The lemonade stand and bake shop inspiration

**Blogger might be misbehaving again--if you've tried to leave a comment on my blog and Blogger won't let you, will you please take a moment and let me know at themerrymagpie@gmail.com so I can get it straightened out? Thanks!**

In a few weeks, our subdivision will be having its 2-day neighborhood yard sale. Now, I love going to yard sales, but fervently do NOT want to have one myself! However, Maren has been asking to have her own lemonade/cookie stand 'the next time we have a yard sale'. Since the time frame on that could very possibly be NEVER, I told her that we could just set up a stand for her during the neighborhood sale and skip dragging all of our junk out on the driveway. She happily agreed, and I happily started planning.

For me, planning a creative project is just as much fun as actually carrying it out, and this project is no exception! I've already planned out in my head just how my Maren's lemonade stand is going to look. I even created a Pinboard to collect ideas! Here's what is inspiring me:

• Black and white striped awnings like this one from MadeByGirl
• striped awnings with scalloped edges, like this one from DanaMadeIt

Original source: http://www.danamadeit.com/2008/07/bistro-awning-mini-tutorial.html

We're planning to use a 6-ft. folding table but we'd like some shade, so I thought maybe I can make an awning. I love the idea of having a striped awning and I remembered that IKEA sells this black-and-white striped fabric that might just be perfect.

My idea is to use PVC pipe to construct an awning frame, then sew the fabric to fit over the top. The PVC would be light, inexpensive, and easy to work with since they sell all of the connectors I'd need for the corners. The awning could then be disassembled when we're done and packed away to use for future lemonade stands or bake sales. I haven't been to the hardware store to check out the PVC pipe yet but in my head, this is a totally do-able project. We'll see what it's like in real life!


In my searching for inspiration, I came across this cute lemonade stand made by Lisa Storms for Fiskars. I'm in love with the clever 'lemon slices' she made using accordion paper pinwheels and white doilies:

Original source: http://www2.fiskars.com/Activities/Crafting/Articles/The-Lemonade-Stand

I'm thinking of a color scheme of black and white, yellow, and light pink. I do believe there will have to be striped paper straws, because everything tastes better when it's cute! (sidenote--Amazon carries these boxes of 144 straws in several basic colors and they're a great deal--cheaper than many online party supply shops)

Maren wants to sell baked goodies in addition to lemonade. There will of course be cupcakes, and I think this idea for packaging them is simply brilliant!

Original source: http://www.cookiemadness.net/2011/04/packaging-cupcakes/

Be sure to check out my Lemonade Stand Pinboard for lots more cute lemonade and bake sale inspiration! And if you Pin anything from this post, please be sure to pin from the original sources to give credit where it is due!

I'll keep you all updated on our progress and if I'm able to make that awning like I'm hoping--I think not only will it provide needed shade for us (and the cupcakes!), but it will be so cute that people driving by will want to stop and buy a glass of lemonade and a cupcake from a cute little gap-toothed 7-year-old girl!

A Banner Day for Maren

 It's a pretty awesome day to be a 6-year-old when you not only start First Grade,

(with your new Mystery Machine lunchbox, no less)

but also learn to ride your two-wheeler that evening!

A big day like that earned an outing to the frozen yogurt shop to celebrate. I celebrated too--isn't the day you send your kids back to school the best day of the year for moms? I will admit--I simultaneously cried and cheered when I dropped off Maren yesterday morning at the school. I had my teary moment in the classroom, but didn't bawl all the way home like I suspected I might. The day without her actually went pretty quickly--Porter naps for the last three hours, leaving us only 3.5 hours before that to get anything done, which really went a lot faster that I expected.

I LOVE summer, but I'm glad for the change, glad for the routine again. It's still in the 90s here and as much as I moaned this spring about wishing for the hot weather to finally arrive--I'm ready for it to depart! I'd be perfectly happy with 85 degree temps and warm summer evenings, but 93 degrees makes for an awfully sweaty walk to and from the school. All of our vacations are over (we were gone 3 times in 4 weeks), and I'm looking forward to being home and getting some projects done, especially now that I have my precious 2-3 hours per day to myself while Porter naps.

