This Is SOOOO Much Better Than A Leprechaun Trap

You know what's better than leprechaun traps?

Well, pretty much anything, but particularly books. Especially when they come with parties.

Like the one I had last weekend for my friend, LDS author Melanie Jacobson. That's right, I know her. Jealous? Well just wait until you see the pics from the book launch party I threw her:

Look at all these yummy eats!

Melanie's not actually a giant. I am just short. And she's wearing heels, so you know, no fair, right?
Also, I'm not pregnant, this is just a terrible picture of me. And maybe I ate too many of those yummy treats.

See all these cute birdie sugar cookies? I made them. Look at the next picture to see why.

See the birdies on the top right side of the book? That's right. I made them to match. I am totally pinning this.
 You know, for all those other people on Pinterest who may need ideas for throwing a book launch party for Melanie.

See all those books? You couldn't by the end of the night.
:

I'm in pretty tight with the author, so I've already read Twitterpated and, just like her other books, it did not disappoint. If you want to get a little taste of it, you can go here. My favorite part though, next to the whole career-minded-girl-too-busy-for-a-social-life-falls-in-love plot line, is the acknowledgments page. Because I'm in there. Even though I didn't even know her when she wrote this book, so she couldn't have known I'd be throwing her a party. She's just nice like that.

Since I couldn't invite all of you to the party, I'm giving you a chance to win one of Melanie's books as part of this blog hop thing-a-ma-jigger I'm doing.

This thing: (and if you go here you'll find lots of other blogs giving away lots of other fun prizes!)

The rules for entry are pretty simple. The first one is to leave a comment for one chance to win.

The second is a little trickier (but, really, not much). Since this is a leprechaun giveaway (though you don't actually get a leprechaun) I'm throwing in a little leprechaun challenge.

Remember the leprechaun trap my Girl 3 had to build? Well, after a frantic text to my friend Carrie asking her if she had any fake gold (because I knew she would. If only she had answered my text sooner) and then a last minute trip to Target--which has an astonishing lack of St. Patrick's Day celebratory crap--and then to Party City, we were able to round up some supplies for the trap.

That's after I had to dig through old scrap booking supplies to find green paper and then brave the smells and killer dust bunnies under Girl 1's bed to retrieve a shoe box which I must have been inspired by St. Patrick himself to find. Girl 3 didn't have to do too much searching to find green paint to use for covering the  box. Although the garage floor ended up a lot greener than the box did.

She came up with the idea of a trap door that the leprechaun would fall through as he ran for the pile of "gold" (Rolos and those candy coins) at one end of the box. An idea-- Girl 1 was kind enough to point out-- that "totally copied" the one she did in first grade. She also helped by using the words "copy cat" and "little brat."

Dad implemented Girl 3's idea by cutting a whole in the top of the box. Which made it less of a secret "trap door" and more of a very noticeable hole. But he also covered the box in the green paper I really didn't want to cut out and glue, so I'm not complaining. I did do all the glue gunning of the candy to the top of the box however.

Then Girl 3 decorated the box with pictures she drew of leprechauns and their houses. And also sugarplum fairies. There's really only so much you can do with leprechauns before you've got to throw in some other holiday figures.

Girl 1's helpfulness continued the next morning when she drew fangs on the fairy and the leprechauns and then decided to eat some of the "gold." Which meant some frantic last minute re-glue gunning for me and then some more gluing for the teacher when Girl 3 didn't even make it out of the car before all the candy came off.

Anywho, all that is just a long way for me to tell you how you can be entered five, yes FIVE, times into the contest.

Along with your comment, leave your guess as to which of these leprechaun traps is Girl 3's

#1

# 2

# 3

# 4

So you got that?
1) Leave a comment for one entry
2) Guess which box is Girl 3's for four more entries (I'll give you another hint: it's not going on Pinterest).

BUT! That's not all folks!

If you become a follower of my blog today I'll enter your name one more time!
That's a grand total of six entries for the low low price of guessing, typing, and clicking!

The contest runs from March 17 - 22, so don't wait. You don't want to miss this opportunity to win a fantastic book AND to read more exciting blog posts about other "fun" holiday homework assignments!

Enter Now!

My Beef (Not Corned) With St. Patrick

You know why I don't like St. Patrick's Day?

It's not because I'm neither Irish or Catholic -- though I think that's reason enough not to celebrate it. Along with the fact that corned beef and cabbage sounds pretty disgusting. And what kind of holiday doesn't have good food? Not one worth celebrating, I'll tell you that much.*

But I could look past all of those things and still at least break out something green to wear** if it weren't for the stupid leprechauns and the traps to catch them that my kids teachers think it would be fun for us to build.

They're not. Just like it wasn't fun to build those stupid farms when my oldest girls went through kindergarten. The ones with the instructions that said "no plastic animals" and "must be done by the child."

Yeah, right. You know how many parents followed those instructions?

Two. My husband and me. And we thought we were cheating when we let Girl 1 help Girl 2 when it was her turn. Until we got to the open house and saw all the freshly painted wood farms with the cute plastic animals. Girl 2's sad half painted milk carton and little horses hand shaped from clay with only her sister's help, looked even sadder next to the farms of kids whose parents care.

Especially since most of her horses' legs had broken upon transport from home to school. We had to tell people Girl 2 had actually made a glue farm and her broken-legged horses were laying on their sides waiting to be put down. And wasn't that clever of her to think of that?

Not our proudest moment as parents.

So you can imagine our excitement when, due to budget cuts, Girl 3 didn't have to make a farm last year when she was in kindergarten. And I guess we got a little too comfortable and assumed there would be no first grade leprechaun trap.

Wrong.

The paper came home last week. And I read it and groaned. Which sounded a lot like Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire, except I yelled "Leperchaaaaaaaaauns!!" instead of "Stellllll-A!"

And then I "forgot" about it.

Luckily Girl 3 remembered.   Which means she and Daddy will get some project time together tomorrow. After I remind him that I built the last one that required either a lever or a pulley. Both of which he insisted he not only didn't know how to construct, but also wasn't entirely sure what they were. So probably a good thing he went into law and not construction.

But this time he doesn't have an excuse. The assignment is only to build a trap. And since he's the one who ruined any chance of cheating by throwing away Girl 2's trap with all my fancy pulleys AND levers (because I'm an overachiever), he's the one who gets to build our last leprechaun trap ever.
And this one better work because if Girl 3 doesn't bring home some leprechauns, I may have to do like those one guys did to Christmas (according to Glen Beck) and declare war on St. Patrick's Day.

Until then, Happy Leprechaun Trapping to me and a wish to all of you that you never have to do the same.



* Except this year I am celebrating it by doing a blog hop and giving away this book:



So come back Friday for a chance to win in my Lucky Leprechaun Giveaway Hop!


** To be honest, I spend a lot of  time in my green Monterrey Bay sweatshirt, so it shouldn't be too much of a sacrifice to wear it on Saturday. Again. With my sweat pants.