Every little girl deserves a daddy like this.

I love this picture. It is authentically Dad. Stretched out on the floor. Hot, sweaty, and tired from work.

Note the bedroom walls and closet door: Not many men would be secure enough to let their ambitiously creative wife paint their bedroom girly pink.

What this picture doesn’t show but reminds me of is the many times I have seen my dad exactly in this same pose but opening his arms for me to come and snuggle. I remember his smell, his warmth, how he would pat my head.

I was always glad when he came home. He loved me. There was never a time when I didn't know that.

Happy Birthday, Dad. Many thanks.

hope you both know how much you're loved

Due to computer technical difficulties I was not able to post a birthday shout out to lovely Megs and awesome Kody yesterday.

Happy Birthday, kiddos. You two are pretty great together yet still endearingly individualistic. Kody, we miss your foreign accents, wit and cool man calmness. Megs, we love your work ethic, your need to create and your tender little heart. So much to love and admire about you both. Thanks for being born, you two.

suavo

Yesterday afternoon Megs and I are sitting in the front room reading from our laptops.

I hear ld from the bedroom yell, Candy, get on your gmail.

I ignore as I am busy reading about the World’s Most Dangerous Countries.

A while later I mosey on over to my gmail. Big mistake. Little box in the lower right hand corner pops up. It’s ringing. I click on the icon Answer. I am now on live video chat. I see myself. Ugh. I try to scrunch down in my seat so only the top of my head is showing. My husband, the one down the hall and in the bedroom, proceeds to blow kisses and wink at me on screen. I tell him, STOP IT. You are creeping me out.

Megs adds her opinion as well, Seriously, Dad, that’s just pervy.

ld is highly amused.

Reunion Update

Hey, fam. I've posted the official Reunion flyer/invitation over at the Family Treehouse. I will be sending them out by mail as well. All Reunion updates will be posted there from now on.

HMA & Ethel Rose Reunion

When: July 2-4, 2009
Where: Orem, Utah
Would love to see as many as possible come, if you can make it work. Complete itinerary soon to be posted. I am hard at work on the scheduling. Behold this early morning (very early, as in I-woke-HB-up early) convo as evidence.

Hb: Hullo?

Me: What time is the golf tournament thingy?

Hb: (Groggily) What?

Me: (Impatiently) What time is the golf thingy?

Hb: (equally impatient) What golf thingy?

Me: You know, the golfing. What time will it be?

Hb: (alittle confused) What are you talking about? (Suddenly he gets it) Oh, you mean for the family reunion?

Me: Yeah. What time? 6 am, 7 am?

Hb: Are you kidding? Nobody is even up then. And it depends on how many let me know. I need to know how many are going to participate.

Me: Okay. (still pressing) Well, what time.

Hb: Well , it won’t be 6 am. Nobody is even up then.

Me: Well, 7 then?

Hb: Uh, possibly 8 am. I won’t know for sure until people sign up.

Me: Oh. Well, I need to know ‘cuz I’m typing up the itinerary right now. (Me sighing impatiently) I’ll just leave it blank for now then. Bye.

Hb: Hey! (dramatic pause) What time is it now?

Me: (I look at clock. I am now feeling sheepish.) I dunno.

Hb: Well…., the golfing won’t be this early.

Me: Okay. Bye.

So all menfolk who are planning on participating in 9 holes of male Arnett bonding need to email or phone him and let him know, so he can secure the tee time. And so I can type it up on the schedule:)

You're all coming, right?

may babes

Happy Birthday to all the lovely May gals. You are in a special club all by yourself:)

4th Wendy May
7th Chandell Fay
9th Penee Louise
13th Devry Gale
16th Grandma Ethel

I decided to do Birthday shout outs over on The Family Treehouse http://cs-thefamilytreehouse.blogspot.com/
This is a complete list of the HMA/Ethel Rose family birthdays. Look it over and let me know any corrections or updates.

as lovely as they come

The caption under the picture reads: Freshman in High School
And this from her Life History:
I, Ethel Rose Clifford Arnett, was born in the springtime of the year. I've often wondered if the Lord let us choose our season of the year to come to this planet, which was to be our home during this phase of mortal existence. I've always liked the spring season. Anyway, it was a Spring Morning about 7:00 a.m.,May 16, 1924 that I first made my appearance here on earth in a small tent by the San Pedro River in St.David, Arizona.

Happy Birthday, Mother.

I kid you not

The thing about joining Curves (Kody teases me and calls it Shapes) is that it’s not like any other Gym. And that’s good, if you’re my age. No spandex, lycra, no bare midriffs and buff bodies. No cute little gym bummies. Curves, well, it’s a different feel.

I walked in the first time and saw lumpy and frumpy gals (just like me) working out in baggy old t-shirts and double knit pants to the sound track of Mama Mia. The place was filled with smiling, cheerful women, mostly middle aged but quite a few in their 80’s, too.

I felt right at home.

So Monday morning my friend D and I are working hard when a cute little white haired lady starts her routine. D and I exchange looks. We suppress our laughter. Barely. Cute little old lady is doing her workout in a dress. With hose on, no less. Oh. My. I know, I know. Peels of laughter.

Give her credit though, she did have on sensible flat heeled shoes. And turns out it all makes perfect sense. I overheard said cute little old lady say when headed out the door that she was ‘off to do her visiting teaching.’

Hee hee hee hee. This just slays me. I came home and told Megs. We laughed it up good. Then Megs suddenly turns all serious.

“That’s totally something you would do, Mom”.

Yup. I would. Maybe. Remember that time I cut up an old sheet and made myself a robe/toga? I wore it all that summer until you secretly took it and threw it away. See, you are nice like that. I am banking on the fact that you and your sister will STOP ME should I ever get a notion to be in such serious Gym dress code violation. Tee hee hee. Chortle, chortle.

Sign.Up. Now.

Don't miss this opportunity to participate in Megs' Free Craft Giveaway. Come on and show some fam loyalty with some Linky Love. See http://megscraft.blogspot.com/ for more deets.

It's worth the effort people. She makes cool stuff.

lucky Mudder

Requirements for a wonderful Mothers Day: Having the hymn "Each Life that Touches Ours for Good" sung in Sacrament meeting; Chocolate in RS; having my girls plan, shop, cook and serve a fabulous dinner. Pink slushy lemonade, strawberries, Cafe Rio salad.

The table beautifully set, Meghan style, with poofy pink tissue balls and fresh roses. It was a floral, pastel, sentimental and sweet Mother's day, thanks to my gals. Love you so much.

And the cupcakes. Did I mention the cupcakes? Very yum.

Humble Pie has some more of the day's details. Take a peek:)

Mitochondrial DNA

Here's to Good Women...
May we know them
May we be them
May we raise them

Top left to right: Ann Wickes Taylor; Margaret Ann Taylor Goodman; Clara Grove Goodman Busby; Rose Mary Busby Clifford.
Bottom left to right: Ethel Rose Clifford Arnett; Candace Sue Arnett Walker; Meghan Candace Walker Staples & Mackenzie Sue Walker Arnold.

I put myself in their company only to illustrate our undeniably shared DNA. Remarkable women. To learn more about these ladies, visit my new genealogy blog The Family Treehouse. http://cs-thefamilytreehouse.blogspot.com/

Happy Mother's Day to all the good and heroic women in our fam.

my saturday share

I read this Deseret News article http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705298649/Universities-will-be-irrelevant.html a week or so ago and according to it, University classrooms will be obsolete by 2020. BYU professor David Wiley envisions a world where students listen to lectures on iPods, and those lectures are also available online to everyone anywhere for free. Course materials are shared between universities, science labs are virtual, and digital textbooks are free. He says, 'Higher education doesn't reflect the life that students are living ... today's colleges are typically tethered, isolated, generic, and closed.' In the world according to Wiley, universities would still make money, because they have a marketable commodity: to get college credits and a diploma, you'd have to be a paying customer.

