Saturday, April 10, 2010

Stolen Fun

Mimicry is the sincerest form of flattery.

I just thought I'd let you all know that I shamelessly steal all of the great ideas that you put out on your blogs. Here are a couple of the most recent:

A Bug Feast (courtesy of Ashlee and her adorable family)

I copied the Burton family's fare exactly, minus the chocolate chips spots for the ladybugs (amazingly, the bag was empty... Oops.)

Still, we definitely enjoyed our fare of pickle snails, olive spiders, and strawberry ladybugs. Yum!

In the end, we only had about fifteen minutes to dine since Jason had class until 6:20 and a Pack planning meeting for cub scouts at 7:00. It was pretty chilly outside by this point, so we ended up eating our picnic in the church nursery. If you look closely at this picture, you'll see how Talia has forgotten to take the toothpicks out of her snail. Luckily, we caught it in time!

Eli wished he could join in the feast, but had to content himself with eating his binky.

Idea #2: Star Sticks. This great idea was stolen from Susan, who as far as I can tell, got it from Marianne, who probably got it from someone else. (By the way, congratulations to Susan on the new addition to their family.) :)

We thought the star sticks idea was so great that we created a set of our own, with twenty little popsicle sticks each highlighting a fun activity to do, ranging from riding scooters and sidewalk chalk to playing dress-up and singing songs.

I supplemented our family's star sticks, however, with a set of heart sticks featuring chores around the house that the girls can help out with, such as putting away the shoes or vacuuming downstairs. The general idea is that the girls must pick out a heart stick and do their job before they can choose a star stick with the reward. While I'm sure the novelty will wear off, so far I've been able to get some good mileage out of the system.

Thanks to all for the fabulous ideas!

5 comments:

Susie said...

You're such an awesome mom! Looks so fun. The star and heart sticks are a marvelous idea. Yes, the novelty will wear off in time, but I'm sure you'll find something new to replace it with by then. In the meantime---enjoy!

Julie L said...

With all the creative minds at work out there, I'm sure when the novelty wears off, something else will come along. I love the little bugs, and the job/reward sticks. How fun is all that????? You're a terrific mom!

Ashlee said...

Your bugs turned out great! I think those star sticks are such a cute idea too. I'm glad I'm not the only idea stealer out there too :) Pretty much everything I do was someone elses genius!

Anonymous said...

Never be reluctant to "borrow" or use someone else's idea so long as you give appropriate attribution, if possible.

"Ideas, as distinguished from events, are never unprecedented."

"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
-Steven Wright

"All our ideas come from the natural world: trees equal umbrellas."
-Wallace Stevens, American author
(1879-1955)

Chou said...

Oooh, I need some heart sticks! Heart stick 1: go to bed on time.
Heart stick 2: read a paper you don't necessarily want to
Heart stick 3: go dancing . . . :)