Jessica is home sick...

... and Buddy is thrilled!

The Invertebrate Fashion Show

Ok, I lied- oops forgot about these pictures. Jessica's science teacher- whom she ADORES- had the kids each create a costume for the invertebrate lesson. They were only allowed to spend $5 on their costume, and mostly try to use stuff from around the house. Once they were complete they invited the parents to come see their Invertebrate Fashion Show. Jessica chose the Portuguese Man O War Jellyfish- click here to see what one looks like.




Most of the Jellyfish chose to use an umbrella (wow that would have been SO MUCH easier). When I asked Jessica why we didn't go the umbrella route she said, "everybody does that!" Later when the whole fourth grade did a the fashion show for the fifth grade Jessica came home and said she was so glad she did not do the umbrella idea. Kudos to Jessica for not taking the easy way out and for taking pride in her project.

Jessica's 10th Birthday

As many of you know Jessica is a HUGE Harry Potter fan. This year for her birthday we decided to do a Harry Potter theme party. When we sent out the invitations we included some questions from the Sorting Hat so that we could figure out in which houses each of the girls belonged. Jessica had a lot of ideas for the party so we took some of her ideas and I included some of my own so that she would be surprised.

We collected some sticks and then spray painted them with paint and added glitter so every girl got to choose her own wand. Here they all are- just waiting to be chosen.

Our Sorting Hat waiting patiently for students to sort into the houses.

Our great feast was set.
Each place had a cake waiting to be decorated.
We made pretzel wands!
We made our own carmel corn.
And then we had to wait for our friends to arrive.... that was SO HARD!
Upon arrival each girl had to sit on the stool and put on the sorting hat. Justin was still here at that point so every time each girl put on the hat he would say, "hmmm VERY interesting". A few of the girls were borderline between two houses so the hat let them decide which house they wanted. We ended up with 2 Ravenclaw- Jessica and Katelyn, 2 Hufflepuff- Neve and Cailin and 2 Gryffindor- Addie and Gabby. They were dived up into 2 teams. Each girl was a given a sticker to wear with her house crest. After being sorted each girl had to choose her wand.

Once they all arrived it was time to follow our schedule. Our first class was Defense Against the Dark Arts. Since the weather was fairly nice and since Jessica never gets to do this for her birthdays, we used the water balloon launcher to attack Dark Wizards. They earned gold galleons depending on how well they shot the water balloons. They also received gold galleons for all the balloon remnants they collected and returned to me. [of course Jen joked that it doesn't matter what we call it we will always find a way to work in the water balloon launcher- so true.]

After Defense Against the Dark Arts the girls unfortunately received a detention from Mr Filch and they had to go into the forbidden forest with Hagrid. Here they all are before they reported to Hagrid.

Hagrid has a weakness for Dragons eggs and as luck would have it there were a ton of Dragons eggs hidden in the forest for them to collect. Each team was allowed to keep the treasure inside the eggs (Harry Potter themed silly bandz and more gold galleons) but Hagrid wanted the eggs!

After all the eggs were collected we headed inside for Divination. I told the girls that like Professor Trelawney I could tell their future by the beverage they drink. But I don't read tea leaves. Each girl chose a cup. I poured Sprite into each cup. If the drink changed to Yellow- then happiness was in their future. If the drink turned Green- money was coming their way. If the drink turned Blue- they would be successful at school. BUT if the drink turned Red- LOVE was on its way- and this one got the most screams of horror!!

After the futures were secure they needed to guess how many Bernie Botts Every Flavor Beans I had in a glass. (then later they dared each other to eat the gross ones like ketchup and onion).
After Divination we had Muggle Studies. For this class we played one of my favorite party games when I was a young Muggle. It involves a BIG Hershey bar, hat, mittens, scarf, dice and a plastic fork and knife. The amusing things is that muggles these days all want their own plastic fork and do not want to share a plastic fork with others- have to say it did not occur to us at all in "my day". The girls had never played it before and they LOVED it! Much screaming and hysteria.

Then it was time for Care of Magical Creatures. This was our most complicated game. One girl from each team searched the TV room for hidden magical creatures- snakes and spiders. They passed off their loot to another member that traded them in for gold galleons. They took their galleons to Gringotts and the head goblin (Marc) and he exchanged their galleons for envelopes which contained the pieces of the puzzle they would need to solve. The winner of this game would win the House Cup!


The winning team placing the final letters in the puzzle- "Dragons are not pets".

The losing team without one letter placed....
After Care of Magical Creatures we headed to Potions where we made Butterbeer. Cream Soda which Butterscotch sauce stirred in, and whipped cream on top.

After Potions we headed to The great feast and celebration! Jessica opened her presents. Then I had to give the girls the bad news that Hermione Granger had been working for House Elves rights again and now they were on strike and the girls had to all decorate their own birthday cakes for the feast. They squealed with delight and ran to the table.
Calin and her smiley face cake.
Then she added pimples...

Addie casting a spell upon her cake.
Not sure what happened here....

All in all it was SUPER fun and everyone had a great time- especially Jessica. It is often said that Mom's seem to be competitive about B-day parties always trying to one up each other. I haven't really found that to be the case- most people just go to the standard locations. Dee and I were joking that the only Mom I seem to be competing with is myself! I know that Jessica really liked Justin's survivor party last year so I was trying to give her something similar. In the end Jessica had a great time and LOVED it.

And with that folks I am all caught up- didn't think I could do it did you???

Camp Jewell Winter Family Camp

We decided to go back to Winter Family Camp at Camp Jewell this year. We had so much fun last year that we were able to recruit some more families to join us this year- and we got a second cabin. Last year there were so many boys that Jessica was a little left out so I told her she could bring a friend with her this year and she chose Addie, of course once Justin heard Addie was coming he insisted we invite Miles as well. Many of you know that two kids is often more than I can handle so why would I voluntarily bring double the number of kids? especially when Marc stays home. Well the truth is that both of those kids get along so well with my kids that it actually made my job so much easier. Do you know what else made my job easier? My friend Jen came with her two girls too so we would often divide the kids up into two groups and head out. The Deweys came too and stayed with us- we all had a great time.

The first morning Jen took the older girls cross country skiing (Kim has those pictures- ahem KIM!). I had Justin, Miles and Lauren. We decided to head up to target sports and stop at the secret playground on our way. This picture makes me laugh. To get to the secret playground you have to go up the Cabin 1 hill- this is a very steep hill and the main reason why I never reserve cabin 1 or 2 when we stay at Jewell. About 3/4 of the way up Lauren and Miles asked for a break. So this is their pathetic I am so tired face, Justin ran back down to show that he was not tired at all.

We played for a little bit on the playground which was very fun in the snow. At one point Miles was on one side of the set and saying, "somebody come here" over and over. I finally told him that the other kids were on the slide and not coming. Then he paused and said, "somebody with a camera come here" that made me laugh. He wanted me to take his picture, and so I did.

So we get to target sports and they are doing archery. Lauren starts to get a little whiney. She doesn't want to do archery. So we talk about compromises and we will do what she wants next.
Since we were the only ones at archery I suggested that Lauren just give it a shot. The kid was a natural- here she is next to all the shots she took without ANY help. Cracks me up.

Then we headed out to do some broomball and meet up with the girls when they returned from skiing. Rumor has it that Addie fell down no less than 12 times, possibly more. She had the best attitude just laughed and kept getting back up and even told me that Cross Country skiing was Awesome!
Tubing is always popular!

here is a video Jessica took while she went down on the tube:



The boys and I headed back up to do BB guns- showing off their mad skills:

In the afternoon we all headed to Arts and Crafts together. Mike and Joey humoring me.



Back to broomball. Kim showing off her I-guess-I-will-be-a-good-mother-and-buy-my-own-ski-helmet helmet. You can't see but there is a fabulous flower on the helmet that matches her coat.

The first night of Family Camp is always a campfire and you just can't stop our kids from performing. I think Miles and Justin's dance was seriously the funniest thing I have seen in a LONG time!





I don't think this picture worked- but this is a shot of all of our mittens and boots hanging out by the fire at night.

The next morning Miles decided he wanted to go Cross Country skiing. Jessica wanted to go too. I would have loved to go but I felt bad asking Jen to take all the rest of the kids especially since the chances they would all want to do the same things was next to nil. Kim mentioned that Mike was going to give it a shot. I am sure Mike thought he was going to have a nice kid free period but sadly I rained on his parade. I knew Jessica wouldn't be an issue and she would lead the pack- she loves Cross Country skiing- but I just wasn't sure how Miles would do. So Mike agreed to stick with Miles.

I really owe Mike one- because as you can see this meant that Mike was in the caboose. Miles did great and didn't want to quit but it was slow going. Not to mention the field was in horrible shape to ski on. Mike reports that they did not get very far on the lake when Miles said he was missing Justin and they turned around- thanks Mike!

Jen and I decided to switch things up that day so she took Justin and Miles for the morning and I took the 3 other girls. The girls and the Dewey boys decided to go ice fishing so Kim and I headed out to the lake with our poles and bait. A boy with our group in the other cabin had caught a fish the day before and they were convinced they would be able to as well.
Then the reality hit- ice fishing is boring. Especially when there is only one hole and all your lines get tangled up. Joey and Lauren decided that snow angels were more fun.

Once Jessica rejoined us we headed to Arts & Crafts to do candles. This is one of the few times I actually ran into Michelle besides meals. She LOVES candles and was quite the little helper- good job Michelle!


Then we headed to the Dining Hall for some Hot Cocoa! Love that it is available ALL THE TIME! They even had whip cream and sprinkles out- yummmm!
Want to know what Jen and the boys did? A lot of this- Justin and Miles loved just playing with the legos in the Dining Hall. I can't tell you how much fun these two had together! Jen admits to getting a little bored after she read every sign and poster in the dining hall.

That night was the Dutch Auction. Our group split into two teams of 6. Amusingly Justin and Miles were with the 4 parents and the other 6 kids were all together. They did great and didn't need much help from us. This is one of the first tasks. We had to use all of our boots and build the highest free standing tower- we won.

Then we had to submit one boot that thought smelled the worst. Here is Kim checking them all out. We submitted Justin's boot- which Mike claimed was just nasty. Mike was shocked when the staff smelled Justin's boot and said it wasn't bad at all- imagine just how bad the "winning" boot smelled?

This is one of the last challenges. You had to drink an entire carton of milk and then without using your hands fit the whole carton into your mouth- as you can see neither of our teams won.



Here are the two peas in a pod- every morning.
Needless to say we had a FABULOUS time! I was not as exhausted as I had been in the past. We will totally go back next year and maybe we can add some more cabins to our group!