Goin' Green

Literally.  

Happy St. Patty's Day everyone!  We've made it a tradition around our home to do all things green (or at least a few) on this Irish holiday.  Here are a few of our fun activities this year.

Cheers!

* Monday is usually a craft day for Cole and I so we went ahead with our Irish them and made a picture collage.  A handprint shamrock, painted rainbow, and fingerprint pot of gold added a nice holiday touch to the fridge :)  

My favorite thing about this craft was explaining a little about St. Patrick to Cole.  He understood quite a bit and loved how we can use a shamrock to illustrate the Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  We talked about how even though they are all different petals, they still come together to create one flower.  We also talked about the heart shape of the petals. . . how that demonstrates God's unconditional love for us.

We went on to revisit the promise of the rainbow and God's faithfulness and how God purifies our hearts like gold (of course all in three year old terms) and finished with the verse "For great is your love, higher than the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the sky" Psalm 108:4.  I'm amazed at how much his little mind can comprehend.  I see some interesting discussions in our future!

Today's activities were: 

* Lucky Charms for breakfast (we are not fans of sugar cereal, but hey - gotta have a little fun!)

* Wearing green

* Having a green scavenger hunt around the house (it's amazing how many green toys and knick-knacks little hands can find!)

* Hunting for shamrocks in the yard

* Making a shamrock sun catcher

* Reading some St. Patty's Day books  

* I had taco soup planned for tonight, but I'm thinking I may change that to baked chicken with pesto sauce, green beans, fried okra, and salad.  That's tentative seeing we have to BE at church by 6:00 :) 

Shamrock Sun Catcher:

1.  Cut a shamrock shape out of green construction paper.  

2.  Cut a hole in the center to let light through - I cut out the majority of the inside.  We wanted a lot of light to shine through :)

3.  Tear two pieces of wax paper slightly larger than the open space in your shamrock.

4.  Place your shamrock onto one piece of wax paper and trace around the edge of the opening.

5.  Fill the shape with shamrocks from outdoors or green crayon shavings. (You can remove the shamrock from the wax paper since you've traced it, but I left it there to give better boundaries for Cole)

6.  After all items have been placed on the wax paper, trace the pencil outline with glue.

7.  Lay the second piece of wax paper on top and press together.

8.  Glue the shamrock shape onto the wax paper.

9.  Cut excess wax paper around the shamrock shape.

10.  Punch a hole, string with yarn, and hang in a sunny spot.  Enjoy!

(Cole loved it. . . even on a cloudy day!)