Red or Blue?

Well, today was the big day. I went in for the ultrasound. It was on the calendar on the fridge, and the kids were aware that we'd be finding out if it was a boy or a girl this week, but that was a whole week ago, and now their minds must be pressed with other matters cause it's 9:20 pm and no one has asked me about if the baby is a boy or a girl. Other possibilities are that the kids don't pay attention to the calendar or they forgot what ultrasound means.

So, after the kids got home from school, I went to the store alone to seek inspiration. Early on I was thinking of doing something with a dozen donuts, cause that is one of the first things that come to mind when you mention "a dozen". And this little person is going to make it a dozen kids for us. So, I walked around the store... Hmm, pink and blue cookies? They didn't have any blue. I could buy different blue treats - blue berry muffins, blue gatorade... I walked down the drink isle. No, I don't want soda in the house. Treat isle. Hm, I could have the kids search for treats, and have a pink/red treat for the girls, blue for the boys, and they'll figure it out after they gather all the treats? But that would be too quick - I want to draw it out a little more, increase the wonder and drama of the moment. How can I milk the anticipation? Sixlet candies to the rescue. I looked them over - each one has 20 pieces, that should give me enough to work with - I grabbed 15 long Sixlet candies. Time to check out. Red and blue stars on the store floor, how appropriate.

I had bought a few extra treats, more than I needed. When I got home, I decided which ones to use for each person in our family, and then the Sixlets for the baby. I spent 30 minutes looking through the clear Sixlet wrappers and counting all the red and blue circles, adding them up, then recounting them, to make sure that the proper color came out in the lead. I used 14 of the 15 that I bought, it's gonna be close down to the last chocolate candy! The final Sixlet color score is 60 - 59. (I sure hope I counted it right!) Then I hid all the treats in the front room. Kids have been practicing music, and it keeps pushing back our family scripture reading/prayer time, but Corey said 9:30 was okay, so at 9:29 I started to gather up the kiddos for this little activity... After we finished Alma 56 and said a prayer, I told the kids that I'd hidden 14 treats in the front room, one for each member of our family, including the baby. Mark, set, go find them. They found most of them pretty quickly - we had to go through the family list of names a few times to see if anyone was missing.... JoeMelEthanHyrumWesleyAbiLilySophiNatalieOwen...Daniel

Still missing a blue for Daniel and one more for the baby... Luckily I remembered the places I'd hidden them, I got a blue treat from the closet. And now things were going according to plan. I knew the last one was under the couch and told them where it was. They reached under and found a lot of Sixlets.

Ethan said they messed up the red/blue system they had going. Yes, that's cause you gotta count up the red and blue sixlet candies to figure out if that one is red or blue. I suggested they get a bowl and collect the red and blue - Hyrum counted the wrappers to make sure they'd gotten all 14 of the Sixlets treats under the couch.

And they began to divide and count.

They moved the counting into the kitchen. First official count was tied 59-59. One of you miscounted or lost a sixlet, try again!

I have a 12 min unedited video of the hunt that I had trouble uploading, that's okay, prob boring anyway, so no part 1, but that there is part 2. Pretty fun!