David’s Harry Potter Birthday

We had David’s Birthday party last week. He has been reading the Harry Potter series with Rob for the last several months and he spends a lot of time listening and re-listening to Book 1 audio CD’s, so he requested a Harry Potter party. (Please forgive any of my HP spelling mistakes, etc as I am not a HP fan)

I got most of the ideas from online.

Our invitation:

You’re invited to a Magical day!

We are pleased to inform you that you have been invited to Hogwart's School for special mid-term classes in honor of
David’s 7th birthday. Your class will run from 3:30 until 5:00pm on Friday, Feb 5th. Please take the Hogwarts Express train to (Our address).
Respond ASAP by OWL to (my email)or Muggle telephone system (my phone number) with a yes or no response. We look forward to your arrival at Hogwarts.

We played “Harry, Harry. Voldemort” (Duck, Duck, Goose) and “Harry and the Snitch” (You sit in a circle, and pass 2 balloons around. First pass the snitch balloon, then the Harry balloon. You try to pass the Harry balloon fast enough to catch the snitch.)

Then everyone went to the Wand shop to get their wand. Rob had them swish and flick different wands until they found the “right” one. We used our wands at the table for Potions class. I mixed 6 different kinds of Kool-Aid and labeled them with different potions. The kids could mix them how ever they wanted. Plastic Goblets from Party City would’ve made it even cooler. The magic was when they cast a spell and put a spoonful of Pop Rocks candy in. The drink sizzled and popped.

Then we dipped gummy frogs in melted chocolate and tasted Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans (they were actually just different flavored Jelly Bellies- nothing gross, but we still got some good reactions as they tried to guess the flavor!)

Then we played part of Quiddich in the garage. We hung up hula hoops and Rob tried to guard them as the kids threw the quaffle in.

We had a treasure hunt to find the Sorcerer's Stone- the birthday cupcakes that had red Ring Pops in the center.

Then David opened his presents- he always is so expressive!

Just before going home, the kids used a spell “Wingarium Leviosa” to make their party bag levitate. (Matthew stood upstairs with a broom stick. We tied clear fishing line and a clip to it. Matthew pulled the bags up whenever the child said the spell).

Happy Birthday David!!

Baby Shower

It’s been awhile since I blogged! I’ve thought of lots of things to post, so it’s hard to know where to start. I decided to take one of my scrapbooking approaches and start with what’s current and work backwards if I want to.

Last night, I hosted a Baby Shower for my friend, Maggen. She is expecting a little girl in less than 2 weeks. It was so fun to decorate and make foods in PINK!

  

Kristi made the delicious PB balls and the recipe for them and for the Cheesecake filled strawberries can be found here.

We played the Memory/Candy Bar game. It’s my favorite shower game. You play memory with words related to pregnancy and childbirth. When you find a match, you win a candy bar. Example: When you match the word Nursing, you win a Milky Way.

Maggen received so many super cute girly outfits and we all had a lot of fun.

Congrats Maggen!!

I am old!

My husband and I were talking to our oldest son, Andrew tonight. Apparently we are a little outdated. Andrew didn’t believe what we were saying so he said, “That must’ve been what it was like in the 20th Century, but not in the 21st Century”. I used to joke that my Dad lived in the time of the Dinosaurs- but I was joking! I never imagined that one of my children could claim I grew up in a different century- and be right!

My Baseball Player is Only One!

We are not a very sporty family- even with 5 boys… but that might be changing.

My youngest son has always been interested in balls. We have a whole box in the playroom of various balls that we put there for him. He is always throwing a ball at anyone who will catch it. One day we were loading in the van. Everyone was in the van except Steven. I knew he went in the garage, but he wasn’t there. I found him in the backyard playing baseball with a baseball tee, bat, and ball. He sets up his own game with any ball and stick he can find- he‘ll even use a small plastic hockey stick and a ping pong ball. He’s not very happy when he has to come inside.

He has started playing imaginary baseball. He gets his imaginary baseball bat ready and asks me to throw a ball- then he swings!

Scrapbook Night Sketch Challenge

We had another fun scrapbook night. I love when my friends come over to scrapbook with me. If they didn’t come over, I would have a hard time setting aside time to scrapbook.

We did a challenge this time. We voted on a sketch and then created pages based on it. Here’s a few of the pages.

  

Children's Responsibilities

So I haven't blogged all summer! It's busy around here- and I'm enjoying it. The first week of summer was an adjustment though!

I just read Christina's blog, and it spurred this post.

My children have responsibilities, and each summer I've had a different approach to handling it. This is what we have done this year:

 

My 3 oldest children (ages 10, 8 and 6) have a set of 4 magnets. They each have their own color on the front and black on the back when you flip it over. I bought the magnets at Learning Palace. I used my label maker to print out their responsibilities- learning, music, cleaning, outside.

I talked to each child individually about what they needed to do to flip over each magnet. But basically, learning is writing, playing a math game, etc. Music is piano or violin practice. Outside is to play outside (one of my children doesn't choose to do this otherwise. He'd rather stay inside with his Legos all day). Cleaning is to do their "dinner jobs" and clean a bathroom (yes- we clean each bathroom everyday. Sometimes more than once! I have a can of Clorox wipes in each bathroom- love them!)

These are our dinner jobs:

During the summer we do these jobs after both lunch and dinner. During the school year- just after dinner. They keep the set of 2 jobs for a week, then we rotate.The first job (wash table, sweep floor, and clean chairs) is the food clean up. The second job (Loft, Scavenger Hunt, and Play room) is the area for them to pick up. (Scavenger Hunt means to walk through the downstairs hallways and pick up anything on the floor to put away.) Dinner jobs was hard to start at first- but now we've been doing it for over 3 years. At first we used my husband's old trophy that he was going to throw away as a reward each night. We would watch and see who did their jobs without complaining, did them quickly, and well. That person was awarded the trophy for a day. It worked well for awhile. Then the person on the top of the trophy broke off, and one child wanted the trophy more than the others, so everyone started giving it to him. We eventually let it sit in his room and we don't use it anymore.

We also have an hour of "Book Time" everyday. During my younger children's nap's, the older ones go in their rooms and read to themselves (or listen to books on tape). This gives me a chance to get something done and get dinner started. I have also started having "Mom ad Me" time during that time. Once a week, a child stays downstairs during Book Time with me and we do something together.

 

If they flip over all their magnets- then they earn their "screen time" for the next day.

 

We still get some complaints, but they seem to really enjoy flipping the magnets over (and playing with them- we are currently missing one).

I saw this SUMMER BINGO idea and it looks like a lot of fun. I think I'll try it out next year. I especially love the squares where it encourages playing with younger siblings.

We still have a month of summer left! Yea! (I'm not ready for the homework to start yet!)

Cookie Sheets

My 3 year old says the funniest things! I was putting him to bed and he told me that he did not like the cookie sheet on his bed. It took me awhile to figure out- since there was no cookie sheet anywhere in the room. He meant the bed sheet! I had put a brown one on instead of the car one. Apparently we eat more cookies here than I change their sheets!