Robot Birthday Party Bash

Its taken me nearly a month to get this post done, but I thought I would share my Robot Birthday Bash planning. Of course, there are pics from the boys' party, too.:) I found so many neat ideas online and am so grateful for all the people who shared, that I want to share, as well.

The boys had their party on June 5th and this was what was included in the party:

For Games/Activities, we did a Spare Parts Scavenger Hunt, colored Robot face masks, Robot Freeze Dance wearing the face masks, made edible robots out of marshmallows and pretzel sticks, Pin the Button on the Robot and a pinata.

For food, we had hot dogs labeled "Robot Fuel Cells", cheese puff balls labeled "Ball Bearings", chips and guacamole labeled "Computer Chips", chex mix labeled "Nuts & Bolts", fruit and veggie tray labeled "Robot Bits", dressing for veggies labeled "Robot Grease", Punch labeled "Robot Oil", condiments labeled "Spare Parts". I also had sweet and unsweet tea and water on hand. We had a robot cake and cream soda icecream to top it all off.

There were take home goody bags for all the kids, too.

Here are the "recipes" for the punch and cream soda icecream:

Cream Soda Ice cream

60 oz. Cream Soda

2 cans sweetened condensed milk

Pour ingredients into ice cream maker. Pack ice and rock salt in alternate layers around canister and plug maker in. Depending on how hot it is, it should take 30-45 mins. Basically, you want to wait until it stops mixing and your canister start spinning. That means it has thickened all the way. :) Keep an eye on your ice level and add more along with more rock salt as it melts to keep it as cold as possible!

Party Punch

2 liters lemon-lime soda

container of lime sherbet

jar of maraschino cherries in juice

In a LARGE bowl, pour entire jar, including juice, of cherries. Add all of the soda. Stir slightly. Dump entire carton of lime sherbet. Again, stir slightly to combine all ingredients somewhat. This punch looks a bit scary, but believe me it tastes great! Plus, it does a great job masquerading as robot oil.:)

***Bug Note*** One of our friends who attended the party said that she went to a party where the hostess had hung ziploc bags filled with water up around the food and it kept the flies and mosquitos away. I hung some up on our front and back porches and so far it seems to be working!

Here are the websites I found very helpful. They gave me lots of ideas!

This is where I found the robot face mask: http://www.womansday.com/Articles/Crafts/Robot-Mask.html

This was where I got inspiration for our robot pinata:

http://www.fun-pinata-party-ideas.com/robot-pinata.html

This is our pinata (it was taken before I had attached all the strings at the bottom...totally forgot to take a pic at the party):

Our robot is a pull and tug pinata instead of the traditional smash and grab kind (3 and 6 yr olds running around with a stick...yeah.;), so I found this on how to play tug and pull: http://www.pinatas.com/How_to_Play_Pull_Pinata_Party_Game_s/39.htm

This was also good source of info for making your own pinata: http://www.aokcorral.com/projects/how2sept2006.htm

This lady threw a robot party for her son and she has some great ideas: http://momtoz.wordpress.com/2009/02/23/zs-big-robot-birthday-bash/

I found this printable invitation and modified it : http://familyfun.go.com/assets/cms/pdf/printables/0407_martian_invite21.pdf

Here is the modification: Editable Invite 1 PDF

I found several robot clip art and coloring sheets by googling "robot coloring sheets" and just sifting through the image results, which I used for my banner and table decorations. Here are just a few:

http://www.freecoloring.org/space/robots-coloring-pages.htm

http://www.thecolor.com/Coloring/Mister-Robot.aspx

http://dulemba.com/Blogstuff/ColoringPageTuesdays/Robot-big.jpg

http://www.everythingpreschool.com/themes/robots/viewer.php?file=Robot.jpg

http://makingartfun.com/htm/f-maf-printit/retro-robot-coloring-page.htm

Here is the robot banner I made:

I just put two holes using a hole punch on either side of each letter and each robot and then strung them on wrapping ribbon alternating robot, then letter ending with a robot.

This lady's blog is where I got my goody bag ideas and she has the templates for the bag toppers and also some invites that she created herself fo' free! :

http://wendolonia.com/blog/2009/10/05/robot-birthday-party/

For the table "center pieces" I got the idea from watching one of the episodes of the Dugger family when they were giving a baby shower: she took a roll of toilet paper and wrapped it in tissue paper. I just added some balloons on bamboo skewers and stuck them down in the middle of the wrapped tp :).

