Magic by Moonlight

 

Well the wee folk didn’t forget us.  Monday night the children laid out their Leprechaun Treasure boxes on the windowsills. 

 

Hoping that the magic of the fairy moonlight would filter through our ever constant cloud layer, and that the Leprechauns would find our home through the haze.

And sometime overnight our little guests found the children’s boxes, spirited them away, and left a magical trail throughout the house.

They visited our resident leprechauns.

Leaving their trail of magic, pixie dust and wonder in their wake.

  

They even visited Lea’s little Fairy House.

 

And hid her treasure box behind the abode.

The Leprechauns couldn’t resist doing a very quite (as to not wake the humans) Irish jig on the piano.

Some boxes were easy to find – others not so much.

The girls got beautiful fairy beads along with some sweets and $ coins.

Their little treasure boxes could hardly be sat down.  Again and again they would admire their shiny new gifts.

The Leprechauns even left a box for me.  And among the goodies was a new clover fairy for my garden.

All in all it was an enchanting day.  With the smell of prairie clover wafting through the home.

And clover blossoms bursting forth in new spring glory.

  

I couldn’t help but make myself some more Mint Limeade and sit with my kids and watch my favorite Irish movies.

Darby O’ Gill and the Little People & The Secret of Roan Inish.

 

Hope you all had a wonderful St. Patrick’s Day and here’s to Magical  Good Luck throughout the coming year.

  

Keep your eye’s open for I’ve a green give-away coming up soon.

Our Special Family Tradition

April 6th happens to be one of the more special and spiritual days of the year for me and my family.

It’s the day we celebrate Christ’s birth. I know you’re probably thinking, ‘What, we thought that’s what happened in December around Christmas time. Well we celebrate it then too. But our family has a special April the 6th tradition that started in the year 2000.

Why April the 6th? Most Biblical scholars agree on the fact that December the 25th is not the actual date of Christ’s birth, even though it is that date most of the world celebrates it. I did some Google searching and found there are a wide variety of dates, with varying reasons that many different people believe are it. One of the more interesting ones is September 11th. However, myself and the members of my church believe the date is April the 6th, 1. B.C. The date is also of interest because it was the date that our church was organized.

On April the 6th of the year 2000, I participated in a special temple dedication service that was broadcast around the world for our church. The significance of the date had me thinking hard all day about my testimony of the Savior. It was an especially quiet day for me, which doesn’t happen very often, but which is great for thinking. I reflected back on the events of Dec – Jan 1, 2000 and how I had watched the news casts showing the whole world celebrating the end of a thousand years and the beginning of a new millennium. Parties with elaborate firework displays dazzled all who saw as countries vied for the best show. Parades celebrated something wonderful and momentous. Everywhere, Huge Celebration.

I couldn’t help but compare it to that day on April the 6th, 2000 which to me was so much more significant and meaningful knowing that the Savior’s true birthday was mostly forgotten by the billions of people his life had touched. Granted most of the Christian world celebrates his birthday on another date and don’t share the significance of the date with me. Still the silence bothered me and I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

There was no celebration, party, anything. That evening I was watching the evening news of a very quiet and slow day and something touched me significantly. One of those things that make you go, ‘WOW,’ and send shivers all over your body. In a quick, blink and you almost miss it news blurb, they mentioned something was happening that doesn’t happen very often. The planets in our solar system aligned. I don’t know how often this happens – but it can’t be that often. So there it was, my special moment when I realized that even though the world was largely silent the heavens were paying homage to the Savior.

Starting that night I quickly pulled together a meal that represented to me the Life of Christ so that I could share my thoughts about the Savior with my children.

I based the meal on foods mentioned in the scriptures. Since then I’ve added various dishes, to make it more authentic. Replaced the Swedish Candy Fish with real fish (kind of, if you count fish sticks), and tried to make even how we ate the meal more traditional. So I’ll share with you some of the different things we do. You can have this meal at Easter or Christmas time and it would fit right in as well.

