And the winning musical duet team is.....

Today my precious moppets performed their musical duets, and boy, was it exciting, a nail-biter even! They made me laugh, they made me cry, they made me cringe (yay!). It was fun to see children who usually strive to be the center of attention, turn a little shy and self-conscious!

So prepare yourself for the musical stylings of the Sammons Siblings Singers! (Oh how I love alliteration!)

Team "Don't Go Breakin' My Heart" (the children who have the most stage experience and thus had little cockiness that wasn't pretty) was very fun to watch! They starting laughing and couldn't stop-and then blamed me! I told them it was inadvisable to blame the judge for their mistakes! But to be fair, I did start laughing half-way through and couldn't stop! But you know, laughter is contagious and all that jazz and I only laughed because they did! (See, I can blame them, I am the judge!)



They did have some fabulous choreography, did they not?

Team "Don't Stop Believin" had a little difficulty because my 4th born didn't really want to participate in the competition. (But didn't make a substitution request until 2 days ago-thanks for that.) So the 4-year-old stepped in to pinch hit! Very sweet and only a little frustrating to her partner! But they pulled it together and did a great job! Actually the 4-year-old made appearances in both teams' performances and 4th born ended up not being able to stay away! You can enjoy him bopping up and down in the background of this next video!

Since Team "Don't Stop Believin" was able to pull it together (mostly by herself!) and overcome several annoying obstacles, and because she didn't laugh or get distracted by her partner(s)-I declare Team "Don't Stop Believin" the duets champ! (Plus, I ran out of ways to declare yet another tie-anyway, I am so over the whole "everyone gets a trophy" mentality that seems so prevalent these days!) Although Team "Don't Go Breakin' My Heart" did receive an honorable mention for song-writing, they changed a few lyrics! (I may not believe everyone deserves a trophy, but I'm not heartless!)

And now for next week's Sammons Family Summer Games challenge! The teams will plan, shop for, prepare and serve dinner! (Did I mention that the challenge list and my to-do list are very similar?)

Baking Cookies in the Car

Today we did something we have been wanting to do since we moved to Virginia over 4 years ago. We baked chocolate chip cookies in our car! Right there in our drive-way (on a baking tray.) I must admit that the idea was the best part, although the making (and sneaking bites of) the dough was fun and eating the cookies that we baked old-fashioned style, (in the oven)-yum! But the idea of putting something uncooked onto the dashboard of the hotter than hades car, then pulling it out cooked, was almost more than we could stand!
While waiting 2 hours for them to bake added to the anticipation (slightly), it also proved a bit annoying. "Almost done" in the car is at least 25 more minutes, as opposed to the 2 or 3 minutes in a conventional oven. The end product was tasty-ish until the novelty of eating food baked in the car wore off! Then they were just a gooey mess!

But you would never know they were less than perfect looking at these pictures! Don't they look delicious?


Baking cookies in the car was definitely worth doing and the teachable moments were innumerable (had I chosen to take advantage of them-but did I mention they took 2 hours to bake? I kind of lost my steam!) But we did learned one thing in spite of ourselves. If our oven breaks, and it's over 100 degrees out, and all the restaurants are closed, and all of our friends are out of town, and we are quarantined, we will not have to go without food! Because now we know how to bake food in our car! What an awesomely vital survival technique that my children now know! I'm sure they will use it often!

I love that the moppets were able to muster up excitement for the "Yay! They're ready" picture! They are clearly not the fragile flowers that their mother is!

What a fun way to beat (or join, I guess) the heat today!

One last picture- I can honestly say that I have never seen this happen in real life, in a John Hughes movie-perhaps, but real life-never! I have no idea how it occurred and the likely culprit was absolutely no help as she was totally oblivious to the entire event! She must have had a nacho in her hand and then she didn't. Everything is magical when you are 4 years old!

 (Yes, that is the wall, about 4 feet up!)

Should I end each blog post with a question?

