St. Patrick's Day Celebration

One of Madison's great grandmothers was a McCann, which makes her a little Irish. Of course, by that reasoning she also is a little Cherokee, Welsh, Dutch, German, English, and oh yeah: Chinese. But St. Patrick's Day is one of those days that you celebrate even if you aren't the slightest bit Irish, and once a year we do that at Ye-Ye's house. Mommy put this beautiful wreath on the door to celebrate the occasion, and she also put out the garden flag. March is the season of green, of clovers and leprechauns.

And of cake and of cookies! Late last night, Mommy made shamrock cookies. Meanwhile, Aunt Shain was working on a cake of her own - the interior is actually rainbow-colored! Ye-Ye and Nana worked on decorating the house and plugging in the Irish music, and everyone was ready for some fun.

What do you do for a St. Patrick's Day celebration with our family? There's lots to do, actually. Each year we invent new things to go with the theme, but one thing remains constant: the meal. You've simply got to have corned beef and cabbage. And you must have Irish soda bread too. Oh, and we even have green tea! Nana takes the tea and adds a bit of green food coloring for a bit of fun. This year, we had lots to eat - in fact, I'll be having a little of that tomorrow for lunch, as there was plenty leftover. There were plenty of cookies too! Madison enjoyed munching on her shamrock cookie here so much that her upper lip started to turn a bit green. Was she turning into a leprechaun? Not hardly, but there was quite a bit of mischief in her today! She spent quite a bit of time running around the house with her cousins, and of course playing with Asaph. Everyone wore green today, even Asaph. Notice the shorts Madison is wearing? One year ago, she wore those same pants and they went down to her ankles! You can see that for yourself when you look at the picture on the bottom of the entry right here.

After our hearty meal, we went outside to play some games. Above is a photo of Madison in the spectator section for our big first event for St. Patrick's Day 2010:

It was the potato toss! This event could be the next "curling." We could start a movement for this to become an official Olympic sport by 2016, and say it all started here in Ye-Ye's front yard. The rules of this game are simple: We toss a potato into a cauldron that is a considerable distance away. Here's a photo of Madison moving the cauldron even further away. She's thinking there's no way we can hit the target, but with March Madness going on, several of us had some big scores. Daddy won round one with two swishes, but the contest was just getting started - everyone was just warming up!

In fact, Madison and Ye-Ye decided to move the pot-o-gold even further away, into three point range so that nobody would ever possibly get it in! And nobody did, until Aunt Shain scored the shot of the day, bouncing her potato off the ground and into the pot! Score!

The boys tried their luck from a shorter distance, and had mixed results. Look how green everyone looks. David Austen back there is playing the part of catcher, for those shots that go way astray. With the potatoes flying, I guess you could call him the "catcher and the fry." Yes, I know: that was terrible.

Madison got into the act as well! Just like last year, she tried her hand at hurling potatoes, and did much better this year. I should have brought out my radar to clock her speed, but let's just say some pitching scouts better start paying attention: she knows how to bring the heat!

After our potato contest, it was time to play "Pin the Coin on the Pot of Gold." Rather than use a blindfold, we opted for the classic "pull the giant green hat over your entire face" option. This seemed to have worked, as everyone was completely clueless where they were walking, especially having been spun around three times. Madison gave it a try after watching Hannah score a direct hit. She giggled as we brought the hat down over her head - but we didn't spin her around. The spinning part is only for professionals. Anyway, guiding her carefully to the picture hanging up, Madison pinned her gold coin on the rainbow!

Hooray! Soon after, the rest of the family attempted the same feat. Poor Jonathan was way off, nailing his coin to a board below the picture. It's all right, Jonathan - you can't win 'em all. In fact, this is the sort of competition where you can't really expect to do all that well, what with a hat over your head and being spun around in circles. It was fun watching everyone try to get it right - we do this every year, and seem to laugh a lot. This year, David Austen won again - is he peeking? Just in case you want to see the official results for this year's thrilling competition, we've got them posted below. Madison's gold coin is somewhere over the rainbow, way up high.

To make sure everyone was happy though, prizes are given out to the whole horde. This year, we contributed some Lucky Charms chap stick (you read that right), and some clovers that you can grow in a small pot. Ye-Ye and Nana got chocolate coins for everyone: the "gold you find at the end of the rainbow!" But now wasn't the time for eating that: now was the time for eating Aunt Shain's delicious cake. Daddy didn't realize it was a rainbow inside until we started cutting into it - what a surprise! Aunt Shain worked hard on that cake, and as long as it took to create... it was gobbled down in seconds!

Anyway, it was a fun day today. Lots of hard work go into it, but it's always fun to hang out, listen to Irish music, eat some Irish food and have some Irish fun. I'm sure people in Ireland do it way differently from us, but who cares? We had fun. If you don't believe me, check out this picture of Madison below: