St. Patrick's Day Ward Style

Irish? Not exactly, but we still love to sport the green and celebrate St. Patty's Day right!  And by right, I mean a little different than we used to in our college days, but fun nonetheless.

This year, my friend Susie talked me into running the 1st Annual Cottleville St. Patrick's Day 7K with her.  It sounded like a great idea until the night before when we stayed up wwaaaaayyyyy too late drinking wwwaaaaayyyyyyy too much wine.  But, we survived the 4.3ish miles and some of us even enjoyed the free beer afterwards (I won't mention any names).

After the run, our husbands and daughters joined us for the parade.  I wasn't expecting much given the fact that Cottleville is tiny and this was their first year.  However, the parade was really long (in a good way) and both Natalie and Amelia got lots of loot.

We decided to continue the  St. Patrick's Day celebration on Monday since our Tuesdays tend to be pretty crazy.  Jason picked up some corned beef and cabbage last week even though I was pretty skeptical that it would be any good (especially since I was in charge of making it).  He found a recipe that also included carrots and potatoes.  Turns out, it was really great and even Amelia gobbled up the carrots and corned beef!

And, of course, we had to partake in the green drinks as well!  Cheers!

I've had my eye on THIS DESSERT for awhile now.  I first bookmarked it when Amelia started saying she wants a "green" party for her birthday.  I was thinking this might be a fun way to add other colors to the day.  And, since rainbows are a key part of St. Pat's Day, I decided to do a mini-trial run of this rainbow cake.

I couldn't stop taking pictures of the pretty cake.  Of course, pictures don't really do it justice!

I skipped the frosting listed on the site because I happened to have a container of vanilla frosting in the pantry.  I just love how pretty it looks once its been cut--definitely a keeper!