it really does go by fast. you hear it all the time from parents because it really is true. i heard someone else say that the days go by slowly but the years fly by. that mimi is now 6 years old...? SIX! i can only say that it is too much for me to comprehend right now and i dont know that i will even be close to wrapping my mind around this until she is 7 at which point my head will explode from trying to get THAT to sink in.
we had her birthday party on a sunday afternoon a week after her real birth date because i needed that extra week, that extra weekend day, that extra morning time in order to prepare, esp since it was to be hosted in my home...you know it's not as simple as sweep the floors and blow up balloons and serve cake. i have to say that the party was better run in my head than i was able to make happen in real life, but no one knew what was in my head, so i hope it came across as being a good party anyway. there was a lot going on at the party and i am sad that there's hardly any pictures of all the stuff that went on. ah well. i'll do my best to put on all the details in writing for posterity, as this will have to suffice.
for mimi's 6th birthday, she wanted to have a science themed party. so we made science-y invitations and sent them out a couple of weeks before the party. click here to see all about those. i hung up a large LABORATORY sign and an WARNING: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY sign on our front door to greet our special scientists guests on the day of the party.
we hired a scientist from Mad Science to come and do a show. the show was lots of fun...i didnt catch it all, as i was running around, but what i did see was very good. at one point she was showing the kids electricity and talking about conductivity. another time i saw her making fun colors in fire by burning different elements. she also let the kids wear diffraction glasses, which break up light into the different colors. mimi got to keep a pair as the birthday girl. i'm sure more went on and wished i could have seen the whole show. i told rob to video it for me, but for some reason he only captured the first few minutes of the show. :( additionally, i should have delegated picture taking to someone. :(
live and learn.
when the show was over, Dr Jamie had the kids make color changing UV keychains. when they finished with this, the kids said goodbye to the scientist and came upstairs (we ran the show in the lower level rec room, where it could be darkened enough for the light show) to do some more experiments that i had planned in the kitchen. in my head, we had time to do 3-4 experiments, but it was already going on an hour and a half when the show finally ended, so we barely managed to eek in one experiment.
we decided to make elephant toothpaste for our experiment. i gave the kids little baggies filled with vinyl gloves, thick glasses, an ID badge, a faux pocket protector, goofy origami bowtie that mimi and i made, and a face mask (rob's mom got them for me from the hospital) to get into the scientist role. mimi wore her dad's old white button front shirt that i shortened the sleeves on as her lab coat. i had extra paper coats from the hospital for the kids who didnt wear a 'lab coat' but it was such a mad rush to get thru the experiment that i forgot all about it.
since time was short, we had to get the kids set up very quickly, and luckily the mommies present mobilized faster than i could even yelp for help to make it happen. the kids were set up in no time! it was a fun little activity...mixing peroxide with dish soap and then add some activated yeast. when it works well, you get oozing foam from the mouth of a plastic water bottle. i found out that red/pink food coloring gave the best display. the blue ones just crept up the bottle.
we didnt have time to make lava lamps, blow up sandwich bags, or make colors dance in milk. (eh, i'm the worst at realizing what the limitations are). i'm just glad the kids wanted to do the elephant toothpaste, since i made rob drive all over town to pick up several bottles of high volume peroxide. i would hate for it to have all been for nothing! i'm sure i wouldve gotten an earful from rob if we had 100 oz of that junk still sitting around. (i found all these experiments at sciencebob, stevespanglerscience, and zoom websites)
after making elephant toothpaste, we hurried into the dining room for food. the room was decorated with a variety of bright colors, since there's no 'science' themed party supplies out there. i thought it worked really well and think i like it better than commercially produced themed stuff.
the tablescape on the buffet table were an assortment of cylinders, and flasks filled with colored water that we'd put dry ice into to make it bubbly and foggy. and in some very large beakers and flasks i had blue hawaiian punch, cranapple, and apple juice in to serve (it would have been fun to put dry ice in there as well, but i didnt want to run the risk of having a small chunk of it get into someone drink). i put some bbq sauce and honey mustard in petri dishes to serve with chicken nuggets. and we had twisted balloons into a double helix and molecular-esque shapes and regular helium-filled latex balloons throughout the room in a variety of bright colors. i made a birthday banner by printing out different colored blocks with letters from the Periodic Table of Elements to spell out HAPPY BIrThDAY and labeled each with its atomic number and name. there's no A on the table, but i fudge it a little and called it Aluminum (Al), and no one called me out on it. heh heh.
