luck o' the cornnuts

 for a lot of people, st. patrick's day is kind of a non-holiday, unless you drink.  then it's a party.  but since i don't drink, you'd think it's probably not such a big deal...except that it always has been in my family.

st. patrick's day is my mom's birthday, so we always celebrated it growing up.  we decorated for it, when most people don't.  we also always had boiled corned beef, cabbage, carrots and potatoes (YUM).  this happens to be one of my most favorite meals EVER.  i absolutely adore corned beef and cabbage.  i could eat it every week and never get tired of it.

but i digress.

since i moved out on my own, got married, had babies, i never had st. patty's day decorations.  two years ago my mom gave me this cute little train thing...leprechaun pulling shamrock cars that have candles in them.

 last year i visited the dollar store and purchased this banner:

 

and some garland.  half went over the window and half over the front door.
 

 this year, half of the garland went over our sliding door and the other half was used for these beauties:

 i also visited a craft store this year.  using the garland from last year (plus one more), the kids and i made cute shamrock garlands for our stairs and to go over the piano.  i bought a package of foam shamrocks and st. patty's day stickers (total cost for all things was about $10).  the kids helped me put the stickers on the foam shamrocks, then i hole punched them and put them on the garland.

 these photos totally don't do it justice...they really look so cute.

 also new this year....a wreath for the front door.  (i'm big on wreaths lately.  i love them.)  the inspiration came from pinterest, but the design is my own, as far as i know.  i bought a wreath form (it's a flat particle board one, about $2 and waaaaaaaaaay cheaper than the foam ones) and wrapped it in yarn.  that took quite some time, because i got the biggest wreath form they had.  then i cut shamrocks in different sizes out of felt.  (in the photo the felt all looks the same, but it's not.  some of it is plan green, and some of it has glittery sparkles in it.)  using hot glue, i attached the shamrocks, alternating glitter and plain.  turned out very cute, although i wish the wreath form wasn't flat...i think it would have been cuter if it was round.  (i wasn't about to spend $15 on a round wreath form, though.)  with yarn, felt and wreath form, it cost about $6.

 when it came time to figure out what to wear, i realized that i don't own anything green.  i have a few shirts that have a few tiny green accents...but that's not fun for such a green holiday!  trip to WalMart....my cute sweater was on clearance for $5.  i decided to get the kids plain green tees instead of the st. patty's ones for a few reasons.  first, they were cheaper ($3).  second, they can wear them more.  and third, the st. patty's day ones left in their sizes were ugly.  i also got one for hubby, that is a handsome polo ($8) and he can wear it a lot, too.

to make them st. patty's-licious, i got a package of 6 little buttons at the craft store for $1.  the kids loved these and we can reuse them every year, because my little ones won't grow out of buttons like they will t-shirts.  (don't you love our face decorations?)

 we were gone most of the day, so dinner for the kids was fast and easy.  green milk and green scrambled eggs (they really loved that...food coloring to the rescue!), green grapes and celery. 

 tonight i'm making corned beef and cabbage....i can't wait!

i hope you all had a great st. patrick's day!  we had a very fun day full of good luck and family time.  no pots of gold, though....maybe next year we'll strike it rich.