Evan's First St. Patrick's Day

Alright....I guess I'm feeling re-cooped enough to finally post about our funtabulous St. Patty's Day. ;)

As I posted about in 'Starting a New Family Tradition', and since this is our first year with Evan, I really wanted to start new family traditions. And since St. Patrick's Day was just around the corner, I decided to make this fun holiday one of the first traditions in our family.

Of course the theme of the day was GREEN! EVERYTHING was green! My sister, sister-in-law, brother-in-law and mother-in-law come over to our house to join in on the family fun! We had such a good time!

First we had Shepard's Pie with green mashed potatoes. My sister made an all green salad which consisted of romaine lettuce, mini spinach, cucumbers, sweet snap peas, avocado and broccoli. My sister also made a fun green St. Patty's Day punch that I found on Martha Stewart's website, my mother-in-law made a green jello and another delicious green dessert and I made green cupcakes which were decorated with the help of my sister and sister-in-law. (Oh, and since the boys have a veggie allergy...that's for another post...my sister-in-law made them a beef stroganoff. I heard it was good!)

Here is a picture of all the green food we had set up buffet style on the kitchen counter:



And here are the cupcakes all dressed up!



I wanted my guests to leave with a 'goodie bag' so I made these fun give boxes. I decorated the boxes with some clover garland and some cute St. Patty's Day ribbon I found at Michaels. They were a hit!!



I filled the gift boxes with some yummy green clover sugar cookies and peanut butter cups that I made,



and Andies mint chocolates and Hershey's chocolates.

I was a lot of hard work planning and setting everything up but I has such a fun time doing it. I especially enjoyed spending it with my family. Afterall...it is a family tradition! =)

Here we are having fun...

This is my sister-in-law Kathleen, my husband Ben, my sweetie pie Evan, my sister Lisa and me.


Kathleen, Lisa and I frosting away!


Us again but this time with me trying to clean the frosting off my arm!


Evan's proud grandma Marsha and him!


Auntie Lisa and Evan


Auntie Lisa and Evan laughing and having fun!


Mr. Evan sportin' his hat!


Me in my silly St. Patty's Day glasses!


Evan kept trying to take off his hat...this is Kathleen trying to hold him while doing just that!


Us posing in our St. Patty's Day gear!


And yet another!


Our group shot...notice how the hat on the right seems to make it's way to everyone's head on that side, in the following pictures!






Uncle Mark and Evan


Mr. Evan having his St. Patty's Day dinner while wearing his St. Patty's Day sleeper!


What a fun first family tradition for us! I can't wait to celebrate next year and to add to our list of traditions!

What about you? What family traditions do you and your family participate in? What are fun ways you and your family spend your time together?