An interesting article. Speaking of which, I have been enjoying this exceedingly (as my Dad would say) Yup, open and free college courses (though no college credit of course), from Yale, Notre Dame, and MIT no less. Yet another reason why I love the internet.
http://oyc.yale.edu/english/american-novel-since-1945/content/sessions.html

I particularly enjoyed Yale's Professor Hungerford’s lecture on the novel Everything is Illuminated (lectures #24 and #25) in light of Lacy’s recent recommendation. I had been getting her lectures off of Youtube so imagine my delight when I discovered the actual site that made them all readily available. Have a look around, scroll through the course lists, there is something for everyone.

http://oyc.yale.edu/
Open Yale Courses

http://ocw.nd.edu/
Notre Dame Open Course Ware

http://oedb.org/library/beginning-online-learning/200-free-online-classes-to-learn-anything
Online Education Database. Lists 200 free online classes to learn practically anything.

http://ocw.usu.edu/
Utah State Open Course Ware

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/courses/courses/index.htm
MIT Open Course Ware

http://www.word2word.com/coursead.html
Free Online Language courses. I’ve been wanting to learn me some Cherokee.

http://ocw.umb.edu/
University of Mass Boston Open Course Ware

http://ce.byu.edu/is/site/courses/freecourses.cfm
BYU offers several free online courses

There are many others as well. Here’s a site that ranks Universities by their open course ware
http://degreedirectory.org/articles/25_Colleges_and_Universities_Ranked_by_Their_OpenCourseWare.html

Looks like the wave of the future.

Aunt Anna

Tonight I stumbled upon a collective/group blog that features Aunt Laurene as a contributing member. Only she goes by Anna, not Laurene. Go have a look: http://anwafounder.blogspot.com/

Scroll around in the archives to read of her stroke in the post Ramblings of Joy and Frustration, relive her trip to Florida in Where Anna Has Been, and check out her original poetry on why she's a woman/rose bush and not a tree. Oh, and the post Ben Franklin, and a B-24 recounts her recent airplane ride.

I found it all excessively diverting:) and lovely. She writes as she speaks.

Top Ten

Quick name your top ten fav books. What, can’t limit yourself to just 10? I so understand.

But what about a list of 10 books that reveal something about you. That’s right, ten books above all others that have shaped or even defined you. Ah, now we’re getting a little too up close and personal, eh? But since we’re fam I’ll divulge that Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women is on my list along with a collection of Essays by Eugene England (most notably Why the Church is as True as the Gospel) and the children’s classic The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes by Du Bose Heyward (can you say Girl Power?) There are others, but really that’s exposing myself too much☺

Each book came at a crucial time for me and I can remember where I was on the first reading and what I was feeling. After reading, I moved forward. I suddenly became unstuck, in the sense that some new concept, character, example or idea altered my thinking in a way that uniquely applied to me.

Last week I finished The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery and know I’m laying myself wide open when I divulge that I love, love this book. It has now squeezed and edged out number 10 on my list of revelatory books. And before you balk, yes, I am aware of it’s criticisms: it’s not really an adult novel, it’s pretentious, too philosophic, slow going, it’s kind of a fable (you know, like The Little Prince), blah blah. I know, I know.

But… there are at least 10-12 wonderful passages in the book that resonate. Just a couple:
From page 53. Renee Michel, on reading without guidance:
"I have read so many books...And yet, like most autodidacts, I am never quite sure of what I have gained from them. There are days when I feel I have been able to grasp all there is to know in one single gaze, as if invisible branches suddenly spring out of nowhere, weaving together all the disparate strands of my reading--and then suddenly the meaning escapes, the essence evaporates, and no matter how often I reread the same lines, they seem to flee ever further with each subsequent reading, and I see myself as some mad old fool who thinks her stomach is full because she's been attentively reading the menu. Apparently this combination of ability and blindness is a symptom exclusive to the autodidact. Deprived of the steady guiding hand that any good education provides, the autodidact possesses nonetheless the gift of freedom and conciseness of thought, where official discourse would put up barriers and prohibit adventure."

