How many of these kids are actually yours?!

. . . was the question from the Dish Network installer at my house today as we were entertaining 14 yes, I said FOURTEEN, children.

Today we had Camp Runamuk, Day 2 – Gettin’ Dirty.  We made “mud” cupcakes, bird houses, paper butterflies and mommy made a sad attempt at a cardboard boomerang . . .

. . . and here’s what we learned:

1)      Bribing the children with Fun Dip for breakfast will ensure that they get their rooms clean in no time flat!!  I’m sorry, I got desperate and I needed them to clean up before our guests arrived.  So yes, at 8:30 in the morning I gave them Fun Dip.  I’m certain Husband from Heaven is going to be looking for a job for me in the Classifieds soon!

       2)     When you tell the baby that she can “decorate her birdhouse herself”, she will only hear
              “decorate . . . herself”.

For the record, yes, that orange paint is a huge pain in the @$& to get out!!!

3)      When you tell the middle child to select a “colorful magazine page” for her paper butterfly, just be aware that she MAY select the Mucinex advertisement.

4)      When you modify the bird feeder instructions, you may have to ask a 12 year old where you should put the hole for the birds to actually eat out of.  The original bird house was intended to use wooden spoons, not wooden chopsticks (I couldn’t find the spoons at the dollar store, so I improvised).  Well, I forgot about the fact that the spoon actually served as a perch for the seed to fall onto.  I think they’ll still work, but those poor birds are going to have to work for it!!

5) Jelly Beans are NOT intended to be frozen. Ooops, I didn’t even think about the fact they would become candy rocks when frozen in our Mud Pie Cupcakes (see below).

Overall a very successful Camp Runamuk Day.

The bird houses can be found on Disney’s Family Fun website, as can the paper butterflies.  I’d recommend the bird houses (using wooden spoons); I would not recommend the paper butterflies.  They were a big pain in the @$& for the little ones and didn’t turn out all that cute.

This is what we referred to as the "butterfly morgue" where all the kids left their butterflies.

Below is a recipe for the Mud Pie cupcakes.  I had a really hard time finding one on the internet.  This is slightly modified from our version that included hot fudge, whipped cream . . . oh, and the jelly beans.  The hot fudge and whipped cream didn’t add anything really and they were a huge pain:

Mud Pie Cupcakes - Camp Runamuk style!

Crushed up Oreo Cookies
4 TBSP Butter
Rocky Road Ice Cream
Gummy Worms

Mix the cookies and butter
Put cookies in bottom of cupcake tins
Add one scoop of ice cream
Add Gummy Worms

Freeze while you do another activity to entertain the children for at least 30 minutes.  Eat and enjoy!