They are fun to make with your kids.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

St. Patrick’s Day Treats
By Susanne Myers and Christine Steendahl

Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day this year with some of these fun and of course mostly green St. Patrick’s Day Treats.

Leprechaun Ale
Place a scoop of lime sherbet into a tall glass, pour ginger ale over it and watch it fizz. This can be made even fancier by rubbing some lime juice on the rim of the glass and then dipping it in green sugar crystals before you pour the leprechaun ale.

Lucky Clover Cake
Prepare 9 x 13 inch cake using a boxed cake mix. We like to use yellow cake for this. Get a can of vanilla frosting and use a few drops of yellow and blue food coloring to color the frosting green. After the cake is baked and cooled down, cut three heart shaped pieces out of the cake. We use a cardboard template to make the hearts even. Arrange them on a plate with the pointy ends pointing toward each other. It will look like a clover leaf. Frost the entire cake with the green vanilla frosting.

Mini Mint Ice Cream Tarts
Purchase a roll of refrigerated sugar cookie dough. Roll the dough into small balls (a little smaller than a golf ball), and press them in the bottoms of mini muffin pans. Bake according to package directions. Press the middle of the cooked dough down after you take them out of the oven. Let them cool for 10 minutes, then transfer them to a baking rack and let them cool completely. To serve, scoop mint ice cream in each of your mini tart shells.

St. Patrick’s Day Cookies
Buy or make simple sugar cookie dough. Let the kids cut out shamrock shaped cookies with a cookie cutter. Bake them. While they are cooling, use food coloring to turn vanilla frosting or a simple powered sugar and milk glaze green. Let the kids decorate the cookies with frosting and plenty of green sprinkles.

St. Patrick’s Day Parfait
Prepare a pack of instant pistachio pudding according to package directions. Mix a few drops of food coloring with cool whip to tint it green. Cut up some kiwi fruit. Layer chilled pudding, kiwi fruit and green cool whip for a completely green St. Patrick’s Day Parfait.

Are you seeing green yet? Give a few of these yummy sweet St. Patrick’s Day treats a try this year. They are always a big hit with our families.

Here are some fun St. Patrick’s Day Craft Ideas.

Additional Resource:

Dine Without Whine – A family oriented menu planner

Christine from Dine Without Whine created a family friendly and healthy menu planner. Get 7 kid-friendly dinner recipes in your email inbox every week. Give it a try. Even the most picky eaters like Christine’s recipes.

St. Patrick’s Day Crafts

With St. Patrick’s Day almost upon us, it will soon be time to get out the decorations. Here are some easy St. Patrick’s Day crafts for your kids to enjoy.

1. Buy green construction paper and trace shamrocks from either a coloring book or a template online, and make a string of shamrocks to hang in your home.

2. You can’t celebrate the day without hats! You can easily make St. Patrick’s Day hats by using construction paper. While there are tons of templates available online, you can accomplish this task easily. Take two pieces of green construction paper and tape them together forming about a 14″ long piece. Fold it into a circle and tape one side to the other. Take another piece of green construction paper to make the top of the hat by using a paper plate to trace a circle. Cut it out and use clear tape to attach it to the top of the hat.

Next, you’ll need to make the brim of the hat. Again, using green construction paper; cut out a larger circle and apply glue so that the hat will attach itself to the brim. Finally, you need the buckle to place just above the brim of the hat. For this you can use brown construction paper and cut a wide strip and glue or tape it to the hat.

In addition, you may want to assist your kids in making a rainbow Jello mold. You can even make a pot of gold using yellow apples! Or how about the old standby; cupcakes with green icing, with a shamrock cookie on top!

There is no end to the many creative and imaginative ideas you can incorporate when engaging in a fun activity such as decorations for St. Patrick’s Day. Put on some Irish CD’s, and have a great time!

Here are two more fun St. Patrick’s Day Crafts
Leprechaun Craft
Rainbow Pot Of Gold

Additional Resource:

Dine Without Whine – A family oriented menu planner

Christine from Dine Without Whine created a family friendly and healthy menu planner. Get 7 kid-friendly dinner recipes in your email inbox every week. Give it a try. Even the most picky eaters like Christine’s recipes.

St. Patrick’s Day Fun
By Angela Billings

Have a little “green” fun with the following activities.

Make Irish Toast – Simply get a piece of sliced bread and
paint
shamrocks on it using a new, clean small tipped paintbrush
and water mixed with green food coloring. Then pop it in the
toaster and serve when lightly browned.

Make Shamrock Pancakes – Use a heart cookie cutter and cut 3
hearts out of the cooked pancake and form in a shamrock
shape.