Found this site of a robot party and used her idea for labeling the food:http://karaspartyideas.blogspot.com/2009/11/robot-birthday-party.html

This is the itinerary, food labels & spare parts labels for the scavenger hunt:

Robot Party Itenerary PDF

I basically raided my recycle bin for the spare parts objects and then just covered them in foil and taped the labels on them. I then had one of the guests who arrived early hide the "parts" around the yard for the kids to find later.:)

To make the robot marshmallows, just get a bag of the stick pretzels, a bag of small marshmallows and a bag of large marshmallows. You just have the kids put the marshmallows on the sticks whatever way they want to make Marshmallow Robots....then you eat 'em!

For the Pin the Button on the Robot, I just drew a robot on poster paper and colored a red swirling button on him and then duplicated that same button on some paper glued on both sides of a circular piece of cardboard. I got one of those decoratable masks in the craft section at walmart and glued a piece of black felt over each eye hole. NO PEEKING!!!

For the cake, I googled "robot cake" and sifted through the image results until I found this one: http://www.cookiemag.com/food/party/2009/03/robot-party-setup?currentPage=3 . I just love this cake! I really wanted to try and make it, but when I showed it to Braden along with several other robot cakes, he showed next to NO interest in this cake. He wanted a much more colorful one! So, Braden and I got on the computer and came up with our own cake idea. Check it out below. You can also use the 2nd page on the template to print out a t-shirt transfer. Just a warning, though, I did that and then washed the shirts and the transfers peeled off in various places. :( :

ROBOT CAKE Al La Braden PDF

Here are pics of the actual cake:

Now I know this cake is not super smooth, but before I smoothed it out using the neatest technique I have come across, it was VERY lumpy! Basically, the icing is a crusting buttercream and you let it crust up and then take a Viva paper towel and lay it on top and very gently and lightly rub your hand over it in small circles and it smoothes it out like a bakery style cake! The video demo is below.

It doesn't look exactly the way the paper one does, but it comes pretty close!

Viva paper towel method for smoothing icing video:

http://www.cliksecrets.com/cake-videos.php

Now we have birthday pics for your viewing enjoyment:

A jewelry-makin' I have gone

I did it. I leapt in. I couldn't help myself. It started with a desire to make someone I love a very unique gift and well, its not stoppin' there!

Where before, I would peek into Hobby Lobby's or Michael's jewelry and bead aisle and avoid them with trepidation, I now purposefully tread. I have a mission and I have bead needs!

I'm not going to put a picture of the gift set I made because it is a surprise and I don't want to spoil it. After it has been given, I will put it on the blog. I do, however, have several other "pieces" I have made. I will admit that I did see some similar in a catalog and because they were crazy expensive, I decided I could make them myself, tweaked to my taste, of course. Oh and I'm thinking I will still have a jewelry party, cuz hello! free jewelry!;) So, here they are in all my novice handiwork:

This is a pretty long necklace. The beads are actually a smokey, gray glass, but the way the lighting was, it looks like its amber. Oh, well.

I think I'm going to end up modifying these earrings because they are just too long and heavy for my taste.

This was the second set I made.

The necklace is super long and I wrap it around my neck twice and it still hangs to about mid abdomen.

I thought these turned out pretty cute.

The bracelet had to be restrung a couple of times, but I finally got it to work! Yay!:)

Affinity for poo - Not for Rachel's eyes!;p

I successfully went through two boys without any major poo-ations. We had the occasional diaper breech, potty miss and the occasional exploratory finger in the #2 area to see what just happened back there, but for the most part I gratefully did not have to deal with poo coloring/smearing/splattering with my boys.

Why, oh, why then does my sweet, precious, very girly girl have an affinity for poo?! The other day, when quite a bit of other issues were taking place simultaneously, my dear, angelic Lerloo decided to dabble in a bit of poo art. I wrote a little post about it on Facebook, but thought that it was worth repeating here, too:

God is totally stretching me in the area of how I respond to my kids. God allowed me to see that all the huffing, puffing, sighing and saying things like, "I'm never gonna get this done!" that my kids are saying...well, I'm the thoughtless person who taught them that. Hooray! So, now I'm super conscious of how I respond to them. For example:

Today, Ailey got sand and water mix dumped on her from the top of her head down, thanks to her big brother Zekey. So, I got her in the tub and rinsed her off. (She had two showers yesterday.) Then, as I was letting her bum dry off and letting her run around neked for a few minutes, I got distracted by a phone call from my dad reminding me that its his birthday today! Oops! Happy Birthday, Dad! Then, as I'm talking to Dad, Braden comes running in telling me Ailey has pooped on the rug in their room. Sorry, Dad, emergency! Get to their room and get the rug off of the floor and then hear Ailey screaming from the bathroom. She has climbed up into the sink again and can't get down. So, Dad gets to talk to Braden for a bit. I get into the bathroom and find a trail of poo. Yeah. At first, I was just gonna clean her bottom and put her diaper on, but then I noticed that she had managed to smear the poo all over her, too. Yay! So, back in the shower for a complete wash-down. Sorry again, Dad. LOTS of poo! Happy Birthday, Daddy!:) That is just a minute portion of the way my days have been going for, oh about the last 4 days. I'm tellin' ya, God is going to break me of my bad reactions and to tell the truth, I'm grateful!!! Glory to You, Lord!!!:)

