Tag Archives: Maggie

Pinterest Fail

“Pinterest Fail” is not a phrase I utter often. I feel like I’m pretty good at picking out projects that are realistic, fun, and ones I’ll actually do, either for myself or with the kids. Today was my first fail.

It seemed innocent enough. Indoor snowmen! Two ingredients! It came from a blog entitled “Modern Messy Parent,” but that’s me! I’m modern! I’m a parent! I embrace mess!

The photos from the blog looked realistic: A cute little one mixing the cornstarch and shaving cream in her box, happily playing, probably singing songs from FrozenIndoorsnowman5

I mean, look how cute! The kids can do that!

Indoorsnowman8

Griffin has been bugging me for weeks to break out the cornstarch and shaving cream, so I finally did it. Here’s how ours turned out:

IMG_3428

Thank goodness I set this up on the front porch instead of at the dining room table! What this picture does not show is the trail of cornstarch and shaving cream mixture leading from the kitchen to the porch to the ultimate removal of this project to the sidewalk. Now I don’t get too crazy about mess (I let my children use glitter and Sharpies, for goodness sake!), but this. was. everywhere. In minutes, I was on my hands and knees with the dustpan and broom muttering, “fail, fail, fail.”

In the end, to be fair, it wasn’t really that big of a deal. The kids had fun, and it was a fairly easy clean up once it dried a little. So perhaps not a big fail. Just an I-might-be-hyperventilating-during-this-fantastic-experience-I’m-providing-for-my-kids fail.

I will be removing that pin from my collection.

Valentine’s Day

Valentines
Valentines

We had planned another jaunt to the cabin for the long weekend, but wind chill is -25° here in Saint Paul at nearly noon and quite a bit lower than that in Duluth. With the road to the cabin potentially blocked with snow (requiring some significant hiking with heavy gear and children) we decided to stay put. Had a fabulous breakfast at the Birchwood (pork belly steamed bun with egg and kimchi was outstanding) and then came home to make some Valentine’s Day cookies. Coming up this afternoon, Griffin has circus school, and then we’re going to the East Side Freedom Library to hear Claire O’Connor, one of the six Minnesota freedom riders, tell her story. Pretty good day!

Little Falls Park

We had plans today to head downtown to see museums and monuments on the national mall, but it was a poor sleep night and a bunch of us were fighting colds, so we decided to stay closer to home. We walked down to Brookeway Drive, the street Dave and I lived on as kids in the ’70s. At the end of the cul-de-sac is a path up to the old railway tracks, now repaved as part of the Capital Crescent Trail. (I remember trains going by, and often put coins on the tracks for flattening.) The kids had a blast in and around the creek for a couple of hours, though I didn’t get the camera out for the epic meltdowns they had after one too many daring maneuvers led to cold, wet feet (and a butt, in Griffin’s case).

 

Christmas 2014

We spent Christmas in Bethesda with Grummy and Grandpa Stape, and all the Roy cousins. Fourteen people under one roof! Wonderful mayhem.

Arctic Bocce

We didn’t let a little snow and frigid temperatures interfere with our Thanksgiving Bocce game. Grandpa Jeff got out the snow blower and made us a court. The teams:

  1. Griffin, Nik, Alli, Pam
  2. Maggie, Andrew, Sarah, Jeff

We played to 11, and it was close to the very end. In the final round, 10-9, team 2 landed the clinching point. They simply had superior mastery of snow-braking techniques.

On the Roy side, the bocce tradition began at a rental house in Fort Bragg, California, on the Mendocino coast. We used to rent the place for Thanksgiving in the early 2000s, inviting friends and family for feast and fun. Here are two pictures from that era (with a slightly different climate!):

2002 - bocce court with the house and hot tub in the background
2002 – bocce court with the house and hot tub in the background
2004 - bocce court with the Pacific
2004 – bocce court with the glorious Pacific