Silent Library

Let me start by saying that I am not a fan of anything on MTV...that is until yesterday. They were showing back-to-back episodes of Silent Library and my older boys were watching it. I kept hearing laughter and screams so I sat down with them to see what was so funny. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. (which just might indicate that I am not right)

Silent Library is modeled after a Japanese game show. On each episode, a team of Six friends performs stunts to earn cash prizes for the team. For each round, team members draw cards to determine who must perform the next stunt. Whoever draws the skull and cross bones card is "it". If the teammate performing the stunt does not make it through the required time limit or their friends are too loud, the cash prize is not awarded for that round.

Here are some examples of the stunts performed:

Crushin' and Stompin': "A member of the Giants' football team, dressed as a monster, must crush a small scale model city using only his bare feet"

Ball Pedaler:

Boys Will Be Boys

The other day when we went to the stream, Kellen got in with the dogs. It wasn't long before he was totally drenched and in full-on swim mode.

Look mom, I caught the ball.



I love that he can still find joy in the simple things!

I Love Wordle

Have you heard of Wordle? ( It is another new obsession of mine. ) According to the website, "Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends."

We were looking to create some cheap art for my sons' rooms. Since they are both golf fanatics, we entered in a bunch of golf terms. Note: I have had trouble when I used the paste in text box. Half the time is doesn't work. I prefer to use the advanced option where you enter in your weighted text. Give the words you want to be bigger a larger weight. (Golf is 1345 on mine.) The numbers I used for each word were totally random.

One result. Once the wordle comes up, you can hit randomize and another wordle with the same words will appear. You can also change your original wordle by clicking on the menu options.

Another one.

In order to save your wordle so that you can manipulate it, you need to download a third-party software program like CutePDF. You also need to download the converter. Once you have done this, select print on your wordle and change the printer to the CutePDF. You can then name your wordle and save it.

This is the wordle that Tyler wanted for his room. I opened the wordle in Photoshop and enlarged the wordle. I made it slightly smaller than the finished size that I wanted. I then copied it and placed it on an 11X14 black background. I did this because Wordle places the words all the way to the edge of the box and I wanted a little more black around it.

I then printed the wordle and placed it in a cheap frame from Walmart. (not the best pic, but you get the idea)

Total cost was around $6.

I also used Wordle to make invitations for Tristan's 18th Birthday!

The possibilities are endless. Now go forth and create!

I am linking up to these blog parties today:

Sniff Fest 2010

This is Bosley, our 5 year old Portuguese Water Dog.

Bosley has three loves...water, people and other dogs. He believes that every human and every dog was put on this earth to play with him.

Imagine how happy he was to swim in the stream yesterday

with all of these new friends.

He spent over an hour running

playing



chasing

jumping

and swimming.

He's still asleep today.

A New Obsession: Landscapers Lunch

In an effort to get my kids off the couch and myself away from the computer this summer, we have started geocaching. My friend, Kimberly, started geocaching about a month ago and blogged about her addiction here. She promised I would love it and she was right!

Geocaching (for those of you who don't know) is a worldwide game of hide and seek. A geocacher (anyone who plays this game) can hide a geocache (a container) and pinpoint its hiding spot with a GPS. The hider share the geocaches and its location online and then anyone with a gps device (that would be us) can find it. The coolest thing is that I can use my phone to play this game. (Download the Geocaching by Groundspeak app)

For our first trek into the geocaching world, we went in search of Landscaper's Lunch. We had to go about 80 feet into the woods near a local convenience store.

We kept walking around in circles until Kellen happened upon this. Our first geocache find!

Kellen opened up the geocache and found the log inside. We wrote our geocache name (Meagher7) and the date that we found the geocache. Inside were several small items. It is my understanding that in some geocaches there are trackable items...travel bugs and geocoins. These items have numbers on them and can be tracked from cache to cache online. Other items can be taken as long as you replace them with another item. Since Kellen found this one, he got to choose which item to take. He took a wooden cross.

We are officially addicted...

Enjoy the Day

Happy Friday!

Giga Ball

This is a Giga Ball. It is a life-size inflatable ball that you can get in.

You can roll around in it--and yes, even I could get in it.

You can push it, bounce it and climb on it.

However, I don't think that Kenscott Ltd. had this in mind when they designed the Giga Ball.

Now this kid kind of missed the hole.

and went right over the top.



Do you think his mom is surprised that he has a broken arm?

Tickle Therapy

Today, Ammy decided to join the work force.

These are the business cards she made up.

Sign up for your Tickle Treatment now...I'm sure she is going to be very busy.

She's Got Mad Skillz

My kids have been watching Minute to Win It a lot lately. I have to say that it is a pretty fun show to watch.

This morning I found Ammy playing Ka-Broom in my kitchen. The object of the game is to hit the marshmallow off of the plate with a broom handle and catch the flying marshmallow in a cup.

She must have practiced it 1,234,789 times.

SUCCESS!



We're taking this show on the road!

Show Me the Money Lei

Last week my brother-in-law turned 21 and we went to a surprise party for him. Rather than write him a check, I decided to make a money lei for him to wear at the party. It was super easy to make, but took awhile to assemble. It's the perfect thing to do while sitting around watching tv.

First, cut a 10 foot piece of ribbon (this will seem really long, but trust me when I say that you can always cut some off and you don't want to realize that you don't have enough ribbon when you are half way through.) Fold the ribbon in half. Tie a knot leaving a loop at the top.

Take a dollar bill and lay it flat.

Fold the dollar bill in half horizontally. Then unfold the dollar.



Then fold the dollar vertically. Fold the end in about 1/2-3/4 inch.



Continue to accordian fold the dollar bill until you get to the other end. (Kids love to do this part--the folds don't have to be perfect.)



Fold the folded bill in half. (this is where the horizontal fold makes it easy to fold in half)

Place the dollar bill in between the two ribbons.

Tie a double knot at the bottom of the dollar bill.

Take a plastic drinking straw.

Cut a small piece (1/4 inch) of the straw.

Thread the piece of straw onto the two pieces of ribbon. The straw will serve as a spacer and will give the necklace some structure.

Tape one side of the dollar bill together.

Tape the other side together.

Repeat with another dollar bill.

Keep adding bills until you have the amount that you want on the necklace. The necklace above has $62 on it--I was going for $100, but it would have been too long. $50 is probably the perfect amount.

When you are finished with the necklace, tie it together and cut off any extra ribbon. You can add a medallion if you want. I printed a 4" x 4" white 21 on a black background. (I used photo paper so it would be glossy) I then used my circle cutter to cut it out. I attached it to the lei using clear elastic thread.

It was a huge hit!

I am linking up to these parties today. Go check out all the great crafts: