Happy Family Times #10--Going to a birthday party

What have you been up to with your family this week? Did you do something new and exciting? Go on a trip? Or just dance in your living room?  Please share below! Kelly over at Happy Whimsical Hearts and I are loving hearing about everyone's wonderful family time! We hope this link party will help inspire more quality time with your loved ones!

Today we attended a first birthday party. The parents of the child are Hazel's godparents. Now, I think I mentioned Hazel's fear of men. The only men she is not afraid of are Daddy and Pop. Even men we see every week who talk to her, she will play shy around but talk about them as soon as we walk away and for the rest of the week. One man she is really frightened by (and I don't know why) is her godfather. She did not want to go to the party since I told her he was definitely going to be at it when she asked if he would be there. We bribed her into going by saying we would go get ice cream afterwards if she went and behaved. She decided she wanted to go to Friendly's instead of the farm that makes their own ice cream from the cows you can see there which is only a 5-10 minute drive from our friends' house. Oh, well. Note: I did not mention to my friends that I would be blogging about their party so I am blocking out their daughter's face in all the pictures since I do not have permission to post it.

Since their daughter was born Memorial Day weekend, they had a red, white and blue party. This is the party I made all the star crayons for. She wanted 100 and I made 94 from all the crayons she gave me. I think she is going to have a lot more than she needed, but oh, well. She took them and put them in plastic bags. Hazel had a good time. She was a bit cuddly, but then she went off to play with the kids. One of the girls there is one day older than Hazel so they play at all the parties there.

Hazel pushing the birthday girl with some help from her uncle

They provided bubble stuff for the kids to play with. It was a big hit. There were snacks to begin with and then your typical Memorial Day barbeque: hot dogs and hamburgers, potato salad, pasta salad, etc. Then of course there were gifts to open and cake and cookies and pastries. The birthday girl had a wonderful time with her piece of cake--it ended up on the ground before she was through, but she had fun. I love the fistful in the bottom picture.

Our gift's wrapping fit the theme

Hazel ate the frosting and Daddy got the chocolate cake.

The Cake

My Cuddly Girl

After the party we headed to Friendly's and got Hazel her ice cream cone. I got a watermelon sherbert cooler--a flashback to my childhood. I use to love those in the summer. They are no longer on the menu, but still make them for me at least at our local one.

Now it is your turn to share how your family has spent some quality time lately.

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Ok, now for our PARTY!! Please share your FUN Family Times!!

A Walk on the Beach

This week was school vacation week in Massachusetts. The third Monday of April is a state holiday called Patriots Day. It also is the day the Boston Marathon is run and so many roads are closed down for parts of the day. Since we did not have any of our normal activities, Steve took the week off of work and we took a mini-vacation the second half of the week to visit my parents at Cape Cod. We packed up all three of us and the two cats to drive two hours to my parents. It wasn't a bad trip except Fluffy does not like the car and meowed a good part of the way there and most of the way home--though she wasn't as bad as I expected. She may be getting more comfortable with the car. Hopefully.

Bath Time Tea Party and Easter Egg Fun

We are still looking for a knitter to join us in our knitted farm swap. If you want to join please e-mail me. A few people have left messages wanting to join with a no-reply e-mail, so I cannot get in touch with them.

Bath Time Tea Party and Other Kitchen/Bath Fun

Now I would like to feature a wonderful idea from last week's Sharing Saturday. This idea is from Glittering Muffins and she called it Sensory Bath - Kitchen Fun. (Note: I'm not sharing any of her pictures since her son is in all of them.) Well we have tried it and I have to say Hazel is asking for baths again. She absolutely loved it. I invaded her play kitchen for items to take in and we had a tea party and she made cakes and all sorts of things.

Steve and I always said we would not take pictures that would embarrass Hazel later in life especially bath or naked ones so I am only going to post pictures of what we had in the bath tub. Also Hazel has sensitive skin so on doctor's orders we only use one brand of soap, lotion, suntan lotion, shampoo, etc., so I thought coloring the water was not a great idea. However we have given her a few bath time paints and she used that to color the water when she was mixing. The blue wasn't coming out anymore so I opened it up and put water in it for her and she loved getting blue water in her bowl.

She had so much fun with this bath that we visited the Dollar Tree to replace some of the things we stole from her kitchen like the travel size spray bottle and soap dispenser. We also picked up the slotted spoons and strainer. She loved it!!

Easter Egg Fun

Next we had fun with Easter eggs. I got this idea from The Imagination Tree. We started with a tub full of water and plastic Easter eggs. We tried to sink them. We tried them together and apart. For the most part they floated though the open ones we could get to sink faster. Then we tried adding coins to them. At first we added only a few coins and they still floated. We checked to see if the coins would float on their own. Hazel enjoyed this part because they splashed so she kept dropping them in. Then we filled the eggs with coins and those sunk.

Next we tried filling some with rice. Again they floated until they took on water. Then we pushed them down and got them all to sink by filling them with water. Hazel enjoyed picking them up to empty the water out.

We had a lot of fun experimenting with the eggs in the water. Then we went to decorate them. We will share that for another post. Have a great day!!

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A Snowy Day

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Just thought I would give you an update on our Easter egg grass. We were very excited to notice some grass growing this week.

