Crafting a Toy Wreath

I get the call from my craftiest friend, KATE: "Get your glue gun and come on over!" AND IT WAS ON! While I am all about dreaming up crafts and storing and saving supplies to make crafts, Kate is about DOING CRAFTS! This girl dives in head first while I tentatively test the water with my big toe.

So I accept the challenge, grab my glue gun and cheap plastic toys and head over to her house. We sit on the deck on a sunny Sunday, sipping iced tea and eating homemade kettle corn. We plug in our hot glue guns and off we go!

I saw Kate at the "Barn of Opportunity", our recycling center, a few days ago and she plugged her craft idea. In the two minutes before it closed, we grabbed a couple handfuls of toys from the free toy bin. Later, we supplemented our inventory with toys from the four kids between us. In about 1.5 hours, VOILA!!! A novelty toy wreath!

I can't believe how fun and how easy this project turned out to be. Kate, who has an artist's eye, made sure we didn't put two penguins next to each other, and kept an eye on the overall form - making sure it didn't look lopsided, without any obvious gaps. But overall, you really can't go wrong as long as you have lots of little toys and lots of glue!

Digging through the toy bins had an unexpected side effect. Our kids rediscovered the toys that had long been lying dormant!!! Kate's son ended up building a complicated dump truck with his long forgotten K-Nex toys. And her daughter asked to set up the doll house and revisit Polly Pocket and friends.

One of my sons recognized some of his toy box cultch already attached to the wreath and expressed (half joking) that I was "stealing his childhood". After he identified the items in the wreath that previously belonged to him, he grabbed a couple "keepers" and walked away. Kate's daughter also requested a give-back, so we had to pry it off the wreath and fill that space with another treasure.

This craft idea could actually be a positive experience for your child by getting their prior approval to make them a customized keepsake of their childhood toys that might otherwise end up broken and in the trash.

When it comes to recycling cheap plastic toys destined for the landfill into a wreath similar to this, THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS!

Bochenek Family Reunion

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3 Boy Chat - Scientists in the making

Did you ever watch the show called "Beauty and the Geek"? It was a reality show that paired up a beautiful woman with a smart guy. What interested me about this show was, even though it was a competition, the geeky guys were impressed and complimentary regarding the other geeks' intelligence and abilities. The women seemed vapid and competitive.

That being said, here is a snippet of a long, polite stream of consciousness heard in the back seat of my car the other day. Three boys with an average age of 12. Be sure to read with near-puberty voices and the smell of teen spirit.

"I would decorate my vehicle with shark scales to make it aerodynamic."
"You mean hydro-dynamic."

"Are you a mouth breather?"
"No, I'm ambi-respirous".

"By the time you figure out how to clone yourself so you can send your clone to school, you'll be out of school".

"I'm going to invent a jet pack."
"How are you going to power it?"
"With a nuclear pocket power source."
"That's not very eco-friendly."
"How about anti-matter?"
"I never thought of that."

Bumper Sticker Wisdom

"DON'T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU THINK."

The limitation is only in your mind

Lately I have been having limiting thoughts regarding my son, who has Asperger's Syndrome. As I was searching for a quote on the internet, I came across this story on another blog. It is a strong reminder that our weakness may become our greatest strength.

A 10-year-old boy decided to study Judo despite the fact that he had lost his left arm in a devastating car accident. The boy began
lessons with an old Japanese judo master. The boy was doing well, so he couldn't understand why, after three months of training the master had taught him only one move.
"Sensei," the boy finally said, "Shouldn't I be learning more moves?"
"This is the only move you know, but this is the only move you'll ever need to know," the sensei replied. Not quite understanding, but believing in his teacher, the boy kept training.
Several months later, the sensei took the boy to his first tournament.
Surprising himself, the boy easily won his first two matches. The third match proved to be more difficult, but after some time, his opponent became impatient and charged; the boy deftly used his one move to win the match. Still amazed by his success, the boy was now in the finals. This time, his opponent was bigger, stronger, and more experienced. For a while, the boy appeared to be overmatched.
Concerned that the boy might get hurt, the referee called a time-out.
He was about to stop the match when the sensei intervened.
"No," the sensei insisted, "Let him continue." Soon after the match resumed, his opponent made a critical mistake: he dropped his guard.
Instantly, the boy used his move to pin him. The boy had won the match and the tournament.
He was the champion. On the way home, the boy and sensei reviewed every move in each and every match. Then the boy summoned the courage to ask what was really on his mind. "Sensei, how did I win the tournament with only one move?" "You won for two reasons," the sensei answered. "First, you've almost mastered one of the most difficult throws in all of judo. And second, the only known defence for that
move is for your opponent to grab your left arm." The boy's biggest weakness had become his biggest strength.
"Sometimes we feel that we have certain weaknesses and we blame others, the circumstances and our self for it but we never know that our weakness can become our strength one day. Each of us is special and important, so never think you have any weakness, never think of pride or pain, just live your life to its fullest and extract the best out of it!"
"You have powers you never dreamed of. You can do things you never thought you could do. There are no limitations in what you can do except the limitations of your own mind." - Darwin P. Kingsley

Father's Day at Fenway Park

As luck would have it, I managed to (again) score four tickets to the Boston Red Sox game on Father's Day. It was Maine Day at Fenway Park and also the first day of summer. We were a bit worried that we would drive 2.5 hrs only to have the game canceled or postponed due to rain, but we dressed for the weather and made it to Boston with a few minutes to spare.

With 8 more blocks to go and a very small bladder - we gladly accepted an offer to ride to Fenway on bicycle rickshaws, skillfully driven by Pete and Michael of Boston Pedicab.

What a treat to bypass the sidewalk crowd, weaving through bumper to bumper traffic and getting delivered right to our entrance gate! Our young drivers were personable and worked hard, so we gave them a big tip.

Our seats were near the tall, yellow right field foul pole, known as the Pesky Pole. Nick Green ended up hitting a walk-off home run just fair of this pole in the bottom of the 9th inning to beat the Atlanta Braves 6 to 5. The energy at Fenway is so exciting, especially when the Red Sox win!

As an added bonus, the fathers and their families were invited to a "Father's Day Walk in the Park" after the game. They cordoned off the field and allowed the public to walk around the field, from the outfield warning track, past the dugouts and next to the infamous scoreboard. It was such a great day on so many levels. I truly treasure any day that I can spend with my incredible husband and our two wonderful sons.

toilet paper

A co-worker shared this photo of an ingenious way to store toilet paper. It was taken in the ladies room in Kristas Restaurant. My only comment is that it was definitely designed by a woman. If a man had designed it, it would only hold a single roll.