At least *someone* enjoys leaf management

(Though I will say I am mighty happy to own a leafblower.  It makes the chore a LOT easier.)

PS - Please consider checking out this post and helping make my upcoming 40th birthday wish come true!  Only a month and a day until the big 4-0!  (**gulp**) Thanks!

Operation Seven Candles

We had Kiddo's birthday party here at the house on Saturday.  Kiddo is a *huge* fan of Kim Possible (she's done all the Kim Possible missions at Epcot, which are a highlight for her of every trip we take to Walt Disney World), and after checking the pricing at just about every venue in the area from renting a lodge at a nearby park (as we did for the past two years) to doing the party someplace like Chuck E. Cheese or the zoo, we decided we'd host a Secret Agent themed party here at our house.  This would not only save serious money (we couldn't justify spending upwards of $300 or even more on a child's birthday party lasting less than 2 hours in duration), but would enable Kiddo to invite as many friends as she wanted.  She wanted to invite her entire class, plus her Daisy troop, plus a couple other friends who are neither classmates nor fellow Daisies.

The invitation looked like this:

(the code key was on the back of the sheet, so you're looking at the front and back of the invite side-by-side above) and they were delivered in plain, manila envelopes.  31 children were invited, 27 RSVPed that they'd be accepting the mission and 25 actually attended (had some last minute cancellations due to illness, as is par for the course when one is talking about an invite list full of germmongers kids...).

Kiddo was collected bright and early Saturday morning by her grandparents, who kept her occupied and away from the setting-up process so as not to spoil any of the activities.  They delivered her home just in time to wash up and start greeting her guests.  We totally lucked out with the weather, as the entire weekend's weather basically ranged from "steady downpour" to "torrential thunderstorm" with the exception of one, 10 hour window, that being, thankfully, Saturday from midmorning through evening, thereby giving us glorious sun and warm temperatures for the Operation.

The itinerary went as follows:

- Registration at Mission HQ: Give decoded password, sign Secret Agent photo ID card which I made ahead of time, using the Secret Agent Code Name the kids gave when RSVPing:

Kiddo and the girls all pretty much chose flower or animal names for their Code Names - Sunflower, Lilac, Pony, Sassy Cat.  The boys went for comic book character or more scary type names - Spiderman, Hammerhead, Fear Ripper, Ghost.  After checking in (and obtaining a phone number for each Agent's grown-up, just in case), the kids headed to the back yard, where Hubby had a CD of Secret Agent theme music playing on the lanai.  (He'd made the CD using various songs - Mission Impossible theme, Kim Possible theme, James Bond theme, Dragnet theme, Hawaii 5-0 theme, Scooby Doo theme, etc....)  Once all the Secret Agents had arrived, we split them up randomly into three teams.


- Secret Agent Training: Egg on spoon relay race, limbo pole. We were going to do a ring toss as well but scratched that at the last minute due to time constraints and lack of anything handy with which to pound in the ring toss stakes.


- Mission: Master of Disguise:  A costume relay race.  Each team had a disguise comprised of 4 elements: shirt (one of Hubby's old button-down, long sleeved shirts), pants (old gym shorts/pajama bottom shorts of Hubby's and mine), a lei (from Kiddo's rather extensive lei collection) and eyewear (sunglasses, pirate's eyepatch, novelty glasses).  We would've done hats or other headwear, but there were issues with children catching/spreading head lice at birthday parties last fall that involved dressing up, so we opted to not take the risk of being the first head lice party of 2010 (I mean, we don't think any of the kids had lice; we were just erring on the side of caution).  The first Secret Agent on each team had to put on the disguise, run down to the other end of the yard and back, then take off the disguise, which the next Secret Agent then had to put on, etc.  This game was particularly hilarious to watch for us adults and the kids were all cracking up as well.


- Mission: Mystery Sounds: Hubby made a CD of mystery sounds (coins dropping, horse hooves galloping, siren wailing, paper being crumpled up, etc) and each Secret Agent was given a sheet to write down their answers as he played the sounds one by one.  This was a good way to settle down a bit after all the running around and activity.  We also went through the better part of a case of water and a case of Capri Sun juice pouches by this point, given the sun and heat.  This led to a rather lengthy line for the bathroom, too...


 - Mission: 7 Candles: The birthday cake.  Given Kiddo's food intolerances and the food allergies of some of her friends, we've always baked her cake at home ourselves.  Kiddo requested half chocolate, half vanilla for her cake, so Hubby baked one 9x13" chocolate cake and one 9x13" white cake, set them out side by side (trimmed to match in height) and frosted them together with white frosting.  We ordered a cake topper from the same online company we've ordered her cake toppers from for the past 3 years, this year starring Kiddo's favorite, Kim Possible -

I wound up organizing a quick game of "Telephone" to keep the kids seated and quiet while Hubby was getting the cake set in the kitchen.  It takes a surprisingly long time for 25 Secret Agents to pass along the message "the cake is chocolate and vanilla" which was helpful since they were all very, very excited about the upcoming sugar rush.  (Yes, I know this was "Operation 7 Candles" but the cake had eight - one for good luck/to grow on, of course!)  We used "trick sparkler" candles, which did relight twice but weren't very sparkler-y.  It turned out to be okay that they only relit twice, because otherwise there might have been a riot.  Cake was enthusiastically consumed and then we moved on to


