Funday Monday: Do the Hokey Pokey!

Family reunions are the best, right? Wow! All those people loving each other and chatting and hugging and being so happy to see each other, right?  I love it.

My cute mother-in-law, Margaret, was in charge of her family's reunion this year and so it was held in the small town of Tropic, Utah.  This is where I went to high school, where I was an uncoordinated cheerleader and where I fell in love with my handsome cowboy. 

Alright so onto the tips and pics....

Funday Monday Tip #7: If there's a trail, hike it. 



Zoe found a new fancy cousin friend.  Ack! They're so cute, right?

 Margaret planned a fun hike for us on Friday morning.  It was down through this narrow slot canyon called the Cottonwood Narrows.  I love slot canyons.  They're so interesting....all the different colors of rocks and formations.  It's amazing how they can vary so much.


What a fun group of hikers, right? The only one
missing is our photographer, Cindy who
was kind enough to snap the pic.

It was such a great atmosphere for getting to know new family.  Some of them I had gotten to know off and on through the years.  But there were quite a few that I hadn't ever met before, or if I had it had only been briefly.  I was able to chat with Ryan's cousin, Cindy quite a bit on the hike and we laughed and visited and it was really great.

Towards the end of the hike I started to really look forward to air conditioning.  Gnats.  Heat.  Whiney kids.  Oh.  Wait....I think that was me doing the whining.  Snap. Complaining doesn't help, right? The hike took a bit longer than was planned since the little ones wanted to touch every rock, plant and bit of sand they saw.  They loved it all.

At the end of the hike, my husband overheard one little girl say, "We made it.  And we didn't even complain!"  Oh.  What a great example that little girl is to me.   

Funday Monday Tip #8: If there's a merry go round, ride it. 

Yep. I got on with Molly because she was aching to give it a shot.  I don't usually get motion sickness.  But after a few too many turns I had to get off.  Blech.  Pizza and spinning apparently do not mix for me.  Although I did have fun laughing and chatting with the kids before I got ill.

Funday Monday Tip #9: I there is a craft, try it. 

Margaret asked me to come up with a craft for the kids to do while the adults played some games. 

I threw together a simple thing that I'd been wanting to try.  I was feeling bad that I hadn't come up with something a bit more elaborate, but with a nasty flu that stormed through each and every one of us and also getting ready for Zoe's birthday party, I just didn't have a lot of time.  I was worried it would totally flop.  So I was pleasantly surprised when it was such a big hit!  Basically we made jewelry with t-shirt yarn and beads.  Easy peasy.  But it was as popular with the adults as it was with the children! 

Funday Monday Tip #10: If there's a game, play it. 

Margaret organized all sorts of games for the adults in the morning and then a bunch of games for the kids in the afternoon.  I did not do too well at the games.  Ok.  I totally stank.  But I gave them a shot!  (An A for effort?) Although I did beat Jim at the frisbee toss.  Of course, Ryan destroyed us all with his score.  And he finally just stopped playing, not because he missed but because he didn't want to keep going!  But I missed in the tennis shot and the badmitton thing and the free throw and only got one point in the bean bag toss.  Ugh!!  It was not a good sporty day for me.  So, I slunk back to the crafting table...*sniff*...where I was appreciated....

The best part of the games though?  Margaret gave away her old trophys (and she had A LOT...she is a VERY athletic woman.  Seriously.  Amazing.)  to the winners.  OY!  It was too funny.  There was a lot of chuckling over it. 

Funday Monday Tip #11: If there is hokey pokey music, or say the bunny hop or even a good ol' fashioned Virginia Reel?  Get out there and shake it all about.



I'm not entirely sure what dance move Weston is pulling
out here.  But he's having a great time doing it!





A giant family hokey pokey session. Brilliant, right?  Ha!  It was so much fun.  I had to jump out to snag a picture.  Luckily I got back into the mix for the Whole Self part and The Backside shaking.  Yep.  Good times.

 Margaret's sister, Lois, is a square dance caller and she had us out there swinging our partners round and promenading sweet corner maids.  It was really fun.  In fact, I even had a little gentleman by the name of Paul come up and ask if I would dance with him.  The next day I asked him if he liked taller women.  He said, "Yes."  Pause. "And I like babies." Yep.  That's a real ladykiller in the making. 

Funday Monday Tip #12: If there are awesome people around, befriend them!

