Post Angry Bird Wrap Up..What Didn't Work

If you didn't read Mondays post go back and read it, last time was the positive fun time post, this one is the oh god I am never doing this that way again post.

First Pinata chaos, I will never do another pinata in quite that way.

Now that you have seen the video I think you know why I will never go dancing down pinata alley again.

The Sling Shot died early, we put together the sling shot with things lying around the house and it could have really used more love and attention. It did well for about and hour and then just started to get sketchy and was flinging things madly. I would also consider multiple sling shots or some way to distract one set of kids while another set of kids played with the sling shot, there was always a line and a number of kids wandered into the sling shot battle zone to retrieve bean bags while other kids were launching bean bags, not a good combo generally.

Since I am on the things that were good, but I wouldn't go quite the same way, activities.  There defiantly wasn't enough for the kids to do, they sped through two of the activities to get to the sling shot fun, or ignored the other activities completely.  I could have hooked up the crazy seven year old boy contingent present at the party to a tread mill and light the house for the next hour with the amount of energy they had, I just didn't have enough options to get that energy out.

Also on the activities front, stick glue doesn't work as well on sandwich bags as you would think, next time I will eat the mess and use real glue.

Party was a little too long. The party was set for three hours, it should have been two. The boys ran out of things to do and I was happy that as they all headed home there were not more tears.

So I am now finished with all the Angry Bird party craziness and you may now continue all your party planning in peace.

Post Angry Bird Wrap Up..What Worked

With the planning and organizing any party causes afterward a good wrap up is always needed and since I have cute pics and things went well and not so well I will be breaking this up into two posts.

First what worked, these are the things I liked and went well and I would do again.

The food buffet, I set up what I thought was a great good buffet and it was mostly single serving, this worked great for kids running through to get grab and go and then there weren't as many fingers touching lots of food.

For the second time in a row we have done a party out in our garage. This lets the mess and craziness of the party be focused outside of the house, even when the weather isn't ideal.  What I love about using the garage is that the mess is contained and somehow the noise doesn't drown the house.

The decorations and invitations. You have already heard about the invites, but I haven't shared as many decorations. I used paper lanterns from oriental trading company and free templates from online and was able to make some great birds and pigs and they looked great all over the house. I also found some peel and stick Angry Birds and they ended up looking great in the garage and not getting trashed by the kids.

Activities and the dreaded sling shot, there were positive and negatives to both these things, but this post was about the positives. The activities were varied and all the kids had the chance to participate. The sling shot on the positive side gave the boys something to to for a good amount of time before things got out of control.

Lastly, the absolutely best part about these parties and the reason the Hubs puts up with me doing them and I like to do them, seeing our friends. It seems like we are all so busy and so distracted, we dont' have a chance to just be with people and we all got a great chance to get together and enjoy an afternoon together and that was the best.

Illness..

I don't know about the rest of you, but this time of year our house in like a sick ward just about every other week.  It seems like someone always has the sniffles, grown ups included. The problem is having a sick kiddo doesn't just mess with their schedule or your schedule it is like a pebble in a stream with far reaching scheduling issues.

Let me explain why one sick kid in my house means no fun for friends, family and anyone else within a circle of us. One kid goes down, one parent stays home, this may mean extra driving duties and chores for other parent and sibling possibly not going to other activities due to scheduling. Loss of work for for parent home with sick kid means their work junk doesn't get done meaning making up missed work, which means rearranging the scheduling again, which means possible loss of family time, more driving cooking, cleaning and other home junk not getting done or being shifted around.  This is when general crankiness breaks out throughout the household. Of course now child one feels better and either parent of child two get ill, rinse wash repeat and now play dates are canceled the lawn isn't getting mowed and generally the break out has occurred. Even with a very thorough Lysol douching of the house, the kids and the pets it usually takes about a month, with a few days between each illness before said cold/malaise has worked it's way through the entire home, only to be repeated again in another month or so.

Admittingly we don't seem to be the healthiest family on the block. Somehow someone in our house is always bringing home something, but it isn't like we are licking dirty Kleenex. We wash our hands when we get home, and don't hug the snotty kids. Of note we all have allergies, various ones and many seasonal, I sometimes think this in general makes our house a bit susceptible in the spring and fall when we seem to battle these things. Really though we just need 4 solid months of NO ONE in the house sick at all and I swear we would be so much better off.

