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<\/a>Part One: Decorations.<\/strong> Earlier in the week, I had picked supplies for an art project. When they girls arrived that Thursday, the day before the opening ceremonies, they were greeted by the Olympic rings hanging above the mantle. I took some wire (12-gauge, I think) and shaped it into five interconnecting circles. Then I took crepe paper streamers in the appropriate colors (blue, yellow, black, green, and red) and wrapped them around the circles very, very carefully. I wanted the circles as similar as possible, so I wrapped each streamer around its circle the same number of times, then moved the loops around so nothing sagged too much. The girls were surprised and impressed, and the rings made for a festive decoration throughout the games.<\/p>\nPro tip: Don’t use the break-and-bake sugar cookies, like I did Thursday night. Those aren’t big enough or rectangular enough for world flags. We were forced to eat those, undecorated.<\/p>\n Unlike four years ago, when Lily made up her own flags, this time around each of us used actual world flags for inspiration. Here are our first six, two from each of us. Hannah made Brazil (top center) and USA, Lily did Switzerland (top right) and Norway (bottom center), and I decorated Greece (top left) and Iceland (bottom right).<\/p>\n Back in 2012, each of us had identical Bingo cards because I didn’t want to risk an outburst if Lily ended up losing. She’s a bit better at handling a loss these days, so this year we each had different Bingo cards. Poor Lily still came in third, by a lot, but she handled herself well. I made sure to keep paying lots of attention to her when she was the only one of us still looking for a Bingo. That seemed to help. She was pretty pumped when she finally got her Bingo!<\/p>\n How did we check off the boxes on our Bingo cards? Thanks to a suggestion from a friend, we used Life Savers this year. They looked like the Olympic rings!<\/p>\n<\/a>Part Two: Snacks. <\/strong>Friday afternoon, I started making batches of sugar cookies. By the time the ceremonies started, the girls and I were stationed at the coffee table in front of the TV, decorating rectangular (-ish) sugar cookies to look like flags of the world. Last time around<\/a>, I had picked up a flags-of-the-world placemat for reference, but I couldn’t find that this year. Fortunately, we’re a two-iPad house at this point, so looking up flags online was a breeze.<\/p>\n<\/a>When we hit Publix for icing earlier in the afternoon, we couldn’t find any yellow icing, which limited our flag options. No Venezuela or Jamaica, sadly. Until, that is, I found some yellow food coloring in the back of the pantry! We sacrificed some white icing to the cause and were soon in business. Here’s Venezuela on the left, by Lily, and Marshall Islands on the right, by me.<\/p>\n<\/a>That Marshall Islands flag is something else. I’m reminded of Roman Mars’ TED talk on flag design<\/a>, which you should definitely watch (again, if you’ve already seen it, since it just gets better and better). If a flag looks good on a sugar cookie, it’s probably going to look good waving on a flag pole a hundred feet away!<\/p>\n<\/a>Part Three: Competition. <\/strong>It wouldn’t be the Olympics with a game, right? For the third Olympics in a row, we played Opening Ceremony Bingo. I created three Bingo cards, one for each us, each featuring a selection of the 2016 Olympic pictograms. (For more design fun, check out this history of the Olympic pictograms<\/a> from the Smithsonian.) Bingo is what gets us through the very long Parade of Nations during the opening ceremonies. Every time a country’s delegation enters the stadium, NBC identifies the country’s flag bearer by name and sport. That Olympian’s sport is what you get to check off on your Bingo card. Get five in a row, and you yell “Bingo!”<\/p>\n