Let The Games Begin....

... or in this case, Let the Boules begin!

A year and a half ago my parents rented a cottage on Omaha Beach, Normandie, France and took all of us on an amazing vacation. 

The cottage was a converted gatekeeper's cottage from an old, large estate! 
We toured the D-Day beaches by day, visited the local markets for delicious food to have at "home" in the evenings and had so much fun playing on the Boules court in the backyard of our cottage.

From this viewpoint ( picture above) you look through the fence and over the rolling hill to hedgerows that are still thick and standing. If you remember WWII history the hedgerows in France helped to stop German tanks. It really was an amazing place to visit. So many stories came to life ... all the history class lessons and movies and books through the years. My family lives in Bedford, VA which is home to the DDay Memorial. The "Bedford Boys" are a very famous part of the story of DDay and the liberation of France. My brother in law grew up in Bedford with some of the Bedford Boys who survived DDay.

We had such a great time drinking delicious French wine and eating fruit and cheese from the markets that we wanted to replicate the fun at home!

So last Fall we began our Boules Court believing that it would be ready for Winter fun.
We have a sunken firepit off of our porch and we thought wine, cheese, firepit fun and Boules sounded perfect.

But like all outdoor projects in Georgia, it begins with leveling the rolling ground :)
Last fall. Dreary and gray weather.

It gets ugly before it gets better!

We had most of the timbers and we had to transplant a few things to make space.

And  we  my husband dug and dug. 
And then we seemed to be responsible for causing the rainiest Fall
 in recent Georgia weather history.
We couldn't get a dry day or the ground dried out to dig.
So the project just sat in it's half finished state through the Winter.
It happens. #unfinished projects!

And then it warmed up and we got productive in the Springy weather!
We just do better when it's warm and sunny.

So we started digging and leveling and hauling stuff around.
The Mother's Day crab boil with friends became the new deadline.
And we made it!! Barely.

I mean barely!

It's a construction zone!

If you look closely you can see saw horses

and ladders leaning where we worked on the small pavilion

 that has Adirondack seating on it.

Propped up lattice and the "burn" pile from pruning around the court..
Generally a mess!

.

The only thing we really had to purchase was a truckload of finely ground granite.

In this picture it is newly laid and leveled and still not compacted.

It has become very firm over time and we have a bin of loose granite that we can sprinkle and level the court with as needed.

( Wheelbarrow and dirt pile still at the end of the court on Mother's Day.)

The construction mess did not keep us from having a ton of fun playing Boules

 (Bocci, Lawn Bowling - choose your country!)

Our court is not the regulation 91 feet. 
The one we played on in France wasn't regulation either and we had a ton of fun. 
We made ours as long as we had space for, added some seating and in just the few weeks we've had it we have had a ton of laughs out back!
We still want to add some lights and a holder for the balls and a sign with the rules.
Maybe I'll have pretty, blogworthy pics by Summers' end.

But we haven't let that or the lovely dirt pile and unfinished landscaping keep us from enjoying our Boules court with family and friends!

Having a boules court in the backyard?
C'est magnifique!



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Savvy Southern Style

Crayon Day

Today is all about the color green but when I think about St. Patrick's Day

I  also think about the rainbow that is a major player in the stories of leprechauns.

 

( I think about what I could do with a pot of gold, too.

#notgonnalie )

 

 

And rainbows make me think about boxes of crayons

all lined up in the order of the spectrum.

 

This is the way my brain works... St. Patty's Day to crayons in zero to 60!

 

 

And I never think about crayons that I don't think about this...

 

Several years ago a friend of mine started teaching 3rd grade at a school in a nearby school district. We live in the Atlanta suburbs and sometimes forget that nearby there is actual need for even the basics. My friend told me about her class and the school which was an "at risk" school and almost all families qualified for subsidized lunch. All the parents worked long hours and they were not able to come to school during the day for programs or to be "room moms".

Well, Mollie was away at college at the time and I was missing those cute and fun Room Mom days.

 I volunteered to be her Room Mom and come every month to do a special project, etc.

I was probably more excited than her kiddos!

I went for the first time that October and took a very simple cupcake treat ( that they thought was the most amazing thing ever! They had never seen those little candy pumpkins that I decorated the cupcakes with. Remember that their parents were just trying to put food on the table), a favorite seasonal book that I left with the class and a craft project for them to get creative with. We played a game and it was a great afternoon. I went back in November and followed the same format. They loved everything and thought each treat, project or new to them craft supply was simply amazing and wonderful.

It was a joy to prep and go each month.

I asked my friends from church to donate small gifts for them at Christmas and we played games and chose the gifts as prizes. Several of the children chose things that they could give their moms for Christmas because  she wouldn't get a gift otherwise. So sweet and selfless.

Many of these children had little or no expectations of gifts for themselves either.

 

So what does this have to do with crayons?

I'm getting there!

 

 

 

While the children were playing games and eating their  Christmas  Mid Winter Holiday party treats  my friend and I were talking about the children in her class and how they were doing and her concerns. They would be out of school for over two weeks. The lunch they got at school in addition to a healthy snack of fruit or veggies each day was sometimes the only healthy and hot food they got each day. She was also concerned because they had testing when they came back in January and so many were so far behind.

 And then she said something I could not believe.

She told me that the teachers at this school couldn't send homework home with the students because they didn't have even crayons in their homes to do homework with at night.
A few might but it put so many of them at a disadvantage
 to not be able to keep up with homework.
 

What??? This is America.

 Every child should be able to have a box of crayons.

I could not get this out of my mind

For weeks I thought about this.

Then I asked her how many children were in that school.

