Life with Two Superheroes

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Lollipop

Papa had this great idea to give each of the kids these giant (or ginormous, as Rudy says these days) lollipops. They did last the entire cruise, but so did the sticky fingers and sugary faces! :)

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Camping In

The boys had a sleepover in this slightly claustrophobic tent. It didn't bother them, but I'm not sure I could have slept here!

Brady decided last summer that he wanted kids to be able to decorate their own cakes at his next party. We built on that and did an entire "art explosion" birthday party, starting with our palette invitations:

Since kids always arrive at slightly different times, we had a few activities that they could get started on while we waited for everyone.

First, each child got to mix their own drink. Brady actually had this idea, but I wasn't sure what I would have the kids actually put the drinks in. (I knew I wanted plastic!!) I found these plastic VOSS water bottles and the labels just peeled right off; then we modge-podged their names on.

The kids loved this project. Of course, all of the drinks turned out brown but that didn't seem to bother anyone younger than 30!

Next, the kids got to create their own trail mix. I had cashews, sunflower seeds, peanuts, fruity cheerios, several varieties of M&Ms, chocolate chips, and butterscotch chips. It was interesting how some kids carefully layered their mix into a masterpiece, and some spooned and shook the whole way through!

The trail mix jars. Paint splatter name tags with some more modge podge [love that stuff!]:

Everyone was here by now, so it was on to the next activity: Picasso imitation. We had a poster print of Starry Night divided into 15 equal squares. Each child was assigned a square on the painting and tasked with duplicating that square on his/her own piece of paper. I love the concentration on their faces!

Even Miss Cindy was hard at work:

The original:

The birthday party interpretation...pretty interesting!

As they finished, we moved the kids along to marble painting. I raided the marble run box for marbles and had bought frames at the dollar store. Each kid got a cup and a few marbles. They dropped the marbles in the cup with some paint and then rolled them around in the picture frame. For the most part, they did a good job of keeping them in the frame but the hardwood floor did have some marble painting of its own!

Next, it was out for tie dyeing. I had drawstring backpacks from Oriental Trading for the kids to rubber-band-up. James and I were in charge of the dye (who knows what 13 kids with dye-filled-squirt bottles would lead to!).

A few of the finished products:

At last, it was time for the much-anticipated decorate-your-own cake. I made individual cakes for the kids in small round pyrex pans. I even grabbed a bunch of clearance cookie containers from WalMart, so the kids could take home their extra cake masterpiece!

We sang happy birthday to Brady before everyone started decorating, so the kids could eat whenever they were ready:

Look at the miniature artists, hard at work:

A few of the finished cakes:

Since Brady got so many wonderful toys for Christmas, he asked that kids not bring gifts for him. Instead, he wanted them to bring art supplies to donate to the local children's hospital. So, we didn't have any presents to open at this party. (But we do have a huge stash of fun supplies to deliver this week!)

We ended the party with a quick play-doh sculpture game, so each kid left with his new water bottle, snack mix jar, marble painting, and play-doh. I'm washing the backpacks and will deliver them this week with thank you notes that Brady and I are making (to include a picture of the Picasso interpretation!):

We kept those kids BUSY at the party, but I know they had a great time!

Saturday, January 1, 2011

New Year's Eve

We were invited up to Candy's house for new year's festivities. We didn't think we'd stay long, but the kids were great and everyone was having fun. We didn't get home until nearly 2:00 am!