The zombie birthday party in review

We finally had Max's zombie birthday party last Saturday.

Due to some scheduling conflicts and the fact that Max kept forgetting to hand out the invitations at school, the party ended up being three weeks after his birthday.
We even tried to work a deal with the kid where we offered him a brand new bike instead of a party, but he had his heart set on the party, and we promised him a party.........

Up until the day before, we were trying to convince him to go with a different theme, seriously, the dollar store was full of really cool pirate stuff, but no dice, Max's obsession with the game "Plants vs zombies" won out.
The night before the party, I stayed up ridiculously late to make a zombie pinata (I didn't even attempt to buy one. I did a google search to see if I could find one as an example, but the only one I could find was too scary for me, let alone a group of seven year olds)

A bunch of newspaper, tape, crepe paper and a few hours later I came up with my version of a zombie pinata.

And before you ask, yes, I did mean to make it's eyes uneven.

During the time I had been taping this creation together, I was baking two dozen red velvet cupcakes. Max originally wanted brain cupcakes, but after finding some disgusting zombie looking teeth at the dollar store, I came up with the idea for the zombie cupcakes also. I will say that the teeth were a big hit with the kids.

Fortunately, they tasted much better than they looked.

Saturday morning, I was quite concerned, because Max had handed out 12 invitations, and I hadn't received a single RSVP.
We had made up 12 goodie bags full of dollar store plastic toys, and I really wanted to get rid of all of them.
We ended up having a total of 4 boys show up. Max said that the day before, all of the boys were asking where the party was going to be. I kind of wonder if some of them didn't come because we weren't going to a cool bouncy house or something. Max said a lot of the boys play soccer, so we're just going to assume that the other 8 boys were at soccer games.

We had several games planned for the party.

Game #1- Brielle had used sidewalk chalk to draw a large game board on our driveway. We called this game "Zombopoly"
Some of the squares said things like "You lost your head, go back two squares to find it" "Do a zombie dance and move ahead one square" and "You found a head, but it isn't your own, go back one square"
Aaron made a large dice (die? dice?) that the kids rolled to determine how many spaces to move.
I got this idea from a website with kids party games. It said that the kids LOVED to play this game. Actually, they were pretty lukewarm about it.
We did have some zombie glasses for them to wear while playing the game. I really wanted to get those glasses that have the eyeballs on springs, but we couldn't find them anywhere, so we went with some stupid plastic glasses with cardboard inserts that made them look like they had crazy eyes.  I guess I shouldn't complain, they were 6 for a dollar at the dollar store.

We had also planned to play some other games, we had a relay race planned, a version of musical chairs, using the music from Plants vs Zombies, and a game called "Wake the zombie" One child lays on the ground, very still, and the others take turns saying things to try and make them laugh. Once the "Zombie" laughs then their turn is over, and the kid that makes them laugh gets to be the zombie.
Unfortunately, the boys were more interested in jumping on the trampoline than they were in playing the games.
The boys found our stash of pool noodles. These had been cut in half to make "snords" they created a new game on the trampoline which was basically jumping while whacking each other with the snords.

We managed to get them off of the trampoline long enough to eat some pizza. One kid didn't like pepperoni, so I peeled it off for him, then he said the pizza looked weird and he wouldn't eat it. Another kid already ate lunch and wasn't hungry.
We had a lot of pizza left over.
We had pizza for dinner Saturday night and breakfast on Sunday.

We got some special relighting candles for Max. He hadn't ever seen these before, and he thought they were pretty funny.
I love his giggles :)

Max opened his presents and got several Lego sets. This is great, because he loves builing things!

Next, we broke the pinata. Unfortuantely, the plastic broom handle broke before the pinata, so they used the shorter pieces of the broom handle until they broke, then they just started stabbing it with the small sharp pieces of the broom handle.
Let me just point out now that Smarties are not the best candy to put in a pinata. When beaten and stabbed, the packages break and you end up with a lawn full of Smartie dust and plastic wrappers.

We finally just dumped all of the candy out and the boys piled on top of each other to get at it. All except for Max, he ended up with one tootsie roll. Poor Max.
One kid, Connor ended up stuffing his goodie bag so full of pinata candy that it broke. All of the boys put their candy on the table and went back to jumping on the trampoline.

Within a few minutes, there was a new hole in the net of the trampoline, it is a hole large enough to drive a car through. Aaron said that Connor was the one that did it.
While Connor wasn't looking, I had Aaron go and take about half of the pinata candy out of his bag and put it in a bag for Max.

Without the net on the trampoline, we didn't feel it was safe for them to be on it, so we needed a new activity. Aaron brought out the water balloons that he had spent the morning filling. Aaron was very protective of the water balloons, because he discovered just how much work it was to fill them. He split the kids up in teams, gave them each one water balloon and a snord then told them to fight each other. It didn't take long for all of their balloons to be broken and so then they started beating Aaron with the snords.
After a few minutes of this, he just gave up and let them go crazy at each other with the bucket of water balloons.
Soon after, the parents started showing up to get their kids. I gave each one a goodie bag full of plastic junk and sent them home:)
Then I sat on my porch swing, looked at all of the mess in the back yard, put on a pair of Zombie glasses, closed my eyes and took a nap.
I now have less than a year to convince Max that a new bike would be way better than a party.

Creeper or genius?

In school, Aaron sits next to a boy who constantly harasses him. He writes on his arms with ball point pens, he steals his pencil and throws it out into the hall, he steals his ruler and hits him with it......

You get the picture.

Aaron is a pretty big kid, one of the tallest in the sixth grade. This boy (we'll call him "Bubba") Is actually taller than Aaron, however, Aaron is quite strong and manages to knock the kid over and wrestle his pencil/ruler/textbook away from him.

I used to worry that the teacher wouldn't see Bubba stealing Aaron's stuff and only notice when Aaron is sitting on top of Bubba, recovering his belongings, and think that Aaron is the instigator, but Aaron said the teacher doesn't care.

Either the teacher doesn't care or he realizes that both boys are taller than him and there is a serious chance he could get hurt if he got involved.

A few days ago Bubba started a new activity. Suddenly he wasn't content just to steal pencils and rulers, he now felt the need to take Aaron's homework and other assignments.

Aaron decided that physical confrontation wasn't going to work any more, so he decided to take another approach.

Aaron found out Bubba's dad's name, which ironically was Bubba Sr. and looked up their address on White pages .com.

Next he went to Google maps, found where Bubba lives and using the street view, he printed out a photo of their house.

The next day at school, Aaron sat the folded piece of paper on the edge of his desk. It took a while, but eventually Bubba took the bait, and grabbed the paper.

Aaron said when he unfolded the paper and saw his own house he freaked out a bit.

"Hey! That's my house! What are you doing with a picture of my house?........You stalked me! You're such a creeper!"

He had assumed that Aaron had actually come to his house and taken a picture. (Aaron let him believe this)

Aaron grinned at him then gave him his slightly deranged, zombie eyed look and said "I'm watching you!"

Bubba has left him alone for the last few days.

A teenager's guide to Facebook

Dear average teenager,

So your parents have finally relented and allowed you to have your own facebook page.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Now that you have joined all of your friends in the online world, there are many things you should know to enhance your social networking experience. Here is a checklist of things that teenagers must use when posting on Facebook.

Item #1 pictures:

Here is a list of pictures that you will be required to post on Facebook. (Should be taken in the bathroom mirror if at all possible)

1. Picture of yourself sticking your lips out like you are trying to imitate a duck. (This may be misinterpreted as making a kissy face, however, I think that "duck lips" is a more accurate description of the appearance one gives while making this face)

A variation of this photo would be to have yourself, along with one or more of your friends making this same face.

You must also include several shots of you (alone and with your friends) making this face and the peace sign at the same time.

Extra points if you are taking this picture with all of you in the bathroom mirror.

