St. Patrick's Day Shenanigans

   By Now, I'm sure you all realize that my faith is important to me.  In fact, my Savior is THE most important thing to me with my husband, family, and friends right behind.  I don't believe in luck, destiny, or chance; I believe in God's divine plan.  I saw something once that really stuck with me: "I have a God not a genie.".  So, for that reason, I really struggle with what St. Patrick's Day.

   We simply don't believe in luck.  We've even gone so far as to remove that term from our vocabulary.  We don't say, "Oh my goodness!  You're so lucky you get to go on that vacation!".  Instead we say, "Oh my goodness!  What a blessing that you get to go on that vacation!"  It might be excessive to some people but for us, it is a matter of living our faith and maybe in a small way, letting our light shine.

   With all that being said, we ARE decendants of Irish immigrants. My mother-in-law's family is Irish and in my ancestry, an Irish boy was adopted into our family.  I think it's important that our children realize where they came from, how our family came to live here, that it is a privilege and not a right, that it was earned through sacrifice and we are only here in the U.S. by of the grace of God and the hard-work of people before us.  This is worth celebrating.

   I decided we will use the day as an opportunity for such a discussion with our oldest AND for an opportunity to have a little silly fun... without the word "luck".  Most of my ideas below are totally, 100% lifted from another mom; one whom I really admire. Our next-door neighbors growing up were AWESOME.  My parents still live next door to this wonderful family and I really miss them when we go without seeing one another for a spell.  They are the family that would, and have, dropped everything to help their friends.  Raising a child takes a village and they are absolutely part of mine! They are devoted to their faith, family, and friends and their children have grown in to wonderful, contributing members of society.  If Adam and I do half as well, we will be really... blessed... see what I did there???  haha

   Here's what we will be dong on the 17th:

• Green outfits
• I'll surprise the kids with green milk - food coloring kind, not the science project kind...
• Green pancakes for breakfast
• I'll use green food coloring in the potty
• I'll change some of the light bulbs to green ones for a surprise as the day goes on
• Mommy will have a green beer... or two...

I hope you enjoy celebrating the holiday!

Cheers,

Alyssa