After Sunday morning Mass on March 17th, the feast of St. Patrick, we headed back home to make our annual Shamrock Cinnamon Rolls for with Sunday brunch, then get started on our Irish Beef and Guinness Stew and Irish Soda Bread. ☘️
I hadn’t done much to prepare, other than order each of the kids and our priests St. Patrick’s Day Potatoes and grocery shop the day before. It is so nice to have a house full of helpful teens who want to pick up my slack when it comes to some of their favorite family traditions/patron saint feast days, since I haven’t been feeling very well or had much energy this pregnancy.
We all made sure to wear green and our oldest son had his underneath his Mass shirt. One of my brothers-in-law (Fr. J Gordon) sent Sean and I each a “Can’t Keep Calm I’m Irish” t-shirt, but my pregnant tummy isn’t fitting into t-shirts very well these days so I let our oldest son have mine.
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| The Rhymed Life of St. Patrick • St. Patrick from Naturally Catholic |
While the girls shaped and baked the Shamrock Cinnamon Rolls (also pictured here and here) and decorated Chocolate Coins with images of St. Patrick, I read some of The Rhymed Life of St. Patrick from our March Book Basket/Cart to the little ones. ☘
Sean made another amazing Paleo Spinach and Bacon Frittata to go along with the Shamrock Cinnamon Rolls.
The boys hung a couple flags from the second floor interior balcony, turned on some Irish music, and volunteered to make this year’s Irish Beef and Guinness Stew and Traditional Irish Soda Bread. I wasn’t able to make it for St. Patrick’s Day last year (since I spent that weekend at the hospital with my brother’s family – Happy birthday up in heaven to sweet little Millie!) so the boys ended up teaching themselves to make those particular recipes last spring while the rest of us were in Arizona visiting my mother-in-law. They’re becoming quite efficient in the kitchen!
It all turned out beautifully and delicious!
(Ora et Labora Apron can be found over at Catholic Cuisine)
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| St. Patrick T-Shirt from Totally Catholic Tees • March Picture Books |
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| Reading the sermon for the day from our copy of the Sermons of the Cure of Ars which was recently touched to the Reliquary containing The Heart of a Priest |
Your oldest boys remind me so much of my boys!:) My older son has St. Patrick as his Confirmation Saint, but he's away at college this year, so I sent him some chocolate shamrocks from See's. St. Patrick's Day is also my mother-in-law's birthday (she just turned 85) , and she likes pink, so I always end up decorating with pink and green!
2019-03-25 15:25:20
Y'all have such a beautiful family and are truly a blessing to all of us who get a chance to see how you live your Faith. God Bless y'all and hope you feel better soon Jessica. This too shall pass. Take care of yourself and rest.
2019-03-25 15:52:47
What a lovely post. We have been reading books about St. Patrick and Ireland. I just finished "The Hedge School" by Lisa Hendy, and Ireland " A Terrible Beauty " by Leon Uris. Irish Music has been on for a few weeks now. Of course we decorated and wore green. Marilyn
2019-03-25 17:46:55
Lisa Hendey wrote "The Secret Of The Shamrock". Gloria Whelan wrote "The Hedge School". Marilyn
2019-03-25 17:48:52
I love this post. My sisters and I have been reading "MY Dear Harp Of My County" The Irish Melodies Of Thomas Moore by James W Flannery Two CDs are included. A friend gave it to me a few years ago. We watched the New York parade. It was very nice this year. They visited Ireland and showed a few working farms and businesses. Joan
2019-03-25 17:53:57
Jessica you all had a very nice celebration for St.Patrick's Day. You have wonderful children to pitch in and do all the cooking and preparations. The house was decorated and we had the Irish flags up. i just finished reading "Ireland The History " by Robert Kee. In fact we have read a few St.Patrick books. Learning about Ireland's history is a subject we all love. We have quite a collection of Irish history books and Irish tapes,DVDs and records of Irish music.. I hope you are feeling okay. Marion
2019-03-25 17:59:48
Love how the family all pulled together to create a beautiful feast day celebration!
2019-03-26 01:27:20
Where did you buy your awesome dining table?? I'm searching high and low for a table large enough for our family and to be able to entertain guests. So happy for your newest blessings. You are glowing and beautiful. ♥️
2019-03-26 01:37:28
I'm going to miss my older boys so much next year when they head to college… I love that you sent your son some chocolate shamrocks!! St. Patrick's Day is also my father-in-law's birthday (he passed away a couple days before "Grace" was born) and one of my brother-in-law's birthday! Such a fun day to celebrate a birthday!
2019-03-26 15:02:31
Thank you, Joy! ❤
2019-03-26 15:03:55
Great books! I'll have to look into the Leon Uris one, I haven't seen that one before. One of my girls received a copy of The Hedge School in last year's Easter Basket and loved reading it!
2019-03-26 15:08:57
Sounds like you all had a lovely St. Patrick's Day too!
2019-03-26 15:11:20
Thank you, Marion! I'm feeling much better than I was during my first trimester. I'm 19 weeks along now, so almost half way to my due date. Sounds like a wonderful St. Patrick's Day for you all too!
2019-03-26 15:15:42
Thank you, Grace!
2019-03-26 15:16:29
Thank you, Marie! We had such a hard time finding a table too! We ended up buying this one from a furniture store (special order) back in Southern Oregon after searching through many catalogs. It's the "Hillside Village Table" from Intercon-Furniture and I ordered it with straight (black) legs, a tobacco colored top (they had four different color options), and 12 of the X back chairs. At our old home I was never able to squeeze in the final leaf and it fits here in our new home! (Finding a home with a large enough dining area was one of my top requirements, and surprisingly hard to find! So many newer homes seem to have such small dining rooms. I wish I would have rotated out the leaves… You can really tell which one had never been used!) I had originally purchased a different table ( https://www.showerofrosesblog.com/2013/09/an-earl… ) but it had a number of problems (plus arrived with a few bad scratches) so the store exchanged it for us. Something to watch for is the number of legs on a large table. This first one had four on each side which made it impossible to put a bench or more than four chairs on each side and chairs were always bumping into the legs. (Our current table only has the four corner legs, and then two more legs in the center for stability that don't interfere with the chairs) Plus all the little squares on the chair backs weren't fun to clean with a house full of little ones with sticky hands at meal time. It was also narrower than our current table and I love having a little extra width for placing food on the table at meal time. I'm not sure if Intercon is still making the Hillside Village Table – the link from my pin doesn't seem to be working https://www.pinterest.com/pin/116389971593713685/ – but it would be worth checking. We've had it for over 5 years now and it's been a great table.
2019-03-26 15:33:34
Our oldest living brother was born on St. Patrick's Day but Patrick is no where in his name.
2019-03-26 16:47:51