This first 3 pictures were taken out in our yard. We went out there looking for leprechauns and 4 leaf clovers - again. As you can see, she was decked out from head to toe in green!
and we found one...
The leprechaun...I had fun with this little guy. Grandma O. and I picked him up from the party store and brought him home one day. I took him into the yard and took a few quick photos of him while E was kept busy in the house. I carefully put him away and ran frantically into the room where E was and told her that I had just seen a leprechaun in the yard and that I took my camera out there, but he was way too fast to photograph. I showed her a picture of our yard in the back of my camera with no leprechaun in it to prove that that's what I was doing, of course. So she grabbed her shoes and headed out there with me. Well, we had been playing with the thought of leprechauns for awhile now and she and I had been seeing them for weeks now. This time was so funny and magical. I told her that I saw him up in her play structure and that she should go up the ladder to scare him down. Well she did, and I made a lot of noise around how she was doing it and how I saw him etc. When she looked in the back of the camera and saw him (the photo I shot from before, when she wasn't out there with me) her eyes got huge and she was so excited! So we did it a few more times and looked through all the pictures.
Where there are leprechauns, there is gold, so we decided to build a trap to catch one! The first photo shows the luring sign that reads "no leprechauns." Everyone knows that leprechauns are rule breakers, so that is extremely enticing!
Once the leprechaun is lured to the trap via the sign, he should notice the stack of gold coins (which were really chocolate coins, but only E and I know that) and the rainbow. There's no way for a leprechaun to resist the gold and the rainbow, so up he will go. Now, what he doesn't know at this point is that the gold is sitting on a trap door. So once he climbs up to get the gold, his weight will activate the trap and he will fall into the box. The rocks that you see are used as stepping stones - kind of like a climbing wall. We tried to keep it fun for the leprechaun too ;)
Full view of the trap to give you a better idea. The best part about the trap was thinking about what we should do with the leprechaun if we caught one. E had so many ideas from making a bed for him in the basement to putting him in the oven (too much Hansel and Gretel - whoops). But my favorite idea was doodleberry cake. E explained to me that leprechauns love doodleberry cake and that we should make some for him and put it in the trap. I'll have to double check the recipe later and post it ;)
At some point in the day, we caught our leprechaun. We still aren't sure exactly when it happened, but our best guess is sometime while I was cooking our corned beef and cabbage. After some research, I found out that there are two things you can do with a trapped leprechaun. You can either let him go and he will run away from you OR you can open your trap and look at him, but he will immediately turn into a pot of gold. I guess you know which one E chose!
We had so much fun this year. We built it up for weeks before and talked about it for days after. E has such a wild 3 year old imagination, she is so fun with imaginative games!