for food we had chicken nuggets, some Mad Mac and Cheese (a very delicious one made by a friend a la barefoot contessa), Molecular Melons (balls of cantaloupes and honeydew, some of which we created some molecules with toothpicks and the rest we left loose to be scooped up. if they were in season, watermelons would have been a great addition), Biomass Bites (cold veggie pizza), i bought potato chips, some green chips (guacamole), and bright orange cheese puffs.
as the kids ate, i called them by twos to the ice cream making 'lab' so they could concoct their own sundaes at the Ice Cream Invention Lab. there's a chalkboard hanging over the table so i drew a bunch of science stuff on there: molecules, chemical formulas, etc. on the table i set out a variety of sprinkles in small test tubes and different sauces in small flasks, gummy worms and cherries in petri dishes with hospital tweezers to pick them up with. i bought small ice cream cups to make it easier to get the children thru, this way i wasnt scooping up ice cream, too. and they come with fun little wooden spoons to eat with...the kids love those which is another plus! i manned the whipped cream since the kids needed help with that. this went quite smoothly and easily.
then we lit the candles on mimi's cake and sang happy birthday, etc. i forgot to put dry ice inside the little cup i put into the top tier of the cake, but my sister, nan remembered afterwards. and my friend tina remembered about the dry ice in the colored flasks on the buffet. so with their help some of my plans got put into play. i served the cupcakes, jello jigglers, and sugar cookies, but didnt get around to serving the birthday cake as well. the cake was an orange strawberry cake, which i had hoped would look vibrant orange, but it was more pink than orange when it was done.
i made the sugar cookies a week prior to the party and froze them. this would lighten my load on the day before the party. i didnt have science cutters and they are hard to come by, so i just cut out each shape by hand with a sharp knife. it definitely takes longer, but i didnt want to go thru the trouble to trying to make my own cookie cutters with flashing when it was likely that i'd never make more of these again.
the yellow cupcakes with the biohazard symbols were lemon cake with green colored lemon curd. when you bite into it, you see a bright green nuclear slime ooze out.
the chocolate cupcakes were egg free for our egg allergic guests. they were filled with a white chocolate mousse and the tops were dipped in a semisweet chocolate ganache and then iced with a large atom with fondant electrons on the orbits.
i also made the cupcake stands out of cardboard rounds and scrapbook paper. they turned out cute and i could take it apart, nest the pieces and definitely reuse these.
the jello jigglers in the petri dishes were iced with some white chocolate icing and dotted with some nonpareil "cultures". luckily i had a scientist, my cousin jean, here to ice them realistically for me!
soon after the candles were out, people were starting to pack up their kids and i had to scramble to do the final part of the party which was to explode some diet coke as the grand finale. it was a BEAUTIFUL day outside, which was perfect for this. we got everyone outside, i set a stool in the middle of the road, using a special device to quickly drop in some mentos into the bottle of diet coke and make a quick get away, i pulled the pin which dropped the mentos into the bottle in one quick motion and before i even got a step away, it was starting to shoot out. the cola shot up 25 feet into the air and i barely got away by the time it hit the ground. the reaction is FAST, esp when the diet coke is warm.
then it was hurry, hurry, hurry (i felt like i was hurrying thru the whole party!) to pass out the goody bags which i tagged with a little thank you note and some website links for more science fun. in the bag i put in "Magic Snow" a powder solution that when mixed w/water turns into what looks and feels like snow (not that they didnt get enough snow this past month!), test tube filled with bubble solution, more vinyl gloves, a clean petri dish, and of course they got to take home the UV keychains they made and their glasses, etc. if we had time to make the lava lamps they could have taken that home too and more alka seltzer tablets to make it go again at home. SO much i wanted to do, and not enough time!
later when i asked mimi what she thought about the soda explosion, she goes, what soda explosion? it turns out she never made it outside. she had to use the bathroom. of course. (eye roll). as it looked like she was about to cry because she missed the grand finale to her party (i cant believe i didnt check to make sure she had made it outside!!!), i promised her we'd do it again another day.
mimi said she really enjoyed her party. she esp liked the mad science show when Dr Jamie made the cool colors in the fire. usually the scientist makes the birthday girl the helper, but mimi specifically asked that all of her friends get a chance to help that day. so everyone had some involvement and i think they all had a great time. i hope mimi has lots of good memories of this day.
happy sixth birthday, my sweetest girl. we love you SO much!
