Ellie's Peter Pan Birthday Party

Photo Legends: Paul's map of Neverland in the foyer, Indian Camp in the family room, part of Pirate's Cove/Mermaid Lagoon in the basement (lagoon itself not pictured at other end of "plank"), fairy flower treasure hunt, playing outside, You Can Fly game in the living room, pirate ship/Neverland Island cakes in Tinker's Nook.

Contest Winner and Sneak Preview

First, thanks to everyone who participated in The Stiletto Gang's Hallopalooza scavenger hunt!


Since there were 22 entrants for the drawing at Yeah, but Houdini Didn't Have these Hips, I did a an actual write names on paper, cut, and have disinterested third party select a slip of paper drawing.

I mean "disinterested" very seriously; I pulled my husband away from PragProWriMo to choose a winner.

Congratulations to LibraryMom! An email is coming your way.





In other news, please check back here on December 2nd for the next meeting of Barrie Summy's Book Review Club. I plan to review The Surrendered Wife by Laura Doyle.

You heard me right!

An Apple Pie for Dinner

This month, for Barrie Summy's Book Review Club, I'm writing about An Apple Pie for Dinner retold by Susan Vanhecke and illustrated by Carol Baicker-McKee.

This is my first "sponsored" review, by which I mean that the publisher sent me a copy of the book to review. At first I was excited! Then I was worried. What if I didn't like the book? Worse, what if my kids didn't like it?

They're sort of "off" new things, lately. And they each definitely have favorite books they like to read. Over. And over. And over. We have three bookcases, each with 3-4 shelves, stuffed full of children's picture books and board books. Additional children's books are stashed on bedside tables, busy bags in the car, and beside nearly every chair in the house. (Adult books are largely confined to the floor-to-ceiling bookcases in the basement and one small bookcase in Paul's and my bedroom.) We are readers. But we are very opinionated readers.

So I introduced An Apple Pie for Dinner with some trepidation.

Our first time through the new book, Ada (age 2-1/2) and Ellie (age 6) listened quietly then requested Where the Wild Things Are.

The second day, I included An Apple Pie for Dinner in my stack of suggested books for naptime (Ada) and bedtime (Ellie). They both picked it first. And we've read it at least once a day all week.

This is a rousing endorsement, indeed! But what do they actually like about the book? Is it the illustrations? The story itself? The idea of the quest? I asked Ellie, who walked away shaking her head.

I asked Ada, who also looked at me like I was crazy. "Apple pie. For dinner."

Oh, that.

So let me tell you why I like the book, instead.

The illustrations caught me first. "This is a fabulous graphics program," I thought. "I had no idea you could make this sort of thing with computers. I wonder how it's done. It looks so real! But no way did the illustrator create textured diorama/mural art pieces for every single page." Oh, but she did. From the endpages:

Carol Baiker-McKee created three-dimensional, mixed-media bas-reliefs to illustrate this book. Carol explains: "Mixed media is just a fancy way of saying that I created the artwork from lots of things, including fabric scraps sewn into clothing, embroidery, baked polymer clay, pipe cleaners, pieces of wood, and interesting things rescued from the trash and bought at rummage sales."

The art makes the book worthwhile, all by itself.

But the story is great, too. It's based on an old English folktale (The Apple Dumpling) which might be why the plot seemed slightly familiar to me. But I'd never heard the story told quite this way.

Granny Smith wanted to make apple pie, and she had everything she needed, except apples. She did, however, have plums. So she packed a basket full of plums and set off to find someone who wanted plums and had apples. Instead, she found a woman who wanted plums but had feathers. And so it went until Granny finally found a man with an apple orchard who just happened to need what she had in her basket at the time.

I don't want to spoil the ending, but the story winds up with every character in the story eating apple pie for dinner at old Granny Smith's house.

Click on over to the author's website to see some of the artwork and decide if a journey through the book isn't worthwhile, even knowing that there's a Happily Ever After ending.

I'm still having fun after twice daily readings for a week. Our current challenge is to find all the hidden ladybugs. Because a good children's book entertains the reader as well as the listener and this one does that.

Click icon for more
book review blogs
@Barrie Summy

Balls in the Air

I'm a deadline person. As a due date approaches it draws my full attention like a beacon and I focus until I've met my goal. This process has worked well for me for 35 years, but I'm currently finding myself with quite a lot of beacons causing light pollution in my brain.