I talked to the Mission Committee at the church where I was Children's Director at the time and we started a campaign to get a box of crayons for very child in that school.

And we did.

 They were stacked everywhere.

We counted and recounted. We sorted by number of crayons per box.

One of my awesome volunteers ( never married, no children and always willing to support whatever crazy scheme I cooked up) bought a box of 64 crayons for every 5th grader in that school. I think it was the first time he had ever bought crayons :)

 

People texted and FB posted about where crayons were on sale for the best price.

It was an all out mission.

 

And then the day came when we had enough to tell the school that they were on the way.

 

Almost 800 boxes of crayons were put in boxes and bins in the back of my friends' car and hauled to that school.

 

The next day I had two messages on my answering machine at work.

The first one from my friend who teaches there telling me that they ended classes early that day in the entire school and the support staff helped to pass out the boxes of crayons  to every classroom. My friend said that there were children who cried because people they didn't know cared enough to give them a box of crayons. Many couldn't believe they could take them home.

The second message came from a very choked up and appreciative principal saying that "Crayon Day" had been the most amazing day at their school.

 

So, if you can't imagine that there are children who don't even have a box of crayons somewhere near you, I challenge you to look around and see if you can drop off a rainbow of crayons somewhere nearby and change the day for a child.

 

 

And if you find that pot of gold this St. Patrick's Day maybe you can drop off a lot of crayons!

St. Patrick's Day is a lot of fun but maybe Crayon Day should be the new holiday.

 

 

#crayonday

#itshouldbeathing

 

*This post was not supported or solicited by Crayola Crayons.

Neither was Crayon Day.

It's a true story.

 

We Are Leaping Into St. Patrick's Day Fun!!

We have an extra day in February this year - it's Leap Year!! - but we were ready to get into our St. Patrick's Day art.

This project is a decoupage project. We learned that the word decoupage is a fancy French art word that simply means gluing down a "page" or paper. We also read the Legend of St. Patrick before we started gluing!

Each little artist decided whether to create a 4 leaf clover or a Shamrock  (3 leaves). We used a square (8x8) Dick Blick canvas that I painted blue in advance. Our leaves were heart shaped paper cut outs. Our stem was a triangle of paper and the button in the center

 is a circle.

Aren't they great?? And they so reflect the artists personalities... some are lined up perfectly, some are all the same paper even though there were lots of choices, some are swimming in Mod Podge and some of us who prefer to keep stuff off of our fingers had a hard time dealing with all the glue needed :)

The first two classes of 4 year olds really didn't want Mod Podge all over their fingers but the last class embraced it and they said they LOVED decoupage!!!

Sorry about the pictures - the lighting is terrible in the classrooms and I was probably hurrying because Mod Podge was going everywhere - haha! I lined up all the heart cut out choices assembly line style so they could choose their own papers at their own pace. The Mod Podge was applied with foam brushes and fingers!! I used my Crop-A-Dile to punch the holes for the fuzzy stick hanger. ( Can't call them pipe cleaners anymore!) I put a small black Sharpie dot in the center of each canvas to help my little artists get the points of the hearts headed the right way. At four and just turned five getting everything turned the correct way can be a challenge and this helps them to be successful.

We used foam brushes to spread the Mod Podge and I always put plastic table cloths so we can be as messy as we want.
Now we have lots of lucky Irish green to help us get excited about St. Patrick's Day.

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Everyone's Irish - On March 17th!!

In the midst of all the excitement of green food and leprechaun mischief this is a great little project. This started with a Dick Blick canvas , the 8x8 square ( I told you I'm on a mission to try all the sizes they offer in the economy packs.) I painted it blue and striped it in turquoise. The shamrock is created using 3 hearts and a wooden spoon shape ( they are in packages by the popsicle sticks at Hobby Lobby where I can wander for hours... ) These were painted green and then given some polka dots using the eraser end of a pencil ( a fav tool of mine) and children love making those dots! I squeeze out the paint on a tray and we practice "dip and dot" standing up and keeping our arm up and out of the wet  paint dots.

(If you are in a situation where you can incorporate a faith based message then the shamrock is a great opportunity to include a lesson on the Trinity and the real St. Patrick)

I used my Crop-A-Dile to punch holes in the canvas for a fun, beaded wire hanger. (Still don't have a Crop-A-Dile?? Go get one. Right Now.) For classes with young children I use a pipe cleaner for the hanger and for older children I use a a finer wire. For classes, I go ahead and make the holes ahead of time.

OK, looking good. You can stop here or you can add some ribbon ( or torn fabric strips- my budget substitute for ribbon.)  I, however, have no restraint when it comes to ribbon (or that runny, white cheese dip in Mexican restaurants... sorry, off-task !)

 So, a little bit of polka dot ribbon and it's finished. All ready for the Leprechauns! And hopefully a pot of gold!

A couple of thoughts ... First, if budget does not allow for canvases and wood cut outs, this could be easily done using craft foam. You could cut the hearts and stem from green and still use the acrylic paint to dot the shapes. Acrylic "sticks" just fine to the foam. You could still do the cute hanger with a hole punch and a pipe cleaner - gold if you have it - and some pony beads. 

Second, I like to send home some nice, "substantial", "keeper" projects regularly. I was just thinking as I looked at these pictures and the Love canvases that I posted recently that it would be nice to do one seasonally themed canvas each month (the same size) so that they would create a " calendar" of sorts of the school year. It could be very cute displayed in the child's room or playroom. We go to school  August to May so we would only have to double up twice. You could definitely do a Father's day canvas early for June and something patriotic for July and the year would be complete... I can just see it! Hmmmm, I think I'm going to work on that. Keep you posted, literally :)


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