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Speed Tourism and Ladies’ Night at the Pottery Studio
After the Natural History Museum we walked briskly through the sculpture garden, which was pretty neat. There was a giant sugar cube sculpture and a silver tree and some chairs stacked up really high. There were a lot more sculptures too but we were on a schedule so we rushed by.
Of course I had to take a picture by the scale model of the Paris Metro sign that I have been to in real life.
By then we were starving so we stopped by a hot-dog cart for a quick lunch. Except Bug suddenly decided she doesn’t like hot dogs and was given an ice-cream sandwich instead. She’s getting away with all kinds of spoiled behavior during this vacation. But then again, so am I.
We crossed the street to the Lincoln Memorial and took lots of pictures of the Washington Monument and the Reflecting Pool. The funny thing about the Lincoln Memorial is that it’s really big and impressive. They have a sign up that says to be quiet and respectful. You sort of feel like you’ve entered a church with the cavernous stone walls rising up over your head. It’s cool and quiet and filled with whispering people. So when you yell out for your kid to stop running away from you and pose for a photo, you sort of feel like someone who farted really loud in church and it’s embarrassing.
By then we were running pretty late for our scheduled events for the afternoon but I really really wanted to see the Vietnam Memorial since I remember when it was built. I remember reading long articles about the artist’s reasons and inspiration behind it’s design. It’s just as interesting and impressive in person and I’m really glad we took a moment to walk down and really experience it.
Bug played her favorite game of finding all the H’s. The wall was actually hot to the touch since it sits in the sun so it was a tricky game for her to touch the wall but not “burn” her finger. It wasn’t really hot enough to burn you but you know how kids can be sensitive.
Then it was back to the Actuallys’ for an hour of unpacking and some more putting-together-of-furniture for Troy. Then Bethany and I headed out for a “Ladies’ Night” at her old favorite pottery painting studio. (The kids stayed home with Troy for a fun-filled movie night.) Of course we had to stop on our way there for Starbucks so we would be at our optimum creativity levels.
Also, it’s 7 Days again so we snapped a few self-portraits. If you’ve been following my flickr feed, you’ve probably been wondering why there was a sudden explosion of pictures of my ugly mug. Now you know.
I finished up the ceramic egg I started the other day. I can’t wait to see what it looks like when it’s fired. It looks soft and pink now but if I remember right I think the banding stripes are orange and pink and the pink I mixed with something else so it might turn into this awful mauve. Who knows. That’s the fun of pottery painting, you just never know what you’re going to get in the end.
And that’s that! Much more to come though!
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Rainbow Production
A great big color explosion went down in our house this weekend to celebrate somebody turning FOUR. I cannot even believe it myself. Where did my baby go?!! She’s FOUR and that means I’m OLD and stuff. Just kidding.
I can handle four. I hear it’s the magic age. This side of three has definitely been fun so far. I think the rainbow theme matched her personality pretty well. Happy, bright, colorful with lots of rain and drama mixed in… If you’re looking for a way to liven up a dreary winter day, I cannot recommend this theme (or 3.5-year-olds) enough. It was really fun to put together.
I tried to make this year’s party low-key and not go crazy like other years but somewhere along the way, I got inspired by rainbows and then went a little teeny bit over the top. But! I did keep it small and only invited nine little girls. Which didn’t seem like that many at the time (just cousins and girls that we have play-dates with regularly) but it probably wouldn’t be considered a small party-guest count.
No boys were allowed. Which was tough because Bug has a huge crush on a boy at school named Jake and she asked me nearly every day if Jake was coming. Bug hasn’t been in school for nearly half a year now (due to it being expensive and the fact that we’ve been out of town so much that it’s not worth paying for days she isn’t there) so getting an invitation to Jake would have been impossible. I don’t know him or his parents or his last name. Bug suggested I walk up and down the street knocking on doors until I found him but I convinced her that it would be super cool to have an all-girl party, like it was a secret club or something. I’m not sure she bought it but it did cut down on the guest list and my costs and possibly the craziness. From what I hear boys bounce off the walls and run around like wild turkeys. I could be wrong.
