What DELICIOUSNESS tastes like

Last night was the General Relief Society Broadcast. Our stake had a dinner and some booths set up before hand. I was on the food committee. We had asked some of the sisters to bring homemade bread for the event, and one sister showed up with something that looked like this (actually, hers was even more pretty):

We snitched a bit in the kitchen before we sent it out to the serving table and it was AMAZING. Fortunately, I know the sister who made it and got the pin from her. The recipe is here.

Circus Fun

I am now a Cubmaster! I am super excited to be back working with the Cub Scouts. My first pack meeting was a couple of nights ago. If it looks a little half finished, that is because I only had a couple of weeks to throw it together and had sick children to boot (i.e. I don't think I have really slept in the last five days).

I started with invitations for the boys to all take home the week before pack meeting. I found the idea for this one here.

 I took these pictures while we were still setting up, and was crazy busy for the rest of the night and didn't get any more pictures, so you will have to use lots of imagination. I strung a rope across my backyard to shorten it a bit. We hung plastic disposable tablecloths on the rope for color and to make a backdrop, and ran Christmas lights across the top (I just used clothes pins to hold everything- it worked great). I might have also used some of the PVC from the former chicken coop, both as dividing lines and to hold the rope up.

The massive inflatable bowling balls I found on clearance at Walmart. In the next booth, I had a Goldfish toss. Sorry, no close up. I took some fake fish and glued them into clear plastic cups and filled the cups with water. The kids used ping pong balls to toss. 

 The prize for getting the ball into a cup with a fish was... you guessed it- Goldfish. Like how I recycled my fish printout from the pirate party?

 Next to the Goldfish toss was Ladderball (also made out of chicken coop PVC) and a water golf game. Because you really can't tell from the picture, I shall describe. I had my husband cut a 2x4 into two 18" pieces. Then I had him drill six holes in each board that were the size of golf tees. After painting the boards green and inserting golf tees, I set plastic golf balls on top. The object of the game- using a squirt gun, try and shoot off all of your balls before your opponent gets all of his off. Or just squirt the volunteer refilling the squirt guns. Either way the kids had fun.

 The last two booths were for a Lion toss (see picture below) and darts. I didn't want to bring the dart board out too soon because of the heat, but it was just the leftover piece of sheet rock from fixing the garage wall where the water heater blew up. I wrapped a plastic tablecloth around it and pinned lots of water balloons to it. Let me just say that it is a pain to get tootsie rolls into a water balloon. I may have only filled half the balloons on the board. (Note- I didn't fill the water balloons with water- just treats and air. It was just a lot cheaper to buy water balloons than regular balloons)

 For my big top I cut some red tablecloths into fourths (the long way) and wrapped a rubber band around the top. The first time I put it up, I had the stripes spread out and nicely arranged. The wind messed that up, and by the evening I was too busy to care. My Lion Toss game served as my stage for a puppet show put on by the Webelos. I made it the same way I did the pirate ship for Tiger's pirate party. My center ring was made by running a rope through some sections of foam noodles that were cut to about 2'. 

 I think my favorite part was the concession stand. I made it with masking tape, tablecloths, streamers, a shelf, and the cupboard doors that I had sitting in my garage since I took them all off when my kids started breaking them by pushing on them backwards). I taped three doors together for each side, wrapped them with a bit of red tablecloth, ran white streamers in a vertical pattern, set a shelf on top, and covered it with some blue tablecloth that I had cut with a scalloped pattern. The "concessions" sign I made my printing out the word to fit a half sheet of paper, cutting out around the letters and gluing them on half sheets of alternating red and white that I had cut a triangle out of the bottom of, laminated, and tied together with ribbon.

 My entry was suppose to be a balloon arch (on more PVC). It only got about half done. 

For parking, I took over the empty lot next door. I wrapped the pole so it would be highly visible and no one would run over it.

 To guide people in I had my Free Parking sign. Yup, that is more PVC- this time wrapped with blue painters tape.

I had so many ideas that I didn't have enough time to get around to. Fortunately, I have two months to plan the next pack meeting (next month we are combining with the Boy Scouts for their Court of Honor so I don't have to worry about that one, which is a shame, because a jungle theme was one of the options for October in the Pack Meeting planning guide).

Whooo'm Shall I Serve?

 I have a confession to make. Actually it isn't much of a secret, because many people are well aware of the fact that I am a LOUSY visiting teacher. I happen to have two very amazing women who visit me religiously every month, so it isn't from lack of example (those same two women have watched my children for me on numerous occasions and frequently bring me gifts and are always there for me. Love them). It isn't because I don't like the women I am suppose to visit- they are also amazing women who have probably done more for me than I have ever done for them. I am just lazy.

So this month I am attempting to repent. I googled Visiting Teaching handouts and saw an adorable owl one (that can be found here). Since I didn't have any wooden owl cutouts I decided to make a felt owl. A quick google search came up with this adorable guy (tutorial here). I just took up embroidery to make him and I am afraid it could be a very bad thing- I already have too many other things to do to take up another hobby, but he was so fun and cute.

The colors reminded me of M&M's so I picked up a little bag to add to the pile. Now I need to go make myself a whole tree full of the little owls. It might be addicting.

Shoe Bench!

I'm a firm believer that if you have places to put things it's easier to clean up. I saw this idea for turning a bookshelf on it's side and upholstering a board to set on top at http://iheartorganizing.blogspot.com/2010/01/iheart-my-home-home-tour.html. Hers is in a playroom, but I thought it would be an awesome idea to have one for shoes because then you even have a place to sit down to put on your shoes. So when my husband asked what he could make for me, I told him he could make me a shoe bench (or 2 or 3 for different entryways). He used some oak milled from the family farm and we got 2" nu foam and upholstery material from Jo-Ann, plus fabric bins from Target in the kids favorite colors and viola! One for each member of the family to keep their own shoes in, plus adds some extra seating in my living room.

In case you can't tell, I'm a big fan of the cubes and of having places to put things.