Are your kids back to school yet? Did you cry? Cheer? Both?

Locks of Love

Maren desperately needed a summer haircut this year. Her hair had grown so long that it was hard to manage and got tangled so easily.

I told her that she needed a haircut for the summer, then mentioned that there is an organization that makes wigs for kids who are sick and lose their hair.

It took her a little while to think about it, but she decided that she wanted to help out another little and wanted to donate her hair to Locks of Love.

We went to Great Clips, where they will generously give you a free haircut if you choose to donate. They measured her hair to make sure it would meet the requirement of at least 10". Maren decided she was okay with the amount that would be cut, so the stylist snipped and OFF came that ponytail!

The stylist then evened up the ends and Maren has a fresh new haircut for the summer!

It took her (and us!) a few days to get used to the new short length--I was unprepared for how much older my sweet 6-year-old would look with short hair. We've already had one trip to the swimming pool and the new shorter hair is much better--it doesn't get in her eyes and it takes much less time to comb out in the mornings.

I'm proud of my girl for making a choice to help another child! And I think she's pretty no matter the length of her hair, because she's beautiful on the inside too!

The Scooby-Doo birthday party

The three things Maren loves most in this world, in order of importance:
1. Her bedraggled and well-loved Sea Lion stuffed animal.
2. Scooby-Doo.
3. Her family.

It was a no-brainer that we'd have a Scooby-Doo birthday party; I've been planning on it for months, but only in the last week before the party did I really get my inspiration. Thank goodness for all the creative people who share things online, because I took a bunch of the Scooby-Doo party ideas I read and stitched them all together to make our party. This post will be lengthy, but I wanted to share what we did in case it can help anyone else!

It wouldn't be a Scooby-Doo party without a mystery to solve, so we decided that would be the main activity for the kids. I hired my neighbor to make a Scooby-Doo cake for Maren--she did a wonderful job and as much as I love to bake, it was SO nice to not have to worry about the cake!

When the kids came over, we seated them at the table and let them work on Scooby-Doo coloring sheets I had printed. Once all of the guests arrived, I told them that we were going to do things a bit differently and eat the cake first, since I had this wonderful Scooby cake. I brought over one of my vintage cake aluminum cake domes and pulled it up to reveal that there was no cake! Instead, there was a note from the Birthday Phantom with a poem and instructions to follow the clues to solve find the cake. (I found the poem when Googling, but I didn't save sources for everything so unfortunately I don't have links)

For each clue activity, I made a Clue Card. I printed them all on bright green cardstock and copied and pasted appropriate Scooby-Doo pictures I found using Google image.

click to enlarge

The Clue Card had the instructions for the activity and on the back, there was an envelope. The envelope contained part of a coded message and instructions on where in the house to go for the next activity. The coded message was made using a simple A-1, B-2 cipher and was printed on purple cardstock. Because we had four activities, I wrote four rhyming lines and cut it into four pieces. The message told the kids where the Birthday Phantom had hidden the cake.

The first activity was called Daphne Disappears, because it seems like in almost every Scooby-Doo episode, Daphne gets kidnapped by the bad guys. I printed out a coloring page of Daphne and had Maren color it in, then cut it out and hid it in the family room. I used a series of rhyming clues (also found online) that led the kids all throughout the house and front and back yards, then finally back to where they started, where they had to find the picture of Daphne. Once they found her, we took the coded message and followed the instructions to the next room.

The second activity was Velma Loses Her Glasses, another standard occurrence in every Scooby-Doo episode. I got the idea for this game online as well. All of the kids sat close together on our huge sectional couch with their hands behind their backs. One kid was Velma, and had to turn her back and count to 15 while the others passed a pair of glasses back and forth behind their backs. Then 'Velma' got to turn around and had three guesses to see if she could catch who had the glasses. If a child was caught, then he or she had to be Velma.

