The Mediocre Mom's Guide to Greatness

Saturday January 9th, 2010

Today’s Activity:

Take the kids out to Chucky Cheese for lunch or dinner.

FREE Option:  Make homemade mini pizzas at home and play games together.

Note:

My favorite mini-pizzas are made with flour tortillas.  Just put them in a frying pan and top them with spaghetti sauce, cheese and any other favorite toppings.  Watch it closely and cook it pretty low so it doesn’t burn.

Evaluate:

My husband has had a long hard week so rather than dealing with the craziness of going out we opted for the eating in option.  After making and eating our pizza together we played mouse trap with the kids.  As the game was coming to an end we were ready for bedtime to be here but glad that we took the time to be a family.

Tags: games, indoor, pizza
Posted in Average Length Activities | 1 Comment »

Tuesday December 29th, 2009

Today’s Activity:

Play with a new toy or game.

Note:

Chances are your children got so many new things over the holidays that they haven’t even had a chance to play with them all.  Sit down with the kids and play with them and one of their new games or toys.

Evaluate:

We blew bubbles, read Max’s photo book, and played with Elese’s magnetic dress up dolls.  It was a lot of fun.  Plus it got them to calm down.  We are still all sick and Elese has been hysterical due to lack of sleep.  I’ve been tired and inpatient due to illness and lack of sleep.  Max has been naughty due to illness, lack of sleep and realizing he has another 360ish days until he needs to make it back onto the nice list.  But…for that half hour when we just played and read together we were all as happy as could be.

Tags: games, indoor, toys
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Friday November 13th, 2009

Today’s Activity:

You should have scheduled a play date for your children and their friends.  You can either plan a game or activity for them to do or enjoy some time to yourself while they entertain themselves.

Note:

It is Friday the 13^th so you could rent them Freaky Friday or even make some creepy looking treats.  If you feel like you need to entertain them then check out the Categories section on the side bar and search activities we have done in the past.  You can also look at the Games section under Birthdays.

Evaluate:

This play date turned out GREAT for me.  When I called to confirm in the morning my friend told me her SIL had just gone into labor and she was watching her niece so she couldn’t bring her son over but that I could take Elese over there.  Once I got there my GREAT friend saw that Max and her niece were the same age so she invited Max to stay too.  It was a great break!

This is Elese patiently waiting to go play with her friend, but more importantly her friends baby twin sisters.

Tags: games, play date
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Ginger Bread Man

I know I know, what a bizarre theme for a party!  Well my mom was a kindergarten teacher so me and my brothers ALL had a gingerbread man birthday party and so did my son!

Invitation:

I picked up some die cuts of a gingerbread man from the craft store and this is what I wrote on back:

So I’ve never made gingerbread before and I didn’t really dare.  Plus I think it is an acquired taste, especially for little ones.  So I made sugar cookies with whole wheat floor (that was really all I had in my cupboard) so they looked brown.  We had frosting out as well as fun little toppings to create a face and of course the gum drop buttons.  One thing I didn’t do that I would suggest is to have a little bag they can put the cookie in to take it home.  It can be as simple as a ziplock bag or you could even use a craft bag and tie it with some pretty ribbon.

Option #2:

This idea would be a little bit complicated.  Let me first tell you about Max’s favorite day of school so far.  At the beginning of the day they made a gingerbread man cookie and then took it to the cafeteria to get baked.  (This was a social studies activity so they could get to know the other teachers and have a tour of the school).  Then they did other kindergarten things when the cafeteria worker came and told them that she opened the oven and the gingerbread man escaped!!!  The kindergarteners were shocked!  At this point they went on a search for the run away gingerbread man meeting all the office workers and seeing where all the other grades class rooms were.  Some people HAD seen the gingerbread man and one women in the office even tried to catch it!  At the end of the day no one had found him.  So Max’s teacher set up a trap with a box and a stick and put M&M’s inside it because EVERYONE knows that M&M’s are a gingerbread mans favorite treat!  The next day during Cub TV (the morning announcements) the Gingerbread man ran across the screen while the children doing the announcements tried to catch him.  All the Kindergartners screamed with excitement!  Later on the Gingerbread man was caught in the trap set by his teacher.  While he was sound asleep the teacher took him out of the box and cut him into pieces so he couldn’t run away and the children all enjoyed a taste of the naughtily little gingerbread man.

So…here’s how to make it work for a birthday party: Have the gingerbread man all ready to go into the oven when the guests arrive.  Let them see you put it in the oven.  Go on with other party activities.  While the children aren’t watching take it into another room (or even outside) to hide.  Go open the oven and scream “Oh no!”  This will get their attention and tell them the gingerbread man ran away.  Then go on a Treasure hunt to find it.  You could also set up a trap like Mrs. Armstrong did or just leave clues throughout the house like a train of gumdrops or even just crumbs…another idea is to leave stuffed animals out the resemble the characters in the book, the little old lady, a horse, a cow…etc.   Once you find him cut him up and eat him.

Activity #2: Book

At this point we read the children the book and had an extra copy for each of them to take home as their party favor.

Activity #3:  Ginger bread man game

Supplies: A large cardboard box (big enough for a child to fit in).

How to play:  One child is the gingerbread man and one is the little old lady, or little old man.  Have the “gingerbread man” hide in the box (aka, the oven) and jump out.  Then the “little old man” will chase them and try to catch them, kind of like tag.  When we played this at my sons party the kids loved it.  It did get a little bit crazy once ALL of them started trying to catch the gingerbread man.

Cake:

I made a Gingerbread man cake.  For more details see How to Make Your Own Cake Pan in our tips section.

Tags: birthday, cake, games, gingerbread man party
Posted in Birthdays | No Comments »

Batman Party

Invitation:

My talented husband put together the invitations on Photoshop and I wrote the poem.

We included a Joker card that said I’ll See you there.  This was a little hint that the Joker was going to crash the party.

Activity #1: Super Hero Training Course (AKA obstacle course)

First they climbed over our BIG bean bag.  Then they crawled under the piano bench.  We had a different child pretend to be the Joker and trow my exercise ball at the hero.  Then the hero had to tie up the “joker” and knock down the “brick” (cardboard bricks) wall to save batgirl.

Activity #2: Joker Hunt

When the last hero finished the training course a joker card fell out of the the bricks.  It lead the kids on a treasure hunt around the house.  At the end they found the book “Batman Saves the Day” (enough copies for each child to have one, this was our favor).

Activity #3: Story time

My husband read them the book.  In the book it is Bruce Waynes birthday party and just before the cake is served the Joker crashes the party.  It was PERFECT for what we wanted to do.

Activity #4:  Fight the Joker

Just as the cake was about to be served the Joker (AKA my hubby who happened to dress up as the Joker for the previous Halloween) started laughing his scary laugh and then he came out.  All of the kids (without any cue) instantly attacked him.  Once the Joker had had enough of that it was time for cake and  ice cream.

Cake: Homemade

Growing up I thought that my friends were SO lucky because their moms bought their cakes.  My mom always made mine and now I would never buy a cake.  Homemade just tastes better.

I know how to make my own cake pans (learn more here).  So, I made a bat sign Ice Cream cake with cool whip frosting.  Here’s my TIP take it out of the freezer at least a half hour before you are ready to serve it.  It was rock hard and the kids could hardly eat it.

Gifts: Heavy heavy hang over

We decided to see how strong BatMax really was by playing heavy heavy hang over.  Now this game was a hard for a bunch of 5 year olds to grasp.  The kept yelling out, “Max this is Reed and this give is from me.”

If you don’t remember how to play here it is:  You blind fold the birthday child and then everyone says, “Heavy heavy hangover thy poor head what would you wish with a bump on the head?” just as they say bump one of the children bump the birthday child on the head with their gift.  Then the birthday child has to guess who bumped them and they can’t open the gift until they guess right.

Play time:

At this point Max had lots of new exciting toys so we opened them up and let the kids play with them while they waited for their parents.  (PS…this took a long time…I thought with 3 activities & cake & gifts that 2 hours would be perfect but 1 1/2 hours would have been better.

Decorations: Less is More

I don’t generally do a lot for decorations.  We bought some superhero plates etc and put up some streamers but other than that we didn’t do much.

Ideas: Transform your home into a bat cave…cover the windows with black paper, hang paper bats from the ceiling…cut out a bat sign that would fit perfectly over your largest flashlight and shine it on the wall in a dark room (the bat signal)….If you have action figures you can set them up and use them as a centerpiece.

Tags: batman party, cake, games, gifts, heavy heavy hangover, invitation
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Princess Party

Invitation:

My hubby created the invitation on photoshop and I wrote the poem.  You can always do the Date: Time: Location:…invitation but I think that poems are fun.

Favors: Crowns and Tiaras

We gave all the boys crowns and all the girls Tiaras as their favors and they wore them during the party.

Food: “Tea and Crumpets”

We just had finger foods but a few years later I found a really cute book at a Kitchen Supply store that had a lot of princess type finger foods…sorry but I don’t know the name of it but I’ll look for it next time I’m in that store.

So here is what we ate:

mini pigs in blanket

Relish plate

Small sandwiches

Fruit

Russian Tea

Activity #1: Kiss the Frog

I found this idea online while planning this party.  Basically you make a frog out of poster board paper, blind fold the girls and give them a pair of lip stickers to stick on the frog.  Now what I did differently was put bright lipstick on the girls and had them actually try and kiss the frog and if I do say so myself this was WAY more fun.  What little girl doesn’t love putting on a little lipstick?

Activity #2: Rescue the Princess

This game involved the boys because Princes do not kiss frogs.  We assigned every prince a princess.  Then all the princesses hid somewhere in the house and their prince had to rescue them.

Other Princess Activities Ideas: This party was for a 1 year old so those two games were enough.

• Do makeovers
• paint nails & toes
• Play Dress Up
• Ball – have a ball in your living room and let the girls dance with “prince daddy” or they can dance with mommy or together but there MUST be lots of twirling.

Cake:

This was my daughters 1st birthday so I made her a small castle cake (see How to Make Your Own Cake Pan in the Tips section).  I made cupcakes for the other kids and stacked them to make a tower/castle.  Then I made double chocolate bunt cake for the grown ups.  I was ambitious and made WAY too much cake.  PS Some cake shops sell princess cakes with a barbie in the middle they are very cute and perfect for a princess party.

Gifts:

Like I said before this was her first birthday so she wasn’t really sure what was going on so we just sat and opened gifts but here is a fun idea.  Decorate a chair to make it look like a throne, it doesn’t need to be anything too extravagant but just make it look like an extra special chair for a princess.

Decorations:

We decorated with our favors, our frog prince, and I attempted to build a princess tower out of cardboard bricks.  We also added streamers around the house because her birthday is jut before Christmas so we wanted to make it look more like a birthday party rather than a Christmas party.  Here are some pictures of what we did.

Tags: birthday, cake. decorations, favors, food, games, invitation, princess party
Posted in Birthdays | No Comments »