fun and games

I was giddy with excitement this morning since I helped to put on a double baby shower for some friends. I was in charge of the games, so we played some of my favorites.

Game: Pacifier Suck

Haha, I just made up that name. I don't have any pictures of this one, but I do have some lessons learned if you're going to do this yourself.

You take teeny little plastic pacifiers (we're talking half-inch little things), and freeze them in ice cubes. Everyone gets an ice cube and whoever sucks on their cube and gets their pacifier out first wins.

I liked this game and it worked in my head, but in real life I had many problems:

• The first time I made the pacifier ice cubes, I dropped the plastic trinkets into ice cube trays and they all sunk to the bottom. So the frozen pacifier was on the "outskirt" of the ice cube and not the center.
  
  
• I redid the cubes, filling them half-way with water and letting them freeze. Then I put the trinkets on top of the half-frozen cubes and added more water and froze some more, but I had the opposite problem. They were too close to the top. It was like I couldn't win. I suppose if I continued to experiment maybe I would have gotten them perfectly in the center?
  
  
• I noticed when I tried to flip the ice cubes out of the tray by flexing the tray the ice cubes broke, seeing as how they had a plastic trinket in them. SO I needed to let the tray sit for a little bit, have the ice melt a bit, then turn it over and get them out. That worked. BUT I put the cubes in a bowl and put them in the freezer (to maintain the integrity), but seeing as how they were a little melted from coming out of the tray, they refroze in the freezer. And when I went to pass them out to everyone, the icy blob was a problem. Ugh. I had to break them up again with some water, therefore rendering some of them smaller and more prone to winning the game.
  
  
• As I passed the cubes out, what was I to do with them? I wanted everyone to start at the same time, so each person had to hold the cube in her hand while I passed them out to everyone, then they all could put them in their mouths at once.

Cute game, but difficult in executions. Anyone else played this one successfully?

Game: Guess How Many

This one was fun: Guess how many M&Ms are in the jar? This seems easy in theory, BUT...

The shower was for two girls, one who had a boy and one who had a girl. At first, I didn't think I'd do M&Ms. I had many many ideas: Clothespins? (No one uses them.) Cotton balls or Qtips? (Ahh, a bit boring.) Prenatal pills? (That was my brilliant idea: a small item they would definitely use. However both of them had prescription prenatals. GAH!)

My other great ideas was blueberries, since one of my friends referred to her baby girl as "Blueberry" while she was in the womb. Cute, right? It would have been just marvelous if my other friend called her little boy "Sweet pea" or "Peanut" or something small and edible, but no. No such luck. And since I wanted to make two jars that were similar and cohesive in cuteness, blueberries were out.

SO when I finally realized M&Ms (or jelly beans?) were my only option, I had to figure out how. Well, I could make one jar with Valentine's Day M&Ms! Lucky me for the season. I decided to pick out all the red. Pink and white only. Maybe if I could find Easter M&Ms I'd have baby blue and white, too? No luck. A friend gave me a huge Costco-sized bag of M&Ms and I picked out every since blue and brown one. I mixed them with some white from the Valentine's day bag... and this is what we got:


I actually thought they turned out DARLING.

The fun part, ha, was counting.... yes, I counted each M&M. Yes, I washed my hands a lot. Yes, I had many many containers on my table for various colors and piles. Yes, each jar had the same exact number of M&Ms.

How many do you think?


Lots of people at the shower were way low. I was surprised. Everyone guessed between 100-275 or so, I only had one guess in the 300s, one in the 400s, and one in the 500s. The total? 434. There are 434 M&Ms in each of those mason jars, 868 total.

Game: Poopy Diapers

I. Love. This. Game. I played it once, then I made the host for my baby shower do it, and I had to do it today again. It's hysterical.

The premise? Guess the melted candy bar in the "poopy" diaper.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Some people hate this game. Not me.

As I prepared the melted candy last night, I was giggling in the kitchen. Shane thought I was nuts. I kept telling him to come over and see me so I could show him what I was doing. He knew better.

There were infant diapers numbered 1-10. Each one had melted chocolate of some sort in there. I did Milky Way, Rolo, Snickers, Almond Joy, Reeses, Heath, Hershey's, KitKat, York Peppermint Patty and my favorite of the bunch, Nestle Crunch.



The game was awesome! Everyone laughed and had a great time. Two people got 8 out of 10 right -- I was impressed!!

Some lessons learned:

• The York Peppermint Patty diaper actually infected the diaper closest to it (the Rolo diaper) with a minty smell. That threw a lot of people off. Oops.
  
  
• In fact, the Peppermint Patty was probably a weird one. It was white... and you don't see much white stuff in diapers. I got to thinking a 3 Musketeers would have been better.
  
  
• I had to remelt them when I got to the party this morning, because they had solidified overnight.
  
  
• The Snickers and Milky Way melt way fast. In fact, I made two of each of them because I burned the first set in the microwave. Oop. Some like the Rolo or KitKat took a lot longer to melt.
  
  
• FYI I didn't give the girls any hints re: candy bars, so some people guessed candy bars that weren't used at all. Oh well, just part of the fun of guessing!

Here's some pictures from how well the game was received:



And one from me in May 2008 (LOVE IT!):


My game prizes were Valentine hearts... more chocolate, of course:


Sasha our awesome friend made these adorable booties cakes:


Gosh it was fun. My friends are so fun. I feel so grateful today for them. One of them kinda teared up as she was reading the card for the group gift. They are just such a wonderful group of girls. Our kids are all the same age and we just get together and talk about sleep and poop and tantrums and teeth and everything under the sun. I love them; they are an incredible support group and we are all so good to each other. Wesley is lucky to have such a fun group of moms to grow up around, with lots of little friends.

I'm happy today. I guess melted chocolate in a diaper just makes a day bright. :-)