Going Kelly Green for St. Patrick's Day

I couldn't stand it any longer; I had to return to blogging.  I just missed it too much to take a longer break, and I missed sharing our life with all of you.  Over the past couple of weeks I have discovered that there are more of you visiting from all around the world than I originally thought, and that is encouraging and exciting to know.  To all of you readers who sent me emails, messages, or comments since my last post, I thank you.  Your opinions and words mean so much to me, and I appreciate that you took a few minutes out of your day to drop me a line.

With St. Patrick's Day coming tomorrow, I thought I'd share with you some of the things we're doing at our farmhouse to celebrate this feast day.  I whipped up some Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies the other night as an experiment.  I saw on Pinterest that you can simply add green food coloring to your regular chocolate chip cookie recipe to get the above effect.  I added about 15 drops to the 2 sticks of melted butter before adding and mixing all the other ingredients.  Once I did that, it seemed only natural to add some peppermint extract because who doesn't like mint with their chocolate?  A little goes a long way, so I only put 3 drops of the extract into the wet ingredients.  They turned out great; although, I would have preferred a darker shade of green.  Once you add all that flour and sugar, it lightens up the butter quite a bit.  I also had to add an extra 1/4 cup of flour since the peppermint extract and food coloring added more liquid to the recipe.  Oh, and I found the napkins in the top photo on clearance at Party City.  That place has everything!

Last evening, I treated the children to Rainbow Sherbet Floats.  I couldn't find any lime sherbet in the grocery store, so I had to settle for a gallon bucket of rainbow sherbet instead.  I decided that I actually like the looks and taste of these even better.

Simply put a couple of scoops of rainbow sherbet in a mug (we like ours frosted) and add 7-Up to the brim.  That's it.  The kids loved them.

All St. Patrick's Day items were 50% off at Kohl's this past weekend, and with my Kohl's cash I was able to pick up this wall hanging for only $5.  It's on our front porch this year.  There's not much Irish blood in our family, but I was able to find one Irish ancestor in my lineage from the late seventeenth century.  Regardless, I've always loved Celtic jewelry, music, poetry, and home decor.  My husband and I even had our wedding bands custom made into Celtic love knots.

Not one of my best chalkboard designs for the porch, but I was in a hurry so I used shamrock cookie cutters as stencils to make this.  With Easter coming in just a little over a week, I'll be changing over to all new decorations this weekend.

The best green of all is the one found in nature.  Our grass and pastures are already turning a lush emerald green.  This is such a treat for us because the past two winters brought so much snow that we didn't see green grass until well into April.  Our goats and sheep are very happy.

Our banks are also full of clusters of daffodils getting ready to open.  I think it's possible they'll be blooming by Easter, which is remarkable for us since Easter is so early this year.  We didn't have daffodils or tulips in bloom until the latter part of April last spring.

Tomorrow evening I'll be making corned beef for the first time in my life.  I saw an easy recipe on Pinterest where you just put the corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, and carrots in the crock pot with some water and beef broth for the day.  That sounds quick and easy enough.  I'm not sure if the little ones in my house will like it, but we're going to give it a try.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day, Readers.  And thanks for coming back to read Preppy Mountain Farmhouse over and over again.