Fun at Work - Theme Days

It's that time of year, I think. We're all tired of the cold spring temperatures in my northern state, and we are really ready for warmer weather. The back and forth of warm and cold weather teases us and frankly wears me out. I'll say it again. It's that time.

It's time to mix it up at work! It's time to put a little spice into the work day. With my theme-based brain, I can come up with all sorts of activities to break up the monotony during your day job! 

• One time we brought in all sorts of crazy lights and turned off the overhead lights. (Can you say lava lamp or pink pony lamp? haha) Light week is a ton of fun.
• Or how about "dress like the boss" day. If that's not your thing, just pick a color and have everyone wear blue shirts, for example. 
• My favorite, Alma mater day! You choose either high school or college. This one is really a hoot - believe me, I've seen grown men squeezed into their football jersey letter jacket. Too funny!
• It's baseball season - how about everyone support their favorite team. Or just make it "jersey" day and any sports team will do.
• And if dress up days don't work. Think treats! Hold a trivia contest, and the loser brings treats. Or pick out of a hat, for that matter. tee hee

The point is - it's time to break it up a little. These activities start conversations, if nothing else. At least we can take a break from talking about the weather!

Yes, Life is but a Theme!

Birthday Tradition - What I Like About You

Happy Birthday to my son! He's in college now and just turned 19. I can't believe I"m that old! 

We had fun taking him out to dinner and making his day special. After dinner, we headed back to his dorm room for gifts and cake. It just so happened that all of his buddies were standing in the hallway near his room. Naturally, we stopped and chatted with the boys. Lots of fun for us to talk with his new friends! 

Then it dawned on me. We FORGOT! We forgot all about our tradition. I even blurted out "We forgot!" and my whole family knew what I was talking about. Then right there I explained to his friends that they'd have to help us out. We'd go around and all tell a thing or two that we like about the birthday boy. It was really neat to see what the friends all liked about my son. I giggled when one boy said, "I like that he gives 6 second hugs." Then they all shook their heads in the "Oh Yea!" agreement. (I'll save that explanation for my next post.) 

Mission accomplished. Tradition upheld. And I'm so glad we forgot to do this at dinner so we could share in his new friendships. 

Yes, Life is but a Theme!

Meal Time and Craft Treasures

My last post shared a fun, versatile craft. I want to piggy-back off of that and think back to a time when collages were made more frequently in my house.

Children can be very demanding, of course. But it seemed like they always kicked it up a notch right about the time I wanted to make dinner. What’s with that?! I often tried to find something to keep them busy around this time of the evening. Think collages! My kids had so much fun cutting out random pictures from magazines or newspapers and gluing or taping them onto paper. Sometimes they had a distinct theme, sometimes they were simply things they liked at the time.

When we had more time, they also liked to make “sculptures” from the craft bin. The craft bin is a plastic tote that I kept filled with random things. 

These items came from garage sales, old packaging, or craft stores, etc.. Think bells, shells, ribbons, pompons, pipe cleaners, old egg cartons, small boxes, you name it! I’ve seen marble races, doll and fairy houses, robots, and many other unique treasures made from the craft bin. Just be sure to keep tacky glue on hand for this one. You’d be surprised how they never grow too old for the craft bin or collages. (if I do say so myself...)

Yes, Life is but a Theme!

Love Collage

Love. That word is really speaking to me lately. It seems to be popping up all over the place and I feel I just have to address it.

So the other day my daughter wanted me to do a craft project with her. Well, I turned to Pinterest, of course! I saw a very cool design similar to the one I made (see picture below) A sheet of card stock and a $5 frame later, and wah lah! I have a cute addition for our couch side table.

My daughter, on the other hand, made a similar type of design for her good friend’s birthday. In the middle she put a picture of the two of them. Around that she taped down all sorts of meaningful words in their friendship. We had a bunch of fun looking through old magazines, cutting out letters and taping them down. But more importantly, we had great conversation. And, that, my friends, is what LOVE is all about!

Yes, Life is but a Theme!

Pet Names and our Cockatiels

I have a funny story to share. And, of course, it involves a theme!

About 6 years ago, we adopted two cockatiel birds - a female named Coconut and a male named Peanut. My family is a little “nutty”, so they fit right in! Note: my son didn’t think that Peanut was a very “manly” name, so he nicknamed the sweet little bird“PJ”.

One day we realized that PJ and Coco were mating, so we got on the internet determine the possibility of Coco laying some eggs. LONG story short, we put a nest box on their cage and we hatched three more birds! Very fun, indeed. But what to name them? Well, we had to stick with the theme, don’t you know! My kids came up with various “nut” names, but we decided on: Chestnut, Hazelnut and Walnut. We kept Chester and gave Hazel and Wally to our good friends.

We enjoyed those birds and their funny little personalities for many years! I’m sad to share that Coco passes away a couple of years ago. She was mostly white and really pretty. But I’m sharing pictures here of PJ and Chester.

Peanut

Chestnut

As my kids have grown, we haven’t spent as much time with these pets. But I’m also happy to share that we are thrilled to “pay it forward” as we gave the birds to another young family who will give them all of the love and attention they need.

The moral of the story - think about the names you give to your pets. Why not name them with a theme in mind? We went through the whole goldfish stage...named them all after authors of children’s books. My favorite was Theodore Geisel. Quite a name for a gold fish!

Yes, Life is but a Theme!

Laundry Games

Laundry! Not my favorite chore, and I’m sure most would agree. Yet we all know it has to be done. Unfortunately, sometimes, to the tune of missing out on play time with our children. Or maybe not. How about using laundry as a learning tool, or making a game out if it.