Because we had so many kids, it was hard for Velma to guess correctly, so in the interest of time we just had each child take a turn at being Velma even if they didn't guess correctly. We played until the kids got bored, then opened the envelope to get the coded message and followed the instructions to the next game.

The third activity was Snack time for Shaggy and Scooby. In every Scooby-Doo episode, Shaggy and Scooby get hungry and find themselves something to eat. For this game, I drew a huge Scooby head on a piece of cardboard and Maren helped me color it with crayons.

I altered the picture slightly so that his mouth was open and we and taped it to the wall. I printed out a clip art hamburger from Microsoft Word for each child, and we played Pin the Hamburger on Scooby's Mouth. Everyone got a turn, then we took our coded message piece and followed the instructions outside for the final activities.

Thank goodness the weather was sunny so that we could go outdoors! For the previous two years, the weather had been terrible (cold and snowy) on the day of Maren's party so we were limited to what we could do inside. Being able to go outside (even if it was chilly in the shade) was so wonderful and made the party much more fun!

The fourth activity was Run from the Phantom. The Scooby Gang does lots of running from the bad guys in every episode, so the kids had to practice running from the Birthday Phantom by playing a game of "Scooby, Scooby, Phantom!" AKA Duck, Duck, Goose.

They played until they got bored, and then we moved onto the next activity. At this point, The Mister slipped away while the kids were busy and headed out to the garage, where he dressed in the black robe and mask from a leftover Grim Reaper Halloween costume and waited for his signal.

The final activity was to Make a Disguise and Set a Trap. I brought Maren's big bin of dress-up clothes outside and let the kids dress up in disguises.

Once we had our disguises on, we had to set a trap to catch the Phantom. We used a long piece of rope and the cargo net from the back of our car and the kids decided how we would capture the Phantom if he showed up. While they were busy, I surreptitiously sent a text message to The Mister, and in a few moments he ran into the backyard screaming and yelling, straight into the trap the kids had laid. :)

I handcuffed him with a pair of plastic cuffs, and then the kids got to unmask him and find the Phantom's true identity--and of course he had to say the classic line, "And I would have gotten away with it, if it weren't for you meddling kids!" He surrendered the key to the code, so we all trooped back inside. I divided the kids into four groups and gave them each a copy of the key, and they worked together to decode the messages and put the lines in the proper order.

The message led them to the garage, where they had to enter a numeric code on the keypad and eventually found the cake in the back of the car. We all went back inside and had cake and lemonade and Maren opened her gifts.

For party favors, I purchased purple and turquoise paper sacks at a party store. In the sacks were Scooby-Doo fruit snacks, Scooby-Doo Band-Aids (I broke up a box and gave each kid a few), Scooby-Doo Silly Bandz (again, I broke up a larger package and each kid got a couple), Scooby-Doo stickers, a little plastic magnifying glass, a ghost sucker made from a Tootsie Pop and a white coffee filter, and a gummy hamburger.

It really was fun--even The Mister remarked on what a good time he'd had! It was pretty inexpensive--the only costs were the cake, balloons and the party favors, which weren't terribly expensive. I found the Scooby-Doo cups, plates and tablecloth on 75% off clearance at Target, so they cost literally pennies. I used cardstock I already had to print out the clue cards and used free images I found online. The coloring pages were available online for free. The poster board was actually the back of the insert from a poster frame I bought a few weeks ago. Clean-up was a breeze too, especially compared to last year's cupcake decorating frosting-and-sprinkles mess!

I know Maren had a great time, and I'm proud that The Mister and I were able to put on a creative, inexpensive, and memorable party for her!

Maren's first day of Kindergarten

Big day for us today--it was Maren's first day of kindergarten!

Just what you want to do right after you've swept up the spent sparklers from the Fourth of July: head back to school. Blech.

Stinkin' year-round school. For the past two years of preschool we've been on a track schedule that allowed us to return to school at the end of July, so it actually felt like there was a summer vacation.