From page 145. Paloma, after meeting Kakuro Ozu for the first time:
"So here is my profound thought for the day: this is the first time I have met someone who seeks out people and who sees beyond. That may seem trivial but I think it is profound all the same. We never look beyond our assumptions and, what's worse, we have given up trying to meet others; we just meet ourselves. We don't recognize each other because other people have become our permanent mirrors. If we actually realized this, if we were to become aware of the fact that we are only ever looking at ourselves in the other person, that we are alone in the wilderness, we would go crazy."

Hmm.

So, what about you? What fav 10 books reveal you? No, again, not your favorite books to recommend but the 10 books that say something about you. Sharesies, please.

pretty good week

Ever have a week crammed full of good and happy and hopeful things? A whirlwind week that makes you reel? T'was that kind of week for me, and because I know that some days, weeks and even years are not always so over-the-rainbow happy (not to mention Seriously, So Blessed! lol) I feel to document it. Just to remember.☺

Last Sunday, April 19th to be exact, ld was sustained and set apart as the Bishop of the BYU 65th Ward in the BYU 12th Stake. Having been one before in our home ward, he should soooo have this down. I was called as his ward Relief Society advisor, which means I advise the Student RS President. Here's the happy part: I get to hang out with ld on Sundays.


True to form last week I blew up my 3rd computer in 6 years. True to form ld rescued me in my stupidness and bought me this: (of course it’s a Mac, the one and only true computer☺)

Snapped this a couple of days ago. It....encourages me. 'Nuff said.

Kodison applied for and was accepted for a paid Geico internship down in Tucson. The fact that it is in Tucson absolutely makes my day.

Because of said internship lovely Megs will be moving in with the parentals for the summer. Lovin’ this, too. She will help me organize, share recipes and swap reading lists.

And last, but certainly not least, awesome 'Kenzie graduated from BYU yesterday afternoon. Words that best describe? PROUD. WEEPY. JOYFUL.


Yup. Quite a week. In case you read this post as being boastful, annoying and similar to a ‘Christmas newsletter’, (the kind that irritate because they gloat), well then, indulge me fam and friends. Believe me, I know a bit about life’s realities, disappointments and unfulfilled expectations. Life lived, on most days, is not newsletter worthy.

But… there can be joyful times, too. This week just happened to be one of them.

susan

I know I’m a sap. It took me a year to get over Mr. Roger’s death. But this Susan Boyle http://www.susan-boyle.com/ really pulls at my heartstrings. I tear up at her audition video every time I view it, I’ve peeked at her Fan Club website (didn’t take long for that to crop up, did it?) and read/viewed all the internet chatter about her. But this article says it best, it’s why her story touches me so. Go have a read:
http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/featuresopinon/display.var.2501746.0.The_beauty_that_matters_is_always_on_the_inside.php

Can you say Paul Potts?

It's not really about bunnies and hats, now is it?

Early, early Easter morning I got on the church’s website and found Elder Holland’s remarkable video segment, excerpted from his recent GC talk and set to music and images of the Savior. I wept. It’s all over Youtube now and shared on many, many individual members blogs. I would share it too, if I knew how to embed it. (Ld, help!) Go see, if you haven’t already.

It was a different Sunday for us. Ld had some meetings he couldn’t get out of, Meg sang in a trio in Sacrament meeting, I spoke in church, and then Kenz sang a solo in her ward RS. Oh, and then I substituted in Primary. Afterward we all met up for a late dinner here at home. I love the idea that we were each in our own way speaking, leading or singing out our testimony of the Savior.

I have spoken on Easter 4 times previous to this Sunday. Each time I think, Oh good, I’ll file this talk away and then won’t have to prepare another, just re-give the same talk. But that has never happened. As the years pass my understanding of the Atonement and Easter changes, evolves. I still can’t wrap my mind around it all.

A couple of quotes that match my Easter mood this year:

From Henry B. Eyring, (referencing 3 Nephi 11:1)
“He speaks: I am the light and the life of the world;…I have drunk out of that bitter cup which the Father hath given me, and have glorified the Father in taking upon me the sins of the world;…I have suffered the will of the Father in all things from the beginning.’

That is it. Eight lines. Fifty-two words. “And…when Jesus had spoken these words the whole multitude fell to the earth.’

“I have thought often about this moment in Nephite history, and I cannot think it either accident or mere whimsy that the Good Shepherd in his newly exalted state, appearing to a most significant segment of his flock, chooses to speak first of his obedience, his deference, his loyalty, and loving submission to his Father. In an initial and profound moment of spellbinding wonder, when surely he has the attention of every man, woman, and child as far as the eye can see, his submission to his Father is the first and most important thing he wishes us to know about himself.

“Frankly, I am a bit haunted by the thought that this is the first and most important thing he may want to know about us when we meet him one day in similar fashion. Did we obey, even if it was painful? Did we submit, even if the cup was bitter indeed? Did we yield to a vision higher and holier than our own, even when we may have seen no vision in it all?

And from Elder Holland:

“… no amount of education, or any other kind of desirable and civilizing experience in this world, will help us at the moment of our confrontation with Christ if we have not been able—to yield all that we are, all that we have, and all that we ever hope to have to the Father and the Son.” (On Earth As it is In Heaven, p. 126-7)

The above quotes meaningful because submission is hard, especially for this proud heart.

The doctrine of the Atonement comforts and sustains me. It is the answer to our daily challenges, whether they be sin, mistakes, ignorance, or undeserved adversity. The Savior saves us from our sins, makes right and heals imperfect relationships, comforts us in our pain and sicknesses and through His grace, His enabling power gives us strength beyond our own in overcoming our weaknesses.

It's everything.

Hat Parades of the Past

Grandma Ethel would have been so proud…

True to our heritage we strutted and paraded and laughed it up. This year’s Hat parade was AWESOME! See Meg’s videos at Keep on Keepin’ on for more proof. Good times. Side note: Contrary to popular belief, Brig & Kenz's hats are not Muslim themed. They are supposed to be, er, Carrots.

In my Easter bonnet

Easter hat parades got their start in New York City in the mid-1800s, when the lower and middle class would watch a spectacle of cosmopolitan socialites drifting down the avenue after Easter church services. The elite wore their Sunday best, including bonnets, top hats of all styles, colors and embellishments, and began a tradition known as the Easter parade. The tradition was immortalized in the movie "Easter Parade" with Judy Garland and Fred Astaire, and today, people from all walks of life stroll down fifth Avenue on Easter wearing flamboyant hat creations.

Easter hat parades in our fam originated with Grandma Ethel. For as long as she taught, she instigated and organized an annual Easter Hat Parade for her school. Complete with music, a script and cool prizes it was the Spring Happenin’.

So, in keeping with family tradition we are bringing it back. The deets:

What: Arnett Fam Easter Egg Hunt/ Easter Hat Parade

When: Saturday, April 11, 2009

Where: HB and Penee’s backyard, natch

Time: Lindsay said around 10:30, (but Meg and Kody can’t come until later so can we kick it back a bit to say 11:00? Pretty please.)

Just like last time there will be prizes for all. Categories include: Loveliest, Prettiest, Cutest, Most Cerebral, Best use of theme from TV show, Most Eastery, Most Jane Austeny, blah blah blah, make up your own category if you will.

Bust out some of that Arnett creativity, rellys and come join us all on Saturday for a hoppin’ good time. What? You say you won’t be in town? No problemo, consider participating by posting your hats on your blog. That’s right, a virtual cyber Hat Parade. Good times.

