Write On Wednesday: There once was a man from Nantucket...

A couple years ago my mom told me about a writer she heard talking on a morning show about how she liked to write poems about her every day life, about her children and daily things.  My mom encouraged me to give it a shot. 

That day I wrote this...

No Me!

By Erin Shakespear

As I try to pull her purple shirt

Over her sweet head,

“No me!” she cries.

And she shoves her arm

Into her sleeve. 

As I try to pull her tights and skirt

Up her little legs,

“No me!” she cries.

And she struggles to haul them

Up and over her bum.

As I try to put Mary Janes on her

Wee chubby feet,

“No me!” she cries.

And she finally gets them on

With the toes pointed out.

Later, as I try to put the kids to bed

Her dad says, “I’ll rock her.”

 “No me!” I cry.

And with a blanket and a book I snuggle

With my favorite girl.

I can't read that without getting a bit teary-eyed. I think Zoe was around two then.  And it captures her sweet little independent spirit perfectly. 

We like to have our own annual Shakespear Talent Show.  We video tape it and then watch it while eating a yummy treat.  It's great fun. And I'm always so impressed with what my amazing children and handsome cowboy come up with.  Did you know my he can stand on his head? And whittle a whistle? Um...not at the same time though....

One year, I decided to write some limericks about my family for my talent.  Now. I'm not the best poet. And I think I cobbled these together the day of the talent show.  Maybe I started the day before.... (there isn't one about Molly because she wasn't with us yet)...

There once was a boy named Weston.

Who always had a question.

He asked night and day

How? When? and May?

Then with tape we taught him a lesson.

There was a young boy with a smile

Who caused trouble all of the while

He teased and he tricked

He flapped and he flicked

And all the while he smiled that smile.

There once was a boy named Sam.

Who giggled and laughed and ran.

But sometimes he cried

And his family sighed

Then they stuffed their ears with ham.

There once was a girl who was loved

She was often as sweet as a dove.

But then she would scream

It was quite obscene

She’d even be mean

Was she letting off steam?

She was oh so extreme

She’d create a big scene!

We’re so glad she was sent from above!

There once was a man with a moustache

Who liked saving his cash

For he often forgot

Just how much he’d bought

Then he’d buy more guns for his stash.

There once was a woman from Cedar

You could hear her before you could see her

For her laugh was so loud

She drew quite a crowd

To a muzzle they did treat her.

So, what is my point in sharing these silly poems?  It's probably pretty obvious.

Don't wait for the grand and brilliant moments to pick up your pen and write. Or maybe my point should be that sometimes the simple things *are* the grand and brilliant moments. And you should write about them. Write a poem. Write a song.  Write a list! Just write. 

And speaking of writing a song, I made this one up about our wee Molly the other day (after listening to Skippy Jon Jones, Lost in Spice too many times)...

(sung to the tune of The Mexican Hat Dance)
Oh! We love our Molly Tamale! *clap clap*
She is our one and only *clap clap* (yes I'm aware this doesn't really rhyme...but you can make it work!)
Sweet dolly, our Molly, so jolly *clap clap*
Oh! We love our Molly Tamale! *clap clap*

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Alright, writing goals.  blech. Nope. I didn't reach mine from last week. I did think about my story A LOT. I worked on some different ideas in my head and I realized I needed another Aha! moment at the end of the book and I'm vaguely aware of what it is.  I like it when you think you've learned all the surprised in a story only to learn there is more. 

I'm meeting with my Pub Club next Tuesday, so I better get some writing done this week.  I need to polish up ten pages.  Hmmmm, what ten pages? What scene? Something new? Probably not.  I'll try give a spit and shine to a scene I've already written.  Lana has requested the British dragon scene.  Maybe.  I'll have to see where my muse takes me (don't I sound so writerly? Mmmm, no? Picture me in something tweedy...or maybe with a colorful silky scarf?  Maybe that will help.)

How-To {Tuesday} Give Your Children Superpowers

Zoe was invited to a cute little superhero birthday party on Saturday and I thought it would be fun to whip up some fun superhero masks for the birthday boy. 

These were so easy.  No! Really, they were (friends are always giving me a hard time about saying everything is *so easy*)

I found the templates at Homespun Treasures (as well as a whole ton of other awesome tutes). I've made masks for Halloween before so I was familiar with the technique but I gave the instructions a quick glance over.

I decided to make mine a little different.  I used knit so I wouldn't have to do the satin stitch around the edge and...erm...well, that's pretty much all that was different I guess!

So, first off, I printed out patterns.  I adjusted the shape of two of them, making them bigger and giving the one more of a cat eye look.

Then I traced patterns onto the non-shiny side of really thick interfacing.

I fused this with the iron to the wrong side of my fabric, using a scrap of fabric between the iron and interfacing.

Following my traced lines, I cut the masks out. And then cut the eye holes out, too.

Then I ironed the other side to another piece (wrong side) of fabric. I hadn't bought double sided interfacing(at least I don't think it was...), but I noticed when I ironed them the first time, the interfacing kind of stuck to the scrap cloth I'd placed between the interfacing and the iron.  It peeled off easily but I thought this would be easier then trying to just pin the layers together and it was.  So much easier.

