Maddie's first fish

Maddie and Daddy went fishing one day.
Maddie asked Daddy do I cast this way?
Daddy told Maddie 'Yes, you may'
Maddie called to Daddy, 'Look a fish! Hip horay!'

The pond next to our property is overflowing with catfish and is so under-fished that it make catching easy. This is her first fish ever she caught completely on her own. She is so proud. I wish tho, that they thought of measuring him before throwing him back in.

Doctor Who Birthday Party Theme

I've been super busy working on the party theme my daughter picked out. She couldn't be easy with a ready made theme. No, she had to pick out something that you can't readily get on this side of the pond. Doctor Who!  Not that I'm daunted but what an exercise it has been. I'm really please with the items my husband and I created. He cut the wood pieces out and I got to paint. I spent about 8 hours on the Dalek bean bag game and about 5 hours on the Toclafane pinata.

Day 1. Here is the Dalek form primed.

By day 4, we had a Dalek storming the front yard. I told my husband to cut the circle shape in that area because the painted circles were really lame. He came up with the other two spots.  The eye and left "arm" are made from plungers and somehow Brad made the right "arm" out of PVC and metal he bent in a custom jig. Basic brown felt was stapled to the back to complete the look.

Here's a side view. You can see the stand in the back and the right "arm" better in this pic.

There's a Toclafane in my kitchen! Yikes! How'd it get there? Oh, yeah, it's the pinata for the party. Saw one on a blog from Wales using a balloon. It wasn't really a circle so I used a 20" beach ball I picked up from the Dollar Tree. Three layers of ~4" square paper was used. I'm hoping that this will enable easy breaking by 6 year olds. The background is simple gray craft paint with lines done in silver paint. The lines were easily done by using a bit of yarn wrapped around the middle. I used the yarn as a guideline for the painted stripes. Wrapped once and painted. Quartered with another yarn piece and painted. Wrapped and painted again and again cutting each piece in half and ensuring consistancy. The horizontal piece was done basically the same way using yarn as a guideline. I painted one line with the guide and then used the width of the paintbrush to measure the other stripes. The yellow lights were freehanded. The spikes were standard paper rolled into cones and then covered with heavy duty foil.  I used scrap chip board to make inserts that gave me contact points for the hot glue. I had to use utility cord to hold it up once the candy was placed inside. The yarn was too fragile and snapped.

In addidtion to these, we have made a limbo pole set, a wiffle ball toss and ring toss.

Now, all I have to do is wait for Saturday morning to set everything up in the backyard. I've got a cake at the local grocery store to pick up that morning too. The cake decorator seems confident she can do it. But I'm such a hard ass on myself having this in someone else's control is hard for me. It's going to be in the shape of the Tardis. And then there's the hot dogs and the balloons and table settings and on and on and on.