The Magnificent Seven Levitate Like Criss Angel

A few years ago I purchased each child of mine the coolest book I'd ever seen for kids according to their gender. Justin's was The Dangerous Book for Boys and Annie's was The Daring Book for Girls. Some of the contents are the same, such as how to build camp fires, paper airplanes and stink bombs and then some of the content is gender specific. In Annie's book there is a chapter titled, Slumber Party Games.

When I first read the chapter, I was very excited to see that a game I had played as a kid over twenty years ago was in the book. I couldn't really remember how to play just the gist of it, but I had told Annie all about the game and when she saw that the game was spelled out in detail how to play...she just had to play it at her slumber party.

Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board...this is how you play it:

Have one person lay on the ground, while four to six others gather around her. The players should place the index fingers of both hands underneath the person lying down, and then, with eyes closed, everyone does a call and response, with the player next to the person's head beginning the story: "It was a dark and stormy night." Each player except the one on the ground repeats. "It was cold and the road was icy." "The car she was in spun out of control." "And when they found her." "She was light as a feather and stiff as a board." The last sentence is repeated by the group several times, and then the entire group begins chanting, "Light as a feather, stiff as a board" and lifting up the girl lying on the floor.

Did any of our magnificent seven actually levitate? This game has its roots in a long tradition of unexplainable feats of weightlessness. Saints were said to levitate while in a state of uncontrollable rapture and have a luminous glow and Buddhist develop the skill to levitate with lots of spiritual and physical training. The act of levitation in the modern world is purely seen and understood to be only a magic trick, a grand illusion. But if you ask any of the magnificent seven, they'll tell you...it's no trick.

The Magnificent Seven and Sleepover Madness

I absolutely love Slumber Parties! They are so much fun, but with girls these kind of parties can sometimes end with lots of feelings hurt. To ensure that Annie's sleepover didn't turn into mayhem I scheduled lots of activities and fun things to do.

Most of the girls rode home from school with Annie. We resembled a minuscule clown car at the Ringling Brothers' Circus, fitting seven girls and a lady into a two seater truck! And that's how the fun began. Destination completed, the girls unloaded one by one and secured a spot in Annie's room for their sleepover belongings.

Easy entertaining sleep over fun begins with cooking. The girls created dough and then fashioned the dough into a round flat looking shape. They then spread some type of red sauce all over the flat surface of the dough, topping it with shredded cheese, pepperonis and Canadian bacon.

Mommies and daddies, you need to hear this..."Let your children help you cook!" They love it!!! Everyone of these giggly gals clamored to measure the liquids, pour them in and mix them to perfection. While we waited for the pizzas to bake, I made my way to Youtube.com and began blasting the music for an instant impromptu dance party. One of my favorite can't go wrong singers...Weird Al. His lyrics are entertaining and the kids love it.

After consuming massive amounts of pizza and Capri Sun, we then made S'mores. M'm...these things are so good and such an easy do it yourself kinda treat. Mommies and Daddies, even if you're on a special diet, eat one, okay? And make sure you get the ooey gooey marshmallow all over your face, the girls loved telling me I had made a mess!

I've learned from experience that canned sodas aren't a good idea for any kid party. They never finish the entire soda and you're left with almost full cans of soda, with kids wanting something else to drink, but they have no idea if that almost full can of Coke is theirs or not...bad, really bad, idea. Capri Suns are the best for parties and if you have to divvy out soda, souvenir party cups with the kids' names in marker on the cup for identification purposes.

We played several traditional sleep over games, such as light as a feather and stiff as a board, Bloody Mary and Truth or Dare. I'll do a separate blog for light as a feather and for Bloody Mary. I got really tickled when one of the girls suggested we play spin the bottle. I replied that spin the bottle is usually played with girls and boys. My girls insisted they wanted to play, so I agreed and made up some rules for this new variation.

How to play Spin the Bottle with all girls. First variation, has the girls going around the circle taking turns spinning instead of having the person the bottle landing on spinning. Once the bottle is pointing towards someone, the spinner then confesses what boy she'd most like to kiss. Of course, all the girls giggle insanely and then the spinner kisses the spinnee on the cheek. You play until you get bored.

Second variation, has the girls taking turns like in the first variation. This time though, instead of naming a boy the girls are actually collecting kisses. You find the gaudiest ugliest lipstick you have, each of you coat your lips really good and then start playing. The girl with the most set of lip prints on her face, wins. You play for about 10 - 15 minutes.

I never planned for this game, it was impromptu, but with adjustments it turned into a really fun moment. The girls shared their secret crushes and we all laughed and giggled our hearts out! But to ensure that these secret sacred crushes aren't revealed on Monday at school, you must perform a Pinkie Promise to never reveal and then provide the girls with a most terrible curse for revealing said promise. You'll never guess in a million years what I promised them would happen if they spilled the beans!

When The Wind Blows Shouldn't the Blades Go?

January has just flown by, hasn't it? I mean, here we are in the third week and pretty soon we'll be heading into February. I told a friend the other day that my computer has been having some trouble, something about Trojans? Used to, when a person mentioned Trojans a nice connotation of protected pleasure would come to mind, now it just means definite disaster, as in my computer's health.

My employment continues to be a burdensome necessity and with so many in our sector jobless I've been extra careful to be appreciative of utter chaos and confusion. I do have some embers smoldering and I do know that after speaking with my son, a move would really make him very unhappy. I'm not in the business of creating disillusionment in my children.

Annie and I went shopping yesterday over in Odessa, we braved Walmart and found that the experience hasn't scarred us for life. We didn't get finished with the monthly grocery shopping until 9PM! More time was needed to gather supplies, because Annie is having a slumber party Friday night which will then turn into a day filled of fun for Saturday.

Yesterday, the wind was gusting up into the 40s! On the way to Odessa, we always pass a whole bunch of Wind Turbines at the Caprock. You know, I thought that when the wind blew was when the blades turned on those turbines, but as I observed those mighty turbine giants not a SINGLE BLADE was moving! Can anyone explain this phenomenon?

I don't have much time before the big sleep over and I've got plenty to accomplish before the giggling, squirming, sassy, gals descend upon the Trujillo Family home. There's dishes to wash, clothes to fold, a scavenger hunt to prepare and water balloons to fill.