One of the highlights of the trip was getting to know Ryan's cousin, Paige Lad.  Oy!  She is at least Twenty Shades of Awesome.  I had heard of her in the past from one family member or another.  Someone mentioned there was another writer in the family but I hadn't had the chance to meet her before this weekend.  So, yay!  I was thrilled to have her cornered at a family reunion where I could make her hang out with me. And she was so much fun!  We talked about writing, our projects, conferences we've attended and about every other thing that came up while we were making random t-shirt yarn accessories.


I made Paige model her lovely multi-colored headband.  Oh! And
she's wearing a necklace she made, too.  Yep.  We were having fun.

Now I just wish she didn't have to live all the way in Phoenix beause I think she needs to be my new best friend. 

Tonight I noticed Paige added a new post to her blog (I added her awesome blog to my roll on the side) and was shocked to see she'd written about ME!  Ack! I think I did a pretty good job of tricking her into thinking I'm way cooler than I am.  She said such lovely things about me.  Isn't she the greatest? I'm so happy I inherited her as a cousin. 

So.  The record must be set straight. Paige is the crazy amazing one.  She is easy to chat with, she's a brilliant writer (you just have to read some of the entries on her blog to see that or check out some of her writing projects), she is so stinkin' cute with her little blonde pixie haircut and beautiful smile, her kids are Supremely Awesome (which must be attributed to how cool their mom is), she plays The Superhero Game with her children (ack! Must start playing game with my family pronto!) and she danced the Hokey Pokey.  Yep. 'Nuf said.  Paige Rocks.

Alright, here is the last one....

Funday Monday Tip #13: If there is a dog your size, by golly try to ride it!

My sweet little niece, Cambree, got to ride her grandpa's horse.  She loved it.  And she enjoyed it so much that when she found another creature with four legs willing to stand still for a moment, she climbed on! 

Giddiyup!

Funday Monday: It takes a village...

Funday Monday Idea #6: Design your own paper bag village

Emmett was in charge of Family Night and he wanted to make a paper bag village.  He found the idea in a Family Fun Craft book.  I tried to find it on their site but couldn't.  But it's a pretty simple...you color lunch sacks (or a big paper sack cute down a bit like my fancy shmancy hotel up above) to look like buildings.  Then you take another bag, stuff with crumpled newspaper and then put your "building" sack around it.  Easy, right?

We had a great time designing our village.  The kids loved choosing a store or place to create...

 We have a toy store...

A grocery store topped by some colorful apartments...

A school...

A fire station, bakery (according to Zoe) and a book store...

A sporting goods store from my handsome cowboy (with a little help from Molly)...

And even a movie theatre.  Let's check out what's playing....

Oh, wow. Look at that! My books have been made into movies?!  Score!  heh heh.

The kids have big plans for this village.  Lego men will be visiting soon.  And after a bit, when they're tired of their town and have squeezed all the play out of it, they're planning on unleashing Molly-zilla on it.

I have got to see that.   

Linking up to...

Funday Monday: Take a Rock Walk

We had the missionaries over for dinner last night (I belong to this church) and my husband got to be their chauffeur for the evening so the rest of us decided we needed something fun to do.  We talked over our options and decided to do a craft. 

So, we gathered up some plastic bags, walked to a big empty lot nearby criss crossed with bike paths and collected a bunch of rocks. 

Zoe had a great time filling her bag.  She said, "Here is a little one! And another little one! And another little one!" Yep.  She likes little things. 

But even little rocks start to get heavy after awhile.  And they can make a hole in your bag when you get too many!

We had great fun chatting and laughing.  The boys pretended to ride imaginary bikes on the bike paths.  heh heh. I have the funniest kids. 

Back at home we pulled out our crafting tablecloth, grabbed a bunch of paint and brushes, unloaded our rocks on the table and set to work. 

Think we have enough rocks? Hmmmmm, I don't know...

Sam made a turtle who has become his little pet. And a ghost and an ice cream cone and an egg. 

Emmett made a chair and table and also his name.

Zoe made a lot of little faces. 

Weston started on a field full of a herd of cows.

I made some wee cute strawberries (snagged the idea from google images). 

We put the rocks together with a hot glue gun, but it doesn't work very well.  I'm going to try using E6000 glue.  I have some of it...somewhere.  I might have to face The Pit of Despair (otherwise known as my craft room) to find it.

Sam's turtle got hungry....

Funday Monday: Dollar Store Swip-Swap

Funday Monday Idea #4: A Dollar Store Swip-Swap

For family night last week, we did something really fun.  We've done this once before but it's been years so it was definitely time to try it again. 

