Jocelyn's Hello Kitty party

We finally celebrated Jocelyn's 6th birthday with friends 2 weeks after her birthday.

I asked her what kind of a party she wanted and she said a "cat" party.  Hello Kitty popped into my head and she loved the idea. I love the Hello Kitty theme too. It's really popular right now so it was really easy to find lot of fun ideas and things for the party. In fact, there were so many wonderful and fun things I had  a hard time not wanting to do everything and buy everything  I saw.  

Decoration: Pink and more pink. Pink balloons,  pink banner, and Hello kitty posters.

Food: Pink milk ,Hello Kitty birthday cake and Hello Kitty Popsicle

Activities: 2 crafts and 3 games

9 friends were invited. Party of 11 fun, silly, and excited girls. (ages from 4 to 10)

We introduced Hello Kitty and Jocelyn. After the girls had to go on a treasure hunt to find 5 things that belong to Hello kitty. Each of these things was  either part of a game or craft that we would be doing. 

Jocelyn got to pick  an item out of her bag and we would do that game or craft. 

1-cat collar: decorate their own cat collar

2-goldfish- toss the fish into the goldfish bowl

3-ball of yarn- musical chair type game

4-Hello kitty picture- panting project

5-pink bow- pin the bow on Hello Kitty

When all the games and crafts were done, we had Popsicle, cake and pink milk. Parents stated coming and we still had presents. While I got goody bags ready, Joce tore through presents. so wasn't able to really see what she  received from friends until after  the all left.

The girls had so much fun!!  Jocelyn had a wonderful time and received some really  great presents. I'm really glad that we had this special party for her. she really needed it.

Because I was busy getting things ready for the party, I was not able to get pictures before the party started. And I was so busy during the party I didn't get any pictures of the girls  then either. All of my pictures below was after the fact, but at least I was able to get a few. Wish I had one of the cake.

 These little bags turned out so great! I love them. But man they took forever to make. They used the bags to  hold their treasure hunt items. After the party they took their goodies home in it.

Let's go fly a kite!

We have this huge side yard that they kids love to play in. We have yet to buy kites and fly them. So when my girls and a few of the neighbor kids were trying to tie together twigs and strings and tape paper towels to it, I felt like it was time to go get some kites. I found kites on clearance at Target for  .50 cents. That's a great deal in my book, so I bought 3. The kids were so excited to tear open the kites and put them together.

Well, we gave it ago, but Jocelyn was just too impatient. She couldn't quite run fast enough to get it up, so  she gave up and when in. She'd rather play  video games any way. Elizabeth could get her kite up,but could never manage to  get it to stay in the air more then 15 or 20 seconds. The plastic fame just seemed too flimsy. Ethen's frame was made of wood and flew like a champ. He had such a great time. Elizabeth  and I would get it up in the air and hand it off to him to hold. He loved it and had a wonderful time watching it dance in the sky. 

It was a lot of fun, and we hope to try it again soon and on a day that's not so hot and humid. We felt like we were melting by the time we went in.

Lake Erie Beach

I have really come to enjoy our time spent at the Erie Peninsula beach. It's not very often that we have warm, dry weather in which we can take advantage of the sun, water, and sand.  And to have such a clear day to see all the way over to Canada.  The weather is starting to  cool, so we find every chance we can to go and play in the water and sand.  We love to pack up our lunch, toys, books, and what ever we can find and haul it over to the peninsula. The water is not too cold and the kids love playing in it. We will stay for 3 or 4 hours on good warm days. 

There  about 8 different beaches along the peninsula, we have been to all of them. But our favorite one is beach 1. We have found that this beach has beach glass.  It has become our new  favorite treasure to hunt for. So far we have found clear, brown, green, and blue glass (which is the rarest of all) .  Most of our finds are quite small, a few larger ones about the size of a dime, but put all together it's impressive to look at. Don't know what I will do with it yet, but it will most likely become some kind of beach themed craft. I've collected a few pieced of bleached, distressed drift wood that I would also like to turn into something too. So many possibilities. 

#love-n-thebeach#

Celebrate Erie

A few days before School started for the kids, Erie had a city celebration. They close off one of the main streets in town for 4 days and had all kinds of booths, shows, food, etc for the public to enjoy.  I took the kids the last day and we had a blast. We spent four hours walking the streets. There were so many great things for the kids to experience. They made noodle necklaces, played educational games, jumped in bouncy houses, played  Connect 4 and Jenga with HUGE game boards and pieces. They dressed up and had their pictures taken. Joce was a cowgirl, Elizabeth was an artist, and Ethen was a construction worker. We saw amazing sidewalk chalk art. The one below was my favorite by far. Way cool! Working robots walking the streets, sports mascots, and several stages  featuring hometown bands, dancers, magicians, and other neat talents and shows.  We had  fun watching the magician, ballet dancers, and Indian tradition dancing. 

The one thing that I really enjoy about this city is the rich diversity. The are many new things to experience with  all the different ethnicity. Especially food, dancing, and dress! 

If we are still here next summer, we will go again for sure.

Jocelyn birthday

Jocelyn turned 6 on the 1st of September.  She was very excited to open presents that came from grandma Pam and  nana and papa. But she had to wait till after church. The primary forgot to sing happy birthday to her so she was a little sad they forgot. 

Presents from family made up for it. She opened the big present from nana an papa and found the LalaOoppsie she really wanted, Mermaid Gilly. She loves mermaids and this made her very happy.

 Jocelyn now has 4 LalaLoopsie dolls and Elizabeth is beginning to show her jealousy. Elizabeth has two, but thinks she needs more as well.

 While dad freed the doll, Jocelyn opened her envelop from grandma Pam. A cute card, stickers, and money! I think Jocelyn has more money than me. She's scheming about what she wants to get with it.

We were going to make her cake, but out neighbors brought over brownies and the day before we made brownies to share  at a back to school celebration with friends. so we had a lot of brownies to eat. She was fine with brownies. We sang happy birthday and  pigged out on brownies. It was a good day. She is still looking forward to her birthday party this weekend. We hope to have a few friends and celebrate Hello Kitty style.