Adventures in La La Land

I'm always on the hunt for original bridal shower games. Everyone's played "Who Knows the Bride Best" or "What's In Your Purse?" or "Toilet Paper Wedding Dress." My goal in finding games is something different, something that doesn't put a huge amount of pressure/attention on the bride, does not involve doing anything embarrassing, and can be done sitting in a chair (no relays or charades). And when I inevitably can't find anything that fits those parameters, I make something up! This year's game was inspired by another game I bought on clearance at Meijer called " What Do You Meme? " It's essentially Apples to Apples, but with memes.  I looked up a meme generator   and chose a few basic memes I thought would work. I created each meme to say "That Moment When . . ." and then I spent hours  coming up with phrases to complete the meme. The hardest part was coming up with enough that each guest would have option...

1. What a crazy week. I'm a stay-at-home mom with more free time than ever thanks to Levi starting school, so when people need something done, I'm usually a pretty safe bet to help out. And I love doing it. But this week was the perfect storm of a bunch of those things colliding and demanding my attention all at once. My mom, sisters, and I threw a bridal shower today. I'm the OGC (Official Game Coordinator), and of course I can't just print off a word scramble or something. I have a reputation now for creating new games or putting a spin on old ones. So I created a fairly labor intensive game that required a lot of my attention this week.  2. Then we decided it was time to do our annual Christmas name drawing with my family. We've been using Elfster the past few years, and since I started it, I'm the admin and the one responsible for re-creating it every year. This year, we changed a few things and I messed a few things up and had all kinds of problems with it....

I didn't write this entry yesterday because I didn't have much to say. And then I got sucked into Brother vs. Brother on Hulu. I still don't have much to say, but we'll see what I come up with . . . 1. It got cold this week - temps in the 40s overnight, barely reaching 60 some days. And yet, any time the sun was shining or it was at all warm, Levi, Nova, and Ruby wanted to be outside. I let them go in the backyard without me because it's totally fenced in and I can see them from the kitchen (where I seem to live these days). But it's a different story when they want to play out front. So I found myself sitting outside with them most of my days this week. I feel like we need to soak it all in for as long as we can. Those cooler temperatures are a reminder of the harsh reality that winter is not cancelled due to Covid. Boooo.  2. I had my yearly physical this week, which I already posted about on facebook: While I was there, though, I mentioned that I think I have...

1. First things first: camping update. It wasn't the best year ever, but it definitely wasn't the worst. The weather was decent - a little too cold for swimming (even though the pool is heated), but not terribly rainy, and not too hot/cold. This year, though, I felt a strange pressure to make sure my kids had fun. Lena was clingy, Lucy was moody, and even Levi was begging to go home by day two. I think all the cousins are getting to a hard age where they're less inclined to play with a broad span of age ranges. The 4 oldest are in the 9-12 range, and Lena's 7. The oldest two have a lot of common interests, so Lucy felt left out. The 9 year old is very active/into sports, so Lucy obviously didn't connect with her super well either. There were times that they all played together nicely, and times that they paired off/excluded each other. One of the cousins has a penchant for creating drama for the sake of drama. (#girls) And Lena felt completely excluded by all of the...