First you draw names and then instruct everyone to be thinking of something they can get the person whose name they drew.  Then you pile into the car, give everyone a dollarn (and some change for tax) and drive into town to the dollar store and sneak around the place trying to find something for your person without anyone else seeing what you're buying. 

Then you pile back into your car and find your favorite ice cream joint (or one you have coupons for! Which is what we did) and get some cones.  Then one at a time you give a hint about what you bought and who it was for.  Then everyone tries to guess.  Next you hand over your surprise to the person it was for. 

Hmmmm, if we did this again, I'd have everyone give their hints and write down everyone's guesses and then have everyone swip-swap their surprises at the same time.  As it was it was pretty obvious whose the last gift was for since everyone had theirs.  But that's okay, we still had a great time.  We laughed and giggled over some of the gifts...

My favorite gift of the night was what Emmett picked up for me.  A six pack of tape.  Yay! Tape! Obviously he has heard me say, "Hey! Who took the tape?" too many times.  And I love it that he bought some for me!  So cute.

I picked out some car air fresheners for my handsome cowboy.  Yep. His truck could use 'em.  Seriously.

Sam found Zoe a lovely gold hair set. A gold headband and gold claw and gold elastics. Mmmmm...gold.

For a few days, Zoe insisted on wearing the headband and claw together.  Lovely, right? I tried to talk her into letting me stick a flower on the headband.  She gave me a big emphatic "No."  Dangit. 

Zoe found a Emmett a plastic dinosaur (he loooooves dinos).  Molly got Weston a big pack of gum (with a little help from mom) And Ryan bought Molly a new box of Kleenex.  You can see why this was the perfect gift Here.

Molly really enjoyed the ice cream.  ha! She kept wanting more and then finally realized she didn't really like the super cold stuff.  So, then if we offered her any she gave her head a big shake.  Of course we all enjoyed that and had to keep offering her ice cream so we could see it. 

And Sam, my crazy funny boy.

If  you're looking for a quick and easy family activity, this might be the ticket. We sure had a great time. Although, it is true, we are pretty easily entertained. 

**********************************

Oh and one more thing.  Sweet Andie Jaye over at Crayon Freckles gave me The Versatile Blogger Award the other day. Thank you cute chickadee! :)

This feels a bit like a chain letter, but, what the hay! I'll play along...

So there are rules to this award:

 1. Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to them
2. Tell your readers seven things they don't know about you
3. Award 10 other bloggers
4. Contact the bloggers about their award! 

Alright, then here we go...

Seven things people don't know about me? Urm...this will be hard. I'm super chatty so....I don't know that there is anything people don't know about me!! Well, I'll try.

#1: I like soy sauce on my hard-boiled eggs.

#2: I took a couple semesters of French in college and thought about minoring in it.  I loved French. And I LOVED my French professor.  She even came to my wedding reception.

#3: I have a HUGE fine at the library because I often forget to renew our books and we check out A LOT of books.  I'm going to be calling one of the librarians today to see if I can help out with story time this summer to help with my fine! (she's a friend of mine) And actually, helping out with story time sounds super fun. 

#4: Once, when I was about ten, I was showing off for some new kids in our neighborhood. I climbed out onto a tree branch overhanging the canal (I grew up in southern Florida next to the Everglades) which had gators in it although I couldn't see any at the time....but it was pretty murky. They were probably there somewhere.  It was a deep and wide canal.  Anyways, I climbed out on the branch and it broke. Down into the canal I went. Ack! I was so scared! The water is really murky. So you can only see about, maybe a foot in front of you.  I scrambled out of that water Very Fast. My brother fished my flip-flops out of the water for me. A neighbor wrapped me in a towel. And my parents grounded me from going to our fort of trees, which is where I was doing my Great Performance, for a week.

The canal was right behind our house. I can remember standing in the driveway and staring at the water. And I didn't want to go near it at all.

#5: I'm kind of scared...nah, terrified of being in dark or murky waters and not knowing what is around me or under me.  Ack! I went to Lake Powell on our Senior Trip in high school. I tried to learn how to water ski. The water was not clear. I bobbed out there in the waves trying to get the skis to stay on my feet. They were too big. I had to keep reaching down to put them back on. Reaching down into the murky water.

Finally I lost it and had to get back into the boat! (did I mention the boys kept telling me stories about how catfish the size of VW bugs were in the lake?  Ack!)

