I Came THIS Close to Painting the Lawn Mower

I saw something clever online (there's a lot of cleverness online).  I clicked back and back through several links to the original source.  And I fell in love.

I wanted to make my own elephant book end.

I have long had an affection for elephants.

I bought two elephants and a giraffe and some spray paint.  I wanted some turquoise spray paint but couldn't find any so I bought hot pink paint. 

(How do you keep an elephant from charging?  Take away its credit card.)

Since Emma was with me when I was shopping, she claimed the giraffe and wanted silver spray paint.  And she named the giraffe Steven.

(How can you tell if an elephant is reading over your shoulder?  You can smell the peanuts on its breath.)

Emma and I set up shop in the garage.  Mark (who is master of insinuating himself...a valuable skill I think for a youngest child) wanted to paint too.  He brought a C-3PO to paint silver.  Braeden brought a Mickey Mouse and found some gold spray paint in the garage.  Emma painted the giraffe, I painted one elephant pink.  (I'm going to paint the other one turquoise when I find turquoise spray paint.  The heart wants what the heart wants.)

(Why do elephants drink so much?  To try to forget.)

Then we started looking for more things to paint.  The recycling bin?  (no)  The shovel? (no)  We all dashed inside and ran around looking for anything that would benefit from a coat of paint.  Emma found a little tiger, Mark a handful of Bionicle pieces and Braeden a wiffle ball and a pen.

Here is the final product:  my new book end.

I can't recommend this highly enough as an entertaining activity.  Just make sure you have enough items ready to paint.  You will be really tempted to paint anything and everything.

(What do you call two elephants on a unicycle?  Optimistic.)