smell fantastic in here soon - nothing like the smell of cabbage bursting through the house when you are pregnant. Thank goodness it is a nice day and we are able to open windows!

Have a great St. Patrick's Day!