Next I trimmed this layer of knit down to the mask shape. 

Ack! Aren't they so cool?!  I love them. I wonder if wearing a superhero mask would go with my own style? Hmmm, would that look odd?  Me, walking the aisles of Wal-mart sporting a pink mask? Maybe I'd be able to get through the place Super fast. heh heh.

Ok, so then I measured how much elastic I needed by having one of my sons hold the mask up to his face. I peeled back the stuck, but not really stuck side of fabric where the elastic needed to go and slipped the ends of the elastic into the sandwich on each side of the mask.

And then all that was left to do was to stitch around the edge of the whole mask, including the eyeholes, trim the thread, wrap them up and slip the pink one on my sweet little superhero. 

I was in a hurry to get the party and forgot to take some pics of the other masks! Snap.

This was such a fun and easy (and cheap!) birthday gift! I need to whip up some more of these masks to go in our dress up box.  I think we need one in every color! And, of course, one for myself.

I think I'm need a purple one.  Maybe with yellow lightening bolts on the side. 

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....

Thrifty Thursday: Boring Jeans to Ruffley Capris (a $2 project!)

Boy, have I got a thing for ruffles lately.  But can you blame me? They are so cute! And they get even cuter when you start out with cheapo jeans from the thrift store....

I picked these up for my 3 yo Zoe at D.I. for about two or three dollars a few weeks ago. I think they were only $2.

I had Zoe try them on last night and I figured out where I wanted to chop them.  Then I let her get back into her jammies and after I got my last and smallest monkey popped into bed, I cut the legs off the jeans and sliced open the leftover bits. 

I cut these into strips to make the ruffles. I had enough to cut out two strips per leg. This made the ruffle twice the width of the pants.  (I ended cutting some other strips though...I didn't like how some of this denim had the vertical stripe thing going on.)

I serged these pieces together, serged the hem, ruffled them up, serged them to the bottom of the pants (sorry no in-process shots since it was super late and I needed to get them done so I could get some work done on Sam's Super Secret Birthday Project), ironed the ruffle down and top stitched them.

I couldn't wait for Zoe to try them on the next morning. 

Ok. Those are totally worth the late night sewing.  Totally. 

I'm linking to...

How To Serve Octopus For Lunch

Mmmmm, octopus. Sounds yummy, right?

Well, it is when it's served like this...

A hot dog octopus, with mustard features swimming in a blue ramen sea.  Delish! Well, at least this cute girl thought so.  She especially enjoyed biting the octopus's head off.  Er....sweet girl, right?

As I was searching for Cinco de Mayo crafts and recipes last week I stumbled across this fun blog, Muffin Tin Mom...



I have never heard of muffin tin meals. They are a simple idea.  Basically you make a little meal in (usually) a six-cup muffin tin.  Some people make it even more fun by using bright colored and shaped silicone muffin cups. This seems like a great idea, especially if you have a picky eater. On the Muffin Tin Mom's blog she also shows fun ways to present food sans muffin tin.

So, as I was rumaging around for lunch for my monkeys last week I remembered something I saw and thought I'd give it a shot...

Molly didn't take much time to enjoy the presentation though...

I used to do fun things with food for my oldest when he was younger. But these days managing to just feed all these monkeys, well, that's a major accomplishment! Alright, it's not that bad. Although sometimes it feels like it.

I'm going to try harder to be more fun though, to add more fun to my kid's days.  And lunch is a great time to do it!

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

The Friday Five: Random Fun

#1: I made this peanut butter chocolate cake a week or so ago. 

Yep. It was pretty darn good.  But I NEED to stop baking! Ack!

Oddly enough the recipe includes directions for a fluffy chocolate frosting but doesn't mention how much of the ingredients you need. So, I just used a chocolate frosting recipe from one of my cookbooks. 

#2: We had our Cub Scout Pack Meeting last week and had an international theme.  The assistant Cubmaster found this fun craft for the kids to do, African Drums from styrofoam cups...

The kids loved making them.

#3: Erin, the assistant Cubmaster (yep. Both the Cubmaster and the assistant are named Erin...kind of funny)also made a really yummy Italian Lemon Ice.  It was deliciously tart.  I think we've found a new family favorite. 

#4: In honor of Cinco de Mayo, we had mexican food for dinner last night and even added a colorful centerpiece to our table.  I found the instructions for these fun tissue paper flowers Here.  The kids had a great time trying out different color combinations.  And even my 3 yo could make these.

Luckily I had some bright vases to put them in. 

 #5: Also...we made our own pinata!  It was so much fun. I used THESE directions. 

When it was all nice and dry, we painted glue on it and then stuck tissue paper scraps left over from the flowers. 

We love how it turned out!

We hadn't popped the balloon yet in that picture.  And I'll tell you what, that was probably the best part! The kids loved watching the balloon "disappear" when I poked it with a push pin. 

But sadly, we didn't smack the pinata yet.  My handsome cowboy had to work late. He was busy lighting fires (he works for the BLM and they were doing a controlled burn). And I didn't want him to miss the crazy good time with a blindfold, a bat and our homemade fun. http://erinshakespear.blogspot.com/2011/04/thrifty-thursday-funky-spray-painted.html