Haunted Cupcake

We have speakers outside that my husband wanted to put in place when we built the house.  For years we used them every so often but they largely sat unused.   Then, we had an issue with one of the components and we had to determine if we spent a reasonable amount of money making it easy to play music outdoors or if we left it as is and when we wanted to play music, we would have to go through a complicated set of steps to get something working.  

My husband looked into it and he wanted to be able to use the speakers and to have it be something that was fairly straightforward.  He opted for something more in the middle in that it wasn't the easiest solution, but it wasn't the most costly.   This turned out to be in our benefit today, because over time technology has changed and at this point all you need to do is say, "Alexa play such-and-such on the outdoors" and your selected music will start blaring outside.

I say blaring, because outdoor music is now the children's favorite thing with the warmer weather.  Music or an audiobook, either works and if you're my children, you want it loud.   Also, fortunately, all we have to do is say, "Alexa, turn the volume down on the outdoors."

In the afternoons when friends appear in our back yard, the children bound in and out of the house asking for different songs or artists to play on the speakers.   They've also found a new way to play music as well by adding the words, "on repeat" at the end of the request to Alexa. 

There are several songs they've played out, but the one that's currently stuck in my head and is now banished or forbidden, at least for a little while, is "Haunted Cupcake."  It's too catchy and too strange.   But they love it. 

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Too Many People Question:  The trampoline and our back yard in general has been discovered again.   The children like having people around to play with, but we're all trying to decide if it's all too much and if we're still not ready to have the yard fully open yet given the current state of vaccinations and the pandemic.    It's something we're all weighing as a family.   We don't want to close the backyard, but if it becomes too many children, we're going to have to.  My children are in agreement with this, even though they like having people to play with.