Miss R's Birthday...

In the past, R has requested dragon and dinosaur birthday parties, so I should not have been surprised when she requested a sea monster party this year.  We expanded beyond reptiles to include things like the kraken and megalodon though.  Her party happened before the base restrictions tightened up, so she was able to have a few friends over for her party.  We had cake and ice cream of course.

The girls all made pie crust sea serpents.  M did the one that actually looks like something beyond a primitive play dough snake, and I'm including mine with the rest as well.

They played a hot tournament of kraken eye, or ping pong, on our dining room table.

A made a megalodon to throw fishes to, and she also sewed all the fishes.  Then the girls each got to take a fish home.

M drew a scauldron dragon for a pin the tail on the dragon game.

They did some drawing. 

Bonus! I was able to re-use some table runners I made years ago for someone's mermaid party.  Then after the sea monster party I was inspired to finally work on the mermaid quilt for which I have been collecting fabric for the last 15 years...  I finished the front and back!  But I'm not going to attempt to quilt it, so it can wait until we get back stateside.

The big sisters made the marshmallow fondant monsters for the cake.  This cake was a little thick on the frosting even for me.  And that's saying something!  With the huge amount of marshmallow on top, it was sweet overkill.  But good, you know.  It was a fun party!

Here is A working on her megalodon.

The Harry Potter Party...

 Over the last couple of months with ALL our summer travels, we have listened to the first four Harry Potter books.  (I don't think I'm ready for them to do the last three...  I think they're too scary for the girls just yet.)  The girls have loved them (of course, because they're amazing), so when Miss A suggested a Potter party for her birthday, I was happy to say yes.  I'm going to write down the details, because I'm pretty sure this is only the first.
   For the cake I used whoppers as bludgers around the edge (I'm a bona fide novice when it comes to cake decorating...) and Miss A made a broomstick out of a pretzel and licorice.  I used wire and golden straws I got at target to make quidditch hoops.  And I used some of the floo powder I made from two shades of decorating sugar to make some grass.  I wrote with those gel things.

For activities the kids could make a spell book, I had printed out some spell sheets I found, of course, on pinterest (Here is a link to my HP party pinterest page.)  and a bunch of HP coloring sheets and the kids could arrange them in little photo books.

Also I had a jar of golden straws and chop sticks the kids could decorate for wands, with spellotape, I mean washi tape.

I had, of course, being a terribly good fabric hoarder, all the fabric I used for tablecloths.

 And we decorated a lot with stuffed dragons and owls we already had.  And we put out all our HP books for decoration, and to hold the cake up.

 We had a lot, too much, junk food.  Cockroach clusters (chocolate peanut clusters) Bertie Botts every flavor beans (jelly bellies- I'm not into eating anything vomit flavored), licorice wands, pretzel wands, bludgers, ton-tongue toffee (starbursts), butterbeer fudge (recipe on my pinterest page), pumpkin juice (ditto recipe), and cauldron cakes (really yummy chocolate cupcakes using my sister L's secret cheesecake filling).  And, a token veggie tray which no one touched.

All the labels and fonts are on my pinterest page.

 We had made the rounds of the thrift stores and found graduation robes for everyone to wear.

 Our wonderful across the street neighbors are also heavily into HP, and they gave Miss A a hand-whittled wand, a cauldron, and a hand crocheted snitch.

 She also got some cool craft kits, and Miss I painted her a picture of her favorite animal.

 A word here about Miss A's attire. She has admired this cape in target for weeks. And I know it's silly and fluffy and pointless, but I got it for her. Because do you know what? She's ten. She's not a skanky 18 year old. I was just so pleased that target has clothes that fit my large little girl that are little girlish. It's getting hard to find such things, so I really am grateful when I can.

 Some more decoration photos.

 I put candles everywhere for ambiance.

 Miss M remembered the merpeople in the second task, so we hauled out our mermaid collection as well.  And an old stuffed cat to be Crookshanks.

 Miss A and Miss M had fun blowing up balloons and drawing owls on them.  It's such a relief that they can blow and tie balloons, because I honestly can't.

 Miss A drew Fawkes on his perch.

 Miss M drew Dobby, and our neighbor Miss EK did a potions class advertisement.  I printed off some spew fliers.

 And this is Miss M's Winky.  See the puddles of tears?

 I did a basilisk sign to keep kids out of the upstairs, and one for Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.

The girls had the idea to make Hagrid's pumpkin patch.

