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)

Esther's First Birthday!

Hard for us to believe, but our little Esther is one year old! We tend to keep baby/toddler Birthdays fairly low-key, just getting together with family, but I do like to try for fun cakes. Feeling somewhat uninspired, I turned to her older siblings for cake/theme ideas...

I asked the kids, "What does Esther like?"

Emily giggled and said, "Peas!"

We all laughed, because it is very true --- One of Esther's favorite foods is frozen peas (and she eats them while they are still frozen). We joked around a bit about decorating the top of a cake with frozen peas and decided it would be icky when they melted. (Eeeeew!) I had been expecting the girls to say "princeses" or "fairies" (because that's what they like), so I combined some ideas and decided to make a "Princess and the Pea" cake!

I wanted to use fondant (smooth playdough-like frosting) to make blankets, but I'd only used the store-bought kind and it tastes nasty. Fortunately I found a recipe on the web for making fondant at home from melted marshmallows (and lots of powdered sugar). The project was still kind of tricky, since this is only the 3rd time I've worked with fondant, but I think it turned out ok:
On the weekend, we got together with family over at the Boschis, since Esther shares her Birthday with Uncle Dennis (as well as my sister Lisa and Matt's dad!). Katie made a really yummy chocolate cake for Dennis.

We had all had a good time. I think Esther quite enjoyed destroying (her part of) the cake and ripping into presents!

Happy Birthday, Sweetheart!

Ready for A Grand New Adventure: School!

Well, it's official: Mike and Emily are now "kindergartners", and quite delighted to be heading off to school each day. We met their teachers at the school open house last week, and I think they will both get along just fine. They are also excited to be riding the bus, and hoped right on the first day with no worries. Fortunately, the bus stops right across the street from our house, so by winter I can just watch from the door :-)

Anyway, here's a little collage of the first couple of days. (Hit "play" of course, then when the project is loaded up, you click the different pics at the bottom to see them "full size" in the frame.)