For the 2010-11 school year, we got booted off our previous track and put in one that gets out of school at Memorial Day, so the summer break is in June. Except, since we were still on our old track in June, we didn't get out then--we went until June 17. That means our 'summer break' has lasted all of 18 days. Whee.

Truthfully, Maren doesn't care one whit about not having a summer break. She only goes half-day anyway, so she still has the mornings to play and go to swimming lessons and the park. And for her, school is still fun--she loves to learn and do fun things and play with her friends, so she's happy to go. I'm the one grumbling about it.

One good thing about the track change is that many of our friends have kids on the same schedule, so they're all out of school at the same time. That means lots of play dates and outings are possible during those three weeks. Our next break is the three weeks following Labor Day, and then again from Thanksgiving all the way through Christmas until the first of January. That one's gonna hurt.

She got to pick out a new backpack for the big occasion and went immediately for the metallic pink Hello Kitty model. A girl after my own heart.

I didn't shed a single tear when I dropped her off. Since she's spent two years in preschool at the same school and her kindie class is only 10 minutes longer than preschool, it doesn't seem like such a big deal. Next year when she starts first grade and is in school all day long--that's when I'll cry. For now, we're happy to have a kindergartener! I know she's going to have a great year.

(And yes, she's at that age where she's categorically unable to take a normal picture.)

Art Therapy for a 5-year-old

Yesterday afternoon Maren got in trouble (an incident involving scissors and one of the throw pillows on the couch...I'll let you guess what happened) and was unhappy with her punishment, so she took out her frustration through the therapeutic medium of art. What resulted was this picture, which she intended to be titled, "NO Mommies Bossing Their Kids Around," but she didn't know how to spell the rest after NO.

When I saw what she was drawing I actually started laughing so hard that I had to leave the room. Heck, I'm laughing right now as I type this! Her depiction of me SLAYS me. Is that what I look like to her when I get mad? She got my curly hair, but I'm not so sure about the angry eyebrows and the mean monster mouth. It does remind me of someone else though...

Yup. That's it exactly.

Happy Happy Birthday, Baby

Today is Miss Maren's 5th birthday! We had a crazy blizzard last night that resulted in a Snow Day for the kids today. Maren was sad to miss school on her birthday--I think she'll have to be a bit older to realize that NO SCHOOL on her birthday is one of the best gifts a kid could ask for. :)

Here are some things about Maren at age 5:

**Maren does her own thing. One Sunday, she put these tiger-striped sunglasses on just after the start of church, and proceeded to wear them throughout the following 3 hours of meetings. People stopped her and told her, "Nice glasses, Maren" and she just said "thanks" and continued on. She wasn't wearing them to get a reaction or to be silly, she just liked them!

**Maren is no shrinking violet! She's assertive and competitive. Last week at P/T conferences, Maren's teacher remarked on what a leader she is.

**Maren has a vivid imagination! She has an imaginary mouse friend (Jerry, like from Tom & Jerry) and an imaginary girl friend named Lauren (after her favorite little friend from preschool.)

**Maren loves to be creative and to make crafts, which makes her crafty Mommy proud. :) She is happiest with a big stack of blank copy paper and a fistful of crayons. Throw in a pair of scissors and a glue stick, and she'll be busy for hours!

**Maren loves: Scooby Doo, My Little Ponies, grilled cheese sandwiches, orange juice, riding her scooter, getting superhero flights from Daddy, playing with her little brother Porter, open gym at the rec center, stickers, glitter, PINK, cupcakes, unicorns, dolphins, her stuffed Sea Lion named Baby Suzy, going to the Children's Museum, taffy, collecting rocks, baking cookies in her pink kitchen, watching Space Ghost with her Papa Chris, Word Girl, and making videos with the Flip camera.

I truly can't imagine my life without my sweet girl! She captivates and charms everyone she meets, and the world is truly a brighter place because she is in it!

