Lego Party!

As usual, I found most of the ideas for this party on Pinterest.

The Lego face cups were made using a template I found online and a sharpie. The cake pops were fairly simple. Melting chocolate and black gel icing.The cake pop and sucker holders were made with Styrofoam blocks and card stock. I used some of the Lego confetti I made for the studs.

The large Lego bricks were made out of Styrofoam blocks. We spray painted them and used dollar store play-doh containers for the "studs". The suckers are covered with card stock and minifig heads I printed onto yellow card stock.

The Giant minifigure head was made out of a large cheese ball container. I spray painted it yellow and sharpied on the face with a template.

I made the confetti with various sizes of hole punches and cardstock. The minifig heads on the straws were printed from a template I found online. The background, banner, and a few other decorations I found at Oriental Trading Co.

My hubby made this ramp for the kids to race their Lego cars on. I found the car kits in the Easter department at Target, half price!

Outer Space Party

The little rocket favors came from an idea I found on Pinterest. I don't have the link :(. It was a printout that I wrapped around rolls of lifesavers. The tip is a Hershey's kiss. The hardest part was gluing the little black flaps on the bottom. My friend and I made the cookies and the cake was from Kroger. The space man and tablecloth I bought from Oriental Trading as well as the plates and napkins.

 

Minecraft Party

My son's 7th birthday party was Minecraft themed.

 I had this made at Kroger. I should have done it myself, but I just ran out of time. I wish they had made it greener.

 Green poster board and black construction paper.

The buckets were from the Target $1 section, I believe. I used a sharpie to make the creeper face. I printed the TNT from a website (I'll try and find a link). I made the "diamond" bags and printed the image from Google. All together the favor buckets consisted of:

TNT box with candy inside
Hershey kiss "diamond" bags
TNT poppers
Green Playdoh
Personalized creeper bookmark


The games we played were:

Ghast shoot out - I put 3 weighted helium balloons on the floor and the kids used little nerf guns to try and shoot them. Below is a terrible picture, but it shows how I sharpie-d the balloons to look like ghasts.

Pin the tail on the piggie - I made a pixelated pig out of contruction paper and cut little strips for his tail. The picture below isn't terribly helpful, but hopefully it gives you the general idea. :D

Creeper toss - I made a creeper head out of a cardboard box and green duct tape. I made 3 little green bean bags. The kids tossed them at the creeper head. There were cut outs for they eyes and mouth.

The cupcakes were chocolate with white icing and bit-sized Twizzlers; to look like "cake" from the game.

I wasn't able to take a ton of pictures unfortunately. It was a busy party. :)

 

Wreath Ahoy!

Materials:

Styrofoam wreath
Navy blue yarn
White yarn
Large chipboard anchor
Red acrylic paint
Brown cording

Skylanders Party

Two years ago my son had a Skylanders themed birthday party. I am just now getting around to posting pictures on my blog. :) I can't believe it's been two years!

This is the food/favor table. There are white chocolate covered pretzel rods (Tree-Rex laser arms), smashed sheep cookies, TNT candy (Boomer), Fireball candy (Hot Head), Pop Rocks (Crusher), and treasure chest favor boxes.

I made the cake with buttercream frosting tinted to match the Skylanders Giants colors. The bottom is covered in grey sugar crystals.

I used a flower cookie cutter to make the shape of the smashed sheep. I then decorated them with royal icing.

Close-up of the food.

Another close-up.

Treasure chest pinata. I think I found it at Hobby Lobby.

Sheep toss game. I drew the chompy and cut out his mouth. I made the bean bags with the heads of the sheep.

This is a game based on the character Wrecking Ball. The kids all got sticky hands and they had to see who could pick up the most pony beads.


Maybe in another two years I'll get around to posting his Minecraft 7th birthday party! :)

 

Second Grade

Last week was our first official week of school. My little guy is a 2nd grader. I think Homeschooling makes the time feel more appropriate and less like a whirlwind. I don't say "Where does the time go?", because I know where it went. I have the lesson planners to prove it. :)

I am so grateful for all the resources I have found and won for homeschooling. I won $150 to All About Learning, which I used to buy the All About Spelling curriculum 2-4. I won several virtual books and resources including memberships to ShillerMath and AMT. I recently won a Bible Bookcase and I can't wait to receive it. I also won curriculum from Knowledge Quest, two great books from YWAM Publishing, and a prize package from Philosophy Adventure. There were other things, but I can't remember them all. That sounds terrible, but it's not because I'm swimming in prizes. I am just so shocked when I win and then I forget to keep track of everything. I'll update if I remember anything else. I'm also going to try and do reviews for everything as well.

This is our first year of doing our own thing, so to speak. For K-1 we used K12 online school. It was nice to have everything provided, for free, but it wasn't a good fit for us. We felt so rushed and I never felt like DS was able to grasp everything before we had to move on. In contrast, our first week this year  has been such a relief. We move at DS's pace and focus on things he's genuinely interested in. He doesn't beg to not do school. He enjoys it.

Outside of the resources I've won I have amassed a large amount of worksheets and such from online sources. I follow lots of homeschooling blogs and I live on Pinterest. You would be amazed at how many resources you can find online, free! Some of my favorite sites and blogs are:

Teachers Pay Teachers

Teacher's Notebook

Hip Homeschool Moms

Blessed Beyond a Doubt

Free Homeschool Deals

Homeschool Giveaways and Freebies


These are just a couple of the many resources I take advantage of. I have also found good deals from Amazon, local stores, an area Teacher store, and even thrift stores.

Overall I am so excited about this school year. I am praying that God will equip me with the knowledge to teach and instill in my son a desire and capability to learn.

YWAM Publishing Review

As a part of the first giveaway I won, I received two books from YWAM Publishing. They are from the Christian Heroes: Then and Now series. They are biographies of George Muller and Gladys Aylward.

They are suggested for ages 10 and up. My DS is a little too young for them, so I decided to read them myself.

They were both fantastic. I didn't know anything about Gladys Aylward and a little about George Muller. After reading these two books I feel like I have a good knowledge of them both. The books are well written and kept my attention throughout. I honestly could have read another book full on each of them.

I am definitely going to buy more books from YWAM Publishing. I can't wait until my DS can enjoy them with me!