A Frozen Birthday

Savannah turned 6 this week!!

We try to only have big, friend-invited birthday parties every other year. So this year was a family party year.  We celebrated at home with a Frozen themed party.

The day turned out great, despite a near Pinterest fail with the Olaf cupcake cake.

It turned out ok.  The birthday girl said, "It looks great because you are my mommy!"

We had Anna & Elsa's chocolate dip.

Kristoff's Ice Blocks

Sven's Carrots

Olaf's Noses

I made Olaf cups out of Styrofoam cups and filled them with candy for party favors and made little snowmen faces with powdered donuts and Mike & Ike candy.

She enjoyed her party day!

It was an easy party (other than the Olaf cupcake cake fiasco...just buy black icing. As my sister said, "don't ask Missy if she wants to build a snowman")

Overall, a success.  The kids were able to swim and play while the adults got to socialize. 

A good time celebrating our girl!

Here are a few more pics from her actual birthday.

I new iPod & case.

Birthday donuts from daddy :)

Her present from Landon.

Enjoying Yogurt Mountain after dinner.

She's such a blessing!!

Summer Fun 2014--Kid Blogs

My kids started blogs today.  In 4th grade, Landon will be making up & typing stories for part of his grade.  They wrote some in 3rd grade & he wrote some really creative & funny stuff!

Part of my goal this summer is to get him more comfortable with typing.  They did some in 2nd grade and since it was timed tests, it was excruciating! (We discovered recently he has processing issues--basically don't time the kid on things. So timed typing tests--not fun!)

So, he started a blog. Unwillingly, of course, because anything Landon doesn't want to do, we butt heads on. But by the time he was done, he decided it was fun. He enjoyed changing the fonts & styles & adding pictures.

Hopefully, he will write a post everyday or so and it will help get him ready for typing stories in 4th grade.

Here is a link to his blog: Lando's Blog

Since Savannah loves to learn and do all things her brother does, she wanted to write a blog too.

Notice how she's trying to type for real, not just finger poke the letters! :)  Here is a link to her blog, I promise she really did write & type this all herself.  Savy's Blog

I feel we have a lot of things to do this summer to get ready for 4th grade.  My goal is to make it fun, but make some progress.

Praying these blogs will be part of that fun!!

Summer Fun 2014--Slime

Summer Fun 2014

We made Slime!!

Well it's been awhile since I've written a post.  This school year absolutely FLEW by and here we are at summer break.

My goal is to make some fun stuff and do some learning this summer.  We need to work hard to make sure we are ready for 4th & 1st grades!

For our first project, we made slime.  There are a ton of slime recipes on Pinterest. I used this Pin for our recipe. 

Basically, it's glue & liquid starch with some food coloring thrown in.  Her post also shows how to turn it into Gak and blow bubbles!!

Landon wanted to keep it slimy so we may attempt the Gak bubbles another time.

Honestly, I wasn't sure either of my kids would really want to play with slime...that's just how they are. I was right about one...and pleasantly surprised at how much Landon loved it!

I used Target brand school glue that I had found on clearance at some point.  I found the liquid starch at Kroger.

I emptied the whole bottle of glue then mixed in the starch 1/4 of a cup at a time. I think we put a little more than 3/4 cup to the 1 bottle of glue.

We added a little more starch to get it a good consistency that didn't stick to your fingers too much.

I had added the food coloring to the glue before starting to add the starch.  Then Landon decided it wanted it orange so we added red later.  I really think you could add color at any stage of mixing because the red mixed in fine to make the orange.

Fun stuff!!  We played for awhile then put it in a baggie to play with another day.

Super easy & inexpensive!  The starch cost $3.50 & we used less than a cup of it.  We had the glue & food coloring, but if you had to buy, they are cheap too. Make some & enjoy!!

Valentines!!!

Valentines!

I have not written a blog post in awhile!! Sorry, time just gets away.  Thought I would share the valentines the kids are handing out to their friends and teachers this year.

I pinned several ideas on Pinterest and let the kids decide what they wanted to do.

For Savannah, we did the same thing we did last year.

I made a design in an Excel document and printed 4 on a page. The top says "Have a KOOL Valentine's Day". The bottom says "Love" with 2 hearts and a place for her to write her name. 

The middle is blank to attach a package of Kool-aid. We taped that in the middle, glued a piece of color card stock on the back, put that in a clear bag with a twisty straw and there you go!! I got the idea from this pin. She has a free printable you can use. It was easy to make my own too.

Cost: (made 18 valentines)

$3 for 3 packs of 6 twisty straws

$3.60 for 18 packs of Kool-aid

$1 for pack of 25 clear bags

I think, if I can still do math, that comes to less than 50 cents for each one.

Simple & easy and since no one from her preschool is at her current school it was easy to use the same idea :).

For Landon, we went for a Mustache theme.  We liked this idea found here, but I knew he would not like "I Mustache ask you to be my Valentine". So I combined that idea of a cut-out mustache and sucker with this idea with a different saying and came up with this.

I printed a picture of a mustache and used it as a template to cut 18 mustaches out of black foam pieces. 

I made the card in Excel and printed on card stock. (4 on a page)

Punched a hole in the mustache and put it on the sucker. Punched a hole in the card, stuck the sucker stick through the card and taped the stick to the back of the card.

Who doesn't want to eat a sucker & have it look like you have a giant black mustache?

Cost: (made 18 valentines)

$2 for 2 bags of blow-pops

89 cents for a piece of 12x18 black foam

Something like 20 cents per card.

Fun & easy to make!

Teacher gifts. Found the idea on Pinterest, but the link goes no where. A box of brownie mix with a spatula.

The tag says "Shooting for Brownie Points".

