What I learned this week: Pepperoni Bird beats out Bomb Bird

My grandsons love, love, love Angry Birds.

When I visited my grandsons last April, Mac delighted in his Angry Birds crackers.

When Bubby had his birthday in June, he was thrilled to receive from Gramma and PawDad a stuffed Bomb Bird — has all-time fave Angry Bird — to play with indoors plus a Bomb Bird wind chime to listen to outdoors.

And then there's the Angry Birds tattoos I told you all about last week.

Yes, my grandsons love, love, love Angry Birds.

Bubby plays Angry Birds on Daddy's iPhone every chance he gets. Sometimes he gives Mac a turn at playing it, too. Amazingly, Mac — who just turned 2 in June — actually knows what to do.

Considering their obsession with love for the grumpy feathered friends, I knew when I saw this Angry Birds pizza on the Gombby Facebook page a while back that I just had to surprise Bubby and Mac with it during my recent visit.

Now, I don't really know a darn thing about Angry Birds, other than the black one is named Bomb Bird. I have never played the game, have seen just snippets while Bubby and Mac played. Still, I think I managed to pull off the Angry Birds look fairly well — despite using a hard-boiled egg for the eyeballs instead of the mushrooms that were supposed to be there. (Meh... mushrooms or eggs, the boys would eat neither anyway, so why waste the money on mushrooms that would be pitched before the pizza was cut?)

I told the boys the pizza was named "Pepperoni Bird." They seemed pretty pleased with the moniker as well as the overall look of their surprise pizza.

Sure, it wasn't quite as cool as a Bomb Bird pizza might have been. But I have no doubt that despite looking Angry Bird awesome, a pizza covered with black olives would have gone directly into the garbage quicker than those boiled-egg eyes did.

Bomb Bird may be a hit in the game — and as a stuffed toy and a wind chime, too — but when it comes to pizza, Pepperoni Bird always wins out.

And that is what I learned this week.

Have a lovely weekend! See ya back here Monday for the GRAND Social and more!

Today's question:

How would you rate your Angry Birds skills?

How to make a marshmallow shooter

Marshmallows and kids go together. Marshmallows and kids and homemade shooters for flinging the marshmallows soaring off into the stratosphere go together even better.

Here's how to make your very own marshmallow shooter to share — or not share — with the kids:

What you need:

• Disposable party cup, one per shooter, with the bottom third carefully cut off by an adult

• Balloons, one per shooter plus a few spares, just in case

• Mini marshmallows (Regular size might work, too, but I can't vouch for that)

What you do:

Carefully cut off about 1/8-inch from the rounded end of a balloon. Stretch that cut end of the balloon over the rim off the party cup (not the cut-off end), covering the entire opening of the cup and stretching to allow about 1/2-inch of the balloon to extend up the side of the cup, all the way around.

Roll up the cut edge of the balloon ever so slightly all the way around the cup, to ensure the lip of the cup will grab any edges that threaten to slip off, keeping the balloon secure in place. Then tie the opening of the balloon just as you typically would with an inflated balloon.

Your cup/shooter should look like this:

From there, the fun begins:

First, load the shooter with one marshmallow.

Ensure the marshmallow is centered over the tie...

Then pull back the tied end slightly for the marshmallow to fall into the indention.

Aim your shooter in the direction you want the marshmallow to fly.

Then pull back even farther on the balloon, making sure your hands are closer to the rim than to the cut edge of the cup (because it's sturdier on the rim end and won't crush the cup). Also be sure to r e a l l y concentrate...

Then let go and watch her fly!

Or not fly... at least not at first.

With a little practice, aiming and shooting the marshmallow long distances comes easily. Bubby and I were eventually skilled enough at it to compete with one another to see who could shoot the marshmallow all the way across the yard and over the fence (into the wash, not the neighbor's yard).

We tried shooting Cheerios and tiny craft pom-poms, too. We did the pom-poms indoors so as to not litter. The pom-poms didn't work so well. The Cheerios, though, were a smashing success — especially when we tried them indoors and they burst into pieces upon hitting the vaulted ceiling. (Don't tell Megan.)

Roxy, the family dog, had a great time gobbling up all the marshmallows and Cheerios, both inside and out. And call me a bad grandma if you must, but Mac nabbed a fair share of the misfires, as well, picking them up and popping them into his mouth as quickly as we could fire them off. Hey, it kept him busy while his big brother — and his grandma — got the hang of shooting the marshmallows and more over the fence and out of the park.

Today's question:

When did you last blow up a balloon? Or eat a marshmallow?

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