A kid-friendly St. Patrick's Day party

Lots of fun at our St. Patrick's Day dinner yesterday.

 

My little friend Carson, 2, who got quite used to the kitchen when his family was staying with us, insisted on helping to make the soda bread.

He got pretty into it.

With each family contributing something, dinner was pretty easy. Here are the cupcakes made by Lea, decorated by Stella and Charlie. (Stella takes her cupcakes quite seriously.)

 

Because I don't yet have a separate, self-cleaning mess hall for the children, we usually feed the kids first, then shoo them away with promise of dessert later so the adults can eat in (relative) peace. The ratio of six kids to five adults was almost right!

When things were getting a little crazy, the soda bread came out of the oven (recipe similar to this one we ran on thestar.com/living yesterday). Carson was happy with his handiwork!

This stuff is just made to be eaten with butter when it first comes out of the oven.

While the kids endured their peas and carrots along with their mashed potatoes and fish or chicken... 

 

...naturally, these were the highlight of the evening for the kids (and some of the grown-ups, including me.)

Hope you had a good one and that March break is going well.