--------------------------------------------
we had her birthday party on a sunday afternoon a week after her real birth date because i needed that extra week, that extra weekend day, that extra morning time in order to prepare, esp since it was to be hosted in my home...you know it's not as simple as sweep the floors and blow up balloons and serve cake. i have to say that the party was better run in my head than i was able to make happen in real life, but no one knew what was in my head, so i hope it came across as being a good party anyway. there was a lot going on at the party and i am sad that there's hardly any pictures of all the stuff that went on. ah well. i'll do my best to put on all the details in writing for posterity, as this will have to suffice.
for mimi's 6th birthday, she wanted to have a science themed party. so we made science-y invitations and sent them out a couple of weeks before the party. click here to see all about those. i hung up a large LABORATORY sign and an WARNING: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY sign on our front door to greet our special scientists guests on the day of the party.
we hired a scientist from Mad Science to come and do a show. the show was lots of fun...i didnt catch it all, as i was running around, but what i did see was very good. at one point she was showing the kids electricity and talking about conductivity. another time i saw her making fun colors in fire by burning different elements. she also let the kids wear diffraction glasses, which break up light into the different colors. mimi got to keep a pair as the birthday girl. i'm sure more went on and wished i could have seen the whole show. i told rob to video it for me, but for some reason he only captured the first few minutes of the show. :( additionally, i should have delegated picture taking to someone. :(
live and learn.
when the show was over, Dr Jamie had the kids make color changing UV keychains. when they finished with this, the kids said goodbye to the scientist and came upstairs (we ran the show in the lower level rec room, where it could be darkened enough for the light show) to do some more experiments that i had planned in the kitchen. in my head, we had time to do 3-4 experiments, but it was already going on an hour and a half when the show finally ended, so we barely managed to eek in one experiment.
we decided to make elephant toothpaste for our experiment. i gave the kids little baggies filled with vinyl gloves, thick glasses, an ID badge, a faux pocket protector, goofy origami bowtie that mimi and i made, and a face mask (rob's mom got them for me from the hospital) to get into the scientist role. mimi wore her dad's old white button front shirt that i shortened the sleeves on as her lab coat. i had extra paper coats from the hospital for the kids who didnt wear a 'lab coat' but it was such a mad rush to get thru the experiment that i forgot all about it.
since time was short, we had to get the kids set up very quickly, and luckily the mommies present mobilized faster than i could even yelp for help to make it happen. the kids were set up in no time! it was a fun little activity...mixing peroxide with dish soap and then add some activated yeast. when it works well, you get oozing foam from the mouth of a plastic water bottle. i found out that red/pink food coloring gave the best display. the blue ones just crept up the bottle.
we didnt have time to make lava lamps, blow up sandwich bags, or make colors dance in milk. (eh, i'm the worst at realizing what the limitations are). i'm just glad the kids wanted to do the elephant toothpaste, since i made rob drive all over town to pick up several bottles of high volume peroxide. i would hate for it to have all been for nothing! i'm sure i wouldve gotten an earful from rob if we had 100 oz of that junk still sitting around. (i found all these experiments at sciencebob, stevespanglerscience, and zoom websites)
after making elephant toothpaste, we hurried into the dining room for food. the room was decorated with a variety of bright colors, since there's no 'science' themed party supplies out there. i thought it worked really well and think i like it better than commercially produced themed stuff.
the tablescape on the buffet table were an assortment of cylinders, and flasks filled with colored water that we'd put dry ice into to make it bubbly and foggy. and in some very large beakers and flasks i had blue hawaiian punch, cranapple, and apple juice in to serve (it would have been fun to put dry ice in there as well, but i didnt want to run the risk of having a small chunk of it get into someone drink). i put some bbq sauce and honey mustard in petri dishes to serve with chicken nuggets. and we had twisted balloons into a double helix and molecular-esque shapes and regular helium-filled latex balloons throughout the room in a variety of bright colors. i made a birthday banner by printing out different colored blocks with letters from the Periodic Table of Elements to spell out HAPPY BIrThDAY and labeled each with its atomic number and name. there's no A on the table, but i fudge it a little and called it Aluminum (Al), and no one called me out on it. heh heh.
