Ice Excavation

The other day the boys picked ice excavation from their summer fun bucket. I had done this project with my pre-k class years ago but on a much smaller scale. They gathered aquatic themed toys and we froze them overnight in a Tupperware container. The next day we popped them out put them on the walkway outside. I gave them mini screwdrivers and a hammer to free their frozen friends.They chipped away, hammered cracks and poured hot water over the ice blocks to free all of their items! They loved it!

I love the Coast Guard boat Josh threw in there!

Blueberry Picking

I have been dying to go berry picking for a very long time, we just never seemed to get around to it! Some friends of mine were going to a local blueberry farm and invited us along, so I jumped at the chance. We went to Tree-Berry Farms in Scituate, M.A. which is about 35 minutes from us. Its a quaint family owned farm that only has blueberries and I believe Christmas trees in the winter. We had alot of fun and the kids really loved it! They want to go back, which we might do considering the 3lbs of blueberries we picked were gone in 3 days! The kids, (including the very large one I married) kept stealing hand fulls of blueberries every time they walked into the kitchen. I had visions of making blueberry muffins and jam but the only thing I had a chance to make was blueberry pancakes! Blueberry season runs from July to early September, so there is still a little time to go get some fresh blueberries! Now I can't wait for strawberry season!

Homemade Bouncy Balls

Today the boys pulled from the summer fun crafty bucket. We made homemade bouncy balls. It was super easy and alot of fun! I found a few blogs that had lots of cute ideas for things to do for the summer. This is where I found the bouncy ball recipe and a few other cute ideas!!

To make bouncy balls you need:

2 plastic cups
1/2 teaspoon of Borax (I had no clue what Borax was!! It's a laundry booster found with the detergents in the supermarket)
1 tablespoon of elmers glue
1 tablespoon of cornstarch
4 tablespoons of warm water
food coloring
something to stir with ( I used lollipop sticks but you could use a spoon or something else as well )

Instructions:

1. mix the glue and food coloring together in the first cup.
2. in the second cup mix together the water, borax and cornstarch.
3. pour the water mixture into the glue mixture and stir together with your stick.
4. A gooey blob will form. Pull out of the cup ( there will still be water left in the cup) dab quickly with a paper towel and start rolling around in your hands.
5. keep rolling into a ball forms.

 They are a little on the soft side, not like the balls you get out of the candy machines. they will flatten out a bit but you can re- shape them. The boys played with them for about 2 hours straight! Now they want to make more colors!

Summer Fun Buckets

To keep the boys busy this summer we created Summer Fun Buckets. We sat with the boys and wrote down some fun things to keep us busy and to keep them from saying "I'm bored" everyday!  I did 3 buckets:  Places to Go, Yummy Treats and Crafty Things To Make. Every few days we pull something out of the chosen bucket and do it!
Some of the things in our buckets include:

Places to Go:
the movies
the zoo
the aquarium
the beach
bowling
mini golf
berry picking
on a picnic
a museum

Yummy Treats:
homemade ice cream
icee's
rootbeer floats
ice cream sandwiches
chipwiches
rice krispie treats
frozen banana's
star wars snacks (from the star wars cook book)
themed cupcakes

Crafty Things to Make:
chalk
giant bubbles
bouncy balls
shaped crayons
sidewalk chalk paint
ice excavating
puppets
fort
lemonade

Harry Potter Wizard Hat Sundaes

So the boys are super excited about the new Harry Potter movie that came out! They have been carrying around their wands for months! So to celebrate we watched one of the movies every night (in order of course!) for the week leading up to the premiere. I decided to make Wizard Hat sundaes as a special treat for one of the movie nights! I took sugar cones and dipped them in melted chocolate. I put them on a large chocolate cookie and secured them with melted chocolate to make them look like hats. After they hardened I put them on top of vanilla ice cream and added some star sprinkles for some added fun!. They were way too sweet for me, but the kids loved them! I also attempted to make Butter Beer the night before we took them to see the movie but it didn't come out right. The color was off and it was wayyyyy too sweet! I will revisit that idea for Josh's birthday party.