Scripture Foods (From King James Version of Bible):

Bread and Fish - Matthew 14:15-20 - Miracle of the 5 loaves and bread and 2 fishes
Water to Wine (If you’re LDS – grape juice) - John 2:7-11 - Miracle of the Water to Wine
Water - John 4:6-15 - Jesus at the well , Living Water
Figs - Luke 21:29-31 – Parable of the Fig Tree
Honey - Matthew 3:4 - John the Baptist
Others: Chicken - Matthew 23:37, Corn - Matthew 12:1, Mustard - Matthew 13:31, Wheat (Couscous) - Matthew 3:12 or Matthew 13:25, Grapes - Revelations 14:18.

Other foods mentioned in the scriptures, butter, salt, olive oil, lamb.

More foods eaten during the time of Jesus from that part of the world: Barley, Rye, Millet, Sesame seeds, Dates, Pomegranates, Cantaloupe, Lentils, Peas, Beans, Garlic, Onions, Leeks, Carrots, Cucumbers, Greens, Fish(those with scales and fins), Beef, Eggs, Milk, Butter, Cheese, Yogurt, Nuts, Dill, Cumin, Coriander, Mint, Turmeric, Cinnamon, Saffron, Anise, Parsley.

There are also the foods from the Passover: Unleavened Bread, Haroset, Beitzah, Maror, and Zeroa.

We eat this meal on the floor without utensils. Over the years I’ve collected a boxful of wooden bowls and baskets, a stone pitcher and mugs and linen napkins that we can use for our special dinner. The kids love eating by candlelight as well. I've even gone to the extreme and wood-burned scriptures onto some of the wooden serving spoon handles.

We used to dress up in Nativity clothes but the older boys kind of out-grew that part of the tradition. I even calligraphied a scroll explaining the event and our reasons for celebrating it. Each year we re-read the scroll and remember why and what it is we are celebrating.

How do you Like Abner's food warming source?

During dinner we talk about the moments of Jesus’ life as we pass the corresponding food around our little blanket. After dinner we give one gift to the Savior. The Gift: Everyone writes on a piece of paper one thing that they will do over the next year to draw closer to him. We then save those papers to read the following year when we have the dinner.

It’s our special birthday dinner and my favorite of the year. I grow more touched every year as I see how it affects the kids. They love it too.

Don't mess with Leprechauns...

Or they might mess with you...

I don’t know how I offended the wee folks but this St. Patrick’s day they were full of more mischievous mischief than normal for our home. Poor Hope got the brunt of their tricks.

Starting Sunday night while I was gone to my older son's choir Easter devotional, the wee folks temporarily cast a charm on Prince Erik so that he would forget to wake up Hope from her afternoon nap. Over three hours later at 7:30 p.m. they released the spell, Prince Erik came to his senses, but the damage was done. Hope wasn’t even remotely tired until midnight.

This of course came back to bite the little people and they became a wee bit cranky because they couldn’t collect their boxes when the moon’s light (through thick cloud layer and pelting rain) was brand new and brightest. Since they had to wait until after Hope went nighty-night they didn’t have the energy to leave a trail of leaves for the kids to follow. I don’t know how they managed to come at all because Hope got up several times during the night. She must be more sensitive to their soundless noise than I am. Regardless I was one cranky big person by morning.


My little ones were able to find the treasure regardless of the lack of trail. See Lea and Princess had no problem finding Princess's box.

And their goodies were stellar as always.

I still don’t know how the wee ones hefted up Evo-man’s box and hid it in the microwave. They must be packing some pretty magically powerful muscles and managed just the same.
But the mischief was just beginning...



They clogged my sink with food bits of leftover corned beef and cabbage.

They possessed Hope to decorate her body with Celtic scribbles.



They made my babysitter’s kids sick at the last minute so I had to take Hope with me to see my Young & Gorgeous counselor.

And get this while I was meeting with Y & G they decided to do the unthinkable and sabotage Hopes diaper so that she would leak all over the comfy couch. UGH!!!

Other than that they were very nice and I still love St. Patrick’s Day. However I need to do something to appease the little flaming wee folks so that next year they will dole out more good luck than bad.

Inviting the Wee Folks In

How do you celebrate Easter without the Easter bunny? EASY – You just invite some little leprechauns over. Here goes me again with the whole anit-commercialism/pro-imagination stuff.

I love St. Patrick’s Day. Have since I was a kid myself. Don’t know why I loved it back then because I hadn’t yet met the gift bringing leprechauns. Maybe it’s the 1/100 of my blood that’s Irish? Could it have been having a very young Sean Connery melt my heart in the old corny Disney movie ‘Darby O’Gill and the Little People’? Maybe it could even be that it is one holiday that hasn’t been hijacked by commercialism. Whatever the reason, I’ve always like it. Fast forward to me being a mom with my own wee ones. I read a cute little article in Family Fun way back in the 1990-something- I think. It could have been the early 2000’s as my memory isn’t the keenest. I knew my boys (when I only had boys or maybe 1 baby girl) would dig it with the whole treasure hunt thingy-ma-bob. But being the insanely creative & crafty wanna-be that I am I decided that I would have them decorate the little wooden boxes from our local craft store instead of shoeboxes mentioned in the article.

I even had a dear friend that found some real 4 leaf clover shamrocks that we could sticker on to the outside of the box for extra luck.

That first year I think the leprechauns brought little gold-foil covered chocolate coin candy and some marbles. Our family has been hooked ever since. And I think that the Leprechauns spoil us a bit more now since they know we prefer them over the Easter Bunny any day. So much so that we don’t have the Easter Bunny visit our home in an attempt to really emphasize the religious importance of the holiday. So St. Patrick’s Day is our way of involving a little spring magic into the lives of our children.

Hopefully the leprechauns will still like me this year even though I’m not letting them bring in all the sugar that I’ve allowed before. Some of the things I have suggested that they bring are…

Real $ (Like maybe the new gold colored President $1 coins or the old Sacagawea one),
Real & Costume jewelry for girls and boys.
Mini toys and craft kits.
Marbles or smooth glass nuggets.
DS games.

I even found some plastick clover coins once.

And more, as long as I (I mean the leprechauns) can cram it into their little treasure boxes. Most of the stuff I (they) can find at the local $1 store and party supply outlet.

I can’t tell you how excited my kids get on the evening of the 16th to leave their boxes in the windowsill for the leprechauns to find and hide. Of course the moon’s magic can still make it through our ever constant cloud cover here and the wee people haven’t missed a year.

The leprechauns used to leave trails of confetti shamrocks along with dead-ends for my mini-munchkins to follow to find their boxes. But, with a half-dozen kids the confetti got to be a bit much. With my clutter talent I was still sweeping and vacuuming up clover in June and July. Now they might leave a confetti hint like ‘What a mess’ spelled out (which meant the boxes could probably be found in or nearby where assigned chores were located. Or maybe the wee folk were just commenting that our house is a mess. Or the word ‘Talent’, which meant that maybe these kids, ought to develop some but they could find their boxes next to what ever represents their talent. My favorite is the no-clue route because there is no shamrocks to clean up. We have had the boxes turn up in the bag of dog food, dryer, and microwave oven.

My favorite Leprechaun movie is still the corny ‘Darby O’Gill’, but we also watch the ‘Secret of Roan Inish’.

Favorite book is the children’s story by Teresa Bateman, ‘The Ring of Truth’.

Favorite Music, anything Celtic, Irish, or Celtic Woman, and Enya. I embarrass the ba-geebers out of my kids when I start fake Riverdanceing right along with the beat. At least I lost some pounds so the house won’t shake as much when I do. It’s great upbeat cleaning music as well.
As for the Corned Beef and Cabbage. We love having an Irish meal every 17th. I’m in the process of re-working some of my favorite recipes so that they are more figure friendly. Hopefully they will turn out. If they do then I’ll be sure and share them with you. I’ll be sure and share my favorite Easter traditions as well in the coming week.

Meanwhile I’ve got to attack my clutter again because I didn’t like it when the Leprechauns left the, ‘What a Mess’ message.