Weekend Wrap Party - St Patricks Day

Did you find a pot o' gold this weekend? Get hit with the luck of the Irish? 

No? 

How bout just eat some really good grub? 

This weekend was jammed full o' fun! Mike's (the hubster) dad, wife & her daughter came to visit from Florida. 

Saturday night, my parents came over along with our friend Jeff & we had an "authentic" (or as close as I can get to authentic) Irish meal. This will be more like weekend wrap party through pictures. The in laws are still here so I'll do a quickie post. 

Shephards Pie

Irish Soda Bread (not my fav to be honest)

My mom also made a great salad. 

Guinness Cake (oh, it was sooo good...moist, delicious & topped with cream cheese icing)

I was kinda experimenting with the four leaf clovers. I had some green melts (for a reason that you will soon see...eww...cliffhanger...;p) so I free handed some four leaf clovers. 

It turned out to be a beautiful night...perfect temp...so we ate outside. I hate doing the "L-R" thing (just to be honest...it takes too much brain power ;p) but here goes...

L-R: Mike's stepsister Candace, Jeff (our friend), Dave (Mike's dad), Becki (Dave's wife), my mom...momma Rew, my dad & my youngest brother Clayton

We all had a wonderful time, talking, laughing & playing BDG. It's an "icebreaker" type game that I learned from pop star Pink. Not that we're really close but I heard her say she plays it on a radio interview. She's cool, so I'm game. ;p The letters stand for Brag, Desire & Gratitude. Each person has to share each of these. 

I just don't think I can say enough great things about the weekend. It was such a wonderful time with Dave, Becki & Candace!

Guinness' tactic...Stare & make his presence known until you break! I think he feels entitled to the Irish meal. Afterall, his name is Guinness...I guess St Patty's day is kinda "his" holiday. ;p

Sunday, the girls went shopping in the Virginia Highlands while the guys went to Home Depot, the Apple Store, did some caulking, etc. The downside was that I forgot my camera so all the pictures I have are from my IPhone. :-( The above picture is from Cacao, a chocolate boutique that I could seriously live at! It is so pretty, smells amazing...and...there's lots of chocolate! I mean who wouldn't want to live there? That is a peppermint marshmallow dipped in chocolate & it was the BEST EVER! 

This is one of my favorite stores in the Highlands, Urban Cottage. They have the most unique home decor, cards, cookbooks, etc. 

This was a dress made from popcorn!!! Isn't that cool? I'd give it a Parties For Pennies cheapskate award for best dressed for less! ;p

I found this book in another one of my favorite stores, Paper Source. I stood in the store & read this book aloud to Becki & Candace like I was reading in a library full of children. Birds came & perched on my shoulder, butterlflies were prancing around, little squirrels stood at attention...no...I'm kidding. That was only my dream as a little girl after watching the Cinderella cartoon. ;p Anyone else? No? Okay...moving right along...

That was a quick picture tour of our wonderful weekend! How was yours? What did you do for St Patty's day? Do you share my feeling of Irish Soda Bread? 

Can't wait to come back this Wednesday to share some Baby Shower ideas. It will probably be closer to Wednesday evening by the time I'm able to post it. So...check back Thursday morning. 

Hope you have a great week!

Luck be a Lady?? Nope...not this lady, at least not tonight

Sure, other websites may have perfect little pictures, easy to follow instructions, amazing tutorials & the WOW factor. BUT...me...I prefer to show you the imperfections...the failures...the "ohmygoodnessdidatwoyearolddothat?" I like to say I help you feel better about yourself! :p

Confession: I always strive to make my party projects something Martha Stewart would be proud of.  But the reality of it is...there are disasters, flops, cry-on-the-kitchen-floor-in-a-puddle-of-homemade-german-chocolate-cake-batter-that-just-cap-sized failures.

This St Patty's day post is one of those times!

I envisioned creating a snack-type kids St Patty's day post.

Problem # 1: I was going to make mint chocolate chip meringue four leaf clovers. Apparently, meringue is harder to make than I thought. I had made meringue cookies before but somewhere between then & now I lost the meringue mo-jo. The usual fluffy, full dollops came out flatter than me...at 9 years old when I wanted so badly to have an excuse to buy a training bra (Woah...TMI, sorry). They were pitiful looking & I SOOO wish I had taken a picture because you would've gotten a great laugh!

Problem # 2: Time...wasn't on my side. I wanted to "set the stage" with a whole lot more pizazz but I ran out of time to get supplies.

Ok...so I guess that's all the problems I ran into. Overall, it just didn't turn out exactly how I wanted it. But let this be a lesson to us all  to me that using our creative juices sometimes gives us watered down lemonade. (Ok, so maybe not the best analogy)


Here are a few ideas if you want to set up a snack station for kids for St Patty's day:

First up...this is so simple, inexpensive & a fun St Patty's day treat that won't give anyone a hang over. Side note: I borrowed these mugs from Mike (my main squeeze) and he definitely mentioned something about his beer mugs being emasculated ;p) 

Taste the rainbow! :-) The hardest part about this was separating the skittle colors. According to my research, the Skittles peeps really do put an equal amount of each color in the bag. Personally, I would be happy if Skittles only came in red & purple. Yes, I discriminate. :p (only with skittles people)

Can I give a shout out to my sister Meg that helped me separate these during our weekly Bachelor viewing? :p 

Like my pot of gold? That is a cauldron I had left from Halloween. I placed a bowl inside, made up some pineapple jello (you could also do lemon, pineapple just looked intriguing to me), cut it into squares & voila...a pot of gold. :-) 

So...not exactly how I wanted it all to work out...but to make up for it, I'm including a couple more ideas from other sites that I thought were really cute.

Aren't these adorable? So fun. The recipe & instructions can be found here: http://familyfun.go.com/st-patricks-day/st-patricks-day-recipes/st-patricks-day-desserts/taste-a-rainbow-cupcakes-842128/

Here is another recipe for Guinness cupcakes...yummy! 

http://www.celebrations.com/article/st-patricks-day-chocolate-guinness-cupcakes

So...there it is...my semi-failure St Patty's day post. I PROMISE you will love the idea I share next week. It is soooo simple, so inexpensive & perfect for Spring.