#6: When I was little I loved the movie, Babes in Toyland with Drew Barrymore, Keanu Reeves (long before he was super Matrix cool) I made my older siblings watch it. They were not happy about it. If I had to sit through it now....I don't think I'd be too happy about it either. Sorry Heather, Jeremy and Fred. Those are hours you will never get back.

#7: I'm working on a super secret project for one of my son's birthdays at the end of the month.  It involves robots and I'm really excited about it.

I'm passing the award to some blogs I enjoy...

Simple Simon & Company
Gluesticks
Crafty Scrappy Happy
Helping Little Hands
All Things Beautiful
Somewhat Simple
Scrumdillydo
Handy Man Crafty Woman
The Creative Collage
barefoot in the kitchen

Funday Monday

So, those of you who know me know that I like to have fun. Lots of fun. And I like to laugh.  A lot.  Yep, fun and laughing, that's where it's at.  I especially like to have fun with my family.

I love to dream up new and silly things for us to do.  AND I also like giving the days of the week themes on my blog, so I'm officially declaring today...

Funday Monday!
*insert throwing of confetti and cheers of excitement*

And in celebration of the event, I'm sharing THREE fun ideas.  Alright, let the fun (and laughter) commence!

Funday Monday Idea #1: Give your baby a box of Kleenex and videotape it.

Alright, this was seriously fun. And we laughed A LOT! Years ago someone told me how they gave their baby a box of tissues for their first birthday and let the baby pull them all out.  Brilliant idea, right? So, I suggested Emmett give this to Molly for her birthday.  He picked out a box, wrapped it up and tucked it into her pile of presents. 

I think it was the highlight of the present-opening event...

Funday Monday Idea#2: Make a Present Ball

Alright, I tried to find the link on the Family Fun site, but couldn't track it down. I read about this idea around Christmas last year and decided we had to try it this year.  The idea is to get a small little toy of some sort and then wrap it up with the used Christmas wrapping paper and ribbon.  And then throughout the year you keep adding to the ball with all the wrapping paper from birthdays and such.  So, THEN on Christmas Even you get to play a game with your big 'ole present ball (doesn't this sound AWESOME?!).  I can't remember the idea in Family Fun, but I think it was the sort of thing where one person starts to role a couple dice and try to get, say, a pair of sixes.  Once they get them they get to try to unwrap as much as the present ball as they can before the next person gets a pair of sixes.  The catch is that the unwrapper has to wear oven mitts.  Ha! This will be an excellent source of fun and laughter, right?

Funday Monday Idea #3: Make a  kite

Saturday was the annual Lion's Club Kite Festival.  We'd never gone before and thought it sounded fun. The kids were really looking forward to it.

The day before the big event was Molly's birthday so we didn't have a lot of time to make a kite, but I'll tell you what, my handsome cowboy is the stuff of legends.  I found this website, How to Make a Kite,  that morning and he whipped to the store, gathered up dowels, a couple trash bags, tape and kite string and got busy.  The boys helped where they could. And we cut it really close (they were judging the kites at one in the afternoon) but we made it and got our homemade kite into the air.

If we'd had a little more time, maybe we'd have (hopefully!) thought to pretty it up a bit with markers and streamers. As such, it was The Great Invisible Kite.

Can you see that wee little speck way up in the air? Yep. That's our shockingly amazing kite. It's called a Sled kite.  I can't believe how great it flew! It never crashed once. Not once! It was awesome. 

Ryan can add Impressive Kite-Maker to his resume.   

As Ryan helped the kids get their kites up, I held the string for our homemade one.  The judges came by and asked me about it (they seemed super impressed) and then asked me my baby's name. She was right there with me in her usual spot...

Oh, and it was a super cold and windy day. So Molly was not having the best time even though I had her in four layers! Eventually she conked out and I kept her warm next to me. 

When they announced the winners of the best homemade kite, we were surprised to hear Molly's name blasted across the field.  Ha! She "won" third place!  And when I went up with her to claim her prize the people got a kick sure got a kick out of the judges giving a baby a prize.  She recieved a month pass to the Aquatic Center and a trip to Funtime Inflatables.  And since she already gets into those places free, someone else in the family will get to use them.

And just for the fun of it, here are some other shots of the kids flying their kites...

 

Weston struggle a bit with his dragon kite. It turned out he just had one piece put together wrong.  It was awesome when he finally got it into the air!

 

 

It was a super fun day.  And even though we were freezing, we laughed loads.