Mere moments ago, on our way home from lunch, (actually, in the parking lot of the pet store waiting for our big girl to take our little girl in to use the facilities) my husband told me he had a great idea for my blog. It actually took him 10 full minutes of starts and stops, re-wording and serious how would "Dr. Phil word this?" consideration. (Yes, it was as painful as it sounds.) Finally, "most of the blogs I read have a question at the end of each post," he informed me, "it really makes it interactive and fun."  And bursting with pride, "wisdom" and love he suggested that I do the same.

I sweetly demurred (well, not really, I told him that it was a totally cheesy idea, but whatever). So I kindly explained to him that, while I really thought that I would rather not include such fun interaction in my blog, I would for sure end my next post with a question in his honor...so here you go...

Should I end each blog post with a question?

Sammons Family Summer Games-parlor game judging-FINALLY

We finally recommenced the Sammons Family Summer Games last night.  It was time to play and judge the parlor game competition! We played two very (okay-I was honestly surprised) fun games! Both teams really brought their A games (pun intended!)

First, we played a board game based on the Harry Potter series. In spite of the fact I am probably the only person in the universe who doesn't "get" Harry Potter, I quite enjoyed the game! (I had to have A LOT of the back story explained to me as we played, but I graduated from "Hogwarts" first and actually won the game.) The only downside, according to the game's creators, was "what a bummer no one died." I decided not to take this personally and we ventured on to the next game!

The second game was a card game called "Pyramid". It was quite fun-very fast action! Everyone plays at the same time, grabbing cards, discarding cards- it was a hit! The winner of each round earns a letter, the first person to spell the word wins (although the rules called for the players to spell out Pyramid, we decided in the interest of me wanting to go to bed, we would just spell TUT-as in the Egyptian pharaoh-pyramids, King Tut-get it?).

My co-judge (Papa Sammons) and I decided to come up with several different categories in which to judge the games in order to highlight each team's strengths. We came up with 7 (+1 unplanned, but suddenly necessary category):

1. over-all fun
2. preparedness
3. creativity
4. understandability of directions
5. ease of play
6. marketability
7. play it again desirability
8. drama inducement factor (which counted as a negative and took away a "win" point)

Team Harry Potter won in preparedness, creativity, and marketability
Team Pyramid won in over-all fun, understandability of directions, ease of play, play it again desirability. Unfortunately, they also won in the drama inducement factor.

If you are keeping count, then you know that Team Pyramid won in 4 categories to Team Harry Potter's 3 wins. However, the enormous, screamin' Mimi, big fat, tantrum fit thrown by a member of Team Pyramid cost them a point-so they each had 3 official wins! (I felt quite generous not disqualifying Team Pyramid altogether!)

  Because I just happened to have my camera on hand to capture the parlor games event, I also just happened to capture, in all it's technicolor glory, the big fat fit! Now I have awesome blackmail leverage against the Team Pyramid fit thrower! Yay me!
It is true that an opportunity like this doesn't happen every day, and I know to be thankful and count my blessings. God has seen fit to supply me with the ultimate parenting tool. I promise that I will use it with reverence and respect and only when absolutely necessary in order to keep our fabulous daughter on the straight and narrow! (Or if there is prize money involved!)

This is the before picture of the fit thrower when she was still a giggler! This picture makes me smile-you've got to love the "live in the moment" joy of it-curlers and all!

There are only a few more days until the premiere of the duets competition! Yippee-it is looking quite promising! Check back over the weekend to see the videos of what promises to be some really awesome entertainment!

challenge #3 update

Song change! Our teams decided to change the songs they are performing! Now team one will be doing Don’t Go Breakin’ my Heart Elton John and Kiki Dee and Don’t Stop Believin’ Journey!
Let the games begin!

Sammons Family Summer Games challenge #3 announced!

Okay, so we haven’t played or judged the parlor games from Sammons Family Summer Games challenge #2 because Papa Sammons doesn’t get back in the country until tomorrow and he was anxious to be involved in the judging. (I think he just really misses us!) But, not one to let grass grow under my feet (well, really I just kill grass-does that count?) I told the children the guidelines for the next challenge. And I am so excited I can hardly stand it!

