Archive for the ‘Humor’ Category

Our Family Muppet Show

Monday, March 20th, 2017

our-family-muppet-show

My dad bought my kids four Muppet Show puppets for Christmas, so we decided to make our own family Muppet Show! Of course, we starred Susan Evans (yours truly) as the guest. My son Nathaniel practiced Kermit the Frog’s voice and did a great job with introducing each segment!

We had to watch the introduction to the Muppet Show to figure out how to dance the female puppets across the stage and have them turn their heads abruptly to the right. The male puppets came in from the left, pumping up and down. It was hard to do this without showing my sons’ arms, but you’ll smile anyway.

Without further ado, here is our show:

My son Stephen was in charge of writing most of the script, and he played the part of Fozzy Bear. My son Bryan played the part of Animal, who had a segment where he was pounding on the piano to catch the mouse puppet that was a running gag in several sketches.

My son Bryan did the Swedish chef scene. He had to watch several episodes to get the general sounds and motions for the Swedish chef, but my kids did a great job with cracking an egg into a pan and having a quail come out. My son Nathaniel was working the arms while Bryan was working the puppet and saying the words.

swedish-chef

My daughter played Miss Piggy, of course, and she had a solo to sing: “What a Cold and Cruel World.” In case you didn’t hear all the words, this is what she sang with her best Miss Piggy voice:

I see Kermit who’s green, my love, too;
I see him turn his back on me and you.
And I think to myself, what a cold and cruel world;
And I think to myself, what a cold and cruel world.

miss-piggy

As you can see, we had to pin a tissue to her arm so she could blow her nose throughout the song.

Homeschool organization guru Susan Evans began giving some organization advice when Miss Piggy (and later a mouse!) interfered with her demonstrations.

organizing-cupboards

We had such a fun time! Who knew it would be so fun to put on a Muppet Show?

The Lame Story Behind the Cookie Cutter Series

Tuesday, May 14th, 2013

cookie-cuttersThe cookies didn’t turn out. That’s the punch line.

I had gone to the craft supply store to buy two cookie cutters the shape of flowers. I thought I would make some flower-shaped cookies for the springtime, decorating them with candy on the top to represent the petals. So I baked the cookies, but they turned out poofy and ugly. So I thought to myself, “What else can I make with these stupid cookie cutters?”

Hence the birth of the cookie cutter series. I didn’t really want to blog about cookie cutters. No. I wanted to blog about the Beth Moore Bible study on the life of David, since I am learning so much spiritually. I want to process what I am learning, and I want to blog about something that matters, not drivel like what to do with cookie cutters. I’m not surprised that my readership plummeted.

So why didn’t I write about the Bible study? Because I’m just about brain dead, working on this 8-DVD set on “Time Travel: Writing Historical Fiction.” I filmed this creative writing class two years ago (and it came out fantastic!), and after putting 100 hours of editing into it and seeing no progress in the editing, I lost heart. So I put it on hold for two years. I told my sister it was like eating a plate full of chopped liver, but that the chopped liver never went down on the plate. You know, like Dante’s Inferno–one of the circles of hell where you aren’t allowed to be finished no matter how much work you do. “Zero down, infinity to go,” I heard myself say every day after hours and hours and hours of work.

I’m going to release the Time Travel set this year if it kills me. Yep. I’m going to finish before speaking at my next homeschool conference, which is in Seattle the middle of June. I will finish.

Hence the birth of the cookie cutter series, since creating magic from cookie cutters is something I can do in my sleep almost. Since creativity is my strong point. And it started off happy. But then my kids were wondering why their lunch was always shaped like a flower.

When was all this madness going to end?

When I made the Fourth of July garland out of the star cookie cutter one night, my son Stephen declared that I was a genius the next morning. But my son Bryan (almost 13) said, rolling his eyes, “Mom, it’s April.” And so it went.

You might think that 17 ideas aren’t that many, but I never told you all the ideas that failed. Like the fried egg that stuck to the cookie cutter, and I had to flick the whole thing into the sink, burning myself. Or the carefully crafted toast that I later realized was too similar to sandwiches to count.

I finally decided to put an end to it one night when I yelled to my husband who was walking by, “I’m sick of cookie cutters! I never want to see another cookie cutter in my life!” to which he replied, “I think you should ONLY blog about cookie cutters for the rest of your life. 1,976 creative ways to use cookie cutters. You would be famous. You might get on TV…”

Top 10 Ways Your House Falls Apart

Sunday, July 22nd, 2012

house-falls-apart

I’ve been thinking about this Top 10 humorous blog post for months now, dissatisfied with it, wanting to throw it in the trash. It was in my “Unfinished Blog Posts” folder, just rotting there. My problem was that after reading it, I wanted to cry rather than laugh:

  1. Turning the handle to flush the toilet is like playing on a Vegas slot machine. You never know when an out-of-control cascade will come out of the thing. Looking around helplessly, you find it impossible to keep the pot from dispensing its contents all over the floor.
  2. The paint on the outside of your house is chipping. It has needed a coat of paint for years now. It looks like an abandoned ghost town, except for the children running around.
  3. You try to open a drawer, only to have the handle come off in your hand.
  4. Your kid hangs like a monkey from your towel rack, and the bar falls on the floor with a clang. It’s still on the floor months later, because you haven’t gotten around to re-hanging it.
  5. The faucet is constantly dripping. There’s a trick to shutting it off, you know. As you’re falling asleep, you incorporate the dripping into a rhythm so that it’s not so irritating.
  6. The sprinkler system leaks every spring, no matter how much you empty it before winter. Checking it for leaks is like one of those games at a carnival that sprays water unexpectedly at you when you think nothing is happening.
  7. The instruction booklet on repairing appliances was written by someone who obviously doesn’t speak fluent English. How do you make heads or tails out of the abrupt, unintelligible sentences?
  8. The remote control for the garage has to be disconnected from the sunshade flap and aimed out the window to get the garage door to open. It’s like the remote control is a gun, and your house won’t let you in unless held at gunpoint.
  9. The cream carpeting has so many stains that your guests naturally assume you have a polka-dotted carpet. Or they ask if you’re still potty training.
  10. The spin cycle on the washing machine goes “ka-clunk, ka-clunk, ka-clunk” and sounds like it’s going to fall apart any minute. You never know when one of your appliances is going to explode. (Refer to the Exploded Cauliflower post to hear how one of my appliances exploded.)

Toy Castle Adventure

Saturday, April 28th, 2012

A fun writing assignment for kids is to write a toy castle adventure. If you don’t have a toy castle, you can make one out of small cardboard boxes, and spray paint it silver. Then use dolls to re-enact your script. Take a look at our fun Toy Castle Adventure: