Heritage Festival

Every second grade class at the kids' school participates in the Heritage Festival.  The kids spend time researching their ancestry, and parents can participate by hosting booths from their respective countries.  Madelyn chose to do England, and she was so excited with this project.  While I feel that it is a project for a slightly older student (since all the parents I talked with said they had done most of the work), I think it was a very enjoyable experience. 

We worked with another family since there's only one booth per country, and we set up a tea party and a poster display with facts about England.  The kids spent 5 minutes at each booth, so we did a few etiquette tips and discussed some of the facts with the kids.

To start the festival, there was a parade of nations and the kids had to wear costumes.  This was pretty tricky because English fashions aren't that different than American.  Madelyn wanted to dress in an older style outfit, so we just got her a colonial style costume.

Then, the kids were divided into groups and "toured" around the world with their groups.  Madelyn thought it was so cool that she got to "visit" 14 countries in one afternoon.

Pierce's Transformer Party

Pierce loves Transformers and asked to have a Transformer party.  We invited all the boys from his class and a few other friends from church.  We had 11 6 year old boys here, and I was a little nervous about that.  Thankfully, the weather was beautiful, and the boys were able to spend some time outside, which made the afternoon pretty easy and quite enjoyable.  We had pizza, fruit, and lemonade, and then the boys watched a 1980's Transformer cartoon.  Pierce received the entire collection--hours and hours--of old Transformer cartoons for Christmas and loves them. 

The kids were really into the cartoon:

Then we played "Put the Autobot symbol on the Autobot":

Then it was pinata time.  This was the toughest pinata; JD had to finish it off by pulverizing it.:

Then it was cupcake time:

                      I think all the boys had a great time, and Pierce said his party was "awesome."

Pierce is 6!

My baby boy turned 6 on Saturday, and we had a small celebration because his real party is this Saturday.  He is such a sweet boy.  He loves school and is doing well, is reading and can read pretty well when he's interested in the topic.  He is apparently very popular among his classmates, and we often hear reports of "so and so has a crush on me."  "How do you know?" "So and so told me." Uggghhh...I really don't like that, and I don't think he's too fond of it either.  He seems to take it in stride, though.  He has a great memory and can easily memorize scripture for AWANA, and he loves Transformers, Star Wars characters (even though he's never seen the movies), and Legos.  He can ride his bike pretty well and scares me with his fearlessness on his scooter.  He really tries to get along well with his siblings, and while he gets bored with her pretty quickly, he is really cute and sweet with Julia.

Devouring his Transformer books:

We love you, Pierce!

Madelyn's American Girl birthday party

 Madelyn wanted to have a birthday party and invite her classmates, and she wanted an American Girl doll party.  I wasn't exactly sure how to pull that off, but I decided to make it relatively simple and do patriotic decorations.  The invitation just asked the girls to come and bring their favorite American Girl doll or other loved doll.  We ordered pizza, had fruit, and cupcakes.  We watched Kit (the movie starring the American Girl, Kit) for the first part while the girls ate pizza.  When everyone was done with pizza, we played "Put the flag on the flagpole" and busted up the pinata.  Then we sang happy birthday and ate cupcakes while we finished the movie.  It was a simple party, and I think the girls all had fun.  Here are some pictures of the decorations and festivities:

Madelyn started the flagpole game:

 Notice the "flagpole" to her far left:

 

Here are the results:

 In honor of the Great Depression (when the story of Kit takes place), the two girls who hit the flagpole received a dollar.

Then it was pinata time:

And cupcakes: