St. Patrick's Day Party Part 1

Every year I host two St. Patrick's Day parties.  I host one for my friends and one for my family.  So Friday night was the friends' party.  About 20 people came.  It was a random assortment of friends.  I had friends from college, work, and friends I've been friends with since high school or earlier (yep, some people I've been friends with since I was just a little kid came too).  It was a little crowded, but we managed.  Per usual I made too much food.  One friend brought potato skins and jalepeno poppers (or whatever they're called).  Another friend brought tortilla chips and spinach and artichoke dip.  And one friend brought green chocolate chip cookies.  My gluten-free friend brought gluten-free brownies.  And various people brought beverages.  I made two St. Patrick's Day punches, one with rum and one with no alcohol.  Both were good in my opinion.  I also made a soup that I always make (I believe the soup is St. Patrick's Day themed strictly because it has potatoes in it.)  Instead of my usual Irish cheesecake or previous St. Patrick's Day ice-cream cake, I made a St. Patrick's Day trifle (brownies, green pudding, and Cool Whip).  I also did green veggies (and carrots) and dip, a rainbow of fruit with clouds (marshmallows) and a pot of gold (peanut butter cups) and homemade Irish fruit dip.  Let's not forget my Irish soda bread, leprechaun hat cookies, green velvet cupcakes (must tell you the frosting story about those in a future blog post) with homemade frosting, shamrock cookies, mint chocolate brownies, Irish chocolate balls, and green chocolate shamrocks.   Oh, and I made a cheese dip shaped like a shamrock (it had scallions on it) and served it with crackers.  My fiancé said it looked more like a cross than a shamrock, but I tried.  Are you hungry because I have leftovers of many foods?  I'll gladly give you some.  :-)