Smurf Birthday Party

A Smurf movie came out last summer right around the time we visited NYC. After we got home from our trip, we took the kids to see the movie. They all loved it, especially since all the NYC parts were fresh in their minds. Luckily, they still had a very small section of Smurf party supplies at Party City when I took Caleigh to decide what she wanted.



For the goody bags, I just cut the shapes for the door and roof from construction paper and taped them onto white bags.




I used blue candy melts to dip the pretzel rods and marshmallows and then put some sprinkles on them. Everyone loved these and they all disappeared quickly.

The Cake

Some of the snacks. We also had blue punch, made with blue Hawaiian Punch, 7-Up, and pineapple sherbet.

I found this fruit salsa and cinnamon chips on Pinterest. So good!

To make the cake:
I just covered the cake board with green frosting since we didn't need that much more cake. Then I drew in the walkway. I used tips to put grass and flowers in different places. I used cake pops for the smurfberry bushes. I used a giant cupcake pan that makes the cupcake in two pieces for the house. I turned the bottom piece upside down. Once I had it all decorated, I placed the roof piece on top.

Our Week: More Chemistry Experiments, Prussia, and New Jersey

After a very busy weekend, where Colin had 7 hockey games and we had a birthday party for Caleigh, we had a hard time getting started on Monday. Once we got going, things went pretty well though.
We celebrated Chinese New Year on Monday by reading some books, doing crafts, and making dragon cupcakes.

Science

We are still learning about the groups of elements on the periodic table. We read about the nonmetals, noble gases, and transition metals.

We studied metalloids last week, but I had trouble finding the blue gel glue we needed so we finally got to make slime with that and Borax this week.

 

To go along with the nonmetals, we learned that yeast will let off carbon dioxide when mixed with sugar and water. The carbon dioxide made the balloon on the bottle blow up.

 

We also soaked dirty pennies in Pepsi to see what would happen.

 

To learn about iron, a transition metal, we used iron fortified cereal and a magnet.

 

Art

So excited that we actually did art! It seems to get pushed aside when we get busy. We did a lesson in Artistic Pursuits on portraits. The kids made portraits using watercolor crayons.



Top left: Molly's                     Top right: Colin's
Bottom: both are Caleigh's

 

History/Geography

This week in history, we learned about Prussia, which became Germany. We specifically learned about Frederick, the first king of Prussia. The kids colored the flag of Prussia and Colin took the chapter test.

We also read two chapters from A History of US.

Our state was New Jersey. We read some books to go along with it and Colin made blueberry muffins since we read that NJ is a large producer of blueberries. We also read a couple books about the Hindenburg, which caught fire as it was landing in NJ. We read about it a little in our chemistry lesson on hydrogen a couple weeks ago. The kids did a coloring page of the state flag, bird, and flower. They also filled in their state sheet for their binders.

Chinese New Year

We had fun celebrating Chinese New Year today. I didn't really have time to plan since we've been so busy and we had Caleigh's birthday party yesterday, but I was able to find some easy things this morning and had books on our shelf so it turned out pretty well.


Some decorations (I got the sign at Party City and the lanterns were on clearance after Christmas at Target)



Books we read


Luckily, I looked at The Joys of Home Educating this morning and saw her links to these easy crafts.

Dragon masks found here from Skip to my Lou.

Dragon puppets found here at Craft Jr.

I saw these cute dragon cupcakes here this morning. I was going to keep the idea for next year since we still had cake and cupcakes left from the party yesterday. Later, I realized I could just use those cupcakes for this and add the dragon on top. I didn't have everything to make more icing so I had to use a can, which isn't the best for decorating, but the kids liked it.

Kids reading their fortunes from the fortune cookies




Our Week: Birthdays, Chemistry Experiments, and the Borrowers

We started the week with birthdays. Sunday was Caleigh's 9th birthday and Monday was my hubby's birthday.

Since Chad worked Monday, we did morning school as usual and then talked about Martin Luther King, Jr. in the afternoon. Molly wasn't happy about that because she thinks you should take birthdays off since we take the kids' off from school. She was even less happy when she saw kids out and realized public schools were off for the day.

History

On Monday, we took a little time to talk about Martin Luther King, Jr. We watched some parts of his speech. We also watched the video version of the book, Martin's Big Words, found here.

We read about Louis XIV, the Sun King of France.



Science

The groups of elements we learned more about this week were metalloids and halogens.

Metalloids:

I got each of the kids a container of silly putty. They formed it into a ball to see if it would bounce. They also pulled it apart slowly and then quickly to observe the differences.

 

 

They did an experiment with static. Molly rubbed a balloon on her head and then they put the balloon near some small pieces of Kleenex to see that it picked them up because of the static. Colin rubbed the balloon with a dryer sheet to get rid of the static.

 

 

 

Halogens:
We used eggs, vinegar, and toothpaste to do an experiment about fluoride.

