Tasty Tuesday & Party Time {St. Patrick's Day Edition}

This past weekend we celebrated husband's 28th birthday. 

We continued a tradition of keeping St. Patrick's Day the theme since his birthday is only 3 days after and also because I just love this holiday.  Last year, our party was with friends and a little different from this one.  

This year, it was just family and we cooked the classic St. Patrick's day meal:  Corned Beef and Cabbage!  It was fun!  Thanks to my beautiful mother who really helped me make this evening happen.

Since it's a Tuesday, here is what we ate...

1.  Trader Joe's Corned Beef and Roasted Potatoes and Vegetables - I originally wanted to make the corned beef from scratch, but since it looked like it was going to be an 8 hour ordeal, we went for the handy Trader Joe's, already cooked version which was absolutely delicious and totally worth it.  Then, we roasted some potatoes, carrots, and parsnips.  Have you ever had parsnips before?  They're pretty good!

2.  Cabbage - Simmered in a pot with some chicken broth.  Yum!

3.  Shepherd's Pie - More potatoes!  My mom made Alton Brown's yummy shepherd's pie and I'm pretty sure everyone went back for seconds and thirds.

4.  Green and everything green salad - This salad was DELISH and went with our St Patrick's day green theme.  My mother-in-law prepared this salad and it was amazing.

My sister made this green punch with limeade, ginger ale and pineapple juice.  I'm pretty sure I saw my dad come back for multiple refills.  My mom had these fun martini glasses so we rimmed them with sugar and garnished them with limes. 

For dessert, I made an angel food cake (a tradition in my family) and covered it in green cool whip.  I then topped it with crumbled Thin Mints, courtesy of the Girl Scouts of America (my fave!) and served it with mint chocolate chip ice cream.  

And that's it for the Tasty Tuesday portion of this post.  Now I want to share some fun photos for the Party Time portion! 

Cari is a favorite of ours and she was able to surprise Bart for his party.  She lives in Colorado, but was out for business...so happy it worked out perfectly, it was such a special surprise for husband.

My mother-in-law and my mom.  Aren't they the cutest?

I thought this photo was hilarious for some reason...I'm sure my sisters will not be happy I'm posting this, but I think it captures the perfect moment!

And of course, every event in my family involves a lot of...babies!!!!  Lots and lots of cuties to kiss and squeeze.  I love them all in their little green outfits.

And of course a few cell phone photos (sorry about that).  

Happy (belated) St Patrick's Day everyone!  Hope it was a good one!