dinosaur party

I learned a lot of dinosaurs when putting this party together.  I did not know the names of the spikes on the back of the stegosaurus.  I did not know the name of the dinosaur with the bump on the head.  And I did not know there were many names for the flying dinosaur, I only learned pterodactyl.  Good thing I have a six year old who could correct me during this planning...

Here is the invite.  They were sent out to the school and by hand in papermache eggs and the eggs had a little dino plus the paper invite inside that the kiddos got to open up.

The cake was just bundt cake on top of sheet cake, frosted and then decorated with red, orange, and yellow for lava, topped with dinos.  The bundt cake had a cup inside where dry ice was dropped in for the candle and singing.  The kids loved it.  Dry ice is soooo easy to get these days.  No longer going to the back of a grocery store and asking for some to be chipped off.  It is sold in a freezer, very close to the regular ice freezer.  Just remember that it will evaporate, even if stored in your regular freezer.

food:

pterodactyl nest: shredded wheat nest with jelly beans.

stegosaurus scutes: chips

triceratop's wallowing holes: salsa and guacamole (apparently they were similar to rhinos and liked to wallow)

parasaurolophus nom nom: fruit

brontosaurus bites: veggies

hydrotherosaurus snacks: goldfish

velociraptor claws: buggles

T-Rex's tasty treats: taco meat

Found these two laddles on amazon.  one was dino, the other nettie.  very cute.

sand pit where the kids could dig for small dinos, skeleton dinos, and dino eggs

dino eggs, or called dino poop as some of the moms pointed out :)

Dino swamp, made with water and corn starch

School test treat

The oldest had a week of testing.  The moms decided to bring a different treat each day for the kids, and this is what I took.  It was kind of a rush job, but I hear the kids enjoyed them.

Teacher Survival Kit for Back to School gift or Teacher Appreciation

I forgot to snap a picture before gifting, so this is several months later when some of the stuff has already been used.

I found the note for the inside here.

The kit had inside:

hand sanitizer

bandaides

hand lotion

lip balm

emery boards

hair ties

lint roller

cough drops

these revitalizing drops from Ricola

stamps for teachers

stickers

paperclips

push pins

binder clips

highlighters

mini pens

mini sharpies

rubberbands

safety pins

bobby pins

magnets

Valentine's for kids

Here are the Valentines that the kids gave to their friends this year.  

Valentine, you really leave an impression here.

I dig you print here.  I used construction vehicles instead of shovel because that's what my boy likes.

Pencil Valentine here.

I also wanted to add the snack made for the kids at our annual V-day party.

Fourth of July

This year we celebrated together and served smoked meat, with party potatoes and anything else folks wanted to share.

I made a few patriotic items to serve with them.

 patriotic parfait

white sangria with blueberries, raspberries and pineapple cut into stars

 

 I also served strawberry mimosas, although we could not find strawberry juice so it was more champagne with strawberries.  It was still good so I am certain the champagne in strawberry juice would be yummy!

Frozen Water Party

The party was a compromise.  I wanted to do water as it is summer and hot (and hopefully not raining) and the kids need to be outside.  But she was insisting on Frozen even though I am over going to Frozen parties.  I used my plan for the invites adding 'Frozen' into it.  The four remaining sections have the date, time, RSVP, and "in lieu of gifts please donate to.." as I try to do.  So we had mostly all water toys and I add some "Frozen" food and fake snow, plus a cardboard Elsa & Anna.  The cake also got some Frozen love.

This is the cake.  I saw this one and thought it adorable so I just added Olaf for our compromised theme.  I tried to add the foil for Olaf's tanning like in his song.  It took many days because of the freeze time required but totally worth it!

The Frozen food labels and the summer food labels were both free printables.  There were snowballs (pirate booty or white cheese balls which I could not find), beach balls (orange cheese balls), pool noodles (Veggie Sticks), beach blankets (Fruit by the Foot), fish (Goldfish), Olaf's noses (baby carrots), life preservers (Fruit Loops because I wanted something that wasn't more candy), gummy butterflies, flower lollipops, ranch dip, apple slices, jello ice cubes and melted Olaf's (yogurt with pretzel sticks, eyes, and Mike and Ike orange candies).

Jello ice cubes was one of the snacks out.  I did follow the recipe but the layers did not work as expected.  Maybe my fridge was not as cold but the set up for the first layer should have been closer to an hour instead of 30 minutes.  I had moved it to the freezer but had already made the second layer so I needed to use it before it got too cool.  I should have checked it before making the second layer.  Needless to say, our ice cubes were just all blue.  Oh, and the instruction say to use an 8x8 dish but really you need one twice that size.

We had fake snow.  I tried three different recipes because I was curious how they were each turn out.  These links are where they came from: one, two, three.  I personally thought number one was the best of the three.  It felt fun in the mix.  Number two actually felt cold in my hands when mixing so that would have been my favorite if it would have just made more.  It took a large box of baking soda to get maybe half of one recipe of the other.  Number three seemed to mold better, but since the flour was not white white, it was not as white as the others.  I made them all the night before and none of them really worked the same the next day.  So there must be additional mixing needed after storing each one, or maybe my mix was just a little too dry originally.

I also made the sponge balls more for fun than anything else.  The water bombs were a nice addition for the smaller kids, and then when the bigger kids found them they had fun with them too.  Together with the beach balls and water guns, the bigger boys made the party fun for themselves.