Glow in the Dark Party!!!

First of all, I must give a HUGE apology to you, myself, and my daughter for not having ANY pictures of this AWESOME party!!! My mom has some that are incredibly blurry, and as I've mentioned before, my camera is missing!  BUT, I will try to paint a vivid picture in your mind, because it was a wildly cool party that is doable for any of you readers!

First off, I must say I bought a ton of glow sticks, glow bracelets, glow necklaces, and other glow paraphernalia at the dollar store! Then my mom bought some too.  Looking back, I would have bought fewer bracelets, and more sticks.  The large glow sticks were each broken, then cut and poured into mason jars.  We had about 12 of these that lined the way to the yard where the party was hosted.  It looked amazing around my mom's garden with these beautifully bright liquids glowing from the ground. (If I were to do it again, I'd buy several of the same color for each jar). My favorites were the blue and pink colors.  It was cool.  Then we stuck some glow bracelets in the tiny jars my mom had hanging around her porch.  We had the glow lanterns that we put together and sat on the speakers for the movie. Each child had several glow in the dark bracelets/necklaces.  One set of siblings built a jump rope with theirs!  Lastly we had 10 2-liters that we filled with water, and stuck a few glow bracelets in (wish I had more sticks for this...) The yard was glowing with colorful excitement! ;) It was really awesome to look around the yard and see brightly colored glowing lights everywhere!

We also found some glow in the dark duct tape! Can you believe they make that stuff???  It was incredible!  We put some around the cords to the DVD projector and speakers, so people could see where these were, even after the sun went down.  It saved me from tripping, and I think I might use this for our next camping trip... anyway... we also taped some to our ball, and had a fun time with the glowing ball.

On the porch we had a black light, complete with glow in the dark jello and cool aide (don't use red...blue works better).  It was fantastic. People helped themselves to chili and hot dogs, and roasted s'mores over the fire pit.  Our wonderful adopted grandparents popped over 12 pans of popcorn and bagged almost 40 bags full to pass out during the movie! I had a ton of help setting up tables, getting food ready, etc.

I have to give extra credit to a few people here.... first my husband.  I wrote the poor guy a 3 page email with a list of 13 things to do and several paragraphs of instructions for each thing!!!!  That man spent the entire weekend preparing for this party.  He made the chili, the glow in the dark cool aide and jello, he packed everything, prepared everything, and never complained!  It was sad and hard for me to ask him for help, because I wanted to do it, but because of some other circumstances and when my work fell, I just couldn't do it.  Thank you, Hubby!   Second, I give thanks to my mom and her boyfriend for opening their yard up to over 40 people, for helping to set up, and for adding glowing paraphernalia!!  AND big thanks to mom's boyfriend for making the incredible 8x8 outdoor movie screen!!! It was incredible! (Hubby...you are welcome to make us one!!!)

Lastly- everyone on our guest list showed up!  I'm so blessed!  Thank you so much!!!

Now...lest you all think I'm incredibly amazing (snicker, ha-ha)... NONE of the ideas for this party were my own.  I'm going to post the links to each glow-in-the-dark idea I got in list form.  They all came from Pinterest (I told you this website was going to be the death of me...at least it's coming in the most fun way!!!)

Glow in the dark bowling
Glow in the dark jello
Glow in the dark ring toss (obviously missed the hopscotch idea further down! man!!!)
Glow in the dark drinks (we did this too!)

*I cannot find the link with the glow in the dark mason jars, but it is similar to one of the first things I ever pinned on Pinterst... You can see it here (we tried glitter and it didn't work...).

Beware of using Pinterest for party ideas!!! LOL! There are several things I now see I "forgot" to do-besides take pictures... SO, I guess I'll have to do it again!  If Mom lets me use her awesome yard...(minus the smores!) we can make up for our forgetfulness then!

I'm sooo sorry about not having pictures... I've got to find that camera...OR...maybe Hubby can replace it for Christmas! (hint, hint) ;)

Weekly Wrap-up

This week has been amazing... a few field trips, a little school, some time in the kitchen, and wonderful fun together, as well as a nice surprise... I can't believe I'm already to the end of the week, and about ready to head back to work! It will probably be easiest if I go day by day for this wrap-up.  

Monday
Monday was a fantastic day.  I was just getting over my 24 hour "death bug" and might have overdone it, but it was wonderful!  Swim team is over. . . that means no more leaving by 0730 every morning!!! Woohoo!  So, back to my wonderful routine! Mommy is so happy!!!  However, we didn't have school on Monday.  Just a field trip.  Baby T spent most of the day with some friends, while Crazy K, Bean Boy, and Little Bit and I went to this great place called Yes You Canvas!  They painted these amazing monkeys that I'm going to hang on my bathroom wall!  *I got the hooks, and then discovered I don't have the right nails! Geesh!  I'll post a picture of the completed monkeys after I hang them.

And, it all started from just one yellow circle! The instructor was great!  Step by step he led each student through and they all made fabulous monkeys! 

 

After that, we went to visit Hubby at his work/internship.  We were able to have lunch together.  What a treat for us all. Then it was back to get Baby T, home for a short siesta, and then the cooking commenced...

I organize a casserole swap where each participant makes a casserole for all of the other participants.  So, this time we had 7 people sign-up... I made 7 tonight, 1 for myself and 6 for the other families...all the same casserole.  The girls had fun helping in the kitchen... Yummy Chicken Enchiladas from Skinny Taste!

One of 3 pots of chicken I made to go in our 6 casseroles... fortunately I had some left over I was able to freeze.

 The girls were so helpful all doing whatever was asked of them, and offering to do even more! I'm so blessed!

 Well...they're all piled in our deep freeze waiting to be exchanged now.  It has been invaluable to know that once a week I can pull something out of the freezer and dinner is ready!!!

 Oh... and, Hubby the Hero even helped clean up the mess! And what a mess it was!

Tuesday

Tuesday was just a regular old school day! I'm so thankful that Bean Boy had the opportunity to be on swim team, but even more thankful that it is over, and I have my mornings back.  We spent the morning doing chores and school, and then the afternoon was spent at the gym while the girls tumbled and jumped and walked on their hands!  Nothing special to report except that routine makes me happy!

1st grade math is fun!

Wednesday

Wednesday was some more routine, with a twist.  I had bought some clipboards for the girls and myself to keep our daily "list" on.  This year I started to use Scholaric for keeping up with our lesson plans and Bean Boy is starting to get some grades that Scholaric will keep up with too.  So, I print our lists from Scholaric and put it on the clipboards...anyway- all this to say that I got to spend some time using my creativity to color and decorate the clipboards with Crazy K.  It was something I wouldn't normally do, and was a ton of fun and very relaxing.  As time started to get by, we started to sing our memory verses and hymns while we were coloring! Then onto Bible and so forth.

Baby T saying her memory verse with hand motions!

Wednesday is also a gymnastics day, so I dropped the older two off at the tutor and headed to the gym.  On the way, I got a phone call from a friend who was ill and said she couldn't go to the painting class she had signed up for at Yes You Canvas... she wanted to know if I wanted to take her spot.  I wasn't sure about this.  I did want to, and the picture they were painting was one I had wanted to do, but it was just outside of my comfort zone.  When I talked to Hubby about it, he actually pretty much told me to go.... so I did.  And, I'm so glad that I did!  I had a good time, though I found some parts unnerving and a little stressful, I really like my painting.  What do you think? 

Thursday

My MIL comes once a week to play, I mean school the kids.  ;) She does a lot of the stuff I don't like to work on... flashcards, drills, rote memory type stuff. Usually she comes while I'm sleeping or going to appointments or such, but today I didn't have any of that, so I cleaned! It was fabulous. I cleaned out Baby T's drawers, cleaned the bathroom, cleaned the kitchen (which was a nightmare!) and more!  Then I took a shower.  The kids and I said goodbye to Grommy and headed out to lunch and bowling.  We had a great time bowling with our friends (despite several break downs of the ball return machine!).

After bowling, we returned home to start on dinner...then the ladies came to swap our casseroles... 6 new yummy casseroles in the freezer.  I have one free pass for the next 6 weeks!!! Yippeee!

Friday-

I'm writing this ahead of time, but the plan is to school, have lunch with my mom, and then I go to work...nothing special.  Another week will have gone by, and we will not have finished our lapbooks before the start of the Olympics! :( BUT, we will finish them next week! Then onto our government study, hopefully.

Favorite Part of the Week

I've noticed a spirit of ungratefulness in my kids lately.  And, I must confess, I've had a spirit of dis-contentedness.  So, last week I asked the kids to list 5 things they were grateful for.  They were not allowed to say people, unless it was a specific thing about that person or something they had done. We continued the list each day, and they were not allowed to repeat anything.  This starts to get hard after several days.  I'll share a couple of things from each kiddo here and probably make a whole new post on our Thankfulness Journals.  It is interesting to see the progression from day 1 to day 5...

Crazy K
Day 1:  House, food, God, Peace, Love
Day 2:  Happiness, animals, Bible, bed, stuffed animals
Day 3:  Ms. Kristy keeping me this summer, my family is healthy
Day 4:  Little Bit saying good job on Baby T's clipboard, quiet time with God
Day 5:  Grommy doing school with us

Bean Boy
Day 1:  math, rain, monopoly, pets, Josh cuz he is funny (Bean Boy's writing cracks me up!)
Day 2:  Bible, God, exercise, scientists, Life of Fred
Day 3:  Ozzie (our dog), physics... and I just caught that he re-listed Bible.... I guess I can't complain
Day 4:  Mom cuz she is my teacher, Dad cuz he is my math teacher
Day 5:  water, my brain, clothes

Little Bit
Day 1:  movies, Mellow Mushroom, shelter, clothes, toys
Day 2:  furniture, trees
Day 3:  going camping with my family, money for our family
Day 4:  Mommy doing my clipboard, Bean Boy being nice to me
Day 5:  ice cream, Jesus

Baby T
Day 1:  family and friends, God dying on the cross for us, house butterflies and rainbows, toys
Day 2:  chickens (our chickens are hers), Little Bit making breakfast, gymnastics
Day 3:  God, Crazy K helping with chores, flowers
Day 4:  Crazy K and Mommy making my clipboard nice, sunset, thankful that we sing our memory verses

This proves that we have so much in our every day lives to be thankful for.  Many of these things are things others don't have... sadly including Jesus!  We are so very, very blessed.  What a lesson I'm learning as I keep a journal too!  It has been a great way to start our Bible study.

Our Bible Time... Thank you Jesus!

 I'm linking up with Kris again at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.  Have a great weekend and week

Bowling!

Back in March or April, I signed us up for the summer free bowling program.  Well, we've been so incredibly busy, and I've been trying to keep up with school... Needless to say, we haven't been yet... until yesterday (Monday).

My kids have never been bowling!  What a special treat it was to be able to take them for the first time.  It was quite funny too!  Little Bit bowls like a maniac, running up to the lane and then barely able to toss the ball hard enough to get it to go all the way down.... the ball goes down the lane (slooooowly), and her entire body is flailing!  It was hysterical.  Baby T is so strong, I had to tell her several times to roll the ball underhanded... it's not a softball!

Here is a video of Little Bit... this particular video is the only one I took, but wasn't the funniest bowl she had...but typical!

Bean Boy and Crazy K (my God-daughter) were in a fierce competition... the three of us rolled an equal amount of gutter balls!  I impressed myself by bowling over 100 the first game... Oh my- the second game was HORRIBLE!  Little Bit beat us all, and was 1 point away from 100. She did have the gutters covered though! We will definitely be going again!