Patriotic Birthday Blast

Yesterday, was my Patriotically themed birthday party. We played the game True American and were challenged with dressing up as ‘Murican as possible.
I ran to Goodwill and found the above shirt. My mom found tons of red, white and blue star spangled beads for guests to wear.
I also had a headband with ribbons and lengths of nylon that looked like red, white and blue dreadlocks. And, it flashed the ‘Murican colors through the dreadlocks.
My brother went all out on costume. He wore American flag  karate pants, as seen on Napoleon Dynamite. It was super fly.

I don’t have any photos, of course, because my phone died not long after I got home. It was great fun! In addition to the drinking game, there was tons of food. We had potato soup, veggies, crackers, sweets, spinach artichoke dip. We ate like kings. Or shall I say, presidents.

I got to blow out a candle inside the longest cave in the world when my husband led a tour group in singing ‘Happy Birthday’. Another good birthday to add to the list of awesome.

Sorry I haven’t been posting recently as up to my birthday I have been battling a stomach virus.

Birthday Grill Building

In an attempt to trick Kit into thinking he wouldn’t get a birthday gift I waited over a week and surprised him with this. His birthday trip was the state fair remember.

Photo credit: Angie.
I was lucky in that I was off work on a day he got scheduled to work. We got to work not long after lunch putting the new grill together.

The first steps were unpacking the grill, grabbing some chairs for comfort, setting up the camera and posing like nerds.

There were lots of ridiculous poses. Before we followed each assembly step we had a scavenger hunt for pieces. Some of them we discovered were actually inside the grill. Smart packing folks.

I don’t have many photos of us actually working on the grill because, well, we were working! With four people it went together quite well. I imagine doing it by myself would be much more dull and super slow as I switched between tools, instructions and grill.

Luckily, my friends/family that helped me had recently put together their own grills and were somewhat accustomed to the many and somewhat ambiguous steps.

Photo credit here goes to Angie.
It was worth all the hard work! Whoo!! We got it finished with plenty of time to spare. Time to marinate ribeye in a chipotle sauce. And time to chop veggies, spice and wrap them in oiled foil packets.

Kit didn’t act too surprised, but he isn’t the known for his game show style overreactions. I think he was pleased we had special steak, banana pepper poppers and squash/tomato/onion packets ready to throw on the grill. The new grill cooks like a dream!

Subconscious Messages and Book Party Games

Yesterday, I was planning some games for my SiLs Golden Birthday Party (where your age matches the numerical day you were born). I have several great games in the forming stage of awesome.

The party is a Potluck/Bookluck, in which guests will bring a dish inspired by a book, its recipe and a copy of any kind of good book for the birthday girl.

This game is Book Title Guesstures/charades and yes, I realize that I did not invent this game. Guests will pull a slip of paper with a book title on it and have to act it out.

This was the first bit of my kids’ book list…notice anything wrong?
Shortly after starting this list I went and got a beer because I obviously needed one.

Other book related games include,
Book Think–Given a letter of the alphabet, players must come up with a book title or character. “The” and “a” do not count.

Book Scavenger Hunt— Large pile of picture books and chapter books. Players must find words, sentences, characters, copyright dates, photos of the author, etc.

Book Pickup Lines– Nerd/HP glasses and offer the best bookish pickup lines to birthday girl. We will try to write these down or record people saying them.

Poem Writer Book Search– Each player must create a poem, but their word bank only consists of those found in a kids picture book.
Making Bookmarks— Okay, this is a craft not a game, but I figure this might be fun to try. Stamps, construction paper, ribbon, jewels, etc.

Who is it?— Group activity or one at a time. Either played as a 20 questions game or as group guesses. Read off hints and everyone writes down who the clue is about. Then go thru list again and reveal the identities.

Day 248: Fishing Box

The random gift boxes and toys that come out just around Christmas are always a bit fun and strange to me.

This is something I probably would have never imagined on my own….Just think of the possibilities.

This could be adapted for a small child (more candy) or for a aspiring/serious fisherman (more fishing accessories).

Tackle boxes are relatively inexpensive. They have gummy worms and Sweedish fish in their tackle box. As well as some fish shaped hard candies.

The real fishing tools they have in this set are just two red and white bobbers. ONe could easily go to a specialty candy store and buy a small scoop of all the aquatic creature shaped gummies or candy and fill up the box. How much fun would that be?
From a not fishing person, it would be much more fun putting the gift together.
This would be a sweet as a father’s day gift or that little redneck kid you know that is having a birthday.

Thoughts? Creative or dumb?
I believe this pre-made kit was in the $7-10 range.

Day 227: Happy Adoption Day

Today is Tybalt’s birthday!!!
Or his adoption day if you want to get technical. We don’t know when he was born or how old he was. (Guessing he is 3 years old now).

Remember when I first posted about my new puppy?
Seems like a while ago. His shelter photo looks nothing like him now. The eyes are similar but he doesn’t look so sad now.

You can’t really tell what his birthday present is in these pictures. It took him less than two hours to break down a big bone. I was shocked.

The only parts we didn’t let him eat were the slivers left over from him crunching. He was having trouble crunching them smaller and we were worries he would just try to straight swallow them.

Best two dollars spent. He might get another one around Christmas and he will be getting more homemade biscuit treats soon. Promise, lil buddy!!

He no longer has accidents in the floor (thank goodness!). He sits before getting his leash and going outdoors. Most of his manners are pretty bad but he does know Off really well and I never thought that would sink in. He lets me rake embarrassing pictures of him.

He loves to eat (good and bad) anything and everything. He snores, just like his parents. He gets super excited over his stingray toy and any marinated chews. His favorite spot to sleep in bed is between me and Kit or in a nest bordered by our legs (if you have dogs you know what I mean). He dances with me– even if he doesn’t like the song.

Happy birthday to my beagle baby boy!!!!