Tonight we're off to see the Broadway production of Mary Poppins to celebrate! I'm not sure who's more excited. :)

Three things for Tuesday

First things first: Shameless Mommy Brag photos of my beautiful little girl on Easter Sunday. It was rainy, gray and cold here but with her bright yellow bow, she was a ray of sunshine!
The photo with her arm raised is funny--we told her to stand still as a statue (hard to get no-flash photos of her that aren't totally blurry) and she immediately put her arm up and stood still. I didn't get it at the time but later realized that she was being a statue, all right--the Statue of Liberty, to be exact! What a funny kid she is.
Second: We're going to Disneyland in two days! Squeeeeeeeeeal! I had a Disneyland dream this morning and I'm starting to get butterflies in my stomach, both from excitement and anxiousness. I ended up ordering a new Maclaren Volo stroller from eBay and it's on the UPS truck for scheduled delivery today. I tried to buy a used one off Craigslist for $70 but wasn't fast enough; now I'm glad because this brand new one was also $70 and I got free shipping! Also, I got to choose the color: turquoise, of course! And now I know that if for some reason I don't like it, I can easily sell it on Craigslist and recoup my costs. I'll still be a little freaked about it getting stroller-napped while I'm enjoying the Jungle Cruise, but hopefully everything will be okay.
Third: Check out this awesome fabric I found at the thrift store last week! I don't normally look at the fabric since I don't sew, but I happened to see this and grabbed it fast. The colors are so perfect for my front room! I LOVE it and wish I could buy more, as I think it would make really fun curtains. Unfortunately, there's no name on the selvage. It's very thick, kind of like canvas. I don't suppose anyone out there recognizes it? The piece I have is long and narrow so I think it will become pillows for the brown leather chair I'm trying to find to go in that room. The red is the color of my walls, the aqua is my accent color and the brown will match the chair and the light fixtures and the other wood furniture in the room. I hadn't thought of using the apple green before but I really like how it looks with the other colors.

Now it's off to do laundry and start making my packing list so that we don't forget anything important. I'm also trying to get started on my Marie Antoinette collage before I go because the mailing date is only a few days after I get home next week. Time to get to work!

Birthday Girl

Today is Maren's 4th birthday and to say that she's been looking forward to celebrating would be a gross understatement! For months on end I've heard her talk about her birthday and how excited she was for it to get here. Now it's finally the BIG DAY and I think so far that it's shaping up to be a pretty fun day for her! In fact, this morning after she awoke to the sight of her fancy new pink and purple Princess BIG GIRL BIKE, she sighed happily and told me that today was "the best birthday ever!"--and that was only 7:30 am! She got lots of attention at preschool today, lots of loved ones have called to wish her a happy birthday, and tonight we'll dine on Pasketti & Meatballs (her requested birthday dinner) and vanilla cake before we open presents. I think she's right--for a 4-year-old, this is turning out to be a pretty darn great day!

Miss Cookie Baker

You'd think August 15th would be a great day for a garage sale or a church picnic.

You'd think. However, when the thermometer still looks like this at noon and the rain hasn't quit for the last eight hours, you'd realize that a change of plans is in order!

We've checked out Mr. Cookie Baker from the library several times because Maren loves it. She can recite all the words from memory which is good because Mommy gets pretty darn tired of reading it after the 2,395th time. KWIM, fellow Mommies?

Maren has been asking me to make "sprinkle cookies, just like Mr. Cookie Baker" since we brought home the book again this week. What better time to fire up the oven and make cookies than when the weather outside is frightful? We put on our aprons and went to work.

A few hours and a flour-covered floor later we had several dozen pink-frosted and be-sprinkled cookies and one happy little Miss Cookie Baker!

(And for the record, we never broke 60 degrees yesterday, setting a new record minimum high temperature for that day. Ironic, since two weeks ago it was 103 and we set a new record high! Today is shaping up to be exactly the same as yesterday. Meanwhile, it's supposed to be 101 today in Portland, OR. I think there must be some sort of rift in the space/time continuum.)