So there you have it folks! And, just for fun, I put her in her cutie tutu the other day and put her headband on which she promptly tried to take off and put her in front of the mirror so that she could see herself all decked out. I was telling her, "Pretty girl!" and she stopped right in the middle of taking the headband off and started cooing with delight at the whole situation. She kept the headband on even though she still messed with it and I had to help her put it back on. At least now she WANTS to wear the headband. Yay! This could open up all new accessorizing possibilities! Oh, and Braden made her the pretty necklace which she really likes to wear.:) Who knew girls could learn to preen so young?! That right there proves to me that it is built right in from the beginning!

Zekey is 3!!!

Oh, Zekey, what a joy you are! You have such a tender and caring heart and you have such a strong desire to please! We pray that you would direct that to the Lord in all that you do! You are such a fun and creative boy and we love to watch you learn and grow. You bring your own unique qualities to help make this family a family and we can't imagine our lives without you. You have such sweet prayers and its a blessing to hear your heart. We love how you love to sit with us and just talk and tell us all about the things around you. We love to see what you come up with when you build with your blocks. Its such a pleasure being your parents!

Lord, thank You for such a special blessing. Thank You for entrusting him to our care. Please, draw his heart ever closer to Yours and keep him near You. Please, give Him your wisdom and understanding and may he lean on You and rest in Your strength. Please, fill him up continuously with Your joy and show him how to make You Lord of his life. Show him how to be open to You always and to seek You on every decision, big or small. Lord, please use this sweet-hearted boy to further Your kingdom. May he be a beacon of light for You in this very dark world! Please, help us to teach him and guide him in Your ways so that when he is older, he will not depart from You, Lord! You are mighty, Lord! Please, bless our Zekey with Your strength, courage, encouragment, grace, mercy, righteousness, holiness, peace, joy, patience, Love, faithfulness, gentleness, kindness, goodness and self-control. May he be like You! In Your precious and holy name! Amen.

Happy, happy birthday, Sweet Ezekeys!

Updating your shower can be hazardous to your health

A while back I proclaimed that eventually our bathroom was going to get a facelift. It has neutral tile on the floor and halfway up the walls, but the other half of the walls to the ceiling have some pink floral wall paper. If you know me at all, you know that is definitely NOT my style...whatsoevah! Well, there were also sliding glass doors enclosing the tub. When we first got moved in we thought we might just leave those there because they seemed to keep the boys' splashing frenzies contained. After sopping up many puddles off the floor, that was reconsidered. SO, Saturday, we went and got one of those rounded shower curtains like so many hotels have and installed it yesterday and I found a very nice shower curtain to hang upon it along with nice smooth rolling curtain rings. We were also able to raise our recently purchased shower head up to normal height without gouging out the wall thanks to a very helpful employee in the plumbing department at Home Depot. We got an "s" pipe extension and viola! We no longer have to crouch down to get under the shower head! Yay!

Okay, so here's the hazardous-to-your-health part. After we took the doors down and put the new rod and curtains up, I took a shower. If any of you have never taken a shower in a tub that has one of those curved shower curtains, let me just say the space is huge! We have metal grab bars in our bathtub and couple that with the glass doors, it was a tight fit in there. Take those doors away and curve out the shower curtain and its quite disconcerting, let me tell you! So, it was after the kiddos were in bed and I was turned so that my back was to the curtain. I was washing my hair and had my eyes closed and somehow got off balance and fell backward out of the shower. Yep, landed on my bum on the edge of the tub and proceeded backward still to finally come to a thudding halt on the bathroom floor between the potty and the wall.

After my initial response of complete shock wore off, I let go an "ouch!" and then I just busted out laughing....because it was funny! Hello!!! I think me trying to get up off of the floor was equally as funny. After I got myself back into the shower, I made a mental note that the shower curtain cannot and will not keep me contained in the shower in the event I get off balance AND I'm gonna have a very pretty bruise as a souvenir of my first shower with the new setup.... So, let this be a warning to all of you out there going from glass doors on your tub to curved out shower curtain!:)