Helena's soda shop birthday party

Helena recently turned seven years old!

We celebrated with an old-fashioned soda shop birthday party and it was so fun!

There's a local soda shop here called Fiiz that Helena loves to go to, so we decided to take some friends out for drinks and then watch a movie at our house. I even talked to one of the owners at Fiiz and she custom designed a special drink for Helena, called the Fairy Godmother.

To go along with the old fashioned soda shop theme, Helena wore a poodle skirt and we included some records in the decorations.

A few weeks before the party, we went to Fiiz and took this adorable picture...

... for the "album cover" for the record invitations. The information was on the back side of the record (cut out of sparkly black cardstock with a hole punched and white "glare" marks on the edges). We slid them into cardstock cd sleeves that I got at Walmart and finished by gluing the picture of Helena on the front. They turned out so cute!

The cupcakes were chocolate cherry Coke float cupcakes, complete with maraschino cherries and paper straws--yum! We got a couple of cheap records from DI to set them on.

I turned our black paper plates into faux records as well, with hand drawn holes and glare marks. A bunch of old soda bottles lined the pink polka dot runner.

The birthday girl eagerly awaiting the arrival of her friends! I even hung an old record on the front door to round out the theme!

And here she is with her pink cotton candy Italian Soda (ew), the Fairy Godmother. The girls had so much fun at Fiiz, and bonus,we filled up a whole punch card buying all their drinks!

Big thanks to Fiiz for their help with this super fun party for my special girl!

Calling all Junior Detectives!!

I haven't done a big birthday party since Tempe's "Silly Moose" party in 2012, but we decided to jump back into the birthday party game this year!

The guest of honor... soon-to-be-six Helena!

Helena decided on a detective party inspired by this adorable trench coat we got at Target (for $6!) Isn't she the cutest detective you have ever seen?

I made "case log" invitations and put them in envelopes that had "classified: for _______________'s eyes only" stamped on them.

Didn't have to purchase a single thing for this display table! I guess I buy too much "vintage" stuff at DI. I have had that old Clue game for years and this is the first time I've used it, but I love how it looked on the table!

Party favors were just little detective kits from the Dollar Tree, wrapped in more brown butcher paper and stamped with "thanks for coming".

I stamped the food labels directly onto the butcher paper. This is "on the trail" mix.

.... "gumshoe" balls

... and "chocolate disguises". I have really gotten a lot of use out of my stupid mustache mold. 

As soon as all the party guests had arrived, I handed out their disguises and we took a picture before they devoured the mustaches. If you look closely, you'll see the masked bandit peeking through the door!

After the girls ate their mustaches, we started detective training. I fingerprinted everyone and then they examined their different fingerprints with a magnifying glass.

After the fingerprinting, the girls had to climb through a yarn "laser" obstacle course on the back deck.

We went back inside and split into two groups. One group observed a page from an I Spy book for 30 seconds and then had to list as many things as they could remember without looking.

The other group examined four different kinds of smashed candy and tried to figure out what they all were, and then the groups switched places.

After detective training, the girls were ready to open presents but... the masked bandit had already gotten there! Jason hid the presents in the backseat of his car while we were doing the obstacle course outside, and when we went to the living room, all that was left was the first clue of a scavenger hunt. All the girls were so excited to follow the clues from place to place, especially since Jason kept putting his mask back on and running across the background. Every time they saw him they all started screaming "The masked bandit! There he is!"
We eventually found all the presents and Helena opened them. Her friends know her well--she got a lot of art supplies, which is her favorite!!

 Finally, we ate zebra cakes, trail mix, and rainbow sherbet and then the girls all played happily together until it was time to go home. It was such a fun party, but so exhausting. I'm really glad that I made Helena choose just one group of friends to invite (the girls from her kindergarten class) instead of everyone she knows (like she wanted to), because I don't think this 8 month pregnant mama could have handled any more!

Bookworms: Beezus and Ramona

We had our first Bookworms (mom and me book club) activity of the summer on Friday!
Officially, we were just supposed to discuss the first chapter of "Beezus and Ramona", but I included activities from several of the Ramona books.
Since our book club is all ages (ranging from 18 months to 11 years), we go about it a little differently. Instead of sitting in a circle and having a discussion, I come up with a few different discussion questions and activities to go along with them and the kids can think/talk about the questions as they play.

My "brick factory" was a giant ice cube I made with a large tupperware container. I put it in the wading pool with some rocks and the kids smashed it to bits.

I set out our BYU vs Utah checkers set in a corner on the deck to go with this discussion question.

I unrolled a long sheet of butcher paper and provided crayons for the kids to draw the longest picture in the world. This was just when they were getting started, but it turned out so cute!

I put together a little sensory bin with sand, shovels, and a little steam shovel. This was mostly for the little kids like Juno.

I made these tin can stilts a few months ago during a crazy big afternoon thunderstorm that was terrifying my kids. It's amazing how such a simple, free toy can capture a child's imagination!
Well, there you have it--my Ramona party. It was so much fun to plan and so much for the 20 or so kids that came.
And now a word on Ramona. I love the Ramona series. Something I really admire about it is the way Ramona's parents are so down to earth. They love and support Ramona, but they don't make excuses for her, they don't solve her problems, and they let her learn from her mistakes. As a parent, it is so easy to want to protect your kids from everything, even (maybe especially) from themselves. Maybe our society has changed, maybe it's because now everything is instantaneous and broadcast all over the web, but it's one thing I really love about Ramona: it reminds me to accept that my children will make mistakes and to let them make mistakes.
What books are you reading this summer?

Hey, summer

It's been three days of summer break!

Wahoo!

So far I am loving having all three of my kids home with me all day. With Tempe going off to full day school next year, I am really trying to take advantage of the time we have together.

We kicked off the summer with our annual sidewalk chalk party. I started doing this in 2011 and it's turned into a neighborhood tradition that kids look forward to all spring (not bragging, just stating facts as told to me by mothers of said kids... unless you're all lying to make me feel better about myself)

I ask everyone to bring their own chalk and I provide 100 Otterpops (they ALL got eaten this year) and that's all there is to this party! Can't get any easier than that and it's such a fun way to celebrate the beginning of summer! This idea was even featured on Tip Junkie a few years ago. Proudest moment of my blogging life.

I saw this idea floating around Pinterest and I just had to do it. My kids (especially Helena) always want to know what's next. I made a ton of these magnetic strips and every night before bed, I map out the next day's schedule on the garage door. Obviously, every day is different, depending on the day, and the first thing the girls do in the morning is check to see what we'll be doing that day. As soon as we finish a task, they take turns taking the strip down. It's so easy for them to see what we're doing now, what comes next, and what we'll be doing later. If Helena says she is hungry (which used to happen every 15 minutes all day, no joke), now I just point to the door and she can see when snacktime  will be. This has really cut down on the whining, the "I'm boooooored", and the "I'm hungry!" that I used to hear.
And you might notice the first thing on our schedule is yoga... we start every day off with 15 minutes of yoga. I found a children's yoga video on Netflix that I really like. It is filled with positive affirmations ("Listen to your breathing and find peace within yourself. We all have peace inside ourselves, even when the outside world seems difficult" and "Try to avoid judging your practice. Do the best you can, and then move one") and breathing/relaxation exercises. I think it's a great way for us to get ready for the day--I know I feel more relaxed and patient when we start out with 15 minutes of yoga!
How is your summer going? What are you doing with your kids?

Silly Moose

It's no secret to most people who know Tempe that her favorite animal is moose.
She has a stuffed moose that her Grandpa Canyon gave her when she was a baby that she loves so much and her collection has grown to include quite a few stuffed moose and books about moose, too!
So when we started planning her sixth birthday party, she immediately said she wanted a moose party.
I admit, I tried to sway her because I had no idea what we would do at a moose party.
We were looking at party ideas online when we saw a "silly" party on Family Fun. Tempe loved that idea, too, so we decided to combine them and we came up with a Silly Moose party!

I asked all the kids to dress in silly costume, but provided a big basket full of silly props from our dress up collection for any kids that didn't wear their own. 

Party activities and games included a silly string fight, freeze tag, our bubble machine, and making silly putty/gak. I also brought out all of Tempe's moose books for kids to look at on our swing bench if they needed a break.

One of Tempe's many favorite stuffed moose wearing googly eyes.

We gave out mustache glasses and googly eyes as party favors. Tempe wrote the "Thanks" on our "Thanks for coming!" sign all by herself!

I know mustaches are all over the place, but I had to use my mustache mold to make blue mustaches for the kids to eat.

This was the best part of the party: the silly cupcakes! I made spaghetti and meatball, mashed potatoes with butter and gravy, peas and carrots, and corn on the cob (with butter!) cupcakes. I love how they turned out, especially the spaghetti and meatballs one! 

All the party guests with their blue mustaches. It was a great party and Tempe had so much fun!

Bookworms: "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" party!

The summer is coming to a close. We've been reading "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and today we had our last Bookworms meeting to discuss it!

"I've got a golden ticket..." That song has been stuck in my head for weeks, ever since I made these little invitations to hand out to the neighborhood moms.

Since we had such a big age range (from toddlers Juno's age to almost 11-year-olds), I decided to do something a little different. Instead of sitting in a circle and discussing the book like a traditional book club, I set up a couple different stations where the kids could do activities inspired by the book. I included a few discussion questions at each station to guide the conversations.

The Inventing Room

Our "Inventing Room" was a play-dough station. I was inspired by this awesome blog post about Willy Wonka play dough. I made a few different kinds of play dough and provided beads, buttons, jingle bells, pompoms, and star confetti to help the kids create their own kind of candy. I also set out little plastic bags and tags so the kids could write a description of their candy and take it home with them :)

 
Hard at work!

This is our cute neighbor, Dylan. He made bacon flavored candy--he rolled a pink ball and then added beads for eyes and a button for a snout! So creative!

Juno loved this station. She stayed here pretty much the whole party--at least until she realized there was unattended candy on the deck!

The Juicing Room

I put discussion questions in blue balloons and invited the kids to pop them and answer the questions. Most of the questions were simple things like "Who was your favorite character?" or "Which child do you think you are most like?"

The Fizzy Lifting Room

I didn't get a picture of this station, but I set up our bubble machine, inspired by the fizzy lifting drinks that Charlie and Grandpa Joe drank. This station had questions about rule-breaking. Have you ever broken a rule and later wish you hadn't?

The kids had fun rotating through the stations and then digging in to the candy and running around the yard. Here's Tempe and Helena with their twins, Blake and Luke, who are the cutest identical twins ever. Tempe can already tell them apart!
Bookworms was a great experience this year--I can't wait to do it again next summer!