Shapes, colors, patterns, oh my! For the little ones, they can help to sort laundry by pulling out squares (towels). Show them how to fold it into smaller and smaller squares. Or maybe they can help to sort dirty laundry by colors, perhaps lights, mediums and darks. And socks lend themselves to matching. Make a game out of it! 

Speaking of games, I like to make a game or race out of most anything. Sometimes my kids and I race to see who can put our laundry away faster. Or we choose what to fold together, “Let’s both pick a shirt out of the pile. Now pick a pair of pants. etc.” 

Try to get your children involved with the chores and make the chores fun. It’s a win win, as they say. You are spending time with your kids and getting something done at the same time! Yeah!  

Yes, Life is but a Theme!

MLB Opening Day Tailgate

Opening Day! Most people know that refers to the first game of the (MLB) baseball season. No matter what state you live in, I’m guessing there’s a pro baseball team nearby to cheer for. It’s an exciting day that many people also think marks the beginning of spring. Well, if this day doesn’t lend itself to a theme or tradition, I don’t know what does. Ha! 

My husband likes to mark the day with a cookout. Weather permitting, he will bring out the bean bag toss game and we have our own “tailgate” party in the back yard. Any friends are welcome to join in! And don’t forget, put on your team gear - we cheer for the Milwaukee Brewers - so we all don our blue and gold! Try to use your teams colors throughout the party. Colored plates, napkins, beads and such are always easy to find at the party store. And anytime you have an excuse to put up crepe paper, well now you have a party!!

To tell you the truth, we aren’t the biggest baseball baseball fans you’ll ever meet. But I’m always game for a party, and especially a party with a theme! 

Go Brew Crew!

Yes, Life is but a Theme!

Friendship and Making Someone Feel Special

It has been such a busy time for our family lately that I feel like I haven’t given the proper attention to my girlfriends and our friendships. Do you ever feel like that? I know they would be there for me in a minute, but that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t tell them once in awhile how much I appreciate them. So here are some easy, low cost ideas to remind someone that you care about them. That someone could be a spouse, friend, family member, or whoever you think could use a little, “Thanks for being a special person in my life” message.

• Have a fresh donut waiting for them with a note, “Donut” you know how much I appreciate you?!

• Drop off a bag of Swedish Fish candy and a card that says, “O-fish-ally” you’re the best!

• Make some yummy chocolate covered strawberries to say, "Thank you berry much for being you!"

• Tape Reeses Pieces candy to a thick piece of paper, and write “I love you to “pieces” with the candy taped in place of the words.

If you’re looking to treat someone in this way, just take a look around the store. Look at candy, cosmetics, perfume, food products, clothing tags, you name it! You’ll find something that has just the right phrase that you could use for a play on words or to tape on a card as part of your message.

And I would like to thank you for taking a moment out of your busy day to stop by my blog! Since I can only offer you words, I will do all I can and say merci, gracias, arigato, danke, mange takk, and thank you!

Yes, Life is but a Theme!

Sports Water Bottle Label

Even though it’s April, the madness of March is still with us! We are heading to the basketball state tournament for 8th grade girls this weekend. Of course, my daughter is very excited for the event. This is her first time attending this tournament, while most of her team has already competed in this tournament in the past. And it’s quite a big deal as you must be invited to attend every year! Not only that, but these parents are all in! The girls will be decked out with matching monogrammed socks and towels, homemade T-shirts, headbands, door signs - all thanks to the amazing moms! So I decided to contribute my little dose of team spirit. I made water bottle labels - matching our team colors purple, black and white.

You just have to design, print, and tape the paper to disposable water bottles (rip off the existing label first, of course). I included a couple of close ups so you could check out the amazing creativity! A good theme needs creative wording, right?!

You can change the nutrition facts to be geared toward any subject or sport.

I know they are going to love them. In fact, I already made them for my older daughter who plays at the varsity level (I just changed the name to their school mascot). One of the players swore there was magic in the water as she felt better than ever. ha! (And they did win the game!)
Go Team!

Yes, Life is but a Theme!

April Fools

Well, well, well. If you weren’t the fool today, what gives?! Everyone needs a little prankster in their life for some fun on a day like today! Over the years, I’ve pulled a few myself. But, my favorite April Fools jokes are the ones that my husband and I pulled on our children when they were little.

Let’s see, there was the time that we taped newspaper the full length of their bedroom door. When they got up in the morning and opened their door from the inside, well it was a hoot! (I did leave a small gap at the bottom so they wouldn’t be scared, and in the morning they just crawled out instead of tearing it down. Oh well.) An oldie but a goodie is when we’d look out the window in the morning and exclaim, “It snowed last night!” This one wasn’t so popular, of course! A more cruel one is the time that I made it sound like I had fallen and I laid at the bottom of the stairs acting like my leg hurt. I could usually string this one out for half a minute until they caught on. :)

But here’s my favorite. One year when our two oldest were about 5 and 7, after they were asleep we picked them up and switched beds. We thought it would be so darn funny when they’d wake up in the morning in the opposite bedroom and wonder how they got there! I can vividly remember when my husband and I woke up giggling, thinking how we couldn’t wait for them to wake up. However, when we went to wake them, they were in their right beds! What?? Apparently, my daughter woke up in the middle of the night and walked back to her bed. She couldn’t figure out why her brother was in her bed, so she told him to go back to his own bed! Did you follow all of that? Well, let’s just say the joke was on us!!

Whether you were the joker or the jokee today, I hope it was memorable. Do you have any good jokes to share? Leave a comment! And next year I’ll be sure to share my devious ideas a day or two ahead of time so you can prepare!

Yes, Life is but a Theme!