The boys loved the movie,well Josh did, Logan fell asleep 15 minutes into it!

Pirate Mayhem Birthday Party

So Logan is turning five years old! I cannot believe how time is flying! He wanted a pirate party so I  decided to get creative and see what we could come up with!  i had originally wanted to make an invitation in a bottle and put sand and a few sea shells in it, but I was short on time so i just bought cute pirate invitations at the party store and handed them out on the last day of school. I picked up bandanna's, swords and eye patches for all the kids. I put them by the door so they could become pirates as they entered the party. For decorations I did mainly a theme of red and black. Target had a cute pirate theme party set out. I picked up the banner a tablecloth and a set of napkins and got everything else in red and black to coordinate. I made the boys go grab some of their pirate toys and we decorated the tables with them.It came out really cute!

 He wanted a water party so I immediately came up with the idea to do a water balloon "cannonball" fight. I also knew at that moment I was making pirate ships out of cardboard boxes. Being a military family we have accumulated lots of cardboard boxes. I always keep a few stashed away in case I get a crazy idea! Well a crazy idea I had indeed! I taped together a few boxes and with the help of my dad (the perfectionist) we made them look like ships. I spray painted them black and just painted the names on. I cut a a white bed sheet and made two flags. I drew the skulls with a sharpie from a template i printed off line. I then ripped and burned the flags so they looked weathered. attached them to wooden mop handles and they were done. They came out really cute! The kids loved them!

                                     

I filled up a 100 black water balloons gave each team 50 each in a bucket and they had a blast! I actually thought it would be over alot quicker but the balloons held up really well!!
                                          

We also walked the plank which was a piece of old wood we had in the basement on two buckets. I layed down a blue plastic tablecloth to look like water. I had stuffed alligator to lay in there too but I forgot him!

Then we had a treasure hunt! You can't have a pirate party without a proper treasure hunt! I made the treasure chest out of a large diaper box. I taped the whole thing together and then cut around the box to make the lid. I spray painted it black and added gold curtain tie backs that i found at the dollar store. I thought it came out really cute and it was alot sturdier then the ones you buy at the party stores. It was alot cheaper too! This cost me $1.88 to make. $0.88 for the spray paint and $1.00 for the curtain tie backs! I already had the diaper box! The treasure in the chest consisted of: necklaces, rings, bracelets, fake coins, chocolate coins, fake jewels and ring pops.

I made up a treasure hunt with 4 clues to find the treasure chest! The treasure was hiding by the flag pole at the Coast Guard station next to our house! This was by far the biggest hit to the party!

For lunch we served pizza, plus we had lots of snacks and goodies. For cake, I made a pirate hat and iced it in chocolate butter cream. I also made chocolate and vanilla cupcakes iced in vanilla and chocolate butter cream. I was really not happy with the pirate hat at all. It was really supposed to be iced in a fudgey icing so it would appear smooth. It was also very hot and my icing decorations were melting off! But the kids loved it, and it tasted good and I guess that's the most important part! It looked really cute on my homemade cake stand! I bought two cylinder containers at the craft store for $1.00 on clearance and covered them with red and white scrapbook paper. Then I glued black ribbon around the edges of them. I cut out two large circles out more cardboard boxes and spray painted them black. I trimmed them with matching ribbon, just thinner. I did lay tin foil on the bottom of the top circle because I didn't want to lay the cake right on spray paint. Next time I will use wrapping paper or craft paper, I just spray painted them to make them black and that's what I had on hand!

I made rice krispie treat pirate pops! I decorated them with royal icing and gave them to the kids to take home! I wanted to try something different and I saw a mickey mouse version of these online and figured I would try it!

we also played pin the patch on the pirate, did pirate tattoo's,colored wooden pirate masks and made skull and crossbones necklaces. We had a pinata shaped like a pirate ship. Instead of goody bags the kids took home their bandanna, sword , eye patch and all the goodies they got from the pinata and treasure chest. Overall it went very well! Now I have to start planning a princess and Harry potter parties for Emma and Josh! ;)

                                  Happy Birthday Logan, hope you had a great day!!