Family Togetherness

My kids' school is great. They are very good at organizing "Family Togetherness" nights. A friend of mine calls them "forced parental interaction" and sometimes it feels that way, but for the most part, they are a lot of fun for the whole family. Another thing they are good at? Assigning family crafts. These little gems are cleverly disguised as "homework" and usually involve the whole family sitting around together to disguise a pumpkin at Halloween, or decorate a boot to celebrate Texas heritage. In reality, these projects end up placed on top of my mantle for "safe keeping" until we get around to doing them as a family. Then, truth be told, it is less of a "family" project, and more a "crap! That thing was due YESTERDAY! Do we have any glue?" project.
When I was at the school volunteering one day, I made copies for the next of such projects for Bubble's class. Admittedly, I cheated. I read through what we would be doing, made a mental note of when they would be due, and began brainstorming, and fantasizing actually putting in my due diligence this time around.
The assignment: Make a stick horse for "western day" that would be coming up the Friday after spring break.
Yes, what would a school year in Texas be, without a full fledged western day, complete with stick horse races, and sawhorse lasso-ing? A big fat failure, that's what it would be!
Even though a paper example was included, the words "I've seen them made out of material" jumped off the page at me, like it was summoning my inner perfectionist. I certainly could not send my son to school with a sad little paper horse attached to a ruler, when his teacher had seen others made out of material and dowel rods! What kind of a failure would I be?!
According to my excellent memory, the stick horses were to be turned in by Wednesday (yes, today), which meant that we made an emergency trip to the craft store last night.
Yeah, so much for budgeting my time wisely...
Am I the only one who's kids' hands seem to be magnetically attracted to anything breakable the second we step foot into a craft store? No? Just me? I just know that someday we are going to make it onto some sort of abolishment list. But I digress...
$7, 30 minutes, and a near mental breakdown (mine) later, our plan was set into motion.
If I were better, I would have taken pictures of the step by step process to show you, but I can guarantee that every one of you probably could have done a better job than I did, so use your imaginations...
Basically, I sewed (I know, I was shocked at my awesomeness too!) two pieces of felt together that had been cut to a horse head shape, with some yarn sandwiched in between to serve as a mane, inside out. I then flipped it to right side out, most of the yarn fell out (very poorly executed plan, I must say), and we glued googley eyes, and ribbon on him to look like a bridel. We stuffed it, and sewed it shut, except a slit where the stick would be insterted.
The "family togetherness" consisted of Roon and I telling the kids to go away, and not touch things like my sewing scissors and hot glue gun. Aaaah, memories!
Wanna know what the masterpiece looked like? Well, kinda picture "Charlie Horse" from the old Sherry Lewis and Lambchop show, and you will get an idea of how retarded our horse looked. The head was smaller than anticipated, so the googley eyes we bought wer WAY too big. If I would have thought about it, (okay let's be honest, if I would have had any white felt) I would have attached a couple of "buck teeth" to this poor creature. At least then it may have looked like we MEANT for it to look that silly!
In the end, Bubble was thrilled with the way it turned out. If it is still in tact by the time it comes home on Friday, I will take a picture to share.
Wanna hear something funny though? So, we rushed to get this horse done, because it was due today, right? Well, I found the paper again, stating the purpose of the assignment, and realized that the stick horses were not actually supposed to be turned in until Friday. Guess they didn't want a bunch of wooden sticks hanging around the classrooms that could be used as weapons or something...
Nice one Mom!