 All the kids were supposed to go out and play quidditch.  I made these hoops out of pvc and our old hula hoops and everything.  But... the day of the party I could not for the life of me get them stuck down in the ground.  The kids had fun the day before throwing the quaffle (red gertie ball) through them from the swingset anyway, while they took turns holding a hoop up, but the day of the party was so incredibly hot and muggy and terrible, that they mostly stayed inside and played.

Oh, also we braided Miss M's already quite bushy hair so it would be extra bushy like Hermione's.

 Miss A made her name out of basilisks.

I had planned for the kids to mix up potions using random stuff from the fridge and put it in cute labeled bottles, but I ran out of time and ganas.  So I stuck the labels on the drink cups instead.  Which helped everyone remember which cup was their's so it worked well.

That's it!  Of course pinterest is now showing me all this other HP stuff, so I'm getting a whole bunch more ideas for the next time around...

St. Patrick's Day...

We started St. Patrick's Day with a quiz.  In order to eat the very rare and special Lucky Charms cereal that I had purchased for breakfast, Miss A and Miss M had to find Ireland on the globe and tell me what continent it is part of.  Of course, they all were bedazzled in their greenest clothes, in varying degrees of fluffiness.  After school, while listening to some Irish folk music, we colored Celtic coloring pages, watched a great video about the real history of St. Patrick, (here), and watched some youtube videos of Irish step dancing.  We also tried making a pinterest find, these treats:


which were fairly unsuccessful, but still tasty!  (Next year remember to use parchment under...)  We had an event at the elementary school, so couldn't finish our celebrations until tonight.  Our close friend AN invited us over for corned beef and cabbage.  So good!  Why haven't I been eating this my whole life?  Same with the soda bread.  Delicious.  I made a rainbow fruit salad, and an all green vegetable plate with cilantro lime ranch.

I'm trying!  A month or two ago I would have contributed some sort of really good and really terrible for you baked good.  But cookies be gone!  I am embracing fruit!  And I'm happy about it.  Really.  Oh, except AN made some amazing double dark chocolate cookies that I ate about six of.  Seven?  I wasn't counting.  It's a work in progress...

I asked the girls what they would wish for if they caught a leprechaun.  (We are trying to focus more on our family "spiritual goals", meaning we read scripture stories, sing primary songs, and pray more.  So some wishes may reflect this, since we had just done all those things and the girls were probably still feeling glowey from it...)
Miss M:  1. That our family would stay together forever.  2.  A pot of gold, to sell it for people that are poor.  3.  That the flowers and plants would never die.
Miss A:  1.  A pet cheetah, that is trained.  2.  That Grandma and Grandpa could come for a month.  3.  That I would stay with my family forever.
Miss R:  Too tired from a whole week of late nights to answer.  She was a hot mess.  Maybe another time...

Star Wars Party: The Rest...

 The cake! 

 We had chili, black bean soup, and home made mac and cheese for supper, but many of the kids, like myself, skipped all that stuff in favor of cake.  (I found the most amazing frosting recipe, that EVEN I can make...)

The background frosting was a rather alarming shade of blue, that stained every tongue.  We got Miss L's mom to demonstrate.

Miss A approved of her cake.

 Not sure Master C did...

And of course we also opened presents!  (Heretofore, I have always requested no presents, since I believe we have way too many toys!  But, I was considering before this party, and thought that I don't want to take away any birthday magic from my girls, now that Miss A at least is old enough to understand and look forward to presents...  Still don't know if that is the right choice?)

Grandma gave her a beautiful Chinese girl dress...

 Miss M enjoyed her pinata spoils...

 Miss K gave her some Barbies...

Miss A fondled her new Star Wars play dough...

 Everybody oohed and ahhed over the Masters Cs' present- a huge Millennium Falcon with lots of stuff...

 She opened cards...

 Containing cash...  Miss A hauled on the presents. She got an awesome stepping stone kit, a huge marker art set, big star wars coloring book, star wars figures, star wars activity book with light saber pen, great star wars bag, books (yay!), legos, and a solar powered helicopter kit.  We gave her some My Little Pony stuff, including (imagine heavenly angels singing...) Princess Celestia!!!  Miss A, uh, really, really, really likes that Princess Celestia.  She has been taking it with her for her walk to and from school, and today when she got a good behavior sticker at school, she asked her teacher for an extra one for Princess Celestia.

 Miss R inspected the spoils...  (Way past her expiration date.  We need to plan the next party either earlier or later, so she can be awake, or in bed.)

But Miss J and Master M loved playing with her and showering her with attention.

 I remembered to take a few pictures in front of the backdrop, but not many...

It was a fun party!