SAHS: Mail (and Fiery Refrigerator) Edition

Want to replicate our most recent Stay at Home Sunday? Just follow these fun, easy steps!

1) Read this book together. Kiwi picked it out because she's obsessed with the idea of losing her teeth, but it fit nicely into the mail theme I already had in mind for Sunday, too. (I really wanted The Jolly Postman, but I don't own it and neither does the library. Blasphemy!)


2) Make mail bags using these directions. The girls love anything that involves painting, so our mail bags were not very official-looking!


3) Swipe a delivery box from your friends' recycling bin (thanks, Heidi!) and cut a slot in the top and an opening in the back to make a mailbox. Tear out old magazine subscription cards to drop through the slot, collect in the mailbags, and deliver all over the house forevermore.


4)Decorate the front of the mailbox Notice a burning smell in the kitchen, and jog around the house sniffing in random directions in an attempt to a) locate the origin and/or b) give your children a funny story to tell their friends and grandparents the next day.

5) Realize it's coming from beneath the fridge. Unplug it, vacuum around the vents, and plug it back in. Watch a flame appear from the bottom. Unplug it again, toss some baking soda in the general direction of the flame, and put "fire extinguisher" on the shopping list.

6) Abandon all mail-related activities in favor of searching for same-day refrigerator repair or delivery people.

7) Find out there is no such thing as the above, especially on a Sunday.

8) Ditch the children with their grandparents and go shopping for a new, non-fiery refrigerator: "Yes, as a matter of fact, you can help us. Do you have any white refrigerators that are not on fire? We'll take one."

9) Bicker over how to tie said refrigerator down. Regret not being Boy Scouts, or owning Smart Phones that would allow for consulting the internet. (Another tally mark in your Number of Reasons Why You Should Get a Freaking Smart Phone Already column, Heidi.)

10) Return home victorious. Pat fiery refrigerator on the head and thank it for at least going all flamey when we were home all day Sunday, and not when the house was empty all day Monday.

A picture-perfect Stay at Home Sunday? Not exactly, but it sure beat the alternative (Come Home to a House Fire Monday?) by a long shot, so we're counting our blessings