2. Picture of you making a funny face. Sneering is the most popular, however sticking out your tongue is a close second.

3. Multiple pictures of you and your friends making funny faces with the camera mere inches from your face. This one might be difficult to do in the bathroom mirror. These photos should be altered with different effects in photoshop and posted with every single effect that you can find. Please post as many of these as possible, because they are awesome.

4. Close up photo of you bending over in a low necked shirt. At least one of these should be taken with "duck lips"

Item #2. Posting:

1. Leave random song lyrics as your status at least 4 times a week.

2. Never spell out entire words. Shorten everything. Never type out the word "you" when "u" gets the point across.

3. When updating your status, be sure to be as cryptic as possible. The less that your friends understand your status update, the more likely they are to leave multiple comments, and text you to see what's going on.
Remember, it's all about the attention you can get.

4. It is required that you have frequent conversations on FB with your boyfriend/girlfriend. Be as sickeningly sweet as possible. For example:

Your status: (Insert name) Loves her/his sweetheart XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

comment: (Insert name of BF/GF) I love u 2!!

you: cant wate 2 c u!

comment: (((((((((((hugs)))))))))))) kiss kiss kiss!!!

5. Be sure to keep up with your relationship status on an hourly basis, going from "single" to "in a relationship" to "it's complicated" to back to "in a relationship" and back to "single" multiple times a day."

6. At least once a week, post about how much you hate your life, so your friends will comment on how great you are.

7. Friends. Remember, the goal of Facebook is to collect as many friends as possible. It doesn't matter if you really know the people on your friends list, it's the number that matters. The more the better.

Besides, with all of the personal information that you are posting, don't you want as many people as possible to know about it?

8. Quizzes and videos, link to as many as possible! (Virusus, shmirusus, clicking on random links has never been absolutely proven to cause a virus to infect your computer)

9. Be sure to let everyone know where you are and where you are going at all times!

10. Spelling. It doesn't really matter how you spell stuff. Words such at "their, they're and there are all very interchangeable.

11. It's quite acceptable to have private conversations with your friends on Facebook. Remember, even though whatever you write is posted to your wall, it doesn't always mean that the person from school that you are talking about will ever see it, right?

Good luck young teenager! Also remember to post and tag the most embarrassing pictures of your friends that you can find!!

(I'm pretty sure that college admittance committees, future employers and parents will never see anything you have posted on Facebook)

The saga of the Naughty imaginary animals part 2: The arrival of Naughty Reindeer

For part 1 go here. If you haven't read that one, this one won't make much sense.

I can't really remember the exact day that Naughty Reindeer showed up, all I remember is that it was last year about a month before Christmas.

Naughty Reindeer made Naughty Bird look like an amateur troublemaker.

This stupid reindeer seemed to have the run of the house and had the power to make Max do whatever he wanted him to. He was responsible for Max not being able to do good things like get his pajamas on, brush his teeth and flush the toilet. (for some reason, Naughty Reindeer was very much against the flushing of the toilet) and he was also responsible for things such as leaving the crayons out, knocking over block towers and scattering game and puzzle pieces all over the floor.

By this time, we had good Fewtons all over the floors in every room in our house, but apparently, the Naughty Reindeer was able to avoid them. (and when I say every room, I mean EVERY ROOM. One of the kids started scanning and printing copies of the original Fewton so Max could have more of them without having to draw and color each one individually, making it MUCH EASIER AND FASTER to make enough Fewtons to fill our house)

At that time, Max seemed to have given up the idea that NR would touch a good Fewton and become good, (and start flushing, because seriously, that whole not flushing thing was a big issue for me) So he started to make some new Fewtons.

SNAPPY Fewtons.

All Naughty Reindeer had to do was be close to the snappy fewton and the little tiny pinchers on the side would SNAP and Naughty Reindeer would be caught and Max could then force him to touch a good fewton.
Unfortunately, these did not work either, and we were now stuck with having to avoid stepping on the regular Good Fewtons, and avoiding the Snappy Fewtons so that we wouldn't have our toes snapped off.

Meanwhile, Naughty Reindeer was still up to no good.

Finally, one of the older kids had reached their limit.

"Max, isn't there any other way we can get rid of the Naughty Reindeer besides the Fewtons?"

He thought for a moment and said "Yes, we should call the Naughty Reindeer eating cats to come and get him.

Naughty Reindeer eating cats????

Yes, apparently, there are cats who like to dine on Naughty Reindeers, and as luck would have it, they live downtown and are just a phone call away.

CJ grabbed the telephone and made a call to the NRECs, and within minutes, the doorbell was ringing*

CJ answered the door.

"Hello! Are you the Naughty Reindeer eating Cats?? Thank you so much for coming!" he lifted the heavy imaginary reindeer and tossed him out the door into the eagerly awaiting arms (paws?) of the Naughty Reindeer eating cats.
"Thank you very much for coming. Have a nice day!" Then he slammed the front door and turned around to see the confused (and slightly shocked) look on Max's face.

Eventually, Naughty Reindeer managed to find his way back to our house and he brought friends, more Naughty Reindeer, Naughty Frog and Naughty Rabbit.

And apparently, that whole Good Fewton thing doesn't last, because Naughty Bird became naughty again too.

Join us next time for part 3. The demise of Naughty Bird.


*Aaron may or may not have gone out the back door and around to the front door to ring the doorbell.

The missing link???

Tonight our doorbell rang and when we answered it, there was no one there.

Until the big gorilla jumped out from around the side of the house, waved his arms around, screamed, then jumped into a waiting car and sped away.

About 20 minutes later, the above scenario was repeated.

The boys filled a big bucket of water and sat it by the front door, just in case he came back, because gorillas ringing on doorbells after dark deserve a big dousing of water.

They never did come back a third time, so CJ and Aaron went looking for them, accompanied by the huge, bright green paper mache' alien head from CJ's Halloween costume a few years back.

Never a dull moment.

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Today as we were driving in the car, we were listening to Christmas music, and I was singing along to "Let it snow" when Max said "THEY KEEP SAYING LET IT SNOW BUT I DON'T WANT IT TO LET IT SNOW!!!"

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Best quote of the day by Aaron "So basically, calories make stuff taste good!"

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Max: "Today friend Hunter poked my friend Garrett in the eye!"
Me: "Oh, that's too bad, I'm sure it was just an accident."
Max: "No it wasn't an accident, he meant to do it!"
Me: "Well why would he do that?'
Max: "Because he's mean."
Me: "Do you ever play with Hunter?"
Max: "No!"
Me: "Why not?"
Max: "Because he's MEAN!!"

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I just realized that it's Wednesday, unfortunately, the day is almost over, so just for this week, Word Verification Wednesday will be changed to Word Verification Wednesday/Thursday!

Here's how to play:

1. go to the comment box.
2. look at the stupid word verification code.
3. come up with a (hopefully funny) definition and leave it as a comment.
4. refresh the page and play as often as you wish.

It's a way to make typing in the Word Verification code just a little less annoying.

Help solve the mystery

Last night around 9:00 p.m. our doorbell rang.
When we got to the door, there was no one there, however, three notes were left between the door and the screen door.

Note #1 said

What's your secret?

Note #2 said

I know you are in the witness protection program

And note #3 said

I know you are Aliens.



What do you think it all means?
Why was there no punctuation used on note #2?
Why does the note writer think that they know so much about us?
Why did they use three pieces of paper when they could have fit everything they needed to say onto one?
Why is this the most interesting thing I can find to blog about?


Why?

Why?

WHY?


Any of your ideas would be appreciated. Leave me a comment.

Thank you.





And just for the record, we are not Aliens, nor are we in the witness protection program. (Not that I would admit it if we were, because that would kind of defeat the purpose of the witness protection program now wouldn't it.)
(But we're really not.)

And the only secret that we might have would be that great big flying saucer in our shed, but I didn't tell you anything about it, mkay?