Molly's Monster Birthday Party

When we started discussing party ideas in October, Molly wanted a spooky party. I wasn't sure she'd actually still want that once Halloween was over so I started looking for ideas. Caleigh and I were at Target and saw some adorable monster plates and napkins. I snapped a picture with my phone and brought it home to show Molly. She liked it and I found lots of cute ideas to go with it. I was also able to find some stuff to go along with the theme on clearance after Halloween.
All the kids seemed to have fun and Molly was happy to have so many of her friends over to play.



The cake was pretty easy once I got started. I used a grass tip for the orange to make it look like fur. I made fondant to shape the mouth and then just piped the teeth on. It was my first time making cake balls and I was a little worried they wouldn't turn out, but they worked well.

Monster Cake

Monster cupcakes

Birthday Girl

 

 

Fruit monster

Pin the eye on the monster

 

Molly

Caleigh

Cute monster shirts I found at Target went perfectly with the party stuff

Hitting eyeball pinata

Molly's 7th Birthday

Today is my baby's 7th birthday. We always take birthdays off from school and Chad takes the day off work so we can all spend it together.


The day started with chocolate chip pancakes.

Then we went to the mall because Molly was anxious to spend some money she got from the tooth fairy a couple days ago. She fell riding her scooter and knocked out her front tooth, along with busting her lip and hurting her knee. At least it was a tooth that was already a little loose and the swelling was gone today.
She found these purple boots that she just had to have.

After that we went to Olive Garden for lunch. The servers sang to her. This is her when she saw them coming. I couldn't get any other pictures because she was embarrassed and hid her face against my arm.

Then we went to Chuck E. Cheese's so the kids could play games.

Then it was home for presents and cake.

I put the cake batter in ice cream cones and baked them. The white is buttercream icing. Caleigh helped by putting on the sprinkles and the red gumballs.

Happy Birthday, Baby Girl!





 

Dress-Up

The girls found these while I was unpacking my closet stuff. Don't they look cute?

First Lost Tooth

My baby lost her first tooth Tuesday. It seems like everyone she knows has already lost teeth. She was always asking new kids she met. I think it worried her because she's 6 and she knows her brother and sister were both 5 when they started losing them.
She's been telling us she has loose teeth since she was 3 and Caleigh lost her first one. She was so happy to finally lose one.

Last picture with all her baby teeth (taken Monday night)

Our Week: American Kingdoms and Stars

The Three Rs

Molly had lots of fun with her phonics lessons this week. One day she reviewed all the ways to say /A/. I wrote words on cards and she had to take them and place them on the items they named. Here she is with the ones she placed on herself.

I don't know what's going on with this crazy pose. I have a hard time getting a picture of her without her doing something silly.

Another day she learned that ea can say /E/. She had to read some cards with ea words. Four of them said, "Eat a Treat." When she read those correctly, she got to have a Hershey kiss. She thought that was great, but had to make it out to be even better since Colin was working across the table from her. She kept telling him how good they were.

Colin finished RightStart Level E this week. Now he's reading through Life of Fred: Fractions and doing the bridges until he gets back to where he was before we took a break from it.

History

We spent a little time finishing some projects from our Christopher Columbus unit study. You can see more about that here.

For the rest of the week, we learned about the American kingdoms of the Mayans, Aztecs, and Incas. I found quite a few books to go with each of them.

The girls used popcorn kernels to learn how the Mayan and Aztecs would grind maize into meal or flour.

Science

The material this week seemed to be the most difficult of our astronomy study. We learned about stars, black holes, supernovas, and light years.

We used a balloon to demonstrate how the stars are moving farther apart from one another because the universe is expanding.

We made an astrometer to measure the brightness of stars. Unfortunately, it's been cloudy so we haven't had a chance to try it out yet.

Art

The lesson was about using photographs to help you see details of the object you're drawing. The kids chose pictures from magazines.

By: Caleigh

By: Colin (of course, it's hockey themed)

By: Molly
Since it may not be clear, that's a deer on the left side.

Everything Else

Colin had hockey games on Sunday and Monday. There hasn't actually been anything else this week. I got sick as soon as we got home from KY and didn't feel well the whole week. I ended up skipping all of our activities. The kids didn't seem to mind and spent their free time skating in the driveway or sitting in front of our dining room window watching some birds build a nest on our front porch. When we moved here a year ago, we discovered a nest with eggs very close to where this one is now and the kids loved watching it until all the birds flew away. They're excited about getting to do it again.

Here is the mama bird in the nest. She's been working hard building it.

Girls' First Time Ice Skating

Last week I got to take the girls ice skating for the first time. They've been asking to go for a while. I wasn't sure how well it would go though because I've had trouble getting them to try very much when they've been rollerskating. One of their friends was there and they went right out with her. They did so well and immediately started asking to go again.

Here they are at the beginning staying close to the wall.

Caleigh fell. I was so amazed that she didn't get upset at all. When she fell roller skating, she quit.

Caleigh didn't take long before she made it to the middle of the rink.

Molly made it away from the wall too.

One of Colin too.

Lucky

It's that time of year when I try to evaluate whether homeschooling is still the best choice for our family and for each of my kids. I am also researching curriculum for next year and trying to figure out what changes we should make. It's the time when I find that I second guess myself and worry that it's not enough.

Today we were reading books when Molly noticed through the window some kids who live down the street walking home from the school bus. She was so funny and said, "I can't believe they make kids go to school in the rain." Then she asked why they didn't just stay home like she does. I told her most kids have to go to school and she said, "I guess we're just lucky." I said, "Yes, we are."  I love that girl and I never know how she knows just when I need a little enouragement.

Hockey is Dangerous

I know hockey can be a dangerous sport, but apparently just watching it can also be dangerous . Colin got an air hockey table for his birthday.

Here are Colin and Molly (you can see the back of her head at the bottom of the pic) watching Chad and Caleigh play.

And this is what Molly's head looked like a few minutes later after she was hit by a puck.

So she decided to be safe, she should put on one of Colin's helmets.

Candy Land Birthday Party

The theme for Molly's birthday party this year was Candy Land. What 6 year old wouldn't love a party with tons of candy?

I made the cake to look like the Candy Land board.

Cake with the cake board. It's wrapped in wrapping paper. My husband took pictures of Molly and made them look silly, which she thought was very funny.

I found these glass jars at the Dollar Tree and filled them with different kinds of candy. The kids got the stuffed toys last time we were in Hershey, PA.

The kids made the gingerbread house.

The inside of the cake. I colored the cake batter 6 different colors.

This is what the cake looked like before baking.

We cut posterboard into squares and taped them to the floor. I think I saw every kid follow the path at some point.

The invitation

I had gingerbread ornaments that the kids decorated with glitter glue.

My beautiful girl. Can't believe she's 6 already.