Emily's (Birthday) "Garden Party"

We had the idea for Emily's birthday party way back in April, and I'm very glad she didn't change her mind.... When I saw a bunch of cute little Easter hats in the dollar bins at Target, I thought it might be fun to let the girls decorate them with fake flowers, etc. Then, because we were shopping for birthday presents at the time, I realized that might be even more fun for Emily to do with her friends. So, I introduced the concept of a "Garden Party" - and told her that's like a Tea Party except with lemonade and ice cream.... The important part is you still get to "dress up"! Fortunately, she thought that sounded great --- and even more fortunately, she stayed enthusiastic about it through the ever so long months until we finally reached her Birthday!

We sent out invitations to 3 girls from church and 4 from school (2 of whom are twins, so Em got around my usual guest limit - you can have as many guests as the age you are turning). I experimented with how to attach the flowers and reluctantly settled on hot glue. (Luckily the low-temp kind held ok so I escaped without any blisters this time!) Many thanks to Julie and Cheryl for lending me glue guns!

When the guests arrived, the girls took turns playing some little card games and such in the front room and coming back to the kitchen to decorate their hats. I thought it would take me half the party to glue them, but my aunt, Jana Boschi, came to join the party and jumped right in to help! One of the little girls' grandmothers, Barb, also stayed to help, and I'm glad Natalie and Esther took an immediate liking to her!

After the hats were completed, we took the young ladies out front to play (an extremely simplified version of) Croquet. When they tired of that, we came in to open presents, and then have cake and ice cream. Then I herded them back outside to play until their parents came. I had wanted to teach them Bocce, but didn't find a set in time, so we just used the croquet balls again and bowled them at one of the posts...

All in all, I think things went quite well! (No tears, at least, which is saying a lot for 6-yr-old girls!)

Here is the little "scrapbook" we put together about the party:

This free digital scrapbook generated with Smilebox

Michael's Treaure Hunt

For Michael's 6th Birthday, he decided he wanted to do a Treasure Hunt. We decided not to really do a Pirate theme, but be Explorers, instead. So, after much pondering (and countless lists), Mike finally invited one boy he knows from church, and 3 boys and 2 girls from school. (I've imposed the same rule as my Mom did - you can have as many guests as how old you are turning... and after age 8 or 10 it will theoretically turn into just a couple friends for a sleepover or equivalent activity)

So, guest list made and invitations sent, we eventually came up with several "adventuresome" games: an obstacle course, "Sinking Rocks" (a cross between musical chairs and a cakewalk-type game), "Storm" tag (like freeze tag except you "sink"), and "Don't wake the Guard Dog" (which is like Red-Light Green-Light --- trying to sneak up on someone without getting caught moving). Unfortunately the weather was nasty so we had to build an indoor obstacle course, which I (of course) neglected to take a picture of... We also swapped the tag game for a signal flag matching game (with international nautical flags copied off the internet).

Instead of individual prizes, the kids earned pieces of our "Treasure Map", and when they put it together and figured it out, it led to a group reward: little treasure chests Mike had helped me paint, filled with glass "jewels" and very shiny pennies. There were also candy bags for each of the kids, too. (The map was a simplified diagram of our house that Matt drew for me and the big treasure box was in the oven.)

Fortunately that killed enough time to move on to presents and then cake & ice cream. Matt had been entertaining Esther (and keeping her from getting trampled) for most of the party, but he joined us in time to offer to help cut the cake --- with his chainsaw!

I think the kids had fun --- they certainly were Loud Enough! Sheesh! I guess I should have expected as much... So, here is a little collage of the whole shebang....



And this (just for fun) is the really cool e-card I wish we'd found in time to send for an invite:

Natalie's "Super Why" Birthday Party

Natalie loves the PBS kids show "Super Why" and we decided that would make a fun birthday theme. The show is about kids who live in "Storybook Village" and turn into Super Heroes to solve problems. They go into storybooks to find the solution by using "Alphabet Power", "Spelling Power", "Word Power," and, of course the "Power to Read." Throughout the story of the day they find "super letters" that spell out the solution to their question/problem.

With that general structure in mind, I made a super-computer cake with a cardstock screen that I wrote the "problem" on: "Natalie is 4 today, What Should we do? _ _ _ _ _ !"

To start off I had the kids color and draw pictures of themselves as Super Heroes while all the guests arrived. In attendance were our cousin Evie (and her mom and little sis & baby brother), a friend from our old ward, Carissa, and the little boys Natalie plays with when I go up to the school, Joseph and Ethan (and their mom). Michael and Emily weren't officially guests, but they were my super-helpers, guiding the younger kids through the games.

Our first game was an alphabet treasure hunt. I hid prizes around the room, stuck letters near the hiding places, then had the kids draw letters from a hat and match them up to find the treats.

Then we played a letter "bingo" game. I made 9-square grid cards with various common letters and bought some cute party favors for tokens. Instead of saying the name of the letter for them to cover, I showed a picture and had them decide what sound/letter the word started with... It went pretty well!

By then we had discovered our five "super letters": P-A-R-T-Y
That meant time for presents and cake!

Here's a collage of the festivities:



All in all, I think it was a success. The cake turned out ok, the games held the kids attention and we wrapped it all up in two hours. Guests went home with a small bag of candy, a set of magnetic letters, and a copy of the "bingo" game board and tokens. (Hopefully the parents won't silently curse me for the number of small pieces this ended up being!)

**Continued Update Efforts**

Note to anyone who has been (patiently?) checking our blog now and then:

Well, still slogging along and adding in posts full of pictures/projects I never got around to finishing up with....

(I am forcing posting dates that match the events, rather than having everything stack up at random)

Thanks for your patience!
- Jen

List of add-ins as of 01/08:
Mike's Bday in May
Em's Bday in July
First Day of School in Sept
Trip to the Domes back in March

01/13: Easter Activities (in April)
01/14: Tea Party at Jana's (in August)

(01/18-20: everyone is sick again! sheesh!)

01/21: May in PA --- our trip to my parent's house in Pittsburgh

Christmas Preparations

Last Sunday, Dec 5th, we put up the Christmas tree after dinner, but then it was time for bed... We didn't want to decorate it without Daddy (who was in Korea for work for the week), so we waited and hung the ornaments last night....



Our friend, Claudia, was over for dinner and got a big kick out of watching the kids... (She is widowed and lives in a group home --- but she raised 5 kids, back in the day, so I'm sure this brings back some fun memories!)

(Esther, 1yr, showing Claudia the reindeer Jen's Grandma made)