One of the Rec Center's in my area opened a new spray park this Summer and it's free! I'm trying to bring the kids as often as I can. We usually go every Monday with our play group. These pics are from last week. I'm actually debating about whether I should even bring them next week since this week none of the kids even played in the water. They all just hung out with the Mom's and were climbing all over us while we trying to have conversations with each other.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
The Animal Fire Truck
Back in June we took the kids to a birthday party and the parents had arranged for the fire department to bring a truck. It was way cool and the boys got to sit in it. The really rad part was that this particular truck is called "The Animal."
Playing Veterinarian
A couple of months ago I took Icesis to the vet for a follow-up appointment. My vet's office has a little cart with a toy doctor kit and a stuffed dog for kids to "treat" while they wait for their real pets to be looked at. The boys insisted on bringing the cart into exam room and spent the entire time taking Icesis temperature and giving her shots. This was the only picture that came out.
Shape Cookies
Right after Trent's party, I had to use up a lot of buttercream frosting. I decided to make sugar cookies to accomplish that. I've been wanting to try out the Almost Unschoolers sugar cookie recipe for a little while now and thought that this was the perfect opportunity to do so! The dough was very easy to make and great for little hands to manipulate.
Since we haven't been doing much with shapes lately, I thought that would make a good cookie project. We got out all of our shapes cookie cutters and the boys had a blast rolling out the dough and using them on it. After the cookies came out of the oven, it was just as fun to frost the cookies themselves.
Party Food and Games
This is the last installment in the Trent's fourth birthday posts. Enjoy the birthday cake ritual pictures.
The food spread for Trent's party was exactly the same as what I did for Hunter's party. A veggie tray, a fruit tray, a fruit punch and some pretzels. Don't forget the pizza! Last time we bought pizza, but this time I decided to make it to cut down on the budget for the party. Unfortunately, I completely spaced out and forgot I was having someone to the party that is allergic to milk and all the dips I made had milk of some sort in them. I also had someone allergic to food dye. Just look at the pictures of the cake. LOOK AT THEM! Lesson learned. Next kids party I throw I will make sure that there are options for gluten, food dye, dairy, etc. allergic kids. I like to try and make sure that everyone can enjoy the food and no one feels left out. Luckily, the Mom of the child who has the milk allergy was kind enough to realize that people who have food allergy-free kids tend to forget about the fact that others do have allergy's. Thank you so much Princess!! You totally saved the day for me. With the exception of making sure that there are options for folks with allergy's, the food at future party's will be pretty much identical to what is listed above.
I also tried to make sure there were some fun animal rescuing party games. Unfortunately, while I was assembling the pizzas Garrick was handing me rum and coke's. I finished the first one rather quickly because I was thirsty and then I asked him for another one. By the time I got around to getting the kids together for the party games, I was thoroughly sloshed. I apologize to everyone that was there. I felt pretty badly about that. :/
The first game we did was pin the boot on Boots. One of the poster's that I got on freecycle was the Boot's game, all I had to do was cut out some boots from red construction paper. See the party decoration post to see the poster. The next game we did was very easy to assemble. I got a bunch of little plastic toy animals, put them in a cement mixing tub and covered them in sand. The kids job was to rescue the animals from the sand. They got to keep the animals that they rescued. The last game was to feed Tuga the turtle. I did have to make this poster. I had Garrick draw Tuga and my Mother-in-law was thankfully on hand to paint it for me. I don't know what I would have done if I had to do the job. I know I would have gotten angry and frustrated and spent way too much time working on the poster and not on other stuff. Thanks again Mary. After Mary finished painting and it was dry, I attached it to some cardboard, cut a hole in it and taped it to a laundry basket. The kids threw some balls into the hole to feed Tuga.
So that's it. I have to say it was a very successful party. I think I'm getting pretty good at putting together a kids party on a budget. I had almost everything written out this time like I did for Hunter's party, but I didn't have to rely too much on the written plan like I did last time. I think next year we might do a pool party for Trent's fifth. He's already talking about it!
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