- Mission: Prize Hunt:  For goody bags/favors for the party, we found these spy kits online.  We made three clues, the first printed backwards so it would need to be read in a mirror, the second in invisible ink, the third written in the same code used for the secret password on the invitation.  Hubby, being the genius that he is, thought of hiding the clues in balloons (which he'd been blowing up at the time) so we did that, and I labeled them CLUE 1, 2 and 3 respectively.  We explained to the Secret Agents that they'd need to hunt to find their favors, and handed each team one balloon.  Once they'd all solved their clues, they put them together and learned that the favors were hidden down low, outside in the back yard.  Out they went.  It took them a surprisingly long time to find the large box containing the spy kits, given that it was hidden in mostly plain sight in the patio stairwell.  We didn't actually distribute the spy kits right when they found them, though, because we had one more mission for the kids -


- Mission: Target Practice: The three teams lined up on the front lawn and were each given water balloons to try to toss into chalk circle targets drawn in the driveway.  Amazingly enough, no children took the opportunity to hurl water balloons at each other, so the only person who got at all wet in this mission was me, by dint of standing on the other side of the driveway to take pictures and thereby having water balloons bursting about my ankles from time to time.  (I was wearing my fantabulous, new Lands' End flip flops, so no harm, no foul.)




By this point in the party, the parents had begun arriving to collect their Secret Agents, so we then moved on to


- Awarding of Secret Agent Stars which were those star stickers your teacher had back in elementary school, affixed to their ID badge and handed to them along with their spy kit favors.


I'd love to share pictures of all the fun, but I haven't permission from any of the 25 Secret Agents' parents to do so online, so unless you're one of my Facebook friends (I've got an album up over there), I'm afraid you're out of luck at this point.  I can and will, however, share with you a few shots of Kiddo and myself decked out in some of the mustaches from her spy kit:

We tried taking a family portrait using the timer on the camera as well, but it didn't come out that great as it turns out we were too far away from the camera -

So, there you have it.  Operation Seven Candles - a smashing, Secret Agenty success!  (Even if my plan didn't win the birthday party contest thrown by a group of organic food companies - yes, I'm still a tiny bit bitter since they included my idea as #3 on their list.)  Now all that's left is for Kiddo to write eleventy million thank you notes.....  I also owe a heartfelt THANK YOU to my friends Andy (aka The Creative Junkie - if you aren't a loyal reader of her blog already, you should be, she's fantabulous) and Freyda.  Andy lent us four tables so that we didn't have to rent any, and Frey stayed for the duration of the party and helped out with containing the chaos managing the missions.  Your assistance was most appreciated, ladies!

Mostly Wordless Wednesday... signs of Spring

The first (and only, thus far) bloom of the season!

Robins! (And cardinals, and sparrows, and lots and lots of other birdies, too!
Also, many squirrels and chipmunks frolicking about, driving our crazy cat even crazier...)

Sidewalk, chalked!

(A far more appealing sight to see than the hundreds and hundreds of worms that covered our walkway and driveway this morning, that slowly died and dried into shrively, crispy lines as the sun rose higher in the sky...)

I'm choosing to ignore the evil and gloomy weatherpersons who love to keep reminding us that we usually get snow "well into April" around here.  I'm also choosing to ignore the freezing cold mornings and the ridiculously low highs in our 10 day forecast.  I am choosing to believe that Spring, finally, has sprung!!

Hello Spring,

Goodbye Wintr!

The next Al Roker?

Kiddo's first grade class has been doing a unit on weather this month.  As part of this unit, they've been reading lots and lots of weather related books.  Hubby and I now know way more about clouds and lightning than we ever cared to, thanks to the homework reading assignments of late.

Today in Kiddo's homework folder, along with the weather book du jour, came a worksheet she's apparently been filling out at school.  It's a sheet of Weather Facts and the kids have to fill in one weather fact for each of the various books they've read.

Here is all the essential weather knowledge Kiddo has gleaned from this unit thus far (there is one more book yet to be read entitled Gusts and Gales: A Book About Wind):

• Whiteouts are dangris.
• During a thundrstorm you should stay indoors for suport.
• Clouds can have shaps and sizes.
• If there is to much rain it will make a flud.
• Hurricanes are dangris.
• There are about 800 tornados in the U.S.A.
• A snowflake is at lest made out of two crystals.
• Litning is dangris.

I'm guessing that based on the facts above, the last blank spot will be filled in with something scintillating like "A lot of wind is called a gust." or "Gales are dangris."  Perhaps she's not the next Al Roker after all... 

Saturday in the park

Despite ominous predictions of rain and clouds today (it was deemed the "washout" of the two weekend days just last night by one local meteorologist), it was sunny, albeit cool, for pretty much the whole day.

So, we decided to head off to the park up the road and pay a visit to the fish hatcheries with their teeming hordes of hungry fish. Good thing I had a pocket full of quarters for the fish food pellet dispensers!