Make construction paper shamrocks – Cut 3 heart shapes out
and arrange them in the shamrock shape and glue on
construction paper. It is said that St Patrick used the
three-leafed shamrock to explain the concept of the Trinity;
which refers to the combination of God the Father, God the
Son, and God the Holy Spirit. This is said to be one reason
for the strong association with St. Patrick’s day and
name.

Make Leprechaun Traps -give the children boxes, string,
ribbons, tape, glue, sticks, wood and other craft materials
to help them make a leprechaun trap have children set the
traps before going to bed, then while they are sleeping you
can leave gold wrapped chocolate coins or something else
special in each child’s trap.

Blarney Stones – Let kids get smooth rocks from outside and
bring in and wash them and dry. Then let them paint on glue
with a paintbrush and then roll in gold glitter.

Don’t forget to wear green!
Angela Billings is the founder of Home and Family Ezine
which is a free online newsletter offering encouragement and
support for homekeepers everywhere.
homeandfamilyezine.com

Additional Resource:

The Definitive Kid Party Craft Book!
Discover How To Create A Memory That Will Last A Lifetime!
Learn how to create party crafts that also double as Party
Favors and Save a Bundle on Your Child’s Birthday Party!

Don’t forget to take lots of picture and have them developed through Snapfish. Sign-up and get your first roll of film developed for FREE! Plus, your photos are placed online for FREE to share with family & friends.

Stop Feeding Your Kids Junk! – Skip the fast food and frozen TV dinners…Find out how easy it is to cook a home-cooked meal each night by planning it ahead of time. Grab your free Menu Planning Basics report at www.MenuPlanningCentral.com – and watch for the menu pack offer after you sign up.                      
You’ll Need

* paper plate
* cardboard roll from toilet paper
* black marker
* crayons or paint
* scissors
* glue
* pennies
* shamrock sticker

Directions:

Cut the paper plate in half. Cut out a half circle in the middle so the outer rim of the paper plate looks like the shape of a rainbow.

Use crayons or paint to color the paper plate piece in the colors of the rainbow.

Cut a 2 inch piece off the cardboard tube. Paint it black. This is your pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. After the paint dries, put the shamrock sticker on the outside. Glue one end of the rainbow in the pot. Glue or stick some pennies inside the pot.

Your pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is finished.

We Recommend:
KidsActivityCalendar.com
How would you like to get fun and educational activities for your preschooler delivered to your email inbox every week? Join us for some alphabet fun

This rainbow pot of gold is a fun St. Patrick’s Day activity. You probably have all the supplies in the house already. It makes for a fun and colorful St. Patrick’s day decoration.

Stop Feeding Your Kids Junk! – Skip the fast food and frozen TV dinners…Find out how easy it is to cook a home-cooked meal each night by planning it ahead of time. Grab your free Menu Planning Basics report at www.MenuPlanningCentral.com – and watch for the menu pack offer after you sign up.

You’ll Need

* paper plate
* green construction paper
* crayons or paint
* scissors
* glue or tape
* string

Directions:

Cut the paper plate in half. Use the crayons or paint to paint a rainbow pattern on the paper plate.

Cut shamrock shapes out of the green construction paper. Use glue or tape to attach the shamrocks to the string. Attach all the strings with shamrocks on them to the rainbow.

Use a small piece of string to make a loop at the top of the rainbow. Use it to hang your rainbow mobile in your room.

We Recommend:
KidsActivityCalendar.com
How would you like to get fun and educational activities for your preschooler delivered to your email inbox every week? Join us for some alphabet fun

Stop Feeding Your Kids Junk! – Skip the fast food and frozen TV dinners…Find out how easy it is to cook a home-cooked meal each night by planning it ahead of time. Grab your free Menu Planning Basics report at www.MenuPlanningCentral.com – and watch for the menu pack offer after you sign up.

You’ll Need
* small terracotta pot
* matching saucer
* soil
* grass seeds
* green and black construction paper
* markers
* scissors

Directions:

Put the soil in the terracotta cup and set the cup on the saucer. Add the grass seeds and gently mix them into the top layer of the soil. Water the grass seeds. As the grass grows, it will become the leprechaun’s hair.

Cut a leprechaun hat out of the green and black construction paper. Glue it on the outside of the pot.

Use markers to draw the leprechaun’s face on the terracotta pot. Cut two ears out of green construction paper and glue them on the sides of the pot.

We Recommend:
KidsActivityCalendar.com
How would you like to get fun and educational activities for your preschooler delivered to your email inbox every week? Join us for some alphabet fun