Vintage 1936

In May, we celebrated Dad's 80th birthday.  

Julie did a great job with all the details and decorations, and it was such a fun gathering of family and friends.  

We love this dad of ours sooooo much!!

Bewitched

Lucy had a little late night Halloween party with a few friends from her primary class.  She had a good time, but I had the most fun brainstorming the evening with her, and watching her together with her friends. 

She and I are both total wimps about scary stuff.

We go for smiley Jack-o-lanterns.  

No fake blood, please.  

Old Bewitched reruns are pretty much as scary as it gets at our house.

Prep work included sewing some matching pj pants for our guests.

Besides that effort (which provided a lot of wonderful time together), there was no bending over backwards on my part to prepare any kind of picture perfect party.  I pretty much just set out supplies and let the girls do the work.  Fun for them, easy for me :)  They whipped up their own "witches stew" (minestrone soup),

And decorated their own table (I loved their hats hanging in the tree!)  

Dinner involved a good measure of giggling over "so-and-so thinks so-and-so's brother is cute!"  And my laughter mingled heartily with their own.  Oh fifth grade!

After dinner the girls did a little more decorating:

"Recipe cards" to go with the remaining batches of soup:

Double double toil and trouble

Let this soup in your crock pot bubble 

4-6 hours on low heat

Add noodles 30 minutes before you eat!

They were cute, e l a b o r a t e recipe cards ;)

After making deliveries (which one of Lu's friends called "bewitching doorbell ditching!"  Such cute, clever girls :) we came back home.  

A few minutes before the party had started, Lucy spontaneously hid each pair of pjs around the house and scribbled out corresponding clues.  So we had a little scavenger hunt to find all the purple pants, and then we settled in for showtime.  

The girls got a kick out of Samantha and Darrin and especially Endora.  

And I mostly got a kick out of them.  

Such wonderful little witches ;)

Super Seven

Lucy's Cinderella party kind of converted me to the *activity-outside-of-the-house + a pizza = easiest party ever* equation ;)

So when Spencer turned seven, we simply traded princess tiaras for super hero masks and went to a trampoline gym instead of the movie theater.  The cons included two of Spencer's buddies getting sick the day of the party.  The pros included Grandpa agreeing to join us.  Meaning the boys got to watch The Incredibles in the car...

...on their way to and from "super hero training."

Which was a blast.
Then, back home for pizza and presents...

...and that's a (happy!) wrap!

Back to School

The kids looked so cute headed off to first and fifth grades.  I, on the other hand, was in pjs with a messy ponytail.  No kindergarten class to gear up for this year!   It felt so strange to just drop Lucy and Spencer off at school and drive away.   But I didn't cry!  I was too giddy about having time to clean and go grocery shopping and get dinner in the crockpot.  I had told Lucy and Spencer the night before, "Guys!  I'm going to have enough time and energy tomorrow that we can have a little back-to-school celebration when you get home!"  Lucy's face lit right up, but Spencer didn't miss a beat, "How about we just get a pet?"

Sorry Spud.  I didn't have that much time and energy.  Just enough to brainstorm a back-to-school theme for the year...

...and to buy ingredients for homemade ice cream ;)

It wasn't a pet.  

But it was fun!

Grandpa came and gave us each a back-to-school blessing.
And so far, our scripture theme has been so rewarding.

I love the Savior's promise, "Learn of me and listen to my words, walk in the meekness of my Spirit and you shall have peace in me."  D&C 19:23

That promise has been a reality in my life.  And I pray that it will be in my children's lives as well!

Neverland

It's the same as having wings.

Peter Pan and Tiger Lily were thrilled to have so many friends join them for an afternoon in Neverland. 

"I don't know whether you have ever seen a map of...a child's mind, which is not only confused, but keeps going round all the time." 

Pirate Cove

"There are zigzag lines on it...and these are probably roads in the island, for the Neverland is always more or less an island, with astonishing splashes of colour here and there..."

Mermaid Lagoon

"[There are] coral reefs and rakish-looking craft in the offing, and savages and lonely lairs...and caves through which a river runs..."

Indian Camp

"It would be an easy map if that were all, but there is also first day at school, religion, fathers, the round pond, needle-work, murders, hangings, verbs that take the dative, chocolate pudding day, getting into braces, say ninety-nine, three-pence for pulling out your tooth yourself, and so on, and either these are part of the island or they are another map showing through, and it is all rather confusing, especially as nothing will stand still."

Pixie Hollow

"Of course the Neverlands vary a good deal.  John's, for instance, had a lagoon with flamingoes flying over it at which John was shooting, while Michael, who was very small, had a flamingo with lagoons flying over it.  John lived in a boat turned upside down on the sands, Michael in a wigwam, Wendy in a house of leaves deftly sewn together.  John had no friends, Michael had friends at night, Wendy had a pet wolf forsaken by its parents; but on the whole the Neverlands have a family resemblance, and if they stood still in a row you could say of them that they have each other's nose, and so forth.

On these magic shores children at play are for ever beaching their coracles."

"Of all delectable islands the Neverland is the snuggest and most compact; not large and sprawl, you know, with tedious distances between one adventure and another, but nicely crammed."*  

I honestly don't know whether the kids had more fun playing, or whether I had more fun watching them.  Either way, it was the happiest of days.

We had a little "treasure exchange" instead of traditional birthday presents.  But we did sing to the birthday boy, and he was the first to open his loot (with the help of his dagger, to be sure).

Regrets include that I didn't take a picture of Peter and his shadow (although the light was perfect),

and that I forgot to take a group picture until after six friends had already left!

But.  Regrets aside, we had a great time.  We read Disney's Dave Barry/Mary Blair version of Peter Pan (i love those concept art stories!) as our guests sporadically arrived,

Then after "following the leader" for a two-minute tour of Neverland (including directives such as "no throwing sand in Pirate Cove"..."pixie dust and other art supplies stay on this table"..."hands and feet only in Mermaid Lagoon,"... etc, etc....I'm sure my kids are so embarrassed thrilled to have a Kindergarten teacher as a mom =),  we met back at the gate where each child declared his/her "happiest" thing (so fun to hear them all!) and then flew on in for two hours of unorganized, uninterrupted play.  Well, almost uninterrupted.  There were two times the "tick tick tock" of the croc was heard and we had to hide in the shade until he was gone.  But we had ice cream sandwiches and popcorn to help pass the time while we waited.  =)

We sent each guest home with their "treasure" from the exchange, and with a cupcake baked in an inverted ice-cream cone...loosely resembling a teepee.  

The "after party" was just as fun.  A few presents were opened and enjoyed (including the clay above), and when all our guests had been picked up, I told Lucy and Spencer that if they'd help me clean up quick, I'd take them to Wendy's for dinner.  They gathered up trash and helped put away the art supplies in a flash, but then persuaded me to leave the main elements of Neverland intact for a private family picnic.  

The kids ate in the tent and I threw out a blanket in Mermaid Lagoon.

Lucy eventually brought out a book, and Spencer talked me into the teepee to put together puzzles.

We've had repeat versions of Neverland ever since...even in the rain.

Pirate Cove has been renamed Crocodile Creek. 

And we're piling up lots of wet socks and muddy boots.  

But that's ok. 

*Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie