Better Know a Playground, Part 3

While Wii Lego Indiana Jones does a fabulous job of babysitting my children, I am bringing you (my 3 readers) the next installment of Better Know a Playground. Today's feature is:

Scioto Park

This is a park that is part of the Dublin Parks and Rec system. It is conveniently located on the way to the zoo, so we have been known to stop there on our way home from staring at the gorillas.

The most interesting part of the park isn't the playground, or the scenic view along the river, or the way cool sledding hill. It is the giant rock statue of Chief Leatherlips.

Yes, that is Sarah at the top and Leah hanging off the side. The Chief is just one of many crazy pieces of outdoor artwork commissioned in Dublin.

The park also has a small creek running through it that drains directly into the Scioto River. The girls were far more enamoured with playing in the creek than on the playground.

Even with all the other distractions, we did manage some playground time too. There is the pre-requisite rock wall experience.

There is also a ladder tunnel that leads up through the middle of the playstructure. Mary and Leah both thought that was pretty cool.

Nana was along with the ride too. She busied herself with with swings while the girls were sloshing around in the creek.

All-in-all, Scioto Park has a lot to offer. Crazy sculpture, creeking, playground, picnic shelter. It also has an amplitheatre for summer concerts. One HUGE drawback is that the bathrooms are pretty nasty (this is after a few different trips to them). I know it must be difficult to keep them clean, but they are pretty gross.

I stink at keeping New Year resolutions!

I had only two resolutions this year: 1) blog a bit more and 2) papercraft one hour per week. I am currently 0 for 2. I suppose you could say that is a perfect record!

I HAVE re-discovered my love of reading lately. At heart, I am a 12 yr old boy, so I have been enjoying re-reading Harry Potter. While in a holding pattern after Goblet of Fire (Sarah is slogging through Order of the Phoenix so I'm waiting for her to finish), I started my first read-through of the Percy Jackson series. I finished the fourth one last night (I should say early this morning) and I'm waiting anxiously for the 5th one to arrive from Amazon. Oh, and I was suckered into reading the Twilight series too. I much prefer Harry and Percy to Edward and Bella! LOL!

One thing I have yet to master is my compulsion to read a book from start-to-finish in one sitting. It makes for some very bleary-eyed days at work! It doesn't matter what time of day I start a book, I will stay up and read it in its entirety. I seriously need to find a way to combat this!

Anyway, you could say that today is a successful New Year's resolution day because not only am I actually blogging, but I am also going to be doing some card-making tonight! Woot!

In the meantime, if anyone has any suggestions on another series of books that I should read (in lieu of sleeping), just let me know!

But where's the tumbleweeds?

I swear that a swarm of locusts live in my house. Really and truly. No matter how much grocery shopping I do, I can't seem to keep food in the house.

Now, I do confess that grocery shopping hasn't been one of my favorite things these days. Back before I had a hoard of picky kids (OK, only two of my kids are picky), I used to really enjoy picking up unusual ingredients and experimenting with them. I don't have that opportunity as much these days.

Back to the gripe at hand...where in the world does the food go? Not only is our snack cupboard bare, but the fridge is too!

So you can see after three trips to the grocery store last week, that I still have bald spots in my fridge. What IS there are drips and drabs of things that aren't quite enough on their own for a meal for five people. All it is missing is a tumbleweed or two blowing by.

Chihuly Glass

Because the girls were crawling up the walls this morning, we decided it was a good day for a visit to Franklin Park Conservatory. We have a membership for these types of emergencies. It is a nice place for a lovely stroll when it is yucky outside. You can see the whole thing in about 1 1/2 hours, so it is just perfect for the girls.

I had completely forgotten that there was a special Chihuly glass exhibit going on right now. What a lovely surprise! I really love how they tuck the artwork in amongst the foliage. The bright colors against all the greenery is just striking!

Before we ventured into the gardens, we took a gander at the pieces on display in the hall. I especially loved this vase:

If I had a bazillion extra dollars hanging around (and didn't have a houseful of kids), I would totally be all over it! The blue in this one was very vibrant, pictures just do not do it justice:

Mary really liked this one. She "needed" to have her picture taken with it: This one is permanently on display at the conservatory. I think it is really fun. It reminds me of the Heat Miser's hair. I'm sure that is what Dale Chihuly had in mind when he created it! We thought this one looked like a dinosaur egg:

This display was a boat filled with blue glass. Leah didn't feel much like posing with her sisters today. She is conspicuously absent from most of the pictures I took!

Last but not least, here is a wall of glass.

If you haven't been to see the glass yet, I highly recommend it!

I rock! Or maybe I'm a lunatic...

Each year I get this bee in my bonnet that I should bake cupcakes for the spring birthday fest and each year around mid-March I remember why I vow to just buy cake next year.

Once again I was suckered into homemade baked goods for Leah's fourth birthday party. This year the birthday girl picked flowers as the theme. Easy enough. There are tons of ideas for a flower-themed birthday. Then last Sunday hit and she decided she wanted to do a ladybug theme. After I sent out the invites and already had a plan in my head. Fine...I decided to incorporate both.

My first fit of insanity was when I had the great idea of making lady bugs for the cupcakes. I took red hot candies (you could use m&ms, but I had red hots on hand) and used an edible marker to make them into ladybugs. It was totally cool, but took an entire evening. My hands are just not cut out for small delicate work like that. Here is the bug infestation:

Phase two involved making flower cutout cookies. On a stick. Why do I dream up these crazy things? Actually, Marcie#2 was the evil genius. I just implemented the idea. Sarah said the cookie pops were beautiful. I think they look like something dreamed up by a five yr old. Check them out:

You would think that making cookie pops would be enough, but OH NO not for me. I have to make things way more complicated than they need to be. So we needed some cupcakes with green frosting to be "grass" for the flowers:

So once I finished all phases and put them together, I was pretty darned happy with the result. You might even say that I rock!

Or you could say that I'm a lunatic!

The Big Craft Purge

We recently re-did a good chunk of our first floor in an effort to make our space more usable. Part of the big move involved moving my computer desk/scrap table/spot for everyone else's junk to another room. In my mind, moving stuff = purging stuff!

It was really horrifying to see all the (for lack of a better word) crap that was lurking in the nooks and crannies of my desk. The girls completely enjoyed the fruits of the purge. They acquired a ton of old, "what was I thinking" patterned paper (apparently, that is my favorite brand because I had a lot of it). They are also going to take possession of some old stamps that I am ready to remove from my stash.

I just decided after moving everything around, that I wanted to be able to have a space for everything. Once I max out the allotted space, something must go. I'm hoping this philosophy will help me keep the crafting expenditures under control. It especially seems silly that I buy craft supplies when I hardly ever touch the stuff!

In theory, having a smaller stash makes it easier to craft since you know what you have and where it is located. I think my real problem with crafting is that my computer shares the same space with my supplies. It is far less effort to waste time poking around the internet than it is to create something.

I would post a picture of my new-and-improved workspace but it is already covered with a bunch of junk. I think it was cleaned off for 3.2 milliseconds.

Pantene Beautiful Lengths

Mary has been interested in getting her hair cut for a while now. Everytime she would ask, I would say "just another 1/2 inch". Well, her hair finally got long enough to donate. Samantha told me about the Pantene Beautiful Lengths program that only requires an 8" ponytail rather than the 10" length required by Locks of Love. Pantene also accepts hair that has been colored, so their program is a bit more liberal than Locks of Love.

Here she is this morning before the big chop:

and here she is after she has been chopped and sprayed and gelled and all that:

Mary is mostly excited that she will get a new patch for her Daisy vest, but I suppose the motivation isn't as important as the outcome, huh?