Too Busy

I don't really have much to report for this week. This week has been INSANE. Somehow I was made to be in charge of the decorations for the Relief Society Birthday Party at church. I made my best friend Nicole the other half of my "committee." We were given a very tiny budget to work with, and more than half of our tiny budget was needed to purchase table cloths. So we came up with this ridiculous idea to make paper mache maracas. (The party was a mexican fiesta theme.) This is probably one of the most ridiculous things I've ever done. No joke, this took us ALL DAY Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday to make the dumb things. Halfway into the project, I decided to take some pictures to document this ridiculous project.

We started with this:

Then we made a lovely messy paper mache concoction and plastered the balloons with newspaper. Then they're supposed to dry overnight. I read on the Internet that you could dramatically reduce the drying time by putting them in the oven at 450 degrees for 10 minutes. We needed time on our side, so I did this. Listen very carefully to what I say next: If you ever make pinatas or paper mache maracas out of balloons - DO NOT EVER PUT THEM IN THE OVEN. Every single one of the exploded, making all of the work we did on Day 1 a waste. Don and I stayed up til midnight that night re-making all the ones we lost.

Next we gave them a white primer coat of paint. Yes, we even had a stand for them to dry on. This is how ridiculous the whole thing is.

Next, we painted them orange and yellow.

Finally, we painted red chili peppers on them to make them fiesta-ish.

And then Thursday afternoon we went to the Dollar Tree to exchange our table cloths for a different color and they had a big shipment of fiesta-related party supplies, like sombreros for $1. If they'd had that stuff last week, we'd never have attempted homemade party decorations. Lucky for us, we were able to appropriate some red tablecloths from another source and exchange our white tablecloths for sombreros.

While it all turned out nice in the end, I hope I'm never asked to do anything like this again! There are reasons why certain people are called to be on activities committees. I am not one of those people.

Between maraca-making consuming all of my daylight hours this week, and orchestra Wednesday, our Young Women New Beginnings program Thursday, the fiesta on Friday and a youth fireside that my class was in chrage of Saturday, I am glad this week is over! I don't have any other pictures to share from the week, but Don did take 2 pictures of our furry creatures that are sort of cute.

Here is Cottage:

And Mouse: