Kid Craft :: Make Your Own Bored Game

I haven't posted a Kid Craft in ages and thought it was about time since my garden is on a hiatus right now. I prefer to tell people that my garden is on sabbatical to make it sound more impressive, but I know no one's buying it. I'll admit that I don't post kid crafts that often because I don't think my average reader comes here for that - I think most people come to this blog for my dyn-o-mite gardening skills - snicker, snicker, snicker.

I thought I'd put my gardening prowess to one side today and show off a kid craft that actually turned out great. The boys and I made this game at the end of the summer, when the long, hot days were dragging and I needed something creative to occupy them one morning. I'll start by saying that one of the fun things about having more than one child is that the chances of them liking the same thing at the same time are about nil. So one will like Star Wars while the other likes Indiana Jones. This led me to the game that killed the end of summer boredom blues for our family. It was a full-out life saver.

It was simple. I sat down with the boys with some pieces of paper and let them draw out some ideas for the game. Of course the ideas were awesome things like "Battle Darth Vader" and "Swing on a rope with Indiana Jones" and "Fight a monster with Scooby Doo" - all things that seemed impossible to integrate into one board game.

But then I had a eureka moment. Yes, we'd integrate all the ideas the boys had into the biggest mish-mosh of junk you've ever seen and everyone would be happy. This is something you would never be able to find in a store. It would be awesome.

I got a piece of poster board and a sharpie and drew out a long snaking trail for the game. I separated the trail into typical game board squares and gave the boys a box of crayons and let them color in the squares. We also made bridges (or the requested "shortcuts") that would allow a player to battle the bad guy of their choice, so they colored those in too. This whole process was quite time consuming for them, which I thoroughly enjoyed. That's not wrong, is it?


Then we went online to Google image search and printed out a handful of pictures of their favorite characters that we cut out and glued down on the game board in the appropriate places. We've got scenes from The Last Airbender, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Scooby Doo etc.

We used an oversized die from another board game and players can choose their own "guys" each time they play. We've used full-sized GI Joes and Star Wars figures, lego guys, army men, batmen and even a dirty sock once. Whatever tickles their fancy for the moment is their guy, which really does add to the fun of it.


My boys like twists in games so we made up a stack of game cards by making a bunch of simple text boxes in MS Word and writing appropriate game card lingo on each one. They all correspond to the characters on the board and some are just downright silly - "Sing your favorite song or go back 2 spaces" for example (I should note that my youngest son pulls that card, growls, and then moves back 2 spaces every time). I sat there on the computer and let both boys come up with ideas for an equal number of cards. We have some that move you forward (Yoda helped you. Forward 3 spaces you go); some that hurt you (You tripped on Indiana Jones' whip. Go back one space); and some that challenge you (A T-Rex is chasing you. Roll higher than a 3 to escape or go back 5 spaces). We made 20 cards and printed them out on card stock and cut them out. We also drew two rectangles on the board for 'cards" and "used cards" so they had a home while we were playing.


We then put numbers on all the bridges. When you reach a gateway to the bridge (a square marked with an X), you must roll the die and if you get the number on the bridge or higher, you can cross it. If not, you stay where you are (although one of the bridges where you battle the Emperor from Star Wars says right on the board that if you don’t roll the right number, you lose a turn).


We put star stickers throughout the game on random squares. If you land on a star sticker you draw a card and do what the card says.


If you land on a square with another player you have to battle the other player. Can you tell I have boys? This was their idea and their favorite part of the game. When another player lands on a spot that's already occupied, both players roll the die. The person who rolls the lower number moves backward that number of spaces. So if one person rolls a 4 and one person rolls a 2, the person with the 4 stays put and the person with the 2 goes back 2 spaces. And if you're really lucky you'll land on a bridge and get to roll to cross the bridge or land on a star sticker and draw a card. It's all very exciting.


I'm very surprised that we made this game in August to get us through a long summer day and here we are in October and the boys still enjoy playing this game almost daily. Since it's won the test of time at our house I thought I'd post it here incase another parent needs a basically free craft to entertain the kids. I am really amazed that they're still as excited to play this as they were the day we made it. You can customize it to whatever your children are interested in and you can put many different characters on the board to please multiple kids.

It's the best board game for killing the boredom around our house now… I'll admit that making a Halloween one with black and orange squares and Halloween characters sounds appealing and making a Christmas one with red, green and white squares and completing Christmas challenges also will be on the to-do list for the holidays. Who knew that a 59 cent piece of poster board could be so much fun?

