Five Minute Friday: Writer

;

Today's Word:  Writer

Hmmmm.  

I've never thought of myself as a writer per se.  

Sure I write as a part of my job.  Being a lawyer, I spend a good bit of time writing whether it's letters to clients, complaints or petitions to file in court, or deeds, wills, etc.

But I don't think of those "writings" as making me a writer.

Those "writings" make me a lawyer.

A writer is someone that creates images or thoughts using their words. . . or records something using their words.

I've been blogging for several years now.  Writing down the adventures of my family and specifically the adventures of my three boys for the world and my extended family to read.

Does that make me a writer?

Maybe.  I do know that writing in my blog helps me deal with the stress of my job as a lawyer, as a wife, and especially as a mother to three wild boys.  

Writing in this blog gives me the opportunity to take a moment  . . . a memory . . . an event in my life and capture it for the future.  To give me and my boys something to record our time together.

Sometimes that time is not always pleasant.  

Writing is a way for me to take the not so pleasant moments of raising three wild and rambunctious boys and putting a positive spin on those moments.  

To reflect and remember that one day . . . the time I found the bent up and broken bed frame from 3 boys jumping on the bed will be a great story to tell of my war wounds in raising these 3 boys . . . 

the time of dealing with a broken window from a misguided BB gun will be another example of the pains I endured in raising these 3 boys . . . 

Yes, these are just two of the not so pleasant events from just this past week at my house.  :)

But now . . . as I write this and I'm reflecting on the broken bed frame and the busted window pane, I'm remembering that these problems will pass, and I will not care so much about the broken and busted items in my house as much as the 3 boys I raised in my house . . . our home.  And these will be stories I will share sometime in the future when remembering this trying time of raising my 3 boys.

These will be stories I will have as a remembrance because I wrote about them in my blog. . . along with all the good stories I share.

So I think maybe I am a writer.  A writer of stories and adventures  . . .  re-counting the tales and the trials of  . . .

                             the Ferrell boys and me!

Shane's Pirate Birthday Party

Last Saturday we celebrated Shane's 6th birthday with a fantastic pirate-themed party.  Here's my little birthday pirate a couple of days before the party.  :)

I had spent a couple of weeks prior planning the party so there was a little build-up of excitement with the boys by the time the actual day of the party arrived.

I've lots of pictures, but I'll try to only show the highlights of the party.  :)

When the children arrived, they got to choose from an assortment of items to dress up like pirates . . . paper pirate hats, bandanas, mustaches, tattoos, and patches.

Dave suggested that we use pool noodles for swords so I used a bread knife and cut pool noodles in half for the children to have pirate sword fights.

It got a little fierce in the garage with all the sword fighting.

I didn't get a good picture of the pirate ship that Dave made out of cardboard boxes, but you get some idea of it in these pictures with the kids sword fighting in and around it.  They loved the ship.

I also painted a pirate picture for the children to "Pin the Patch" on the pirate.

The kids really enjoyed pinning the patch . . . even though I don't have any pictures to prove it.

I also had a plank set up for the pirates to practice walking on . . .

But no pictures of any pirates walking the plank!  Even though they all did it!   This picture is the closest I have of the children walking the plank, but you can't see the plank!  Ha!

Oh wait!  Here's one . . . sort of!  See the child on the far left . . .

We also had the Captain Hook ring toss for the children to try.

I didn't have any ring to toss so I used glow stick necklaces hooked together.

And my sister, Michelle, really helped out with the children and the games.

Between the games and the pirate ship, the children stayed busy playing in the garage.

And then it was time for the Treasure Hunt!  I'm going to post details about the Treasure Hunt in a later post, but here's some pictures of the hunt.

The children raced from clue to clue in the backyard using the treasure map to help guide them to the treasure.

The Treasure Chest was easy to spot once the children saw the giant red "X" marking the treasure spot.

The chest was really a cardboard box painted and filled with sand to hide the treasure.

The children dug and dug looking for the treasure of necklaces, rings, and gold coins.

The children loved the gold coins.

Here's the birthday boy checking out his gold coin . . .

And then it was time to open presents . . .

Thanks to Nana, PawPaw, Aunt Michelle, and his Alabama cousins, Shane is ready to protect the USA as Captain America!

He got lots of other great gifts from his friends.  He said it was the best birthday ever!

 I made a pirate ship cake that morning using Jake and the Neverland pirate character toys.

Shane loved it!  The candles on the sides of the cake were representative of cannons shooting from the ship.  The kids loved it when I lit the candles.

Blowing out the candles that are on two sides of a cake can be tricky!

And after a couple of the children left the party to go home  . . . I remembered I had bought pirate and princess crafts for the children to do!  Oops!  Well, at least Mary Beth got to do one.

And then because being a pirate is not as appealing as being a super hero sometimes  . . . 

Doesn't the world feel a little safer now.  :)  Shane was ready as Captain America!

The party was a success.  How do I know?  It started at 2 o'clock and the last guests left at 7:30!  A couple of the mothers, my sister, and I enjoyed visiting while the children played pirates and super heros for hours outside!  We were enjoying ourselves so much that we completely lost track of the time!

Shane said I was the best mother ever.  

I'm sure that was true on that particular day with . . .

                           the Ferrell boys and me!


I'm linking up to these awesome parties!  Come and join the fun!

Five Minute Friday: Joy

IF you follow my blog, then you know that I love to link up to different other blogs and participate in the blogging community.  