Savannah also has 5th grade friends. Had to make them a happy too.  Bought small water bottles at Hobby Lobby for $2 each. Stuck a pack of M&Ms in each one, then cut their initial out of vinyl to personalize them.

Googled "M" adjectives to make different M&M tags like:

Thanks for being a Magnificent and Magical 5th grade friend.

(Savannah picked Magical :)

Didn't they turn out cute?!?!?!

We are excited for Friday!

Snowman Crafts--4 different ornaments

Snowman Class

Tealight ornament, Lightbulb ornament and 2 salt dough ornaments

For Day 5 & final week of our Snowman class we made 4 different ornaments.

I made 2 batches of this salt dough recipe. (This was more than enough dough to make 12 ornaments of each kind.) Rolled the dough out and used a biscuit cutter to cut circles for snowman face ornaments (also found in the link above) and full snowmen using a cookie cutter. For the noses on the circle faces, I cut triangles with a plastic knife and formed them with my hands to shape I wanted.

Baked according to directions and let dry for a little over a day.

The kids painted and used sharpies to decorate them in class!

For the tea light ornaments, I glued a small, looped piece of twine on the back prior to class so they can be hung on the tree. I also cut several hats out of foam pieces.

In class the kids decorated the hats with markers and glued them on. They drew their faces on with sharpies. We twisted a pipe cleaner around the light for a scarf.

For the light bulb ornaments, I sprayed them with glitter prior to class.  Make sure you buy white bulbs not clear ones.  The kids picked pipe cleaners for the scarf and the hanger.  We twisted the pipe cleaners in place, then the kids used sharpies to draw on the faces.  We used a small orange triangle cut from foam for the nose. We glued black sequins on for buttons.

These were all fun & easy.  Here is a picture of my 2 demo ornaments that I made. :)

This was such a fun class!!  I forgot that in week 4 I printed this poem for the kids.  There is a black & white version so I printed and they colored it in.  Find it here.

Snowman Crafts--Wooden Snowman & Bottle cap Ornament

Snowman Crafts

4x4 Snowman & Bottle cap Ornament

The 4th week, we made snowmen out of a piece of 4x4 and and ornament using bottle caps.

I bought a 10 foot long 4x4 board from Lowes and asked my brother-in-law to cut it into six 12 inch pieces and six 8 inch pieces. The younger siblings & kids made the smaller size and the older siblings/kids made the bigger size.

I painted the wooden pieces prior to class to save time.

We used adult size fuzzy gloves from the Dollar Tree for the hats.  We put a Kroger plastic bag in the glove to help puff it up a bit, then tied a piece of string around the finger holes to make it look like a hat.

I had scraps of fleece that I cut into strips for the scarves. I purchased a pack of bells at the Dollar Tree to tie on the scarves. I found a pack of wooden oval pieces at Hobby Lobby that I painted orange for the noses.

The kids picked buttons and a nose to glue on and used Sharpies to decorate the face.  Some decided their snowmen needed hair and other accessories so they went to town with the Sharpies making the Snowmen their own creations.

I found the idea of using a 4x4 from and Etsy shop and used this tutorial for the glove hat idea.

For the ornament, I had Kevin save his beer bottle lids for several weeks. I spray painted them white to cover all the labels and sprayed them with glitter spray just for fun.

I painted Popsicle sticks navy blue, sprayed them with glitter spray and glued a looped string on the back for a hanger.

The kids decorated 2 out of 3 bottle caps for their snowman ornament.  One with a face & the middle with button.  We used Sharpies to do this.

Then they glued the bottle caps onto the Popsicle sticks and the ornament was done!!

Snowman Crafts--Candy Dish & Burlap Ornament

Snowman Crafts

Snowman Candy Dish & Burlap Ornament

For the 3rd week of class, we made Candy dishes and a burlap ornament. 

There are several different pins on Pinterest for candy dishes made from small clay pots & glass bowls.  I pinned a couple and this is the best one.

Here are the ones we made.

I bought 4 inch clay pots and saucers at Lowes & Home Depot for 79 cents each.

To help class go smoothly and avoid sending home too much wet paint, I painted all the pots & saucers before class.  The pots took 3-4 coats of white spray paint. If I ever make these again, I would use a sealer on the pots first OR use a different brand of spray paint. I used the 97 cents Wal-mart stuff.

For the saucers, I painted half of them red and half black. They took 3 coats of paint. I had 3 sets of siblings in class, so I painted them different colors so the families would have slightly different ones.

I bought a bag of 12 wooden balls at Hobby Lobby for the lids. They are flat on one side and glued them on prior to class with E-6000 glue. I painted them white before gluing them on.

I cut scarves out of sheets of felt and eyes, nose, mouth and buttons out of vinyl.

The glass bowls came from the Dollar Tree.  They have 2 sizes--this was the bigger size--I think it was 4.5 inches.

Once in class, the kids put their faces & buttons on the snowmen. I helped them tie the scarf around the pot, then we glued the glass bowl on using 5-6000 glue.

We had extra time after making our ornament, so I let them paint their lids to make them their own.  They were once again very creative and most ended up not black or red at all!!

We also made a burlap ornament. I got the idea from an Etsy shop pin. I bought a half yard of burlap and had more than enough to make 15 ornaments (extras just in case).

I made a snowman shape with my Silhouette machine and cut white card stock to glue to the burlap. I felt like it needed a backing since the kids would be gluing things on the burlap.

I used spray adhesive to glue the burlap & card stock together, then trimmed the burlap around the shape.

The kids painted faces, glued on buttons, tied a string round the neck for a scarf.  We taped small twigs on the back for arms.

Needless to say, both projects turned out Super Cute!!