Animal Crackers in my Soup

When I was in first or second grade we gave a concert that I remember being full of Disney songs and a certain song by Shirley Temple about Animal Crackers.  The song has been running through my brain non-stop since I looked over my list earlier in the week to see that today's celebration is Animal Crackers Birthday.  Wait, let me correct that.  My Dad's version of the song has been running through my head.  I'm pretty sure the original lyrics are something along the lines of "Animal crackers in my Soup.  Animal crackers loop-de-loop" or something like that.  In my head all I can hear is my Dad signing "Animal crackers in my soup.  Animal crackers make me ***" (I'm not even going to type it, I'm sure you clever people can come up with the rhyme for soup that goes there)

So tonight when we were discussing animal crackers at the dinner table and I was telling Noah and Kayla that there was even a song about animal crackers I had to try *REALLY* hard to make sure I put in the correct lyrics.  All I need is Noah going to school tomorrow and singing about animal crackers and bodily functions.  I did manage to impart a few interesting facts to the kiddos though during our animal crackers celebration.  Animal crackers were 'born' in 1902 as what we are probably all most familiar with, the "Barnum's Animals" (subtitled Crackers) in the little red circus box, which was originally designed with a string so you could hang it on the Christmas tree.  Since their inception thirty-seven different animals have been featured, the most recent addition in 2002 of a koala, which was voted on by the public.  (And you thought they were just cute little cookies that for some strange reason everyone calls crackers!)

Eating animal crackers didn't seem to be quite enough tonight, so we turned them into some artwork as well.  Using the animal crackers (I bought a package of the familiar circus animal ones, and also stumbled across a box of animal crackers (not cookies!) that were full of barnyard animals.  Got to love the dollar store!) we made pictures of animal scenes.  You will have to check out the amazing artwork my kiddos created (I am especially fond of Noah's farm picture) using the animal crackers.

We had some really nasty storms roll through this afternoon, but did manage to get out after MOPS today and enjoy the almost 80 degree weather for an hour or so.  It was super windy but oh so nice and warm!  Still raining here now, and it looks like that'll be sticking around tomorrow too...

Speaking of tomorrow, I am using garlic in dessert.  Yep, check us out for garlic and amaretto tomorrow (Kayla's going to be helping me in the kitchen!).  Until then...

She got up from her nap and insisted on putting on her Tigers hat to watch the game

 She's quite the little fan

 I painstakingly went through the entire bag of the circus animals to make sure we had at least one of each

 Barnum's Animals (subtitle Crackers) - probably the most famous and well-known of the types of animal crackers

 Grant went through the box of the farm animals to pick out a couple of each

This is the box the farm animals came in - it cracked me up

 Getting ready to create

 Noah's farm; complete with a tractor (purple left top corner), plane (red), Farmer Noah (purple with a hat on), a corn silo, a rooster at the top of the barn, a duck in the pond on the right, a pig in the mud on the left, and a cow, horse and sheep in the barn, with some corn growing down there on the left - I LOVE IT!

 Kayla's more abstract take on the zoo...

 Noah's zoo (that's a monkey in the tree)