I realize in this vent I am speaking to the choir, most of you are fighting the good fight with illness, but for those that aren't. If you come to work and sneeze on me, I swear I will lick your keyboard with my germy mouth next time I have the flu.

Morning Work Out Rant

I have been trying to get myself together in the mornings and haul my sorry, but to the gym. I am by no means in good shape, chubby, is a great description and I can be downright fowl in the mornings. For those other folks that have to put up with my cranky emotional unstable fat behind in the mornings I have a few hints to help get you through your work out and shower time without bodily harm from me.

1. Don't wear perfume/cologne, it is 5am your natural smell is bad enough, your natural smell paired with some horrid over used flowerly,musky nastiness is only going to make me barf on your treadmill.

2. Don't talk about how 'lite' of a workout day it is and proceed to list 5 things taking multiple hours where only executing one would kill me. Though you are amazing and the work out queen, I am a sweating mess next to you and don't want to hear about how easy this all is for you.

3. If you are a sweater of the type that it flies off your body and you towel it off and then flit it so your sweat gets on me, make sure there is a little space between us. If we end up working out on machines right next to each other, flick your sweat on the guy on the other side of you, not ME.

4. Don't bring you kid to the gym to work out at 5am, they are tired don't stay on any equipment more than five minutes and generally take up space that my crankiness doesn't want to deal with, especially when they yell across the gym to you.

5. Don't look at me in the locker room like I just peed on the floor, I am over weight, have had kids and generally am not in the best body shape right now, and your horrified look is not helping. Give me a break at least I am here trying to get myself in a better place and your look is not helping my morning motivation.

6. Don't use the gym hair dryer to dry any hair unless it is on your head, GROSS.

7. While drying your hair please don't think I need a hot wind bath, is just moves the sweat and wet around.

8. Lets talk nudity, you knew I was going to go there. Please oh god please, don't flaunt in or stand right in front of me while you talk to your friend and I tie my shoes, I don't want to get that close to your personals.

9. After am hour working out and the horrors in the locker, I do not want to pass a sweaty person and even feel their sweat let alone have to touch it, please people we can all walk single file, there is no need to walk three sweaty people across and block the isle for those of us that are not CLEAN.

10. Lastly, to the naked lady in the stream room, PLEASE PLEASE, put a towel under it.

Thank you,
From the chubby lady singing in the corner taking up one piece of equipment for an hour.

When your kid opts for the unknown Halloween Costume

Bean is a kick in the pants of a kid and her kooky factor is really high, this tends to lead to somewhat off the beaten path Halloween costumes.  This year is no different, she has picked something no one will recognize at first sight, and when told what she is they still don't know.

This is not the first time an unusual costume has been selected that has been generally unknown, there was the Creepy year. Bean wanted to be Creepy from the series about a little girl being raised by bugs. Creepy is into bugs and a goth, you can guess how that went over with 6 year old Beans friends, they looked at her like she was crazy.  That time she at least picked something that the occasionally 5 or 6 year old had seen and thought was cool, but it was only a handful. Back then we got looks from other parents like we had dressed her up like a hooker, how could we let her pick that. Creepy was out of the norm, unrecognizable and weird, we thought it was cool.  We had a number of people ask why we didn't try to get her to pick something else, why was what we always said. Why try to deny a kid their chance at imagination, even if it outside the norm.  Halloween isn't about being conformist, it is about being a superhero, a fairy or even a character from a TV show not a lot of people watch.

So when you kid picks a funky non traditional thing, do you try and get them to change to something more recognizable or just totally go with it?  We have traditionally gone with it, Chicken was a ball one year.  With girls costumes moving towards being on the slutty side, I went with this non traditional costume idea just like I have in the past. The cool thing about her choice, it was culled mostly from her closet with a few accents, she decided to be Claudia from Warehouse 13.  For a 9 year old girl child I see Claudia as a great character; she's techie, a critical thinker, she puts herself out there, is musical, and is adventurous.  This isn't saying that she isn't flawed which makes her such a great character.  The kids have gotten into watching Warehouse 13 in the last year and though the show can have adult themes generally it is a great show for us all to watch together. The thing is no one we have run into on the Halloween circuit yet has any idea who Claudia is, and Bean could care less.  I am totally fine with her doing what she wants and being who she wants, but I see when she tells people who she is and they don't register it that there is a disconnect between the two children standing there in their costumes. This is one more thing that stands out and makes me see she is headed down that path where not everyone around her will get her, but when she finds those ones that do it will be like coming home.

