Birds!

Honey Pot is 3 years old

Little M&M is 13 months old

Books

We went to another one of our new libraries, and we were BLOWN AWAY by it. They had a huge selection of books, little games on each end-cap for the wee ones, puppets, a live turtle and bunny. I could go on. So this is what it's like moving from the small country to the big city, huh? We will be going back to this library every week, that's for sure! Here are the bird books we got this week:

Honey Pot's favorites were Grumpy Bird, Penguin and The Baby BeeBee Bird. She requested these often throughout the week.

Puppet Play

Honey Pot has a couple of bird puppets, so we pulled them out and did a little bit of puppet play this week. We worked some facts into our play as we talked about how they fly, what they eat, etc. She just loves pretend play!

Birdseeds - Sensory and Bird Feeder Craft

We had some birdseed leftover from Honey Pot's sensory bin during our There's a Bird on your Head theme last summer. That was perhaps one of her favorite sensory materials! Take a peek! So I pulled out the bag of leftover seeds and let Little M&M play with it for a minute before we began our craft.

This was all his idea...

There's something about the need to put your feet in a sensory material! They both always do it!

When he lost interest, I poured the birdseed out for Honey Pot's craft. First she spread some natural peanut butter onto an empty toilet paper tube.

Then she rolled it into the birdseed.

When it was completely covered, she took it upon herself to play with the remaining seeds. I let her have at it for a bit while we waited for Little M&M to wake up from his nap.

 

Then we went outside to the yard to find a nice branch to slip it on.

 We went outside often during the week to check on it to see if the birds had enjoyed their food yet.

Bird Feather Craft

I found this fun idea from Pinterest, originating from a website called Crafts for Kids. I unfortunately lost the pictures of this craft in progress, as my computer crashed YET AGAIN after I had uploaded them. But Honey Pot did all the gluing herself, and loved blowing the feathers around!

Do-A-Dot Bird Worksheet

In addition to the above process pictures, I lost the entirety of this activity. But I thought I would mention what we did. I created a worksheet in Photoshop Elements of various birds (including some tricky ones like a penguin, ostrich, etc.) as well as a few animals that are not birds. Then I asked Honey Pot to use her dot marker to put a dot on all of the birds. She really liked this activity, and found all of the birds without a problem. So disappointed to have lost these pictures and others...but I just bought a new computer so I won't be losing anymore Tot School pictures! Phew!

Mama Bird Catches The Worm

I found the inspiration for this game from PreKinders. Loved the concept of it. I also made it more fun for Honey Pot by creating a nest of baby birds for her to bring the worms back to. First I cut up some chenille stem "worms" in colors matching the birds, and provided Honey Pot with a clothespin. I called her Mama Bird and asked her to catch some worms for her babies. She loved this game!

She had difficulty with the clothespin though, so I brought out her plastic pair of tongs (set of three for $1 at the Dollar Tree) and let her continue that way. She flew through this game after that!

Happy baby birds with their matching worms!

Feeding the Ducks

We also took a trip to our local duck pond to feed the ducks. I recently read that bread is one of the worst things you could give them, as it actually harms their growth and pollutes the water. We  brought them oats and grapes (cut in half). Other healthy options are birdseed, frozen peas or corn (defrosted), earthworms or lettuce. The kids had a lot of fun, and it's so close to home that we'll return here often!

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Little Mermaid Birthday Party!

Honey Pot is turning three this week! Although I would have sworn that she would choose Sofia the First as her party theme, she shocked us all and chose Ariel, The Little Mermaid, despite only seeing it once very long ago. It's definitely a favorite for all of us, so I went with it.

Invitations

I had to quickly send out invitations before I had chosen my party colors. So I just chose a simple design (with a pretty bokah background) and created it in Photoshop Elements. I sent them digitally again, to save on printing and stamps!

Outfits

I found an adorable Ariel dress on Etsy, and it arrived just in time for the party. It comes from this lovely shop. I'm in love with it, and I know Honey Pot is too. She will wear it all spring and summer, I'm sure!

We also bought a Flounder shirt for Little M&M from Etsy. However, it didn't arrive on time. I'll post pics below once it does and we've gotten a proper photo shoot.

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Here are some pics from the photo shoot I did of the kids on Honey Pot's actual birthday. Little M&M's shirt came customized with his name under it, so please excuse the poor editing to remove it!

Photo Display

You always need one or more photos to celebrate the birthday kid! I went with something a little dramatic this year. I had seen this image from Martha Stewart and decided to make a giant number too! Er, three! LOL. Photos range from birth to present day...some of Honey Pots most memorable moments. I just loved reminiscing!

Wreath

Remember the Elmo wreath I made for Honey Pot's second birthday party? I cut the red yarn off and made a simple blue wreath for the Little Mermaid party. I used stickers. Just a little something to hang on the front door so people knew where the party was!

Beverage Station - Ursula's Cauldron

I made this sign and matted it to display on the beverage bar. Partial quote from the movie! Also please note the beautiful straws that I finally splurged on. These particular ones came from Amazon.com. They were a little too large for the cups I bought from Party City, so we cut them with a super sharp Shun knife. The display stand came in a pack of three for $1 at the Dollar Tree. Love these.

My husband created the streamer backdrop at the bar. They go all the way to the ceiling. Love how it came out! Also, I found the idea for the blue punch bowl at Apartment Therapy. All week we were making fishy ice cubes and then I didn't even get a good picture of them in the punch! Gah! See the link above to see what it looked like though. Cute fish!

And in addition to the "Sea Water" punch and the variety of rums, I wanted a few water bottles as a beverage option too. So I made some quick custom labels in Photoshop Elements for those.

Party Games for the Adults

Since we just moved to a new town, we had just a family party this year. And there were far more adults than kids. So I tried to gear some of the fun toward the adults this time. First, I had a shell guessing game. I called it Scuttle's Seashell Collection. The guests had to guess how many seashells were in the jar. Before the end of the party, I looked through the answers and revealed the correct number. The winner got a prize!

The second game offered was what I called Ariel's Pop Quiz. I know many of the guests are fans of the movie, and so we had some fun trivia questions for them to answer. It was twenty questions. It was fun to watch everyone so hard at work throughout the party. And I could see how much fun they all had with it too, trying to recall some of the little details from the movie. Toward the end of the party, everyone swapped pages and graded them. The person who had the most correct answers won a prize.

Here is what the winner of each game won: a gift card to Amazon.com. They let you upload your own image too!

Food Table

The party began at 2PM. We didn't do dinner until 6 PM or so (we had a BBQ: cheeseburgers and hot dogs, potato salad and BBQ chips) so we offered a variety of munchies until then. Here is my Party City stash of matching table settings.

Most of the following clever food ideas came from a party at a blog called Bachmanville, with the exception of the shark teeth which came from Delia Creates and the blue seafoam dip which came from Allee Willis. Party planning is a hobby of mine. So as you can see, I do my research!

Flounder's Fish Craft

I offered one fun craft for the kids to do during the party. I called it Flounder's Fish Craft. I made up this sign and hung it near the outdoor kid picnic table, which held all the supplies.

Here are some of the kids hard at work! First they painted a sheet of bubble wrap, then they chose a fish cutout and pressed it against the bubble wrap. Lift and voila! They had created colorful scaled fish! Once they dried, we glued on a googly eye (or 2 or 4, as some of the kids wanted to do!) and hung it on our seaweed wall nearby.

Here is the final product. I am SO in love with how this craft came out!

Making their best fish faces!

Pretending to be sharks!

And finally up from his nap to join the party, Little M&M!

Sebastian's Sand Search

Also from Bachmanville came the idea for a sand hunt. It is called Sebastian's Sand Search. Here is the sign I made.

We filled a bucket with play sand (about $3.50 a bag from Lowes!). And we hid 34 sea creature figures inside (purchased from Amazon.com). This game was a huge hit! And thank goodness we had such beautiful weather.

All the kids (and even some adults!) got really into this.

A few were hard to find; and actually, there are still five creatures missing in there somewhere!

Desserts

I made some cupcakes for dessert. It was just a plain white cake, but I divided the batter into three sections and tinted them in gradient shades of blue. I don't have a picture of them though! D'oh! Also, I created the cupcake toppers in Photoshop Elements.

Honey Pot enjoyed the frosting. Only.

Sand dollar cookies made simply from a Pillsbury Sugar Cookie dough and slivered almonds. The idea came from a blog called Completely Coastal. These were yummy! Wish I had made more, and displayed them on crushed graham cracker crumbs. Would have been a marvelous display!

Cookie Pops! I make these at every party and everyone always raves about them. Just swap the party colors as needed. Though I have made them in the shape of Elmo (see that here) and Minnie Mouse. Displayed on a cake pop stand that I treated myself to last year from Cake Pops Stands on Etsy.

Goody Bags

I love putting together goody bags! All items must be relevant in some way to the party. I included a custom Go Fish game that I made with Little Mermaid characters, a mermaid shimmer box of crayons (the boy guests received and ocean one), bubbles with a custom label and a bag of Swedish Fish. I almost made homemade crayons using my ice cube tray (a craft I have been itching to do with Honey Pot) but apparently it destroys the tray and I wasn't willing to part with it yet.

Close-up of the bubble wrappers.

Close-up of the Go Fish cards. There were four of each of course.

Thanks for checking out our Little Mermaid party!! We had a blast!

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