for food we had chicken nuggets, some Mad Mac and Cheese (a very delicious one made by a friend a la barefoot contessa), Molecular Melons (balls of cantaloupes and honeydew, some of which we created some molecules with toothpicks and the rest we left loose to be scooped up. if they were in season, watermelons would have been a great addition), Biomass Bites (cold veggie pizza), i bought potato chips, some green chips (guacamole), and bright orange cheese puffs.
as the kids ate, i called them by twos to the ice cream making 'lab' so they could concoct their own sundaes at the Ice Cream Invention Lab. there's a chalkboard hanging over the table so i drew a bunch of science stuff on there: molecules, chemical formulas, etc. on the table i set out a variety of sprinkles in small test tubes and different sauces in small flasks, gummy worms and cherries in petri dishes with hospital tweezers to pick them up with. i bought small ice cream cups to make it easier to get the children thru, this way i wasnt scooping up ice cream, too. and they come with fun little wooden spoons to eat with...the kids love those which is another plus! i manned the whipped cream since the kids needed help with that. this went quite smoothly and easily.
i made the sugar cookies a week prior to the party and froze them. this would lighten my load on the day before the party. i didnt have science cutters and they are hard to come by, so i just cut out each shape by hand with a sharp knife. it definitely takes longer, but i didnt want to go thru the trouble to trying to make my own cookie cutters with flashing when it was likely that i'd never make more of these again.the yellow cupcakes with the biohazard symbols were lemon cake with green colored lemon curd. when you bite into it, you see a bright green nuclear slime ooze out. the chocolate cupcakes were egg free for our egg allergic guests. they were filled with a white chocolate mousse and the tops were dipped in a semisweet chocolate ganache and then iced with a large atom with fondant electrons on the orbits.i also made the cupcake stands out of cardboard rounds and scrapbook paper. they turned out cute and i could take it apart, nest the pieces and definitely reuse these. the jello jigglers in the petri dishes were iced with some white chocolate icing and dotted with some nonpareil "cultures". luckily i had a scientist, my cousin jean, here to ice them realistically for me!
soon after the candles were out, people were starting to pack up their kids and i had to scramble to do the final part of the party which was to explode some diet coke as the grand finale. it was a BEAUTIFUL day outside, which was perfect for this. we got everyone outside, i set a stool in the middle of the road, using a special device to quickly drop in some mentos into the bottle of diet coke and make a quick get away, i pulled the pin which dropped the mentos into the bottle in one quick motion and before i even got a step away, it was starting to shoot out. the cola shot up 25 feet into the air and i barely got away by the time it hit the ground. the reaction is FAST, esp when the diet coke is warm.
then it was hurry, hurry, hurry (i felt like i was hurrying thru the whole party!) to pass out the goody bags which i tagged with a little thank you note and some website links for more science fun. in the bag i put in "Magic Snow" a powder solution that when mixed w/water turns into what looks and feels like snow (not that they didnt get enough snow this past month!), test tube filled with bubble solution, more vinyl gloves, a clean petri dish, and of course they got to take home the UV keychains they made and their glasses, etc. if we had time to make the lava lamps they could have taken that home too and more alka seltzer tablets to make it go again at home. SO much i wanted to do, and not enough time!
later when i asked mimi what she thought about the soda explosion, she goes, what soda explosion? it turns out she never made it outside. she had to use the bathroom. of course. (eye roll). as it looked like she was about to cry because she missed the grand finale to her party (i cant believe i didnt check to make sure she had made it outside!!!), i promised her we'd do it again another day.
mimi said she really enjoyed her party. she esp liked the mad science show when Dr Jamie made the cool colors in the fire. usually the scientist makes the birthday girl the helper, but mimi specifically asked that all of her friends get a chance to help that day. so everyone had some involvement and i think they all had a great time. i hope mimi has lots of good memories of this day.
happy sixth birthday, my sweetest girl. we love you SO much!
--------------------------------------------
big thanks to rob for helping with the kids, driving all over town picking up supplies/food, and helping with clean up, and for allowing me to carry on with my party plans. thanks to my cousin jean for driving up here from richmond and bringing all those lab supplies with her for the party and then coming early to help out with the party stuff. thanks to my sister nan aka "mimi" for driving up from richmond to celebrate and helping out, too. and rob's parents for picking up the last minute emergency balloon order from party city when we realized 90 minutes before the start of the party that there was only enough helium in the tank to blow up 6 balloons.
yes, honey, we'll do a chuck e cheese party next year...i may still make a cake though....
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