Happy St. Patty's!!

To celebrate St. Patrick's Day this year, I wanted to share with all of you a picture of our family in our Irish garb. I mean, do we look festive or what?



Fake story about this picture:
I am very organized and on the ball. So organized and on the ball, in fact, that I always schedule a professional family picture for each holiday (including President's day and Arbor Day) in color coordinated outfits. I always schedule these photo shoots far enough in advance that I can use the pictures to their full potential in relation to the holiday. I also have hundreds of scrapbooks containing these calendar-correct photos.

True story about this picture:
This is the ONLY family picture we have had taken since Ashley was born. And although I enjoy an occasional splash of green now and then, I am not quite as exuberant about the color it as the picture may communicate. My parents and siblings were having a large family picture taken, and we thought each family could wear a different solid color, so that in the group picture it would be easy to distinguish who was who (yes, our family really is that big). So, a few months before, I settled on brown and cleared it with my sisters/Mom. Unfortunately, someone else had ALSO selected brown and cleared it with my sisters/Mom. Dang.

So, about a month before the picture, I decided we could do a nice earthy/sagey green color, and went to the mall to get some shirts. And then another mall. And then another. And then I realized that they don't make solid color "sage-y" shirts for 2 year old girs. So I went to more malls to find ANY shade of green shirt for a tiny girl. And then I came home shouted at my unsuspecting husband. And then I took anything that was any shade of green and removed it from my house so that I would never see green again. And then I spent $32 on a bright kelly green tank top from baby GAP for my daughter. $32 was more than I spent on her entire wardrobe last summer (thanks to great yard sales and cute hand-me-downs from cousins).

And then I went to another mall. And another mall. And another mall. I found shirts for the rest of us in the same color, and tried to look on the bright side:

We would all have REALLY great clothes for St. Patrick's Day this year.

Happy green day!!!!!!!!