Top o’ the morning to ye!  Here’s a smattering of ideas for St. Patrick’s Day that you can do (or share) with your grandchildren.

Oriental Trading Company. If you hurry and order today, you just might get some fun things from the Oriental Trading Company in time for St. Patrick’s Day.  Like these bouncing balls.  Or a Leprechaun porcupine character.  Or mini shamrock rubber duckies.  Or mini squeeze shamrocks.  Fun, fun, fun.  You could put together a pot ‘o gold for your grandchildren with some of these items.

St. Patrick’s Day Games. Here is a page of online games for your grandchildren to play.  (I liked the puzzle where you click and drag the columns AND rows to put the pieces in the correct place.)  You can play the games, too, and keep track of your time.  Then, challenge your grandchildren to see if they can beat your time.

Shamrock Potato Stamp.  Cut a potato in half. Trace a shamrock shape onto the cut end of one piece.  Cut away the potato leaving a shamrock shape.  Mix equal parts of evaporated milk and green liquid tempera paint.  (The milk helps the paint cling to the potato.  If you use acrylic paint, let me know how it turns out.)  Pour your paint mixture over several layers of paper towels placed on a plate or a Styrofoam egg carton lid.  Press shamrock stamp onto the pad and then stamp away on your art paper.

Shamrock Rubbings.  Get some heavy duty sand paper.  Cut out different sizes of shamrock shapes and place rough side up.  Place a piece of white copy paper over the shamrocks.  Using different shades of green crayons, color over the shamrocks.

Blarney Stone. Get a small stone.  (If you need any, let me know.  I have TONS in my yard and garden!)  Wash the stone.  When the stone is dry, paint it with green paint.  Add googly eyes, glitter, or other decorations of your choice.  (If you kissed the real Blarney stone, you get the gift of eloquence.)

When your grandchildren are ready for a treat, you can fix them this shake.

Peppermint Candy Shake

2 1/2  cups vanilla ice cream
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup Peppermint Pattie bars, or Junior Mints cut into pieces

Place candy into the freezer for 15 minutes.

Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend on medium speed for 30 seconds.   If you want a thicker shake, place blended milkshake into the freezer for a few minutes.  Top with whipped cream and more mint candy pieces.