If your kiddies need some ideas to get them going, here’s a few:

http://www.hatsmade.com/paper_hat_patterns.html
http://www.kidsturncentral.com/holidays/easter/eastbon.htm

http://www.emommies.net/hats1.htm

everyone share their fav poems. Now

ld and I spent the trip down in companionable silence. I engrossed in sewing a little house out of a pillowcase and he soaking up oldies from his ipod. It's good to get away, but the weather down here (Zions, btw) is just as crazy as home. Yesterday lovely and then today the cloudy glooms. Very mean. Which reminds me April is National Poetry Month! You didn’t forget did you? Go see, go see: http://www.poets.org/index.php

T.S. Eliot:
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

(the above lines, of course, taken from the Academy of American Poets poster promoting National Poetry Month.)

How’s that for a bit of synchronicity, eh?

babies, babies

To my darling, baby-producing nieces: Well done, ladies!

Studies show that women who are mothers believe their lives have greater meaning... It’s difficult to measure the value of unselfishly giving of yourself to a child who depends on you. In the words of lawyer and mother Jennifer C. Braceras, "Mothers' reap extraordinary rewards that are impossible to quantify” (p. 2) And as researcher Ellen Galinsky (1987) points out:

Taking care of a small, dependent, growing person is transforming, because it exposes our vulnerabilities as well as our nobility. We lose our sense of self, only to find it and have it change again and again…We figure out how we want to interpret the wider worlds, and we learn to interact with all those who affect our children…In the end, we have learned more about ourselves, about the cycles of life, and humanity itself. (p. 31)

Yup. All of that. And more. Again: Congratulations, lovely nieces.

holy dishes, batman!

I am contemplating a major Spring Clean around here. Ld has been after me to ‘clean up my act’ and get to the sinkhole that is our garage. Just the thought alone has overwhelmed and depressed me. But, for me, today, it goes way beyond that. I have pronounced myself a degenerate loser. Challenges and failures in my mothering and my total ambivalence for day-in- day- out chores and tasks that do not ever energize or excite me confirm this. Ahem. Anybody else need to ‘reel in the crazy’ and do the self-talk; the kind that usually calms and soothes negative, distorted and defeatist thoughts? Anyone else need a bit of encouragement and big ‘mo today?

Some fav quotes that nearly always help:

From Kathleen Norris, The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and "Women's Work"

"Our culture's ideal self, especially the accomplished, professional self, rises above necessity, the humble, everyday, ordinary tasks that are best left to unskilled labor. The comfortable lies we tell ourselves regarding these 'little things'--that they don't matter, and that daily personal and household chores are of no significance to us spiritually--are exposed as falsehoods when we consider that reluctance to care for the body is one of the first symptoms of extreme melancholia. Shampooing the hair, washing the body, brushing the teeth, drinking enough water, taking a daily vitamin, going for a walk, as simple as they seem, are acts of self-respect. They enhance one's ability to take pleasure in oneself and in the world.”

And then later she says:
…”I was slow to recognize that combating sloth, being willing to care for oneself and others on a daily basis, is no small part of what constitutes basic human sanity, a faith in the everyday."

I love that: faith in the everyday. I love the whole book, only like 88 pages, but very insightful. A reminder that domestic rituals are not just trivial mindless activities. There can be a kind of spirituality associated with the repetitive and mundane, like doing dishes or laundry. (By this measure ld, you are the Dalai Lama)☺ In fact, considering their enormous life-giving importance, the feeding and clothing of a family and maintaining of a household can be done in a contemplative, spiritual way and can provide the motivation needed to, say, clean out the garage. Yup.

Which leads me to another quote I love, sort of ‘be not weary in the whole motherhood thing even though it never ends and you’ve totally screwed it up’:

“The family circle is everlasting,and so are its responsibilities and blessings. It is an act of greatness and heroism to hold a family together, to set before them an example, to teach them in ways of truth, to live a life of consistency…,to counsel, to love, to understand, to pray, to be patient, and to do the thousand other unnamed things that it takes to rear a family, to make a house a home—and to do it everyday, sometimes without seeming gratitude—and to lead a family righteously unto eternal life.

