Tomfoolery & Tradition

For miles and miles of family smiles, try these golden nuggets of Irish fun to cheer in St. Patrick’s Day.

GOING GREEN

Make friends with green food dye. Color your kids’ breakfast—eggs, cereal milk, oatmeal or smoothie—green. If you’re feeling a wee impish, add a few drops of emerald to the toilet water too.

IRISH POTATO HEADS

Create your own chia pet-inspired leprechauns using stockings or, in keeping with all things Irish, potatoes.

You’ll need:

• Women’s stockings OR
• Russet potatoes—cut flat on bottom to stand upright and hollowed one inch on top
• Wheat grass seeds
• Soil

Decorate with:

• Googly eyes using hot glue
• T-shirt paint (for decorating the face)
• Embellishments: beads, pipe cleaners, gems, sequins, etc.

Wet the nylon at the toe of the stocking and fill with seeds (where you want hair to sprout), then add one cup of soil; cut the other end of the stocking and tie it off to form a ball. Decorate your leprechaun face using t-shirt paints and googly eyes. When paint is dry, dip the leprechaun head in water to make the nylon more absorbent. Place it in a cup to sit in water (continue to water as needed).

For the potato head, put seeds and soil in the hollowed top. Decorate the face. Water as needed. Green hair will sprout in one to two weeks.

LUCKY CHARMS TREATS

For this magically delicious dessert, you’ll need:

• 3 T. butter
• 4 c. white mini marshmallows
• 5 c. Lucky Charms cereal

In a large saucepan, melt butter over medium-low heat. Stir in marshmallows until melted (don’t brown). Add cereal, stirring to coat. Place mixture in a greased 9x13-inch baking dish, pressing down. Allow one hour to cool.

BEST SHEPHERD’S PIE

You’ll need:

• Pork butt roast
• 2 onions, chopped
• Small bottle of barbecue sauce
• 2 cans green beans, drained
• 4 russet potatoes, skinned and chopped
• 1 block cream cheese
• 6 T. butter
• Lawry’s seasoning, to taste
• 2 c. cheddar cheese

In a crock pot, layer onions, pork and barbecue sauce; cook on low 8 hours. Pull pork apart with forks, setting aside half for pulled pork sandwich leftovers, and place the other half in a 9x13 inch dish. Top with green beans. Boil potatoes until soft, then drain. Whip potatoes with cream cheese, butter and Lawry’s seasoning; place on top of green beans. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes.

BLARNEY STONES

Paint large stones with symbols of Ireland: faces of giants and leprechauns, rainbows and pots o’ gold or patches of clovers. Coat the undersides solid green, using a gold pen to write Irish blessings. Set aside a special rock labeled with “Blarney Stone.” On the underside add, “For someone fab, the gift of gab.” Leave them at a friend’s door in a ring-and-run.

GAELIC GAMES

Invite friends over for a messy backyard tournament of Gaelic-themed games.

Golden Egg Race-Spray paint raw eggs gold and mark two lines for this race. Each contestant begins behind Line A, balancing their gilded egg on a plastic spoon. At the starting signal, contestants race to Line B and back to Line A with their eggs. If an egg falls without breaking, the contestant may stop and replace it on the spoon, continuing the race. The contestant who first crosses Line A again with the egg intact wins.

Golden Egg Toss-Contestants pair off, facing each other at a distance of four feet. The egg is tossed back and forth, with contestants taking one step backward between each toss. The team to toss their egg the greatest distance without breaking it wins.

Potato Sack Race-Contestants hop from Line A to Line B and back again. Or pair up, with each person putting one leg in the potato sack.

Leapin’ Leprechauns-Play a frolicking game of Red Light-Green Light to the sounds of Irish fiddles (Natalie MacMaster is a favorite artist). The leader stands at a distance with her back turned and calls “Green Light.” From a starting line, contestants dance a heel-clicking jig toward the leader but have to freeze when the leader turns and calls “Red Light.” If the leader catches anyone in a jig, she calls them out. The first person to reach the leader wins.

GOLD NUGGET TREASURE HUNT

Spray paint lima beans gold. Create a scavenger hunt for kids with a trail of gold nuggets (beans) and clues (written in wee untidy leprechaun scrawl) to a treasure pot chock-full of themed treats. Some ideas to stock your pot: dollar store finds; microwave popcorn and a DVD; sidewalk chalk, green bubbles and windmills; craft supplies to decorate your own St. Patrick’s Day buttons, t-shirts, oversized sunglasses and buckled hats.

Wendy Connelly, proud mom to two feisty little leprechauns, lives somewhere over the rainbow in Overland Park.