 

Colin had his biology class this week. They learned about frogs and brought home tadpoles for an experiment they're doing.

Everything Else

We had a great time going to see The Borrowers today at the Children's Theatre. Unfortunately, everyone else must have wanted to read the book before seeing the show too because I had to wait for it from the library. I got a notice that it was in today so we'll start reading it next week.

 

We're going to have a very busy weekend. Colin has his regular ice hockey game, a roller hockey tournament, and he's been asked to fill in on an older team for a couple games. He'll end up playing either 6 or 7 games this weekend. We're also having a Smurfy birthday party for Caleigh.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Ball Cake

I made this cake for my husband's birthday. Peanut butter balls are one of his favorites so it seemed like a good idea to make a cake including them. I've been asked for the recipe so I thought it would be easiest to just make a post for it. Sorry I don't have any pictures of the process. I would have taken some if I'd known anyone would have been interested.

 

I started by making a 2 layer chocolate cake. You could use a box mix, but this is the recipe I used. I think it was originally on the side of Hershey's cocoa powder.

Chocolate cake

2 C white sugar
1 3/4 C all-purpose flour
3/4 C unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 C milk
1/2 C vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 C boiling water

Preheat oven to 350. In a large bowl, stir together all dry ingredients. Add all other ingredients except for the water and mix on medium speed for 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water last. Pour into pans and bake.


To make peanut butter balls, mix:

1/2 C margarine
1 1/2 C creamy peanut butter
1 lb. powdered sugar

Form into balls and refrigerate for an hour or so. Melt chocolate chips and some chopped paraffin wax in a double boiler. Using toothpicks, dip the peanut butter balls into the chocolate. Place on waxed paper and refrigerate.


For the peanut butter filling, I just pulled some of the peanut butter/margarine/powdered sugar mixture out while it was still spreadable before adding all the sugar.


Chocolate buttercream icing

1/2 C solid white vegetable shortening
1/2 C butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 Tbsp water
1 Tbsp milk
1 Tbsp Meringue powder
1 lb. powdered sugar
pinch of salt
3/8 C unsweetened cocoa powder

Cream shortening, butter, vanilla, water, and milk. Add Meringue powder. Slowly add powdered sugar while mixing. Add salt. Add cocoa powder and mix. Add small amount of water if it's too thick.


Putting it all together:
Spread the peanut butter filling on top of one of the cake layers. Then place the other cake layer on top. Cover the whole cake with the chocolate icing. Place peanut butter balls around the bottom of the cake and on the top. Drizzle melted chocolate over the top.

Another Birthday

Birthdays two days in a row in our house. We actually have three birthdays within 3 weeks of each other so it's a crazy, busy time.

Today was Chad's birthday. The kids were very impatient all day for him to get home from work. Molly was not happy that he had to go to work even though I kept telling her he was taking off Friday. She kept complaining about it. We take their birthdays off from school so she also thought we should take today off for Daddy's birthday even if he did have to work.

The girls must have decided this should be a fancy celebration. I told them it was almost time for him to get home and a few minutes later, they came downstairs all dressed up.

 

 

Chocolate cake with peanut butter filling and chocolate buttercream icing covered in peanut butter balls

Girls showing Chad the giant cards they made him

Showing off the banner they made

 

 

 

Caleigh's 9th Birthday

Nine years ago today, my beautiful baby girl was born. I can't believe how quickly she's growing up.




1/15/03



 

Riding her new bike



Seeing her cake for the first time

 

Colin got this stuffed bumblebee for her for Christmas. She just loves it so I made a cake version.

 

 

Happy 9th Birthday, Caleigh!!!

 

Our Week in Review 1/9- 1/13

For some reason, I felt like I was struggling to get everything in this week. We had a few days that were really cloudy and seemed to make us all slow to get started. In the end though, we covered everything I had planned.

Three Rs

Nothing too exciting here. Everyone just continued on to the next thing. Caleigh did finish RightStart Math level C and started D.

Science

This week in chemistry, we learned more about three groups of elements. We read about alkali metals, alkaline earths, and main group metals in Fizz, Bubble, and Flash and The Periodic Table: Elements with Style. When reading about the alkaline earths, we did an experiment with chlorophyll. The girls tore up spinach leaves and put them into a glass. I added some rubbing alcohol. Later we put a paper towel into the glass and watched as the green color went farther and farther up the paper towel.

 



History

In The Story of the World, we read about Charles, the son of James I, becoming king and the mistakes he made that eventually led to him being beheaded. We read about Oliver Cromwell becoming the Lord Protector. The next section we read was about Charles II becoming king and the plague and fire that destroyed most of London.

We also read about Charles and Cromwell in A History of US.

 

Everything Else

We spent a fun afternoon playing with friends at the park.

Colin had two hockey practices. He's playing three games this weekend.

We're preparing to celebrate two birthdays in our house in the next few days.