I've stumbled across an interesting group of bloggers that write about one random word for five minutes every Friday.  Lisa-Jo Baker selects a word and posts it on her blog, lisajobaker.com.

and bloggers link up to share their 5 minutes thoughts on the chosen word.

From Lisa-Jo:

On Friday’s we silence the inner critic. The loudest of all naysayers. And on Fridays we remind ourselves that The Word is for us and loves us and welcomes us.

Your words are safe here.

So come and write with us. Together. On one word for five minutes. Here are all the details. And then link up your post or leave it in the comments. But remember, the one must rule here is that you visit the person who linked up before you and encourage them in their writing.

That’s it. The gift of encouragement – pass it on.

Today the word is the one that’s bubble up and out and spilled over in me today.

Today the writing prompt is JOY.

So here I go . . .

JOY:

What is Joy to me?  It's walking outside on a sunny Spring day and being greeted by my 7 spirited dogs. They bring instant Joy to my soul.

Joy is watching Alex doing flips on the trampoline over and over and asking me to stay and watch him do the flips.

Joy is the pleasure I get in watching Alex and Shane pretend to be pirates with the stick on mustaches that I've rigged into goatee beards on their faces.

Joy is the assurance and confidence I see in Zach as he tells me about his day and about the talent show practice where he has a special part although it's a small part .... but there are no small parts when it's your child.

Joy is watching Dave spend his Friday night building a pirate ship out of cardboard boxes to make his pirate-crazed wife happy knowing it's really because he loves me.

Basically my life filled with little boys, dogs, and my love- Dave - is my Joy.

And that is the Five Minute Friday with 

                         the Ferrell boys and me!

Five on Friday - March 21, 2014

I'm linking up with some other blogs to share

Five on Friday with the Ferrell boys and me!

[one]

Pirate Party Overload

I've been planning Shane's birthday party . . . and I may have gotten a little out of hand!  One of my friends suggested I might need a pinterest intervention!  :D

[two]

Shane

My sweet baby is on the verge of being six years old.  This makes me sad for some reason.

So I'm going to enjoy this little boy while he's still little cause he won't be little for long.  

[three]

Sinus crud

Enough said.  No pictures please!

[four]

Pirate Fun - Out of Control

Because we've been crafting and planning Shane's Pirate Party all week, everyone's gotten a little obsessed with pirates. 

[five]

World Down Syndrome Day

Mismatched socks worn in support this Friday.  :)

So there's my Five on Friday!  Hope you've enjoyed this quick look into this very busy past week with . . .

                          the Ferrell boys and me!

Pirate Party Invitations - - You Aaargh Invited!

If you take the time to search the internet and pinterest, you can find lots of free birthday invitations for just about any birthday party theme.

I found some very cute and free invitations for a Pirate Party on my search of the internet, but when I saw the message in a bottle invitation, I knew that's what I wanted to do for Shane's party.

I used my Microsoft Publisher program to make the invitations.  I found a faded out treasure map to use as the background of the invitations.  I also found several invitations on the internet using fun Pirate language in the invite and picked through the ones I found until I came up with a Pirate invitation that I liked.

I used the Blackadder ITC font for the invitations.  It really looks like a Pirate script.  I added some skull and bones clip art.   Here's what it looked like before I printed it.

I printed out the invitations on plain white copy paper.  I ripped the sides of the paper to give the invitation a rough, jagged edging.

I used a black ink pad from my scrapbooking supplies to darken the edges of the invitation and make it look aged.

I could have burned the edges with matches, but I thought using the black ink would be safer for me.  

I used a pencil as a guide for rolling the invitations up into slender tubes and tied them with jute twine.

Most of the message in a bottle invitations use glass bottles, but I didn't want to use glass bottles with 6 year olds.  I've been saving my plastic water bottles for this purpose.

Shane helped me put together his invitations.  First we used a funnel to put some sand in the bottles. . . certainly real messages in bottles have some sand in them . . .

It required some serious concentration.

Besides the sand, we also added some slivers of pirate gold a/k/a glitter to the bottles.

We figured a hint of gold would entice our friends to the party. 

Then we added the invitation to the bottle.

Aaargh Matey!  

Shane had a great time putting these invitations together for his friends.  My only suggestion - Make sure the sand is completely dry otherwise the invitations will be damp and the ink will fade where it gets wet.  Don't ask me how I know this.  :)  

The next step involved a little oven action.  Shane and I gathered up some of his broken and unloved crayons.  We peeled the paper off and put them in a silicone baking dish.

We set the oven for 200 degrees and let the crayons melt slowly in the oven.

We dipped the tops of the bottles into the melted crayon . . .

Then we used an initial embossing stamp to put the letter "F" in the melted crayon.  I had help from Captain America in completing this step.  :)

The tops turned out really cute.  Blue for boys . . .

Pink for girls . . .

I made some labels using Microsoft Publisher to put on the outside of the bottles . . . 

and some skull tags to tie around the tops along with a little burlap flourish.  :)

The end result of all of mine and Shane's hard work made me happy.

And although the invitations cost me a lot of time, they didn't cost me any money to make.  

I used all materials that I already had on hand . . . and I got to spend some quality time with my favorite pirate of all.

The invitations are done so now I'm committed to the party.  I just hope that once the party is over, I won't have to be committed!  

So much to do before the big day!  And lots of pirate adventures are still waiting for . . .

                           the Ferrell boys and me!


I'll be linking up to some awesome Blogging Parties!  
Check out Serenity Now:  Weekend Bloggy Reading for more great ideas!