And since it is our Father’s purpose to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of His children, what could better be our purpose as parents? And what if it takes 20 years—or 40—or forever? What can life better be used for? Keeping a home, a family, going and together, is heroic.”
-Elder Richard L. Evans, October 1964 General Conference

To all the above ‘persevere in dishes and children’ quotes I will also add:

“The only time we fail in the home is when we give up on each other.” 

- Marvin J. Ashton

I feel better.

Zoo Party 2009

Seems the concensus among young, educated and hip parents today that birthday celebrations for children should be kept low key. Parties should be less about the child (and I’ve even heard of some parents having the child do a service project for their birthday to combat the days’ self centeredness, not a bad idea really). It’s fashionable to protest nowadays (and with good reason) against over the top, crass, self centered and commercialized parties.

I get their thinking. I really do. These parents are oh so wise.

BUT……

If you are a Grandma who has spent many years in Primary, Cub Scouts (where cardboard crafting reigns supreme), Young Women (where nearly every activity revolves around a theme, a theme!), and dare I add Relief Society with all it’s events, conferences, workshops, and funeral dinners, if this is your life experience then it is not possible for you to be a party planning pooper. Add in the mix a slightly obsessive personality to boot and it all stands to reason.

Therefore, I make no apologies or excuses for Cate’s birthday party. I simply get a kick out of the whole thing. I know you are all thinking, Doesn’t she have anything better to do with her time?

Nope. I don’t.

I love, love little birthday parties and I love, love cardboard and I love, love my little grandbaby. So there.

The Invitations
Kenzie painstakingly cut and glued adorable little animals on some cardstock (maybe she’ll post a pic on her blog, hint hint) with the following saying:

Friends of the Zoo
Have gathered to say
“Hey, Swing on over”
for…
Cate’s 1st Birthday
We’ll have a roaring good Time!

The Games
Made my favorite way: on the sides of cardboard boxes. It’s great painting on them because you can fold them up and store them, they are all contained, and you can crawl inside of them to actually conduct the game.

Pin the Tail on the Zebra’s Rump


Let’s Go Fishing
(you climb inside the box to attach the prize to the fishing line and throw it back out over the top)


Going Bananas Photo Op


Feed the Animals Ball Toss


Puppet Show
(the script uses the song by Peter, Paul and Mary Daddy’s takin’ us to the Zoo tomorrow, remember that album?)



Giraffe Ring Toss
Much harder than it looks


Caged Animals
For the wild animal in us all


On the last side wall, you can’t really see, is a giant Flannelboard, made with some felt and glued directly onto the cardboard.
One of the books we purchased for Cate was Dear Zoo and Polar Bear, Polar Bear. I made a flannelboard story out of Dear Zoo (I found the patterns for free on a children’s website and she loves this. I’m going to make one for Polar Bear too when I get some time. Flannelboard stories are my latest obsession)

Another game, was Zoo Escape. Here’s how to play: Set out plastic animals all over the floor and cover them with a cloth. Then say excitedly, Oh no, the animals have escaped, where’d they go? The child looks and uncovers the cloth as all exclaim, “Peek a Zoo!” Remember people, Cate’s only 1.

The Decorations
Some vines twisted out of brown paper bags. A few streamers and some jungle leaves. Probably could have used some more monkeys swinging around.


Notice the sign lovely Meghan made. It turned out adorable.


The table is covered with some zebra fabric I got on clearance and some old tablecloths I had around the house. We just pinned the green cloth up with safety pins for a swag. Oh, and the Zoo Choo we made out of old Diaper boxes. So save those diaper boxes, ladies☺


For more details about the cake and party food, you’ll have to visit The Humble Pie. We had a lot of fun with the Zoo Theme food.

For our gift to Cate Grandpa ld and I gave her this sweet little rocking chair that I found online. You can’t really tell from the picture but it has a precious little poem stenciled onto it about Reading Happily Ever After, has a little clock, a chair cushion and attached to the armrest a little bookshelf built in. Needless to say she received some books, too.


For more party pics check out the Grandparentals. My next event planning will be….yup, you guessed it…the upcoming Arnett Reunion. Because I have nothing better to do.