Everybody's Irish On St. Patrick's Day!

Well, lucky for Riley, Kendall and I, we ARE part Irish so St. Patty's Day is even more fun for us.  I guess Scotch-Irish counts, right?  My Grandma Stauffer's side (the Riley's, the Greer's and the Hardy's, etc.) came to the US via Ireland, but before that had to flee Scotland...you know those European kings and land rights...always promising someone else's land to a neighboring enemy clan and starting feuds!  Our ancestors had to leave Scotland or be killed (great alternatives, right?) so they sailed on over to Ireland looking for a better life, after a number of years, the luck of the Irish didn't seem to rub off on them so they hopped aboard a ship and headed west to the U.S. in hopes to a brighter future.   The interesting part of this story is that they settled down in western NC - where you will find MANY Scotch-Irish immigrant settlements.  Lots of lush green hilly farms which reminded them of Scotland.  My Mom and Dad now live in western NC and since then have reconnected with many of my mom's family.  My grandmother was actually born not far from where my parents live before her family fell on hard times and moved north to Pennsylvania to start over once again.

So to celebrate the non-German, non-Swiss side of my heritage, we have a lot of fun on St. Patrick's day.  We made ourselves some sugar cookies and decorated them with friends last week.

We had our cheese quesadillas cut out into shamrock shapes for lunch yesterday.

We made lime jello for dessert last night and this morning when the kids woke up, they discovered that some mischievous leprechauns had ransacked our house!  Chairs were over turned in the kitchen, picture frames knocked over and gold coins EVERYWHERE!  We had Lucky Charms for breakfast and when I poured the milk into the bowl, the milk magically turned GREEN!  Riley is convinced the leprechauns messed with the milk (not that Mommy poured green food coloring into the bowl before putting the cereal into it!)  I did the same with his cup of milk and he was totally fascinated!

Now we're going to listen to some good old Irish folk music courtesy of The Hair of the Dog!  HOTD is an Irish band from Albany, NY that Andy and I use to follow around from pub to pub.  My friend Megan first introduced me to them and I was hooked!  The one member of the group is a Phys. Ed. teacher and actually took my position at the school I was working at when we moved back to PA!  Small world, huh?

Hope all of you are experiencing the LUCK OF THE IRISH today!