St. Patrick's Day & Leprechaun Visit

It's hard for me to believe that St. Patrick's Day is next week! It seems like we just had Valentine's Day. While I have picked up a few things for the leprechaun visit (pencils, tops, mini Rubik cube, chocolate green and gold coins), I haven't come up with how the leprechaun is going to leave it this year. If you are looking for any food, craft, activity, or leprechaun visit ideas, I have some below!

FOOD:

• Beef Stew, Soda Bread, Shamrock Pancakes, Shamrock Sucker Napkin Rings. The beef stew and soda bread are easy and delicious!
• Rainbow and Shamrock Pancakes. (see pic above in bottom row of collage) These were pretty easy to make. I made regular pancake batter, separated into 4 bowls and added food coloring to get blue, green, yellow, and red. I used small plastic condiment bottles (candy making bottles would work too) and made the shapes in the skillet. It is easiest if you have a bottle for each color, so you can pipe the an arch of color and immediately add the next arch, and so on, so the pancake bakes about the same time.Once on a plate, I added whipped cream clouds at the base of the rainbows.
• Make Rainbow Bread. Last year I made a braided loaf of bread with rainbow colors. After mixing the dough, I separated and dyed the sections different colors. I then rolled out each color into a long strand and braided it together. We used it to make rainbow sandwiches and french toast for St. Patrick's Day.
• Rainbow Cupcakes Part 1, Rainbow Cupcakes Part 2 (These will really wow your kids or guests for a St. Patrick's Day treat.)
• St. Patrick's Day Shake (My version of the Shamrock shake.)
• Shepherd's Pie (An easy shepherd's pie recipe that works great for St. Patrick's Day or any night of the year.)
• St. Patrick's Day Lunch
• Make cookies! Cookies are always a hit with my boys and the shamrock cookie cutters are easy to use. We used green sprinkles, as well as green and white cookie icing. (DM TIP #1: If don't have a shamrock cookie cutter, use a heart one. Place the points of 3 hearts together and push down to join. Cut a small strip for the stem and push to add onto the cookie. Bake and decorate! DM TIP #2: I also made Pot of Gold cookies, which turned out to be a big hit. However, I could not find a cauldron/pot cookie cutter anywhere. Eventually I found this cupcake shaped cookie cutter and it worked really well for the pot of gold shape.) 
• Hidden Shamrock Pound Cake
• Leprechaun Donuts
• Spray Oreos with Wilton Gold Color Mist Spray (Edible). Spray, let dry. Turn over, spray other side, let dry.

ACTIVITIES, CRAFTS, AND FUN:

• Fingerprint Shamrocks
• Shamrock Coloring Page
• Paper Shamrock Decorations
• Shamrock Stamps
• Paper Ring Rainbow
• Stained Glass: Use contact paper and green tissue paper to make an easy shamrock decoration. (Click for directions from my pumpkin stained glass post.)
• Coin Toss Game
• Leprechaun Word Hunt
• Leprechaun Maze
• The Sky Is Falling game, use shamrocks, pot, or coin shapes for St. Patrick's Day.
• Make your own Rainbows!

LEPRECHAUN VISIT: 
I have banned any super messy leprechaun visits, so our leprechaun usually leaves a pot of treats (usually gold colored) for the boys to find. In the past there has been a fun jelly bean raining cloud or a trail of confetti to find their pots of gold. One time there were even leprechaun donuts (see above under food) left with the pots. Below are some of our past leprechaun visits and pot of gold filler ideas.

• Leprechaun Pots of Gold (batting cloud with jelly bean rain over pots of "gold").
• Leprechaun Treat Bags (how to make your own pot shaped baggies).
• Last year, the boys found rainbow crepe paper streamers wrapped around the railings and a trail of coin confetti leading to their hidden pots of treasures. There were a few trails that were dead ends too, so it took them a little while to find their pots of goodies.
• Some fun treats for the pots/bags are: 
• green or yellow bouncy balls 
• shamrock stickers
• shamrock sucker (see shamrock sucker napkin rings above in Food)
• green/gold/themed pencils or pens
• fun pencil toppers/erasers
• bubbles
• chocolate gold coins
• green or gold Frisbee 
• gold or yellow wrapped candy (mini Snickers, Starburst, mini Reese's cups, Hershey Kisses, Sixlets, Rolos, etc.). Party City normally has bins where you can buy individual candy pieces and goodie bag stuffers, which is great for finding the colors you want! Some stores even carry bags of a single color of Jelly Belly.
• arcade tokens (or maybe car wash tokens for older kids)
• "gold" $1 coins (you can get these from the bank)
• St. Patrick's Day rubber duckies

What treats or tricks do you do for St. Patrick's Day?