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Happy New Year to anyone who actually reads this blog!!

Christmas Party Playgroup

For our playgroup Christmas party we had a few different activities. I made these little "Jingle Bells" (with popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, and bells) that we passed out to the kids so we could sing some Christmas songs. Can you guess what the first song was that we sang?Our craft was making Christmas tree ornaments out of homemade playdough! I added a tiny bit of mint extract to the playdough so it smelled better than a big handful of salt!

Roll out the dough, cut out your shapes with the cookie cutters, poke a hole with a straw for the string, and then let it dry for a day or two on a piece of wax paper. Merry Christmas!

Marshmallow Snowball Fight

Too cold to play outside? Just do what we did last night! We had an indoor marshmallow snowball fight that lasted so long it wore our 5 year old out! So much fun and SO easy! All you need is a bag of marshmallows and a smile on your face!

Fancy Nancy Invitation

About a month and a half ago I helped a friend of mine make an invitation to a Fancy Nancy birthday party for her daughter. I should have asked her to take pictures of everything she did and done another guest post because I heard that it was awesome!She put a clear sticker on the flap to hold it down.

What girl wouldn't want to be queen for a day??

Christmas Banners

Survivor Girls Night

Okay, I hosted this girls night months ago and it was so much fun! It's taken me way too long to put a post up about it!Anyone who knows me knows how much I love Survivor. I had been thinking/planning this night for several months before it finally came to fruition.Along with a veggie tray, fruit tray, and drinks, I had some Survivor-esque food to go along with our theme. I bought fresh coconut that I cut up (I was shocked when I found out there were girls there who had never tasted fresh coconut before!), I made fried plantains (which were a little weird but went along with the theme), I made rice and put it in plastic seashell dishes, and, my crowning achievement, a volcano cake!

After we had eaten I had everyone draw a "buff" out of a bag to determine which tribe they would be on. Once everyone had a tribe, they all split off to decorate their "flags" (aka poster boards) with their tribe names that they made up. After the poster boards were finished it was on to the first challenge!The first challenge consisted of a map, phrase, and flag for each tribe. We tacked their tribe poster boards onto the deck outside and everyone stood on their tribe mats (just towels laid on the ground). I gave each tribe a map and, on my go, they opened them up. The maps led them to three different areas around my yard where they had to find three different bags with words to the phrase they all had to put together. Once a tribe had all three of their bags, they had to go back to their mat and then open them up and start working on their phrase.

United You Must Be

To Win Immunity

When they thought the figured it out I had to double check to make sure it was the right one (there were three different ways it would be put together) and once I gave the okay the tribe had to tape the phrase to their poster board, grab their tribe flag, run back to their mat, and stake the flag into the ground. The first two tribes to finish were able to move on to the next round!The next challenge was set up with each tribe standing in a line with each person being an arm's length apart from the person on either side of them. They had to blindfold themselves and then they were each given a small plastic cup. On each end of the line for each tribe was a bucket. On one end there was a large bucket filled with water and on the other end was a smaller empty bucket. Being blindfolded, and not allowed to talk to each other, they had to transfer water from the large bucket to the small bucket using their cups. The first tribe to fill their small bucket to overflowing won!

I didn't want anyone to feel left out so the tribe who didn't finish the first challenge still got to be involved. I split the losing tribe up and put half on each tribe doing the water challenge. Their role was to verbally help the competing tribes if they were having trouble finding each other. So, the competing tribe could talk, but the losing tribe members became "callers" who could help but only by talking, they weren't allowed to physically guide anyone's hand. (Phew, did that all make sense??)

After the water challenge was over we all went back inside for a Limbo competition! Originally it was supposed to be the tribe who won the water challenge competing against each other for individual immunity, but everyone wanted to participate and who was I to stop them from having a good time??The person who won was awarded with an Individual Immunity Necklace!

And then, it was outside for our Tribal Council! (And by Tribal Council I mean relaxing campfire in my backyard.)

Thanksgiving Turkey

On Thanksgiving, after we had stuffed ourselves with a delicious meal, we gave this turkey a feather display to be proud of! Everyone cut out a feather and wrote a list of things they were grateful for this year. It was fun for adults and kids alike!

Thanksgiving Banner

I love my Cricut!

American Indian Playgroup

November is American Indian Heritage Month so I wanted to do something to celebrate. Plus, it would be something new and different for the kids!I found a couple of books that I thought would be fun but also teach something to the kids.I also planned a dream catcher craft for the kids to do. We ended up having a fairly young group though so it turned into a craft for the moms! Oh well, I think they all enjoyed it!
And to top it off, a coloring page to go with the book The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses.

Halloween Banner

I didn't get to do too much for Halloween this year due to a busy schedule and a school party at the same time as playgroup. Boo.The one thing that I did (which hopefully made up for the lack of anything else) was put together a banner for the playgroup party.

I put more work into it than I usually would for a banner, but I plan on using it for several years!

Carnival Playgroup

With winter coming/here, we have to keep playgroup interesting so we don't go crazy from being indoors too much. What better way to spice things up than to take the kids to a carnival?We had a bunch of different stations with activities for the kids to participate in. Pin the nose on the clown was a simple and fun game to start off with!We had a fishing game with bouncy balls for the prize which the kids absolutely loved.I was in charge of a bean bag toss game. The object of the game was to toss bean bags and flip over three popcorn buckets to win a prize!Surprise, surprise, the prize was a bag of popcorn!We also had one mom in charge of balloon animals/other objects!And another mom in charge of face painting!

To finish everything off we had a parade set to some fun carnival music. We asked the kids to dress up in a crazy outfit. Another mom also brought a big tub of dress up clothes to add a little more fun to it!

I wish I could take all the credit for this carnival, but I just helped with my one game. Kim, if you ever read this, you're amazing!

Ribbon Pumpkins

Last year I wanted to do something different with our pumpkins. I decided on ribbons!Splash-of-color ribbon!Sporty ribbon!Spooky ribbon!

Spacy...pumpkin! No ribbon at all but it was 4 year old perfection!

Batman Birthday Card

I made this card for my father-in-law who works a lot of night shifts!

Besides, who doesn't want more sleep??

Mario Galaxy 2 Party Hats

Along with the Mario and Luigi hats we already had, I made some more character hats for the kids to dress up in for my son's Super Mario Galaxy 2 party. I cut out all the patterns with my Cricut, traced them onto felt, cut the pieces out, hot-glued them together and then hot-glued them to the hat.I made a mini Princess Peach hat for my 1 year old daughter so she could join in on the fun!When I made the Mario and Luigi hats I actually sewed the white part onto the hat itself. With Wario and Waluigi I just glued it on and it was just fine.I had to be a little creative with some of the hats. This one is for Diddy Kong. He has stars on his shirt so I just put those on the hat instead.DaisyDry BonesKing Boo - This is one of my favorites for some reason!ToadRosalina! I totally had to make up my own ideas for this. I used a wand (since she has a wand), a "luma", and then I added the light blue tulle to give it a little something extra.

And last, but not least, Bowser! This one is also one of my favorites! The horns are made of two pieces of felt hot-glued together. The flame mohawk is made of flames alternately glued together and then glued to the hat at the bas of the flame. This is the hat my husband wore for the game when all the kids had to defeat Bowser.