Tuesday, October 27, 2009


Fisher Price has a wonderful nativity for the little ones. If you are like me, you may have a nice nativity that you struggle to keep the kids from playing with. This is a perfect solution, to give them their own nativity with play and teaching value. You can get down on the floor with the kids or grandkids and explain to them who each player was and then let them retell the story of the first Christmas in their own words.
Here is a link to a column I did for Meridian Magazine a couple of Christmases ago about how I tried to keep my little son from playing with my nativity set. It is called "In His Mother's Arms."



Tuesday, October 20, 2009

How to Remodel a Man Wedding Shower Gift




This is a funny, insightful book written by W. Bruce Cameron, who is right up there in my book with Dave Barry as one of the funniest guys in the world.



http://www.amazon.com/How-Remodel-Man-Techniques-Accomplishing/dp/0312333188/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256059919&sr=8-1



Paired with pink power tools available at these various sites, it makes a unique wedding shower gift, humorous yet practical.

http://ladiestoolsonline.com/colors.asp?c=pink

http://littlepinktools.com/

http://www.tomboytools.com/

Be the hit of the party. After browsing the book, you'll want your own copy, so buy two. And ladies, you might even want your own set of power tools. You'll probably even put them back when you're done using them, a novel idea.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Family Feud for the Fourth

Here is my latest creative idea. I've had a couple of requests for it, so here goes.

This is played like the Family Feud game. You can attach the point values however you would like. Since I didn't have 100 people to survey, I just did a little surfing on the net.

Name what history considers to be our top five presidents:

George Washington

Abraham Lincoln

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Thomas Jefferson

Theodore Roosevelt


Name the top ten landmarks in the United States:

Statue of Liberty

Washington Monument and Mall (includes other monuments)

Grand Canyon

Golden Gate Bridge

Mt. Rushmore

Liberty Bell

Empire State Building

USS Arizona Memorial

Hollywood Sign

Hoover Dam


Name one right or freedom from the First Amendment:

Right of free speech

Right to bear arms

Freedom of religion

Right of assembly

Right to petition the government


Name the thirteen original colonies:

Virginia

Pennsylvania

New York

New Jersey

Maryland

Delaware

North Carolina

South Carolina

Georgia

New Hampshire

Massachusetts

Connecticut

Rhode Island


Name one power of the federal government:

Declare war

Print money

Create an army

Make treaties


Name an Indian tribe:

Cherokee

Navajo

Sioux

Apache

Pueblo

Crow

Cheyenne


Name a branch of the federal government:

Legislative

Judicial

Executive


Name the states that start with the letter "M"

Massachusetts

Michigan

Minnesota

Mississippi

Maine

Maryland

Montana

Missouri


Name a Presidential Scandal:

Watergate

Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky

Iran-Contra

Teapot Dome Scandal

George Washington chopping down the cherry tree


Name a Right from the Declaration of Independence:

Life

Liberty

The Pursuit of Happiness

I didn't do a fast money category, because, you know, then somebody would expect me to give them $20,000 instead of a refrigerator magnet. Feel free to tweak this any way you would like.

As a side note, we certainly have made progress in our presidential scandals, with Bill Clinton's dalliances and the opportunity for little kids to learn lots of new vocabulary words after listening to the news coverage as opposed to back in the day when the big scandal was that Woodrow Wilson became engaged too soon after his wife's death.

Of course, that's not to say there weren't shenanigans back then. Apparently Grover Cleveland had an illegitimate son, prompting the saying, "Ma! Ma! Where's my pa?" "Off to the White House. Ha, ha, ha."

And according to DNA tests, in all likelihood Thomas Jefferson did father a child with his slave, Sally Hemmings.

Now aren't you glad you asked?