Thursday, March 27, 2014

Chicken Birthday Party





My oldest daughter's 9th birthday was last weekend.  We do birthdays big around here and this year my daughter chose to throw a chicken themed birthday party.   This little girl has kept me hopping with the various themes she has chosen over the years.  We have done dinosaurs, butterflies, rubber duckies, horses, stuffed animals, and a Huss (her name for her blankie) themed party.  Truthfully, planning her parties always brings me a lot of joy and stretches my creative spirit.  I love celebrating the day of her birth with a party that characterizes her individual spirit.  This year's chicken themed party was a lot of fun to plan.  Below are the favor bags, treats, games, and decorations we used.

DECORATIONS:

1.  We decided to make a paper plate chicken face banner to hang on the mantle above our woodstove.  This project was very easy and ended up looking very cute.  We used white and yellow dessert plates, drew on eyes with a sharpie and taped on orange construction paper triangles for beaks and red construction paper for combs.  We taped these chicken faces along with yellow crepe paper to our mantle and voila'  our party's decorative focal point was born.

2.  We also decided to make chickens out of balloons.  We blew up yellow balloons and drew eyes on them with a sharpie, taped our construction paper beaks and combs on and added construction paper feet to the bottom of each balloon.  Then, we taped the balloon chickens above our wood stove and along our living room window sills.

FAVOR BAGS:

1.  We used brown paper lunch sacks and cut them down to about half size, then we drew on eyes and glued on our construction paper beaks and combs.  We filled them with plush rubber chickens,  chicken bouncy balls, candy corn, and baby chicks.


GAMES AND ACTIVITIES:

1.  Hatch The Egg:  We (and by we I mean my hubby) blew up white balloons and filled them with cute chicken domino markers and chicken/egg bracelets.

2.  Egg Toss:  We hard boiled eggs obtained from our backyard chickens and used those for the toss.  Some of the kids were amazed by the different colors and size of the different eggs. 

3.  Search For The Favor Bags:  We used candy corns to create a trail that led from our driveway to the kids' play house where the party favor bags were hidden. 

4.  Feeding Clover To Our Backyard Chickens:  My daughter took her friends down and showed them how to pick clover and feed it to our hens.  The kids loved this!


BIRTHDAY GOODIES:

1.  Brownie Bird Nests:   Make your brownie batter (from scratch or use a boxed mix).  Scoop the batter into well greased muffin tins and bake.  Cool the brownies in the pan for about 5 minutes.  Then take them out and gently press the middles down to make bird nest shapes.  After the brownies have cooled completely add jelly bean eggs.

2.  Donut Hole Chicks:  Coat donut holes with melted frosting and roll in yellow tinted coconut (combine  yellow gel food coloring in a plastic bag with shredded coconut and knead until the coconut is the desired yellow).  Dip mini chocolate chips into frosting and "glue" onto the donut holes for chick eyes, cut up orange jelly beans and do the same "gluing" procedure to add as beaks. 

This was a fun party to plan and my daughter, her siblings, and friends really enjoyed themselves!

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Random Thoughts

As I go about my day, random thoughts flow in and out and today in celebration of the first day of Spring (WooHoo!), I thought I would share a few. Disclaimer:  These thoughts may or may not have anything to do with Spring!


1.  No matter how unsettled or grumpy I may feel,  seeing my little boy kick and spin his way across our living room always makes me smile.  He can make me laugh out loud when he says things like "Stand back everyone, I am training to be a ninja!"


2.  It is sunny, now it is cloudy, oooh sunny again, and..............cloudy!  I could do this all day LONG since I live on the Central Oregon Coast.  And uh-hum it is now Spring. 


3.  I should be folding the two loads of clothes on our bed (placed there so they get FOLDED before I can get into said bed), or sweeping the floors, or changing sheets on the  kids' beds, or making a dozen bracelets for my daughter's birthday party game, or getting library books ready to return, or......but no, I am writing this post about random thoughts because I would much rather be writing than doing any of the above! :)  The other stuff will all get done.....it always does!


4.  My oldest daughter is about to turn nine and I am amazed at how often she says something to me that really makes me stop and think!  When did she get so grown up and articulate????!?!?! 


5.  My seed order shipped today, my seed order shipped today, my seed order shipped today.....can't wait to plant!!!


6.  Wait!  My little girl is about to turn 9 which means she is halfway to 18 which means we are halfway through her growing up years here at home which means this mommy could potentially be a bit teary eyed for a minute!


7.  My daughter just proclaimed that a spider we saw on a walk was CUTE!!!  How can a daughter of mine think anything belonging to the arachnid species is cute!?!?!  One thing for sure, I have grown to know and even appreciate more about creepy crawlies in the last several years than I ever thought possible.  Thanks kids!


8.  How does my husband go to sleep the minute his head hits the pillow.  I need to learn how to do that! 


9.  I am really enjoying my daughter's Story of the World history curriculum.  Today if the weather holds we get to make a brick! 


10.  OK now I am laughing because of how excited I am to do a science experiment that involves us making a brick!  It is like I am in 3rd grade all over again!


Happy Spring everyone!