They have each been assigned a song for which they will rework the lyrics, choreograph and perform (using karaoke version.)  And the songs are………………….. Summer Nights and You’re the One That I Want from Grease. (Now you see why we are doing some sibling friendly, age appropriate lyrics rewriting.) I was going for duets-and aside from Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey (the Glee version of course), this is all I could come up with!

 Is it wrong that I cannot even wait to see my beloved moppets do this? I am hoping it is fabulous and totally cringe-inducing at the same time (but in a good way)! Maybe they’ll even roll pretend paper cigarettes with baby powder inside so when they “smoke” them it looks like real-life (baby powder) smoke-and cigarette room fresheners!  (Not that my sister and I sang and acted out Grease-faux cigarettes and all- for the better part of the summer of ’78 or anything). Ahhh-the 70′s! Pretend smoking, accidentally inhaling baby powder "smoke"-good times!

Okay, I must interrupt myself because my 9-year-old just asked me if he could take a “gap year” before college-what the stink?!? When I asked him where he heard that, it turns out all my children have been talking to each other about whether or not they are taking a gap year! Huh?(Daniel Radcliffe? Prince William? Our Mormon friends?) Clearly these conversations have taken place in my absence (meaning while I was asleep I guess-because I really cannot recollect the last child-free awake moment I enjoyed). Apparently, my children would like to take a year to travel the world before they begin college. I think this is such a fabulously exciting idea-to be young, free, adventurous-that is so awesome! So, just as soon as the DNA test results from the Rockefellers get back, I’ll be sure to call the travel agent.

Hurray! Short attention spans prevail! Out with the gap year, in with singing challenge-off they go! Yippee, this challenge is going to be a hit! (Although I think I will need to tell them that the acoustics inside the house aren’t really adequate- detrimental even, and that they’ll need to practice outside to really make the most of this challenge!)

Sammons Family Summer Games opening day!

Today was the first event of The Sammons Family Summer Games. Last week, the children received their first “assignment” which was to build a raft using materials found in nature to enter in a Raft Regatta. Each team had a week to work together and build their raft and aside from the all-natural materials requirement, the only other parameter was size; it had to be larger than 12 inches, but less than 36 inches. (Okay, I admit the size-thing was totally arbitrary, but it made it sound more official and well thought-out than the spur of the moment real-time situation that it actually was.) They divided themselves into 2 teams and got to work. After many raft incarnations, numerous meltdowns, and two race postponements, both teams rallied and had seaworthy entrants for today’s regatta!
Okay, if we had been in any type of official event, I would have caused our entrants to be disqualified! When the children placed their rafts into the river, I held them back with a fishing net so they could start side-by-side, at the same time. But, when I lifted the net, only one of the rafts started moving, so I gave the other one a little(ish) shove. The one that I helped along ended up pulling ahead-way ahead-yikes and won the race! Fortunately, everyone was content to call it a tie (or rather a “mom altered the outcome, so no one really won”!) Either way, The Sammons Family Summer Games is off to a great start-YIPPEE! The Raft Regatta was a big hit, and I didn’t hear, “Mom, I’m bored, there is nothing to do,” even once last week! The only downside of that is that I do so enjoy the opportunity to say “If you’re bored, then you're boring!" I’m sure I’ll have the chance before the summer is over!

The Sammons Family Summer Games event for next week is to ”Create an Original Parlor Game” (it was “Create an Original Board Game” until one underage smarty-pants pointed out that Yahtzee isn’t officially a board game because there isn’t a game board and “what if I come up with a really awesome game that also doesn’t have a game board-then it would stink because I wouldn’t even be able to use it, and that’s SO not fair and….blah, blah…whine…blah”). So, being the flexible, it’s all about the creative process, think outside the box..er… board, Mom that I am, I renamed the event. (Although I must admit, can-can girls keep doing a kick-line across my mind’s eye as I envision my children playing “parlor games” in a prohibition-era, smoke-filled back room!) But, fingers-crossed, the parlor game project will be as fulfilling (and time-filling) as the raft regatta!re bored, then you’re boring.” But I’m sure I’ll have the chance before the summer is over!