Lego Friends Birthday Party

Hannah is practically obsessed with Lego Friends at the moment and was excited to have a party of that theme.  I had already done a Lego party for her two years ago http://stephanfamilyfun.blogspot.com/2012/01/lego-party.html so I already had some ideas of what I was going to do.

Invitations

Favors

Lego Gift Bags

Hair Tie Lollipops

cute idea from Do It Yourself Gifts

http://www.do-it-yourself-gifts.com/unique-birthday-party-favor.html

 Lego Candy - made from Wilton candy melts and put in our Lego mold

 Lego Soaps 

Lego Friends' Printable from Lego.com  

http://friends.lego.com/en-us/downloads

 Lego Crayons

 All together now

Cake and Decorations

Summer Fun Week Two

We didn't get all that many crafts in this week as we were kept pretty busy with summer school, t-ball, and softball.  Since this was the last week before biggies went off to Colorado with my parents, we spent a lot of time just playing together at home.

Hannah's fish under water art

Ella's rainbow house

We did make some nature stones out of clay though.  The girls enjoyed picking out the plants that they were going to print and got into it.  The stones weren't dry before they left, but I think when they get back we might paint some of them.

Like I said, we had many more activities than crafts this week.  We are so lucky that we have a wonderful library with a terrific set of summer programs.  This week, the girls got to see the Soda Pups https://www.facebook.com/pages/Soda-Pups-Dog-Show/113993078751113 and loved them just like last year.

We also got the sprinkler out for a while and played with that while Smiley was sleeping.  Next time, we will have to get her in the sprinkler as well.  She loves water!

We had two hiking trips this week: one with Daddy to Mirror Lake State Park and one with Grandma to Parfrey’s Glen.  The girls were extra excited to use their new camelback backpacks that we got them for their Colorado trip.

The Saturday before they left we spent the morning at Ella’s t-ball game and then took off for Mt. Olympus waterpark.  The girls had a ton of fun and we decided to never go on a Saturday again! :)

Sunday, we took the girls to Iowa City to meet Grandma and Grandpa so they can continue on with their vacation.  They got to spend some time on the carousel at the mall and we even ran into Aunt Nea while we were there!

Last but not least, the girls’ reading chains are growing!

And one final picture of Miss Smiley - she is (almost) always so happy!

Summer Fun Week One

The girls have now had their first full week of summer vacation. 

I still can't believe that I now have a Kindergartener and a 2nd Grader!

We started off with a trip to the zoo for Christopher's company picnic, a t-ball game, a hike, and a visit from Aunt Nea!  I love watching 4-year old t-ball.  They are so cute and non-competitive.  One of Ella's friends actually stopped in the middle of running the bases to say "hi!" to her on the field.

Smiley's first carousel ride!

Hannah with her scavenger hunt map

Ella's first T-ball Game
She was so happy to be on the Purple Team - her favorite color

Hiking at Natural Bridge State Park

After a busy and fun-filled weekend, we were ready to start our week.

I tried to have some kind of activity or project each day, but we were pretty flexible in our week.  We just have this week off before summer school starts and I want to try to spend as much time with the girls as possible.

We started off with Raised Salt Painting and got to use our homemade watercolors.

This were really pretty cool and the girls loved doing it!

http://www.housingaforest.com/raised-salt-painting/

Hannah's painting still wet

After it dried

Next we tried Paper Plate Weaving which is still a work in progress.  The girls like it, but only work on it a little bit each day.

http://www.redtedart.com/2014/04/16/paper-plate-weaving/

Hannah's art teacher sent home a summer art challenge where they have 12 different challenges for the summer and they can complete either 5, 8, or all 12.  We are going for all 12 and were able to complete 3 this year.

She was given three different websites to try out some online drawing games which were all neat in their own way!

http://mrdoob.com/projects/harmony

www.picassohead.com

http://bomomo.com

She had a building project which she completed with Legos.  They have been building with legos all week and had some pretty big creations that they finished, but these are the ones that she wanted documented.

The last challenge that she completed was an art project of her choice - we used the Raised Salt Painting project for this.

Hannah has her first couple of softball games this week, too.  I also am loving this age group for sports.  She had a friend on the other team cheering for her out on the field when she was up at bat.  I love our friends!

Back to crafts, my sister-in-law sent us the idea for this next one. Food Coloring Explosion Activity

http://craftsbyamanda.com/2011/03/colorful-kitchen-experiment-for-kids.html

 All is takes is milk, food coloring, and dish soap

Yesterday, we finally tried our hand at Bubble Painting.  I've seen this idea many times before, but had never had the girls try it out.  They had a lot of fun with it - especially with blowing the bubbles!

http://www.housingaforest.com/bubble-painting/

We are also working on an on-going summer project.  Along with the girls signing up for the summer library reading program, I have started a reading chain for them.  This website has a really nice printable to start the chain off.

http://eighteen25.blogspot.com/2013/06/summer-reading-chain.html

Each girl has their own chain and each link has the name of the book and the number of pages in the book.  I think it will be fun for the girls to see just how many books and pages they can read this summer! It will be neat to watch it grow.

To go along with the reading programs, we are trying to work through the Little House books.  We are almost finished with Little House in the Big Woods.

Now we are off to another busy weekend and week!