Pretend & Footsie

As you can see, we were a little tired of being stuck in the house on Saturday after the first two-hour session of conference. (If you look really carefully you can also see that Connor's two favorite "toys" are remote controls and writing utensils...) I decided we all needed to get some outside-time and enjoy the day - especially the girls so they'd be worn out by the time conference started again. I brought Connor's walker outside and watched the girls play in the front yard. This is what I saw:

What are the girls hovering over so secretly, you ask? Well, I'll let them tell you in their own words. (I hope you can hear them over the wind!)

Then as I went back to sit down next to Connor, I noticed that he was doing something funny with his feet. After a few minutes, I decided that he just didn't like the way the prickly grass felt. (We don't have our "summer grass" in yet.) What do you think he's doing?

A Tent

Well, this weekend was one of the two big ones we have every year - General Conference. For those of you who don't know what General Conference is, it's a big worldwide conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that consists of 4 two-hour long sessions that are broadcast over the Internet and via satellite. If you live an area with lots of members of the LDS church (can we say Utah, anyone?) you can watch it on regular TV at home. In our family, we choose to watch it via the internet at home.


Now, as exciting as this is to me to listen to the talks and music now as a grown up, as a child it was a dreaded 8-hours-of-church-not-fun time. So I've been giving a lot of thought to how we can make this better for our kids. We want them in the room listening as much as possible, even if it's not really sinking in. So I printed out these activity packets (thanks Emily!) and put a lot of candy in a "conference jar" for them to be rewarded with throughout the broadcasts. So what does all this have to do with a tent, you ask? Well, I'll tell you...


Yesterday morning as we were getting ready for conference, Olivia said, "Mommy, I have a great idea for general conference?" I generally get a little nervous about her "great ideas", so I took a deep breath and asked, "What's that?"


She said, "Why don't we put up a tent in the living room to watch General Conference, and pretend like we're listening to King Benjamin?" (Note: King Benjamin is a prophet/king in the Book of Mormon, and all his people came to listen to his last address and pitched their tents around to listen to him speak.) So of COURSE I have to say yes to this one. Here was my first attempt on Saturday:

As you can see, I tried to use the keyboard to hold the tent up. Not a very sturdy item, let me tell you. But the bigger problem was the girls complaining that the stand was cutting into their backs while in the tent. So here was my attempt today:

Looks better, doesn't it? I thought I was so clever because I closed the windows on a fold of the sheet and propped up the front with chairs. They loved it! Yeah... I'm a genius...

Kelsey's Party!

We had Kelsey's 5th birthday party last Friday at a Fink Park here in Edmond. It's a little over a mile from our house, and one of the "hidden treasures" of Edmond. It's never as busy as the other, more popular parks. I didn't think too much about how windy it is here in the spring, but boy was I wrong. This ain't tornado season for nuthin'!


So, here are the top 10 reasons NOT to have an outdoor party in April in Oklahoma.


1) Tablecloths - There were 4 long tables in the pavillion, and so I bought 4 plastic tablecloths to decorate with. I even brought an entire roll of masking tape! We taped those suckers down with multiple strips of tape, but they STILL blew free more than once. However, the plates that I taped down onto the tablecloths DID stay on.


2) Balloons - I tried to decorate with balloons. I gave up after the first two. NOT going to happen.


3) Drinks - I was so proud of myself for being clever and bought those disposable "animal" cups that have sippy lids with them. Note to self: if your 8-year-old refuses the "baby" lid, refuse her the drink. It will still blow over and dump orange soda all over the table! And by the way, it apparently doesn't matter HOW much soda you "weigh" down the cup with. The wind is stronger...


4) Cupcakes - Since we were having an outdoor party, I figured we'd do cupcakes instead of a cake so we wouldn't have to worry about forks and such. I passed them out, the kids ate them up, and there were still about 8 or so left in the box. Along came a big gust of wind and the box blew up and over! Cupcakes were EVERYWHERE! Oh well! At least I wouldn't be able to eat them later.

5) Pinata - The pinata was actually really nice to have outside, but we had it hung on the corner of the pavillion, which had a concrete floor. Did you know that candy shatters when it hits concrete? And who wants to eat lollipop dust?


6) Tissue paper - Most people bring gifts in gift bags these days (myself included). What do we stuff inside the bags to hide the gift? Tissue paper!! What does tissue paper do in the wind? FLY!!


7) Unwrapping gifts - We already knew the tissue paper would fly, but so will any other wrapping paper once it leaves the gift. Fortunately, one of the other moms collected ALL the paper for me as it was leaving the gifts.



8) Napkins - And speaking of things flying, I had brought a couple of packs of napkins. When I set up, I didn't bother opening them because I knew what would happen. However, I didn't anticipate the kids actually ASKING for napkins during dinner. We opened the pack, gave out one napkin, and the rest went into the laundry basket I had carried things in to the party. Sometime during the party, the stack blew away. Off we ran to catch them, but apparently missed a couple anyway. Near the end of the party we were down by the playground and I saw two more still being blown around. We caught those, too.


9) Weather - We really DID get lucky with the weather. But you really are taking a chance here in April. Friday and Saturday it was sunny and in the low 70's. Thursday and today (Sunday) it's in the 50's and overcast. You just never, ever know what you're going to get.


10) Injuries - This one doesn't actually have anything to do with the weather, but my sweet, somewhat clumsy Olivia. Before the party even started she was walking along on some of the landscaping edging and slipped and gouged her leg. She was dripping blood all down her leg, and fortunately we had the 1st Aid kit in the van. The bandaid was soaked before the end of the party, and she IS okay, but it sure would have been nice to clean it well when it first happened.


However, in spite of everything, a great time was had by all. Kelsey cracked everyone up when she opened her gifts by screaming with joy every time she opened a gift. The first was sincere - it was walkie talkies, after all - but after a while I could tell she was just putting us all on. If you look closely you can see her mouth is wide open in this last picture.






And to finish up this post, proof that I can make my own WORKING pinata!

Finis

Today is the big day (Kelsey's party) and I actually finished Kelsey's pinata on time! I started by blowing up 2 balloons, tying them together, and taping plastic wrap around them. When I finished the first layer of paper mache, I remember thinking it looked like nothing more than a giant gray peanut..


By Thursday morning when I did the second layer, I hadn't changed my opinion.

But by yesterday afternoon, my second layer had dried and I was ready to start decorating. (I didn't want to make it too hard for the kids to break, so I only did 2 layers of paper mache.) To fix the peanut problem, I taped a strip of folded newspaper around the middle and then covered the whole thing with green tissue paper for my "palate". Then I printed out and glued on the pictures of Tink and Peter Pan I wanted. Finally, I folded and cut some colored tissue paper and started gluing them on, ONE AT A TIME!

I will admit, there were times I thought I must have been insane to attempt it. There were times I thought it was going to look like a luau skirt, or worse yet - Cousin It in an Easter costume. But it was all worth it when Kelsey got home from school and said "Wow, Mommy! I love my pinata!" That's what makes us cheap moms keeping going back and doing the same thing over and over again... And the cutting and gluing didn't even take as long as I thought it would. Shocker. And hey, I needed to use up that bottle of glue anyway. I think it was from Olivia's 1st or 2nd grade year of school... And here is the finished result.

TA DA!!

(And yes, I did remember to poke hole to thread the rope through to hang it!)