A to Z book: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows.

Quotes I love and deeply relate: 

"Reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad books."
From Isola Pribby to Juliet, 19th February, 1946.

A beautiful explanation of why I can't bring myself to read the Twilight series or Fifty Shades of Gray.  Ever.  Sorry, friends.

"As Seneca says, "Light griefs are loquacious, but the great are dumb."
From John Booker to Juliet, 16th May, 1946

But who wants to talk all the time of great griefs, anyhow?

"She writes about how difficult it is for you to get on with your life as a camp survivor...not friends, not family - wants to know anything about your life in the camps, and they think that the sooner you put it out of your mind -- and out of their hearing-- the happier you'll be.
...it is not that you want to belabor anyone with the details, but it did happen to you and you cannot pretend it didn't..."
From Juliet to Sophie, 29th August, 1946

Pinter-did: Glow Stick Baths

Continuing birthday weekend...super easy and super cheap and idea found many places floating around the web.  We bought 5 packs ($1 each) of different color glow stick bracelets (3 bracelets/pack).  We built up the suspense of a surprise for them just before bed, put them in the bath, shut off the light (we don't have windows in their bathroom), and activated the sticks one by one and they thought it was the coolest bath ever!  We only needed to do a couple of sticks per kid, it seemed enough to keep them entertained and saved the rest for another time :)

Pinter-did: PVC Kid Wash

Continuing birthday weekend...I've been thinking about having my husband make this for the kids for a long time and this weekend seemed to be the perfect weekend to do so.  The instructions can be found here:  http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/the-deluxe-kid-wash-709166

We had much of the PVC pipe laying around already, and instead of using pretty fabric strips, I just hung strips of a bed cover sheet we weren't ever using.  It didn't take him long to put it together, I think it may have a been less than an hour and the kids were ready to run through it! They had a great time, but in hindsight I think a big drawback was that they played in it for so long (maybe an hour or so) that afterward the grass underneath was swampy and torn up.  This wouldn't be so much of a problem once we set it up out on the pavement driveway or sidewalk where I was planning on having them bike/scooter through (although now I'm really hoping the bikes don't rust up doing this.)

It was definitely a fun project that was inexpensive and easy to carry out - looking forward to having our kids friends over to try it out, also :)

Pinter-did: Crowns of chalk

There are several images of cute kids laying on cement with chalk drawings 'round their heads floating around the web (and collected on Pinterest).  Today is my youngest kid's birthday so I thought we'd try doing some fun pictures using this idea.  

I tried to get them going nice and early in the morning when it was still cool and the house shaded the driveway nicely.  It was a really simple thing to do, the only drawback was I had her face out towards the street so she had a problem keeping her eyes open towards the sky, maybe it was just too bright for her.  I should add, I feel that it helped to show the kids the images of the other kids with the chalk crowns online, so they could see how cute it was and know what they were expected to do.

Overall, this task was quick, easy, and did not cost me anything.  Plus, the returns were great - thanks for this delightfully whimsical idea, Pinterest idea generator, whomever and wherever you are.