Ostara is in the air....

[claps wildly at the empty room]
"okay parents, listen up"

....enough with the bags of little plastic crap from the 99 cent store and candy at every birthday party. they have a way of magically vanishing before we hit the door home.

just sayin'
and i'm still pissed at the mom that decided a ball point pen was a good idea for valentines day. my boys managed to open the bag in the car and uncapped that sucker with ninja precision. scribbled the seats and themselves silly...and yes, all in the three minutes it takes to get home.

we hosted our first friends party not too long ago. i decided to take action. set an example. fuck! it ended up being a three day project and i don't have that kind of time. still proud of it though. started with a dare. make something. make something biodegradable. make something biodegradable AND fun....and cute...and kidlike. bring it, momma.....

so i give you what was probably close to the original chia pet. i took some little seedling pots (20 at the 99 cent store) and painted little faces.

i bought a bag of bare spot grass seed. it's hardy stuff...grows quickly and is cheap. then i found little envelopes and Michaels. probably the most expensive thing on project. made a little drawing on the front with instructions on the back. we then took soil and wrapped it up in purple tissue paper, placing it in the pot. i also included some sunflower seeds in a packet as an added bonus. all were put in a brown paper bag decorated by my 73 year old mother. it was nice to sit around the table doing crafts with my mom....can't remember the last time we did that.


quick side story to this: My boys have school friends now, and they went to their first friend party before this project came to be. we live in a tiny house right up next to one of the wealthiest areas in CA. the party was in this palatial residence of a school friend on "the hill". the playhouse in the backyard was nicer than ours (so i asked the mom is she was interested in renting it) they hired a balloon animal person (is there a name for that person?), had a humongous bouncy house and if we had stayed more than the 45 minutes i was willing to endure, i'm quite certain lunch was catered. it was weird. intimidating.

our party was two days later....however, we threw down at a funny little conservatory called Wilderness Park. it's lovely and has several big ponds with ducks, turtles and a stream that shuts off at 10pm. plenty of campsites for rent either day use or overnight. the park ranger is well, functionally retarded but pleasant. because i'm so annoyed by the shear volume of primary colored plastic in my house, and i didn't want to spend money on more crap for other kids, we made these. i appointed my favorite lesbian to man the grill and we served hot dogs, pizza, apples and apple sauce, trail mix and juice/water...oh, and because the camp sites have power, we had kick ass coffee and water for cocoa or tea. i got some fish/duck food in bulk from barney fife and put it in little cups. okay, so want to know the greatest part? the kids had a blast. they ran all over the place, got filthy dirty, over fed the ducks to their delight, reeked of fish for the rest of the day and when the cake came out, they swarmed and they all stuck their grubby little fingers in it. i was tempted to scrap the forks altogether and let them have at it.....

back to this project....i need to include instructions because i didn't want sunflower seeds going into little pots and while it all made sense to me, it might not to someone else. given what i've just said, my best friend Cate says quick as a flash, "might want to put them in Spanish"...