N's Skylander party

Hope you all had a nice spring break and Easter! I'm finally getting around to sharing N's party with you. My 4 year old is crazy about Skylanders ever since the end of last year. (Remember how this was on our Favorite Things list.) So it was very fitting for him to want a Skylander party. Many people may not know too much about it or even knew these existed. Partly I think it's because its based off a video game. There are so many characters and parts to this that I would need to write a second post, anyways on to the party details.

DECORATIONS
We chose a blue and green color scheme. I cut out letters and the 8 elements (color circle with logo: air, life, undead, earth, fire, water, magic & tech) to make the birthday banner. Thank God for an x-acto knife. I found plates, balloons and these Skylander portal Easter eggs. I added some gold chocolate coins for the table. Made water bottle wrappers with a "water" element Skylander.

CAKE
This was a little more challenging to figure out. I bought some Megablok sets with Skylanders characters to use on the cake. I ended making a portal with a 6" cake pan and surrounded it with chocolate wafer rolls. Covered the top with silver sugar crystals. Piped the landscape and added the sheep and chompy figures. I made sheep cupcakes and placed them on green paper plates. I trimmed the edges to make it look more like grass.

FAVORS
I found these perfect Skylander bags and attached personalize tags. Filled it with snacks, skylander themed marker, stickers and puzzle.

GAMES
How many gold coins can Wrecking Ball collect?
Place a pile of gold coins and jewels on table.  Each person got three chances to collect as many coins with a sticky hand/grabber. If they caught a jewel they got an extra turn!

Help Trigger Happy defeat Kaos.
I attached an image of Kaos on plastic cups and found a ball gun at the dollar store. I loved how the kids went closer and closer with each shot to get better aim.

I had one excited boy that day. He gave me two thumbs up!

This is what it's all about,  a HAPPY birthday... check!
Don't you agree?
Eva 

Easter egg experiments

Easter weekend is here and a mini Spring break for H will begin today. (Thanks to all those snow days we had.) As I was shopping for the kids' Easter basket goodies I came across this cool product. Not sure if you've seen these....Plastic Decorating Eggs.

It's ready to use and 100% recyclable. This way I won't feel bad "wasting" the real eggs, plus they look pretty real to me. Which is the REAL egg?

 

This year we'll be doing some experimenting... Kool-Aid (like Zi did last year with her kids here) vs. color tablets and hard boiled eggs vs. plastic eggs.

Check out our results.
As you can see the difference in the color saturation with the same dye.
(Plastic eggs on top and real eggs on bottom)

Here are the results that I thought was best for...
SATURATED COLORS: Color tablets with vinegar
PASTELS: Color tablets in water or plastic eggs
BRIGHT COLORS: Kool-Aid Cherry & Orange (egg 1 & 2, bottom left)
SMELL/SCENT: Kool-Aid or color tablets with lemon juice
REAL EGG: You can get more saturated colored eggs.
PLASTIC EGG: Great for kids to use since they can dye eggs to their hearts content, no food wasted and no cracked eggs. Plus you can save these for decorating next year or just recycle them.

We'll be decorating some with stickers and markers to add more fun, but also to keep the kids busy hehe.

How do you dye or decorate Easter eggs? Do you have an Easter Tradition?
Have a Happy & Blessed Easter!
Eva

DIY Frozen craft

This little craft was a hit during H's birthday party.  I did some prep work like painting the eyes, gluing on the screwhole button for Anna's bun and precutting the ribbons, tape, fabrics etc.
Hope you enjoy this Frozen craft!

WHAT YOU NEED:

Paint
Paint brushes

Doll pins/wooden pegs
screwhole button
Craft sticks
Craft glue

Ribbon

Embroidery floss
White rainbow loom bands

Glitter tape

Fabric & tulle
Sven printout (optional)

ELSA

We painted her hair in White pearl metallic paint and dress in Ocean Breeze gloss acrylic paint.

I braided embroidery floss to make Elsa's hair. I used a white rainbow loom band to attach Elsa's braid. 

Cut tulle into a 5" circle for skirt. (remember to cut a small slit in the center)

Once the paint dries put on tulle skirt and wrap with the aqua glitter tape to create the bodice for dress. You may need some craft glue to help the tape stay on.

ANNA (Coronation outfit)

Glue screwhole button to create Anna's bun. We used green satin fabric for the dress. Cut the fabric into a 5" circle. I used pinking shears to prevent the fabric from fraying. Cut a small circle in center.

We painted her hair in Burnt Sienna gloss acrylic paint and lower half of peg in Apple Tart paint. 

Once the paint dries put on satin skirt and wrap with the black glitter tape to create the bodice for dress. Again you may need some craft glue to help the tape stay on. Tie the green ribbon on Anna's bun.

KRISTOFF

We used bright yellow gloss acrylic for his hair paint. Dark grey for his jacket and boots. And black for his pants. Once the paint dries tie a maroon ribbon as his sash.
I printed out an image of sven and attached it onto 2 craft sticks so Kristoff could ride on Sven.

Since we have some extra pegs we should work on some more characters... maybe on a rainy day. We've been enjoying some outdoor play now that's it's finally to begin to feel more like spring!

Have a great weekend!

Who's your favorite character? Are you enjoying nice weather in your area?

Eva

H's Frozen Party

Yay for March, do you know why I (Eva) love this month so much? I get to plan my kids' birthday parties! This year H wanted a Frozen party. I had plenty of inspiration from all this cold and snowy weather we had these last few months. We invited all her girlfriends from school this year.
Take a peek into our version of Frozen!

Decorations
My Christmas decorations came in very handy. We chose the blue and white color theme.
Found free Elsa & Anna papercrafts online.

Party favors
I designed personalize tags for the bags.

We made a bag of Olaf hugs, wrapped packs of Model Magic to build a snowman.

Filled a champagne flute with these pretty pearlized blue gum balls. And I found these perfect crowns at Joanns. It was so cute how all the girls wore them throughout the party.

Cake
Luckily I was able to find this Disney Frozen character gift set with Elsa, Anna and Olaf. I grabbed it as soon as I saw it since anything Frozen fly off the shelves.
I used white pearlized gum balls for snowballs and iced sugar cones to create snow covered trees.
This is by far my favorite cake I made.

Made some cupcake toppers, everyone wanted Elsa!

Activities
Frozen craft: Elsa, Anna & Kristoff
I came up with a simple design so it was easy enough for the kids to do it on their own but still have it recognizable. I'll post a more detailed post for this DIY Frozen craft next week.

"Marshmallow Attack" Game
I drew Marshmallow on cardboard and backed it up against a box and made the snowballs out of fleece. The kids had fun throwing snowballs... just like Anna. "It's not nice to throw people!" (Ok Frozen fans what part of the movie was this from?)

Another successful party, phew... now onto our next one! Have a great weekend!
Do you love Frozen too? What's your favorite song?
Eva

Happy Birthday N!

N has been asking every day this month "Is it my birthday yet?" Well now I can finally say YES!!!

Wishing my lil charmer a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!
We love you so much!

One of his signature poses

I cannot believe he is 4?! and starting Pre-K in September! My baby is not a baby anymore... sniff sniff. Today we are going out for a small birthday treat of his choice and celebrating this weekend with his friends so it's a busy week for me.

Can you guess what his birthday theme will be?
Eva

Happy Birthday H!

Six years ago today I became a mom to a beautiful girl. I was just cradling you in my arms and meeting you for the first time and in a blink of an eye you are now in school and being more and more independent. What a joy and blessing to see your child(ren) grow up!

Today we brought in some treats to share with her classmates. H's teacher told me there are 14 March birthdays in that class alone. H wanted to bring something different since she's had enough cupcakes this month.  Haha I don't blame her, I love cake but there comes a point when it becomes "too much".

Fruit on a lollipop stick

Happy happy 6th birthday to the sweetest girl I know! 
We love you so much, XOXO Mommy.

A little peek into next week's post :)

What's your favorite thing about being a mom or dad?
Eva

Disney World Series Part 4: Recap

Read on CNN last Monday, just as we were starting our Disney series here at Bumble of Joy, that Disney World was raising their ticket prices again. In the comments section, there were some people that said that it just isn't worth going there since it is so expensive.

Well, what do I think?

I think they do an AMAZING job creating a magical experience for their visitors, especially young children! And most people will be buying multi-day passes when they visit which are much more affordable. Of course, I'm not saying that I would be bringing my kids there every year. But it is definitely a trip that is worth saving up for and letting the kids experience at least once in their life.

I still remember E3's face during our first parade there and she saw her favorite character, Minnie Mouse. She was just in awe and had a mega-watt smile on her face!

My husband, John, wondered if the kids were a little too young to go there. Would all that money be wasted, since they might not even remember the whole experience?

Personally, I think it was totally worth it. Little kids are less jaded and can fully experience the "magic" of the place. They are just so in awe of all the wonderful details and all the characters. And even though my 3 oldest knew that the characters were just people in costumes, it did not dampen the experience one bit. It actually made them a little less scary.

What sets Disney World apart from many other places? Their amazing customer service!

For example, when we met Mickey, E2 and E3 were actually a bit timid. And even though there was a long line of people waiting, Mickey actually took the time to try and get the girls to warm up to him and made sure we got a pretty good picture together. Even after the pictures were taken, he spent a bit more time trying to engage them so they would have a good experience.

 And when we went on the Pirates of the Caribbean, I actually dropped my lens cap in the boat during the ride. I tried looking for it frantically at the end of the ride but it was stuck in this dark corner under the seats that it must of took at least 15 minutes to locate. Did we get rushed by the employees? Nope! The nice young lady working there was very patient and even offered me a flashlight to help with my search.

So I will leave you with some pictures from our trip and my final piece of advice--it is a place that I think every young child should get to experience at least once and try to go when they are young because it will truly be a magical time!

How H & E1 spent much of the trip.

What are your thoughts on Disney World? Share some of your experiences, we would love to hear from you!

Zi