Days Like These

Days like these make me happy to live in Florida. I complain about the oppressive heat and humidity of the summer. I get upset when September rolls around and it's as bad as August, which was even hotter than July. Then October sneaks in and the weather becomes the thing tourists dream of. The highs are in the low 80s and the lows have finally dropped into the upper 60s.

And we have sunsets like this.


I'll remind myself of this awesome weather when November rolls in and we're back to having oppressive heat and I'm drooling over pictures of bundled up northerners dashing about in the cold.

Happy Birthday Saffron!

Smile, it's your birthday!


Doesn't it seem like I JUST got that little bundle of trouble...er...joy for Christmas? I mean didn't she JUST look like this five minutes ago?


I can't believe I've had her for 10 months now and she's turning one year old today. Amazing. She started out at 21 lbs and she's 62 lbs of fat puppy now.

She's considerably less annoying now than she was back then too. She goes up to an hour without trying to eat something in the house now, which is a huge improvement. She's turning into a real live bonefide loveable dog right before our very eyes. We'll be celebrating her birthday in style today so point yourself toward Florida and give a birthday shout out to my girl on her big day!



Happy Birthday Saffron!

Always the chicken race bridesmaid…

Today was a sad day for me - for the second year in a row. What are the chances that all the cards would fall into place in just the perfect way AGAIN so that I would miss out on what is obviously one of the most important and exciting days in my small town?? Clearly the answer to that question is 100%.

Today was the Charity Chicken Race in my neck o' the woods. And it fell on the exact day and time as my oldest son's soccer game…just like it did last year - my first year owning chickens and being aware of the race. I mean I'm a chicken lover and I live in a town that is so dedicated to chickens that they hold a chicken race and I CAN'T GO! But as any mom will tell you, kids come first, so there I was on the sidelines cheering my 6-year-old's soccer team while hoards of locals darted around a racetrack holding decorated chickens experiencing full-on chicken nirvana.


And to top it all off, my son's team lost their game today, although my son did score one of the two goals for his team. But his best friend was on the winning team, so he wasn't sad that he lost since his friend was happy, and the kids are still young enough that they're just happy to be out there playing. How could I miss that?


Clearly I could not.

But I'll admit as I was sitting there, I was thinking how badly I wanted to decorate a chicken. And race a chicken. And buy chicken memorabilia. And listen to the chicken calling competition. And chuck a chicken. And fully immerse myself in local chicken culture.


Maybe next year the planets will align correctly and the game and the race will be on different days - or different times at least.

Until then I'll just chase my girls around the yard for kicks and fantasize about what would have been...

The Great White Beast Strikes Again

Last night was one of those nights - you know the nights where you just shake your head and wonder if other people experience such weirdness in their own lives…

I had just put the boys in the bath and let the dogs out for a run in the backyard. Our obedient Shepherd barked to let me know it was time to let them back inside and I obliged. However, Saffie was not with him. This isn't highly unusual since she is prone to loping around the yard in search of mischief, but I hadn't fed them yet and since food is her priority, it was weird not to be bowled over as she dashed past me into the kitchen.

Hmmm….

I decided to do a quick jog around the yard while calling her name and whistling madly, which always gets her attention.

Nothing.

I started to get a bit concerned that somehow she'd wiggled her tubby body under the fence and escaped from the back yard. Our fence line is very secure, but that seemed like the only viable option since she's not the type of dog who could ever scale a 6-foot privacy fence.

Finally I walked around to the corner of the yard and called her and she appeared out of nowhere looking very guilty with something orange on her nose and her mouth. My first thought "GAH! She's eaten an orange kitty!" As she ran over I saw that this orange stuff stuck on her nose wasn't fur, but was feathers.

Oh dear.

She bolted from me back to the corner of the yard and I saw a mess of orange feathers there on the grass.


Next to the feathers I saw an orange lump wedged flat against the grass pinned toward the bottom of the fence. Oh man. It was a chicken, and not one of my girls, but obviously one of my Korean neighbor's chickens. And it was missing a lot of tail and back feathers. I could see from her underdeveloped comb and wattles that she was a young pullet - not of egg-laying age yet.


Saffie continued to nip at the poor thing so I grabbed her by her scruff and ran back into the house with her and tossed her into her crate. Then I grabbed the camera and headed back outside to rescue the terrified chicken.

The poor thing was panting and shivering and had a bloody bald spot on her back where her feathers were torn out. I was torn between being glad that Saffie's first instinct wasn't immediately killing and eating the chicken - and being slightly disappointed that she chose hurt it at all.