Adventures Outside--Winter Nature Hunts and Play

Climbing Up Our Swingset

So on Friday, we had another beautiful day here in New England. The weather predictions for Saturday was a possible snow storm with an arctic freeze coming Saturday sometime. Friday it was suppose to be near 50, so we went outside after our Move and Groove class at the local library. First we played on our swingset and then we moved to the one we are storing in our yard for friends who are inbetween houses (and living in a condo with no yard).

On Our Friends' Swingset

Hazel decided she was the captain of a big ship (the swingset) and was taking me to the big city and zoo to live. Apparently I'm now Curious George. My seat on the boat was the green swing. There is a steering wheel in the house and thus how she was steering the ship.

Lilac Tree

Now, February 2nd was Groundhog Day around here. Supposedly the televised groundhog did see his shadow (seems to me he always will since there are camera lights around), however around here it was awfully cloudy. Well apparently no one told the trees that we are suppose to have six more weeks of winter since I saw buds on our lilac tree.

And the rhododendron also had some buds on it. As well as whatever this bush is.

Then I got ordered back to my seat on the ship which apparently can drive on the street as well since she took me to the grocery store and parked it.

This is the brook that goes along the back and side of our backyard ( and then goes underground near the house). I love having it since it just adds a peacefulness to the yard (and doesn't flood).

After we were done with the ship, it was time to dig in the dirt. Hazel pulled out her gardening tools and set to work. Then we had the idea of making dirt castles since the sand in her sandbox is too dry right now. (She is digging in my garden, but we are planning on moving the garden this year so this is a great place for her to dig.)

Muffin anyone?

Then she got smart and took out her big shovel.

Then she wanted to go for a walk and see what nature we could gather. Before we went I found a very small baby pine cone. We put it on her nature table.

See how tiny it is?

On our walk with the wagon to collect nature

Hazel found a large branch on the ground. She thought it looked like a tree and wanted to bring it home. It is bigger than her! Oh, and she insisted on carrying it home herself.

Bringing It Home

Sorry, Don't know why this one isn't turned.

When we got home, we had many sticks, a few leaves (very dried old leaves), some evergreen pieces and more sticks. I guess we will be doing some crafts with sticks this week or soon. Maybe some fairy furniture?

Hazel of course wanted to bring the large branch in. Steve let her bring it in to the craft room but not upstairs. Of course she and I are planning on finding something to put it in and make decorations for it.

Oh, and apparently we now have an imaginary dog who likes to escape all the time. We ended our outside play on her swingset--the train--and her doggie kept escaping and we would have to chase it. This has continued in the house. I love her imagination!!

I'll share some of our nature crafts and experiments later this week or soon!! Hope you had a wonderful weekend! Oh, and please check out Sharing Saturday. It will be open until Wednesday this week, and we already have over 130 amazing entries!! Enjoy!!

Today was...

Hazel's craft today

Today we had a rather busy day. Our morning was full of play and crafts. Oh, and we put together a slow cooker dinner for tonight. We made the heart crafts I featured yesterday. Then we went out to run errands. One stop was Target. We bought a lot of new clothes for Hazel from the clearance items including four pairs of shoes in her next size! Another stop was Joann Fabrics for a few supplies for a craft for tomorrow. Then we went to the library to return books and we picked out several new ones.

My Heart Craft

While running errands we realized it was a gorgeous day and we wanted to get outside to play. It was in the 50's today here and sunny. So we hurried our errands and then came home for a late lunch and  got outside. Then it was off to the hairdressers for hair cuts. We met Daddy there and he took Hazel home while Mommy got her hair cut. I always take Hazel in with me to get her bangs cut. She loves it!! She also likes to play hairdresser to Ducky when we get home. Then after a quick dinner I had to run a stewardship meeting at church. Now I'm tired, but wanted to share these crafts with you and some pictures of our outside play.

With the rain last night and the warmer temperatures, most of the snow melted. One of our first activities was moving the snow from the few snow piles left from the plow and our snowmen to the yard. Hazel did this with her shovel and then she wanted to use her hands. She touched it and said, "Cold!" So after a few tries she decided she needed some mittens.

Her Shovel

Her First Snowball

I suggested using the toy truck she brought out. She tried that for a bit, but it was small.

She ran into the garage and came out with her bigger truck to use.

She is always thinking!

Then she wanted to play basketball, catch, tag/gingerbread man and finally blow bubbles. She had a great time blowing bubbles.

She is finally getting how to blow things--bubbles, horns, etc.

Oh, she also had to bring out her chair to sit on for two seconds. Then it was time to bring out the sidewalk chalk. She tried to draw squares but they came out more like circles. We worked on straight lines a bit and then she wanted me to make her a hopscotch game.

Unfortunately, the time we had flew by and it was time to get to our appointment. Hopefully we will get another nice day outside again soon. Though I did have to promise her it would snow again. (I just added that it might not be this year.)

That was our day. How was yours?

Oh, and one more thing to share--check out this article on children and playing from  The Christian Science Monitor. It makes me so happy we are not pushing Hazel to learn to read, etc. and have made the choice to send her to a Waldorf school where they are not taught to read until they are 7.

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