Here's Kiddo feeding one of the pools of two year old fish (they were all different kinds of trout). The two year olds had that "swarm" thing down pretty well.



Kiddo realized that feeding the older fish required some dexterity...



...because the fish were quite splashy in their quest to Get Those Pellets In Mah Belly!




A better shot of Kiddo getting splashed in thanks for all her efforts at staving off the fishies' hunger:



The perpetrators of the "Ewwww, I'm covered in fishy water" crime:





Alas, Kiddo wasn't the only one who got splashed! (Hubby also got doused a few times, but I didn't capture that for posterity, as it turns out):


(Yes, I know I haven't had that pedicure yet. I haven't chickened out, I swear! I'm going to do it at the beginning of August so my feet look purty poolside when we got to Disney next month!)

This was an entirely candid shot. I have no idea why Kiddo had this look on her face as she looked over at us, but hee!



Another candid that cracked me up. Kiddo was either singing to or calling to the fish as she fed them... Feed the fish, tuppence a bag (or, rather, a quarter a handful, as the case may be)...



On our way back to the car (in that pouring down rain...), I asked Hubby to get a picture of Kiddo and me in front of some pretty flowers. Our faces came out kind of shadowed so I had to lighten it up to see our faces, and Kiddo's hair was blowing in my face so it's kind of pixelated looking, but it's still us along with the pine cone Kiddo picked up and decided we needed to bring home. At least we didn't bring any of the voluminous amounts of goose poop that was everywhere around the hatcheries home with us...



Last but not least, here's an updated shot of Kiddo's room, all moved into and lived in now, featuring a cameo appearance by Crazy Cat, who was perching atop Kiddo's easel and giving Mad Eye Glow. Yes, Kiddo *does* sleep with that many stuffed animals on her bed (and actually there still are a few more bags of stuffed animals we haven't unpacked yet). It's an SPD thing...

(Kiddo's in-town Grandma is making her some tiebacks out of a cute pink fabric with white polka dots, and in the meantime I tied the curtains back with some pink gingham ribbon. I'll post an update once those are in place and the safari animal photo decals go up next weekend.)



Now it is evening, Kiddo's about ready to head to bed, the clouds have rolled in and the rain is falling. So glad we had a whole nice day before the weather predictions came true! Hope you're enjoying the weekend in your neck of the woods!

Weathery wonderings

Am I the only parent out there who agonizes over how to dress my child for school each day? I'm not talking in terms of fashion trends or what-have-you, I mean in terms of weather. Every single night, I check the weather forecast - usually in two or three different places, as they can differ, and then lay out an outfit for Kiddo to wear the next day. Then, in the morning I'm back to checking the weather all over again, and I agonize some more, oftentimes changing part of what I'd set out the night before.

Part of my trouble with dressing her appropriately for the weather is that the weather here can vary greatly within the course of a single day, especially in the fall and spring. It will be downright chilly in the mornings and then 15 or 20 degrees warmer by midafternoon. It wasn't quite as hard when Kiddo was just in half-day preschool; I'd dress her for the morning temps and then she could change when she got home if it was significantly warmer. But now, I have to consider the whole day. While it is frosty in the mornings (seriously, we had frost last week) and we're shivering at the bus stop, it turns summerlike in a matter of hours and she's sweaty when she hops off the bus at the end of the day.

I also fret over what temperature range equals what length of sleeve/pant leg. I'm usually on the cold side, personally, so I can be comfortable in jeans/pants and a short-sleeved shirt well into the 70s. (For those of you from abroad who are accustomed to the Celsius scale, I'm talking about the mid-20s, according to the handy-dandy temperature converter I just consulted.) Kiddo runs hotter than I do, in general, and is so crazy active all the time that she will get even hotter, so I have to take that into account.

Generally, my mental guidelines for dressing Kiddo go something like this:

80 and above: shorts, short sleeve shirts (tank tops if above 85), sundresses
70s: capri pants, short sleeve shirts
60s: pants/jeans, short sleeve shirts or long sleeve shirts (depends on upper or lower range)
40s and 50s: pants/jeans, long sleeve shirts
below 40: pants/jeans, sweaters, turtlenecks, long sleeve shirts, also an undershirt. Warmer tights if dresses or skirts.

Now, all of Kiddo's skirts are knee-length, and generally I go no tights for 60 and above, tights of according thickness if below 60. We don't do knee socks (I hated them as a child and they never. stayed. UP.) so she wears ankle-length crew socks or bobby socks. She has some longer dresses but nothing further than mid-calf (tea length), so the same sock v tights rule applies.

For outerwear, if it is 60 or below, Kiddo gets a jacket. We've got jackets ranging from lightweight to arctic, as you might expect. Also, living where we do, there are snowpants, hats, mittens and scarves to consider, as well as snow boots...

Even with all these guidelines I keep in my head, I still feel daily angst over her clothing. I guess this will continue to happen until she's old enough that Mommy doesn't get regular input into her attire (though I plan to exercise my Veto Power as long as she lives under my roof...). What do you all do in terms of dressing and the weather? Anyone else in a similar temperature zone, with the big differences between first thing in the morning and mid-later afternoon?