A'maze'ing Demolition

It is amazing how easy it is to tear down something that you worked so hard to build. The one exception is unpicking a seam. The sewing machine works much faster than me.

For the girls birthdays we combined the party this year. I got this funny idea in my head and because of my brilliance and Shannon's back-breaking dedication to me (thanks for your help also, Papa and Michael) this idea came to life.

It took 4 days, 300 feet of construction plastic and 51 poles to create 'The Maze'. That is 51 holes each having to be dug a minimum of 1 foot. When I was doing the designing I thought that we should have the poles around 2 feet deep. It only took one hole to convince me that one foot was enough.

Well, this maze survived through 3 separate kid events, 2 wind storms and just over 2 months.

Today, we decided that it would be best if in the interest of presenting a nice house, it would be a good idea to get rid of the black plastic monstrosity in the front yard. Four days got demolished in less than a half hour.

Z

Z is for zipper and zebra.

I bet you had a hard time guessing what was going to be on this page. Or not. It isn't original but I love it's simplicity.

I don't know why, probably just not thinking, but I got the kind of zippers that you find on blue jeans. The nice thing about them is that they have a great strong zipper look. The bad thing about them is they have a great strong zipper hold, the kind of hold that makes things difficult for toddlers. Oh well, it's a good thing that there is stuff to do on 24 other pages.

THE END

Y

Y is for yellow, yo-yo and yarn.

The yo-you goes up and down in the same way that the elevator in E does. Except on the yo-yo it also can go round and round.

In all honesty this is my least favorite letter. I don't know if it is the yo-yo (it doesn't work very smoothly) or it it is all the yellow. I don't really like yellow, even though it is my mom and Claire's favorite color.

Claire's favorite color can change by the minute and it is a topic she really likes to discuss. She asks everyone in ear shot what their favorite colors are and then she demands of someone, "Now you say, what's my favorite color." When she first started doing this I used to tell her a color that I thought was her favorite and she would get angry until I realized she needed me to say, "What's your favorite color, Claire?"

When she answers it can be any color but yellow is the one that occurs the most often and with the most conviction.

Really the only thing I like about this page is the cute little yarn ball I made. See, isn't it cute:

X

X is for x-ray and that is about it. There is still a surprise.

Open up the skeleton and you will meet...

this guy. He is currently nameless. Maybe you could give me suggestions for a name for him.

W

W is for wings, wheels, and waves.

The wings can waver.

The wheels on the W go round and round, round and round, round and round. 

V

V is for volcano, vines (a bit of a stretch but it was the best material I had) and...

velcro.

I thought that this would be a good idea until I had it all made and realized for a 'quiet' book velcro is really noisy ripping off.

You can't see it it in the photos but even the V is attached to the page with a thin ribbon. It goes from the top corner of the right side to the bottom of the same side. I was really paranoid about pieces of the book going missing.

U

U is for umbrella but...

before I let you know what else U stand for I need to give you a warning. The following picture includes graphic scenes that may be disturbing to some viewers. Before you scroll down you may wish to make sure that you are sitting down.

and udder.

I truly am sorry about U but I just couldn't think of anything better.

I love guys reactions when they are flipping through the book and then they are all the sudden confronted with the udder. Typically, they give the teats a gentle squeeze and then try milking them.

T

T is for train, tiger, trees and turtles.

The turtles drive the train or you could drive the train.

I really don't have anything else to say about T.

S

S is for snake, stars, stripes and...

snap.

I am not sure how long this little snake is going to stay sewn on to this page. You see that gap between the snap on the tip of the tail and the next snap up the body? That is where it is sewn on. Don't ask me why I separated 2 snaps with and area of sewing because I wouldn't be able to answer you. I just don't know what I was thinking when I did that. What I do know is that it really encourages toddlers to pull very hard when they get to that bit of resistance and can't get to the last snap.

R

R is for red, road, rainbow and race car.

The race car can race around the road.

I can't believe I haven't told this story before R but what started this whole letter experience was a trip to Costco. Costco was selling kids books that were soft with thick foam covers. They snapped shut and made a pillow when not being read.

I thought that it was really clever and I could make my girls one. I would have been cheaper if I had just bought the books when I first saw them.

I made each of the girls a book where each page was a letter of their name. The letter was an object of some sort. In Claire's book her R was a road just like this one. I will have to show you them some time. Anyway, I thought that I couldn't improve on it so I just made another road.

I found the jeweled ribbon in WalMart and it works so perfect for a yellow line. I even used the same black print for the road.