I picked her up and petted her and then realized I had no idea what to do with this thing. I ran around in circles a few times hoping to get inspired, but nothing jumped out at me. I set her down on the grass to see if she could walk, and she could stand, but was too shocked to move at all. Then I thought I should toss her over the fence back into the neighbor's yard, but she was in shock and I imagined her falling 6 feet to the ground and thudding into an injured, bloody lump on the grass and that didn't seem like the best idea.


So I ran onto our screened-in patio and put her there while I got the boys into their pajamas and tried to figure out what to do with the chicken. I told them what happened and that we'd have to wrap the chicken in a towel and drive her to the neighbor's house (since trotting around in the dark with a wrapped-up chicken and two little boys in PJs didn't appeal to me).

We went on the patio to get her and she was gone. Of course she was. A totally screened in patio and no chicken. The three of us searched for a good 10 minutes and found her inside a roll of art paper in the boys' easel.

We wrapped her in a towel and got in the car - me with the chicken on my lap - both boys giddy about the whole experience.

(Awesome photo taken by two small boys fighting over one cell phone camera - and yes, I'm appropriately wearing a chicken tshirt).

I pulled into the neighbor's driveway and told them the story. They were very thankful to have her back, but didn't seem as concerned as I would have been, which is fine because my chickens are family pets and their chickens are simply egg producers. I don't think they name their chickens, but I can tell they still like and respect them. The neighbor didn't seem very concerned over the missing feathers and bloody back either since she said that the chickens peck each other from time to time too, but again, different chicken-owner relationship at their house. She thanked me profusely and we left.

Saga over.

Damn puppy.

Focus on the Other Two Beauties

I've noticed that my blonde beauty, Clementine, gets all the chicken-related attention around here. When people visit us, Clementine is the one that gets awkwardly held and fussed over. Clementine is the one who gets the most photo op's. And even on the blog, Clementine is the focus most often that not. It's easy to see why - she's a big blonde beauty who likes to be around people and actually enjoys the attention. Maggie and Clementine are the two more "chickeny" chickens who are harder to catch when I need to round them up and definitely don't fight over who gets to sit on my lap first.

I thought it was only fair to focus on the other two this time around because they are beautiful silly chickens who deserve center spotlight for once.

Sookie, my generic Easter Egger, looked like a chipmunk when she was a chick. She's the smallest hen, but oddly enough she reigns supreme at the top of the pecking order. She's faster than the other two and impossible to catch if she doesn't want to be caught. Luckily for me, all three of our chickens trust me enough to let me round them up when I need to. I chose her because I was told there was a huge chance she'd lay greenish-blue eggs and I was beyond excited about that. You've seen our eggs - all brown, so that hope came and went pretty quickly.


She has a beautiful set of feathers on her with a lion's mane sort of vibe around her neck. She has a small comb and wattle - I believe it's called a peacomb and her legs are a greenish-grey.


Poor Sookie desperately needed to lay and egg while I was taking photos and humored me just long enough and then bolted for the nest. Of course her two curious sisters stand there staring at her in her most delicate of moments. Can't a chicken have an ounce of privacy these days?

Maggie, my Barred Plymouth Rock, is the most inquisitive of all the chickens. If there is something unusual going on, she's the first one to investigate. She's definitely second-in-command to Sookie and spends a lot of time following her around.

She thinks anything I have in my hand might be a treat, so even a blade of grass in my fingers is enough to send her hurtling across the yard for a quick peck. She really is a curious little thing with gorgeous coloring and a bright red floppy comb. I know none of my chickens are show quality, but I'm not in this for the ribbons or the breeding, so it's irrelevant.


As soon as Clementine realized that she wasn't going to be the focus of my photo shoot she shot back into the chicken coop to sulk.


She can be so dramatic sometimes.

A discrepancy in the paint department

You've heard of Christmas in July. How about Easter in September? There has been a mix-up in the Internal Paint Department of our chickens lately and we've had some interesting surprises in the nest boxes. This diagram of the inside of a chicken explains what's been happening to cause these issues. You can see the Hen Paint Department a bit above the man's hands in the photo. Clearly, we have a disturbance within ours.


Take the striped egg from a week ago. It looks like this one got stuck in the paint department a bit too long. The stripe forms an almost perfect line across the top of the egg with a much darker botom to the egg.


Then today we found a white egg in the nest. Clearly this one bypassed the paint department altogether. You can see it in the picture below next to a regular brown egg and one of our recent speckled eggs, which was obviously caused by some bad airbrushing.


I've had a word with all the hens but none will fess up as to who's the culprit. They're a very tight knit trio and their beaks are sealed during my interrogations. Although, Clementine did admit to laying a bizarre oblong egg a few weeks ago, she's mum on the rest.