First and foremost, I'm a mother, now. And not just a mother, but a mother of children who have activities and responsibilities. School, classes, meetings, conferences, therapies, sports, commitments, stuff, junk, and above all, PAPERWORK. Keeping on top of all that could easily be a full-time job.

But it's not because there's no time for it to be!

There's the need to exercise. And eat right. I find focusing on those two activities much easier when I can let other things go. Like housework, which I can't let slide too far because it seems I'm having people over a lot lately. So there's hosting/event organizing for the list, too.

And editing my work in progress. And freelancing to pay the bills. And, oh, look at the date! November is National Novel Writing Month and I'm nearly 2000 words into my new novel.

Plus we have this influenza A/H1N1/swine flu joy, which hobbles us all. (Ellie's the one who's sickest at this point, but she's on Tamiflu and she's doing OK. I'm trying to embrace the required quarantine and see it as an excuse to loosen the schedule a bit.)

Despite all the more immediate activities, I can't forget that Christmas is coming and homemade gifts don't make themselves the week of December 20th.

So forget fun things like reading novels and watching television and playing Nintendo. Perhaps I'll work them back into the rotation in January!

Hallopalooza Is Here!

Yeah, But Houdini Didn't Have These Hips – post #8


According to legend, it only took Harry Houdini 2 minutes and 27 seconds to escape a straightjacket while being suspended from a crane being used to build the New York City Subway. Mattie, Milla's brother, had tried to copy the renowned magician's feats when they were kids. He had Milla tie him up in their Dad's old bathrobe, but it still took Mattie more than 10 minutes to escape. He finally had just wriggled out of the contraption. But Mattie's fighting weight was 97 pounds and he had the hips of a snake.

The Amazing Harry, topping 240 pounds and hired by G. Winston Howard to entertain his guests, couldn't have wriggled his way out of a paper bag.



In fact, the most amazing part of Harry was the size of the ketchup stain on his starched white shirt. Milla assumed it was ketchup because the Amazing Harry hadn't missed a bite during the entire interview, sloppily dipping handfuls of French Fries into the condiment bowl on the table.



"Is that what you wore to the party?" Milla still needed to find someone in a warlock costume – even if it was just to eliminate him/her as a suspect.



He nodded. "Black tux. My normal costume."



Milla noticed that the color of the ketchup and the color of the shirt stain weren't the same red, and she didn't think the difference was made by Heinz. She'd have to ask Fletcher to collect the shirt and have the stain analyzed. Whoever stabbed Carla Jordan probably got a splattering of the assistant's blood.



Milla looked at her barely-touched plate. The hamburger was going cold, the French Fries limp. G. Winston Howard was providing lunch for all of his guests that were still detained on the estate awaiting interviews. Even though it had been more than twelve hours since she'd had any food, she couldn't eat. Sitting at a table with Amazing Harry had killed her appetite.



Next Clue Location - http://ellenbyerrum.livejournal.com/


***


Welcome to Yeah, But Houdini Didn't Have These Hips! I'm a member of the St. Louis chapter of Sisters in Crime. Leave a comment on this post to be entered into a drawing to win a recent book from one of our members! In your comment, be sure to mention whether you prefer noir, craft cozies, thrillers, or paranormal romances. Thanks for stopping by, and good luck on The Stiletto Gang's Hallopalooza Scavenger Hunt!

It's Hallopalooza!

Welcome to Hallopalooza, the fabulous Halloween scavenger hunt from The Stiletto Gang!

The clues will be posted early Friday morning, so pop over to The Stiletto Gang for the first clue and find your way back here as soon as possible!

Join the Hunt!
Follow the Clues!
Solve the Mystery!
Win Great Prizes!

To Make a Living

In order to finish my freelance project on budget, I need to complete about 2 chapters an hour. No biggie, right? I'm mostly just updating page numbers from one edition to the next. Except - HOLY CRAP - some of the chapters are long. With tons of new information to research. Gulp. I just finished a single chapter that took me 3 HOURS. Not that I'm stressed out or anything.

So that's why I'm not blogging this week. Wait.

Peter Pan Party

"Sarahlynn has really outdone herself this year. What is she going to do to top this next year?" my sister asked my mother after Ellie's 6th birthday party this weekend.