Pinata Trouble

Apparently I cannot make a Pinata.....

I had recently seen two great blogs about pinata making, Cindy deRosier's Strawberry Pinata and Mannic Mommies Angry Bird Pinata.  After reading both blogs I figured, I could do that, I was WRONG.

Take one I did the balloon and tape from Mannic Mommies, got the first layer of newspaper on and set it out to dry. The balloon popped, the newspaper caved in on one side of itself.  I think setting it out in the hot sun wasn't good and the newspaper was two thin.

Take two, yes I was crazy enough for a take two.  This was the all or nothing attempt I was not going to do this again.  First, I went with a the flour paste vs the glue paste, I tried the glue the first time. A thicker first layer of newspaper was in order. It was cold and wet outside so pinata production was going to be kitchen based.  I should have known trouble was brewing when I pasted both my pants and newspaper to the kitchen floor. Additionally the paste got EVERYWHERE, the whole time I kept saying I promise I will clean it all up. The first layer went ok, but messy, it was think and really wet. I set it aside to dry and went about my day. The next day I checked on it and there were two problems, it was still partially wet and it had shrunk and was wrinkled, really wrinkled. At this point I was tired and done.

An Angry Bird pig just seemed like something I should have been able to do and in frustration I reached out to my mom board for ideas and headed to the store to pick up Halloween stuff. At the store inspiration hit, and saved me. There was one decent looking pumpkin pinata left. The store attendant got it down for me and with some green spray paint, a plastic egg, a birthday hat and a template off the internet, ta-dah pig pinata. It isn't pretty but a bunch of boys will be using a sling shot to try and break it open, they won't even notice.

Angry Bird Party Part 1

We are getting ready to put on an Angry Birds party for Chicken the weekend after next.  I am one of those go a little over the top kind of folks so figured I would share some of the fun here in a multi-part series. This first part will be short as it will only cover initial planning and the party invite.

As soon as Chicken started getting into Angry Bird I knew a party couldn't be too far behind and I wanted to do something that would be Angry Birds, but tie in the birthday. I like to draw so made the painting you see above. To get the basics of drawing the birds I started with a freehand sketch of what I wanted with a picture of all the birds nearby as a reference.  Then I needed a theme, the theme of the drawing and what would become the theme of the party was that those pesky pigs had stole all Chicken's presents and would the guests come help us get the presents back. When parties get planned this way I always try to think of the amount of people, food choices, activities; more than once I have picked a theme and come up empty with activities or food.  There are still a few blanks with this party, but I will share what I have already put together.

Planning a party like this involves more planning for me before a whole lot of action on my part. Once the theme was done and the painting was going to happen, who to invite and how came into play.  I really would have liked to send out invites though the mail but coming up with an invite I liked just wasn't happening and I had a painting. Using evite I imported my picture and made some custom RSVP sayings: Yes became Load me in the sling shot, no was flying south for the winter and maybe became not sure scaredy bird. What I love about evite is that I can send out invites a little late, it is really easy to get email addresses and this way I didn't have to bother with print outs addresses or anything else.  Then we started looking at activities to do with the kids; there must be a pinata, more about that in another post. Then the sling shot idea started the current plan is to build a slingshot in the garage and use a bunch of boxes as the bricks and beach balls as pigs. Lastly I am thinking of having the kids make bird feeders the ones that are seeds and peanut butter, something a little mellow but at the same time bird focused.  Food was the next idea center, this is an afternoon party and I wanted to keep the food easy with a lot of boys I have noticed it can get crazy.  I have made the test cupcakes once already with candy and frosting we will be having Angry Bird Cup cakes. For snacks I am currently learning towards bird food(trail mix), bacon and a fruit tray with dip.  Decorations will be paper lanterns decorated like birds.

What do you think am I missing anything need to add anything? Have you done an Angry Bird party and had a great success or failure?