Anyway we got plenty of crazy without any boys in attendance. Rainbow-colored candy may or may not have been a factor.
There was a ball-tossing game—thanks to the marvelous rainbow balls that Bethany crocheted mere days before the party. You know you have a great friend when you randomly decide you need rainbow-colored hacky sacks to fit in your flower-pot party favors and she volunteers to make puffy round fiber-filled ones for you instead because the hacky sacks at the store were not acceptably rainbow-y enough.
There’s more to that story but it exhausts me just trying to think of a way to explain it. Just imagine a crazy inspired person realizing that her plan A was meh and this other plan B was super-exceptional, causing her to completely switch gears on the party favors one week before the party. That’s how inspired people work. You gotta be flexible and have friends who are very laid-back and understanding.
There was coloring, of course. If I’m going to go crazy making all these graphics, I might as well turn them to black and white outlines and make a coloring page too. Girls love to color! I’ll share that here if you’d like to play along at home. No contest this time. Just have fun.
We also did a craft (because that’s what we do) involving seeds. (Beans are seeds, right?) We glued beans onto a paper plate to make mosaics. This was actually really fun and easy for all ages. I thought it would be a huge mess but all the little girls were quite meticulous, some of them spending a long time getting their plates just so.
The big girls were meticulous too. I think there is something soothing about sorting small beans. Maybe being a bean counter is not such a bad job after all.
My Mom (not pictured above, that’s Calee) headed up the seed-planting activity. She’s much better at that than I am. As you know, I struggled with the seed part of this party theme. I love it that my kid has her own original ideas and she picked something outside the box for her birthday-party theme but I really didn’t really want to have a gardening party.
While I like gardening, I’m not very good at it. But you can’t have a seed party without planting something so I let my mom be in charge of that. Thank the Lord for my green-thumbed mother. I think she did a great job because everyone was very happy and quiet while they planted (besides my kid who had a crying jag when I tried to rush off and do dishes while she wasn’t looking) AND there wasn’t a giant hose-water mud mess when they were done. Amazing, no?! Not that a muddy water-fight party wouldn’t be fun. That would be a blast. Just not so much in January. And not so much for me who might have to clean it all up at the end of the day.
Anyway, I think the seed planting went splendidly and everyone took home a nice little pot of freshly-planted sweet peas. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I wanted to share about the decorations.
They were SUPER easy!!! All I did was cut out circles from some brightly colored construction paper with my handy dandy circle cutter. Then I sewed them together with my sewing machine and some white thread. I left this bit of the party to the last minute and I was so worried that my machine would just chew up the paper but it didn’t! It worked better than I imagined and within minutes my house was transformed into a disco of giant rainbow-colored dots.
If you’re looking for a quick easy way to decorate for a party and you are not afraid of a sewing machine I say get down with your circle-making self! I thought the candy bar I set up would be the biggest decorating feature but these simple cheap circles stole the show.
Serving a rainbow of food was pretty easy. Seeds were a bit trickier. We had lots of different kinds of nuts, bagels with seeds on them, peanut butter and Nutella for spreading (we made sure no one was allergic), hummus (of course) and even some rainbow-colored chocolate-covered sunflower seeds. I was pretty proud of myself for finding those.
Bethany made the cupcakes with this recipe. They were very yummy. I decided to be selfish and choose a flavor I liked instead of going for the wow factor of the rainbow batter since we’ve done that a few times already. The little lollipops came from here.
Of course there were presents. Toby and I wanted to say “no gifts” on the invitation since Bug is quite spoiled with every toy imaginable already but I knew that would ruin the fun for my mom who has been buying her stuff since last year anyway. So there were presents after all. And I have to say she got the most thoughtful, wonderful gifts. There are a few I haven’t taken pictures of but everything she got just melted my heart. You guys really know my girl.
And that’s pretty much it.
Party done! Now let’s get on with the rest of the year!
