St. Pattie's Day

We always make a fun day out of St. Pattie's Day every year. This year was no exception. We have green waffles, made green cupcakes and I made my own corned beef this year. Making your own corned beef requires some preparation. You have to start it 7 days before you plan on eating it. It was delicious as we used the meat we recently purchased (1/4 of a beef cow) from a friend. We have loved this way of buying meat much better so far. We know that the animal was treated like family and lived a wonderful life while on their little family farm and he ate well and was not treated with anything artificial. Although it was butchered in the end I am coming to realize that this is the normal cycle of life and we must teach our children where our food comes from. In a society where there is so much processed food, in my opinion the children in present society are starting to become unaware of simple things like where our food comes from. Another reason we love having a garden and have ordered chickens (due to arrive in May-wish us luck on this endeavor, we have alot of predators that would consider chicken a lovely meal!) which we plan on using for eggs. Its makes for a lovely outdoor classroom. The way nature intended. Generally speaking the food out there is becoming so processed you can barely even call some of it food anymore. We feel very strongly about this.  Moving on...We used a portion of the beef we received and turned it into corned beef. It was delicious. We also were able to go to the park on St. Patties Day too. We had a lovely day.

Liam on St. Pattie's Day. This is the sweatshirt that Matt got for Meredith in Northern Ireland when we were living overseas. I am glad that Liam is able to wear it now..

We had all three kids side by side on the swings. Had to catch a picture :-)