Slime

Parker has been bugging me to make slime for a while now. I finally relented. It’s pretty simple….glue, water, borax and food coloring and it provides minutes of entertainment. Yes, I said minutes. My kids are pretty much always more interested in the process than the result. Oh well. Now he can quit hounding me until the next project he sees on YouTube.

I Pledge Allegiance….

Parker and his lovely friend Lainie were given the honor of leading the Pledge of Allegiance at the school board meeting last night. Each 3rd and 4th grade class gets a turn to pick 2 kids for this honor. Parker is a really good student and a good citizen (at school---home could use some improvement) and let’s be honest, it doesn’t hurt that his dad is the vice president of the school board. This is the kind of thing he usually doesn’t want any part of, but he stepped up and did a great job. Lainie is a natural leader and entertainer, so she was right at home in front of an audience.

And this is the amazing Mrs. Brown who nominated them for the honor. She is retiring next year so she will not be Jack’s 3rd grade teacher (sob.) What a blessing it is to have teachers you adore!

And just because it’s bugging me—our school colors are red and white. Why are the junior high lockers purple? Of all colors—purple!?

When you wake a grouchy bear….

See this smiling face? He was an absolute BEAR this morning. I hated to send him to school to inflict his grouchiness on everyone there. Today was the first day of ISAT’s (Illinois Standards Achievement Test) in the 3rd grade. They prep for this all year and our school always has OUTSTANDING results. They give parents tips like make sure your child gets a good night’s sleep, a healthy breakfast, etc. I think I failed the parent portion of the test! Hopefully the little bear performs better than I did on my part!

Oh, and if you happen to see him—please, for your own safety and mine—do not mention the fact that he was featured on my blog!

St. Louis Cardinals Baseball Party

We are taking Parker to the Cardinals/Cubs game on his actual birthday this year, so it seemed like a good year to FINALLY do a baseball theme party. For a family that is so involved with baseball, you would have thought we would have done this one by now! We took it one small step further and made it a Cardinal party.

This is the invitation which is just a 6x6 piece of cardstock.
The wording which is always fun to come up with.

The sign on the front door.

Baseball hat ice cream cups.

The beautiful and delicious cake made by a family friend.

Cake table.

I created a "Cardinal Clubhouse" in our sunroom.

All the guests were represented by a jersey with their name and a number on it. I made these out of posterboard and used sticker letters and Cricut numbers.

Goody bags held Cracker Jacks, Big League Chew, sunflower seeds, baseball gumballs and all the treats from the cake table.

One very happy birthday boy with his cake. (Notice that the candles have been placed by the Parker at the correct positions!)

I had big plans to go to the baseball fields and play a game and do some hitting in the cages. Unfortunately, we had a heat index of 105, so I couldn't let the boys play outside. So we played baseball on the Wii and watched Sandlot AND of course, watched the Cardinals beat the Reds.

Parker' Egypt Party

Here is the birthday boy. This Egyptian theme ended up being a whole lot easier than I thought it would be! Thank goodness for web sites like http://www.birthdaypartyideas.com/ and my friend Michelle who give me great ideas! My friend Angie came over and took pictures for me. It is so, so helpful to have someone other than yourself taking pictures. It doesn't hurt if they have an awesome camera too!
Michelle told me about the website: http://www.cakesandthings.com/ . They have chocolate molds in every conceivable shape. It was a fun little touch to add to the party. The only problem I had is that Decatur was completely out of royal blue and yellow candy melts so I had to go with navy and white. Did Maroa/Forsyth have some big event I didn't know about!? (local high school)

The party was late so we could do flashlight tag. The flashlights are from the Dollar Tree and they were the kids party favor. I wrote their names on them and painted the little diamond shapes that were already on them. Of course, all the "D" batteries cost way more than the flashlights themselves.

These little pyramid boxes were from the Dollar Tree and they held the treasures that the boys had to dig for....you will see them in a minute.

All these golden doo-dads are leftover from Parker's Indiana Jones party last year. I bought them on 90% off clearance at Hobby Lobby. The urn and the bowl are from a garage sale and that golden cake plate is an old candle holder with a gold plastic plate taped on top. Classy, I know. The papyrus picture was an antique store find when my parents took the boys antiquing one day.

Michelle found the recipe to make dinosaur eggs so I converted it to make a glob with a skeleton inside. It is dirt, sand, flour, salt and water. It took way too long for them to dry so I put them in the oven at 200 for hours and hours. I just hoped it would melt the skeleton and it didn't. I gave the boys a popsicle stick to excavate whatever might be in the glob. This was a big hit. As you can see, Jack will never be an archeologist....not much finesse here.

I do NOT make cakes but our family friend, Cindy, does and, like Parker said, "It wouldn't be a party without a Cindy cake." I totally agree.

Each of those little pyramid boxes held a set of these treasures. Each boy took a turn finding their treasures. When they had them all, they could go find the clue. When the clues were all together, they said, "The mummy is waiting in the garage." I used chicken feed instead of sand because the texture makes it a little harder to find the treasures. It is also very dusty and very hard on cuticles. And makes a big mess that mice will surely love to come and find on my deck and surrounding grass.

They went to the garage where the sarcophagus was waiting. I had some blacklights and painted the box with white paint hoping for the glowing effect....I even borrowed a smoke machine from a friend, BUT, the lights didn't put off enough light and the boys pretty much couldn't see anything. Oh well. The anticipation was fun.

Parker wanted Tut's death mask so he and my dad made this one. Pretty darn good, don't you think!? You see that I come by my craftiness naturally.

Then we played the good-old mummy wrap game. I bought rolls of crepe paper and they each took a turn wrapping and being wrapped. It was very funny and the boys had a ball.

Then it was time for flashlight tag. We never really could figure out the actual rules for flashlight tag, so they just ran around the cul-de-sac chasing each other and freaking each other out.

Somebody thought a ghost story was in order.

And then we brought out the sparklers. Is there a boy alive who doesn't like fire?

I know Parker had a great time and I'm pretty sure his friends did too. Still can't believe he's EIGHT though!