I don't plan to try to top myself next year. After all, I didn't plan to do much this year. Just a simple party, inexpensive, few activities, mostly free play, maybe cupcakes.

Here's how it went down.

Ellie's been into the movie Peter Pan lately, so that became our theme. I typed the invitations and printed them on card stock along with a few images (Tinkerbell, a crocodile, Peter and the Darlings flying over London, a map of Neverland). Then I burned the pages into fun shapes and crisped the invitations in the oven. We hand delivered them. Cost: free! So far, so good.

As Ellie's 8 guests arrived (6 because she's turning 6 plus a couple siblings, ages 1-8, girls and boys, some with Down syndrome and some without) they ran around the house and got acquainted with one another.

The weather was lovely, a perfectly crisp, blue autumn day. So for our first activity we went outside and had a "Fairy Flower Treasure Hunt" in the front yard. I showed each child a silk flower, they ran off to find one like it, then brought it back for the next "clue" and so forth. I bound each child's bouquet with floral tape and attached a nametag. Presto: party favors!

Then all the kids sneaked to the backyard to play on the wooden swings/rockwall/slide playset. Eventually a few children started looking around for something else to do, but no worries! I had a few more tricks up my sleeve.

Paul was in charge of decorating and he did a great job with the house. There was a "Welcome to Neverland!" banner beside the front door and a large hand-drawn map of Neverland Island in the foyer. The family room was "Indian Camp," the dining room was "Tinker's Nook," and the basement playroom was Pirate's Cove/Mermaid Lagoon.

The children filed into the living room, where I sprinkled imaginary pixie dust on their heads and asked them to hold out their arms. "You Can Fly!" played on the computer as the guests swooped around the room, stopping on small maps of Neverland when the music stopped. Each round, one child found him or herself without a map upon which to stand and was "out." They didn't mind, though! Because I sent them straight downstairs to Walk the Plank.

Paul was waiting in the basement with the next activity. Kids bounced on the mini trampoline, walked down a low balance beam, then jumped off onto a blue blanket (the lagoon) where Paul waited for them with fairy glitter and temporary tattoos (fairies or pirates).

After getting their ink, guests came back upstairs to me, where I waited by the tee pee in the family room with a hot glue gun, more colored card stock, and some feathers. "What's your favorite animal? What's your favorite activity?" Each child discovered his or her Indian name and got a fancy nametag. (I particularly enjoyed "Singing Chicken.")

Soon, it was time for cake. My parents were here to help this weekend (bless them!) and my mom thoughtfully baked the cakes so all I had to do on Saturday afternoon was decorate them. We had a strawberry Neverland Island iced green (two small inverted pyrex bowl shapes with cupcakes embracing a blue lagoon) and a chocolate pirate ship.

My second best moment of the day came when one guest's mother said, "Look, the cake is just like a pirate ship!" and her daughter replied, "No, Mom, it IS a pirate ship!"

My first favorite moment of the day was seeing how happy and excited Ellie was the whole time. She doesn't open gifts and is easily overwhelmed by too much stimulation. She didn't want to play the games, though she loves to watch. And she looked forward to the party with such excitement and had SO MUCH FUN having her friends over, playing outside, and walking the plank to jump into the lagoon. Most especially, she loved the whole cake/candles/ice cream/singing part of the party.

How can I top this next year? By showing up. Ellie is a child who is impossible to spoil. She is so generous with her smiles and hugs and praise. She appreciated every aspect of the party, but she would have been thrilled to have just family and a a simple cupcake, too. Her attitude takes the pressure off, though I can never resist trying to design an afternoon that's so perfect for her she didn't even know to wish for it. I'm sure I'll try again next year. (I'm thinking: The Little Mermaid at the swimming pool.)

I'll post the pictures for my Friday Photoblogging this week.

I was just grateful the girls were playing quietly together. (Hint: this is not the normal decor for our dining room table.)



Halloween practice (neither is her costume):

Sorry, Charter

The first team from Charter who responded to our distress call was . . . largely useless. Very polite, though!

As a follow-up, a crew-of-one came out the next week. It was the end of the workday and unscheduled; he just dropped by. And he was professional and thorough as he quickly diagnosed and fixed the true problem.

User Error.

D'oh!

(There was a loose cable behind our television from when we used to have a VCR upstairs. It presented no problem until we stressed the system by adding cable internet.)