THERE IS A WINNER

Today is the day that Mom said she would draw a winner for the little book that she made for the Altered Oz blog party. She said that since there have been people asking about our where about she would let us be the ones who will do the drawing and announce the winner. We had already planned on doing a post this week and Friday is the day we normally do our posts but because that was the day of the party we decided to let Mom have that day and we would take St. Patrick’s Day instead because that is what our post is about anyway.

So first thing this morning we sat down with our computer to put together our post. When we log on we usually check our email first thing and waiting for Bellamine was an email from Ms. Brenda Black Bear from Camp Good Bear saying they would like Bellamine to become their newest Bearcelor for the Arts & Crafts Program this summer. We were so surprised and Bellamine was jumping up and down and shouting and then Mom came in and wanted to know what was going on and when we told her she was just as excited. We’ll get a formal letter later and we’ll let you know more then.

Now back to our post.

As you all know, we have been decorating our little tree for each season and holiday.

We make most of the decorations that we decorate our tree with  but on our St. Patrick's Day tree we only painted the gold coins. Notice Sampson and Bellamine are wearing their green. Bellamine is really insistant that we all wear green today. It's something she heard about from the O'Dell kids.

We also help our mom doing other things like baking cookies and stuff. One of our favorite cookies to bake is cut out sugar cookies because we have a very nice collection of cookie cutters. What better dessert for today’s Irish Corned beef and cabbage dinner than Shamrock cookies?

Now to that thing we told our mom we would do for her. This is what she is giving away.

We wrote the names of the people who said they would like to have the little book that Mom made on slips of paper and put them into the Leprechauns pot and had our little brother Sampson reach in and pick one and the one he picked was number 17 which is Miss April. Mom is going to need an address to send your book so get in touch with her.

Remember, if you’re not wearing green someone just might pinch you.

OUCH!!! Stop doing that Bellamine. I told you there are green leaves on the flowers.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

Hugs,

Bellamine & Wendy

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY

The last of the decorations for St. Patrick's day have been added to the display on the buffet in the dining room. I couldn't resist these little lasses and if you'd seen what they looked like before I got my hands on them you would have thought I was crackers for wanting to lay out the whopping 25 cents apiece I paid for them.  They were hideous and in a marked down bin at one of my favorite stores. I could imagine how they would look after I had repainted them.

The complete display. Since green is the main color of my living room and dining room using green to decorate doesn't have the same impact as the colors I'd use for decorating at Easter or Halloween or any other holidays except for Christmas but then I use a lot more red.

March 17 or St. Patrick's day has been celebrated by the Irish as a religious holiday for over 1,000 years. Irish families would traditionally attend church in the morning and celebrate in the afternoon. The people would feast on the traditional meal of Irish bacon and cabbage.


My mother-in-law would make what she called, Irish Stew and this dish has become a favorite with my family and the meal I will be serving today. I don't think she would have minded me sharing the recipe with you.

Ruth's Irish Stew

1     corned beef brisket [5 1/2 pound]

2     large onions, quartered

12-15 small white [Irish] potatoes

2     heads cabbage, cored and cut into wedges

Rinse the beef brisket under cold water, and place in a large pot. I use my largest stock pot.

Add enough water to cover the roast by about 5-6 inches.

Peel and quarter the onions, and place them in the pot with the roast.

Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low so that the water is at a gentle boil, cover, and cook for 3-4 hours.

Remove the lid from pot and place the cabbage over the roast and onions and the potatoes on top of the cabbage. 

Cook on medium heat for another 30 minutes, until potatoes are tender.

Remove the beef from the kettle and slice.  Place the sliced beef on a platter and add the cabbage and potatoes.

For dessert we have some delicious cookies baked for us yesterday by my two kitchen helpers.

Enjoy your day~

~Happy St. Patrick's Day~

GREEN WHITE AND GOLD

Happy Friday, it's Bellamine & Wendy and it is time for our guest post. We've been promised by our mom that we can have Friday to post any time we want. We're okay with that for now but we're still hoping  for our own blog some day.

We're calling this post Green White and Gold cause that's the color combination we used to decorate our little tree for St. Patrick's Day. If you remember we talked M into keeping it out when they packed away the Christmas decorations so we can change it for the different holidays.

We asked her to buy us a shamrock cookie cutter cause we were going to make salt dough ornaments and she did buy us one but it was like humongous!!! Like, Mom, what's with you? Did you even think about why we wanted a shamrock cookie cutter? We didn't want it for cookies but since we have it we guess we wouldn't mind if you made us some sugar cookies. 

Since we didn't have a small cookie cutter we had to think of something else to decorate with. Lucky for us we're clever at coming up with ideas. It's that and the fact M took us to the craft store to see if there was something there we thought we could use.

Here's how our tree turned out. We think it's pretty and hope you do to. If you don't think so, don't tell us cause we worked on it really, really hard and spent all of our allowance decorating it.

So, what do you think Sampson, do you like the tree?

There are only three different types of decorations on this tree and they are either green or white or gold. There's a checkered bow on the top that is all three colors.

The gold is the leprechaun's gold coins. Neato!! We got to drill holes in the coins with M's drill. That required supervision cause it's a power tool.

Sampson is really taken with the bowl of pillows. M is making some that look like shamrocks and 4 leaf clovers.  She says they're called tucks or bowl fillers. We just call them pillows.

We wrapped the basket that the tree sits in with green and white fabric and tied a white ribbon around it.

We think we had a good idea when we decided to keep the tree out. M said, "I can't wait to see how you're going to decorate it for Ground Hog's Day." She thinks she's funny but we think she's a doughnut short of a dozen.

Is anyone else hungry? Talking about doughnuts made us think about the birthday cake in the kitchen. We're going to get some cake and then we're going to visit our bear friends who post on Fridays.

We almost forgot to tell you something really exciting. We got out applications for Camp Good Bear in the mail this week and M said we can both go. We're so excited cause we're going to see a lot of our bear friends there and it's going to be so fun!!!!

Have fun and eat lots of peanut butter and honey with plenty of hot chocolate and laugh and play all day. That's what we always do.

Heaps of hugs,

Bellamine & Wendy and the North Pole Bears