Party Animals

BLOCKHEADS: All day today was about getting ready for our annual block party, held in conjunction with the city wide Night Out program.

We had so much to do. Our list: Make deviled eggs, decorate some pretty butterfly cookies, make some pseudo sushi, make a Greek pasta salad, make some Reuben roll-ups and some hot wings. That and clean the house from top to bottom (so we could show a few neighbors what we've been up to). Yeah, just another relaxing day.

We hit Fred Meyer bright and early for a few grocery items. As soon as we got home, the corned beef went on to cook and then we set about decorating the butterfly cookies (which I'd made yesterday, thank god).

Annabelle helped whip up the royal icing and color it. Then we drizzled it on the cookies and dragged toothpicks, knives and forks through the frosting to create designs.

Next up was turning slices of Twinkies wrapped in green apple fruit roll-ups into pseudo-sushi. We used dried apricots, strawberries, cherries, blueberries, mangoes and more. It was quick and fun.PONY TALES: At about 4 o'clock it occurred to me I hadn't turned on the TV at all. The kids had (mercifully!) been playing together really nicely all day. One exchange they had this afternoon cracked me up. Bee wanted CJ to play My Little Ponies with her. CJ was soooooo not interested and Annabelle knew it. "Too girlish," he chauvinistically declared.

Annabelle decided to try to sweeten the pot. "There could be lots of destruction ..." she said, tantalizingly.

CJ took the bait.

Immediately, Annabelle began to weave a tale of destruction involving a lava river and ponies getting stranded. However, in her pitch, some Super Hero Pony swept in and saved the day.

That didn't sit well with CJ.

"Is it OK if they have a not-so-happy ending?" he inquired.

Annabelle was open to the idea.

"So, they get trapped in the cave forever and get eaten by a crocodile. Does that sound boy-ish?" he asked.

It did, observed Annabelle.

End of pony play.

Annabelle spent some time in solo play, too. This scene I happened upon cracked me up. ...

PARTY TIME: At six, people started dragging tables, chairs and food out to the street in front of our house. Things didn't get really rolling until around 7 though. And from 7-9:30 it was a good ol' hootenany. Lots of good food, and familiar faces and lots of new faces tonight - neighbors from beyond just our one block, which was nice. Eventually our neighbors, the Morgans (a/k/a The Cutters), busted out some instruments and made some nice music. Annabelle joined them, providing percussion and dancing an Irish jig. (Sorry the photo's blurry, but she was getting down and the sun was going down.)
At the end of the night, there were marshmallows by the fire.