Owen Funny

I caved in to the excited pleas of Perrie and put up our Christmas tree yesterday. She wanted to hang some red balls on right away. Owen immediately grabbed his bat and ran over for batting practice. Those little cheap balls held on for dear life and stood up to his beatings real well. Perrie was concerned for the little fellows and begged me in tears to stop him. I had to suppress my laughter as I wrangled the bat away from him. (right after I grabbed the camera) He then proceeded to get his work gloves on and with his toy ax in hand he tried to chop down the tree. Here is an action picture of the scene (not too good but…) He also called the nutcrackers “cowboys” which we thought was pretty cute. It is going to be a fun Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving

I am thankful for my Grandma K. She is not doing well and we spent part of our thanksgiving at the hospital visiting her. She has influenced my life a lot; more then I know I’m sure.

My love of crafts came from her. She was always knitting or sewing something. She worked in a crafts store for many years and always made the holidays special with her handiwork. Each Christmas she made us a new ornament. I will always remember the care bear Christmas and my handmade doll clothes.

I also learned to enjoy cooking from her. She could make any dish or pastry, and liked doing it too. She loved having dinner parties and made them really fun. My birthday cakes were always very special. Certain foods will always remind me of her, like wild rice casserole, homemade mac and cheese, fudge, potato chip cookies, homemade scones with soup and many more.

I love hearing her old stories and smiling in disbelief as she tells me of her wild youth. I wear her out making her tell me the stories of her life. I’m afraid I waited too long to get them all. Our elderly have so much history and knowledge in them just waiting for someone to ask. Please don’t wait till it’s too late. Love you Grama!

How to be Silly

1. Personify things. Give objects emotions and personalities. Examples;
"Blankie is sad you wont lay down with him" (Pretend to cry)
"The shirt monster is coming to get you, yum yum yum"
As the broccoli is running off "No, no don't eat me!"

2. Dance crazy without thinking. Just let your body be taken over by the music. Kids are good at this. Do the Russian squat dance or a graceful ballet if the music tells you, or just spin around till you get dizzy. Our favs are classics for kids, Nutcracker ballet, Shrek soundtrack and many others. Classical music is fun because is has alot of emotions in it.

3. Sing Songs. I think singing is a very powerful mood enhancer, kids know this but we forget as we grow up and get too serious. We love Raffi- he sings "Baby beluga, & Down by the bay." We also love fun church songs, kindermusic and for some weird reason Enrique Englesias "Escape." (this is all I'm allowed to listen to right now)

4.Rename Food. Garbanzo beans can become dinosaur eggs, broccoli is little trees and bagels become donuts. (this could start a new diet trend)

5.When reading books, make different dramatic voices for each character. Kids love this. The three bears is a favorite.

6. Play Fun Games. Hide and seek, hide the pumpkin/tractor/remote control/whatever is around, puppet shows, dress up, mini olympics, obstical course, play house, play resturant, shoe store, grocery store, marco pollo, ....

You certainly don't have to have kids around to do these things. I'm sure your husband would like to play hide and seek with you, you could change some rules (LOL). Next time you are feeling blue or the gray clouds and rain just wont go away try some of these ideas that help us.

What about you? How do you stay fun and silly?