Gratitude - November Activity Days

It has been awhile, but I wanted to post the Activity Days activity that we had in November.

I gave a lesson about Gratitude, since we met the week before Thanksgiving.  I started the activity with a discussion about the story of the Ten Lepers.  We read the story in the scriptures and then I talked to the girls about Leprosy.  Then I had one of the girls stand up and I wrapped them up in toilet paper and put circle stickers on her to have her represent one of the ten lepers.

Then I printed out a grateful worksheet.  I created a worksheet where the girls where able to write down alphabetically the things they were grateful for.

Then we talked about how to write a thank you note.  I had a worksheet that taught them what they should include when they write a thank you note to someone.  I had them write a draft thank you note using the worksheet.

 Here is what one looked like after they filled it out.  (sorry it is sideways, I'm too lazy to fix it !)

I brought an American Girl Card Craft kit and let the girls decorate and make a card and write their "thank you" on the inside so they could give them card to someone they wanted to THANK.  (you can see the front of one of the cards in the ABC gratitude picture above).

Lastly, I printed out a 4X6 photo of the following quote for their photo albums.  (again, being lazy, sorry!)  Below I attached the quote for your use.   It came from the New Era, so if this doesn't work, you can search for it.

I wanted to give credit where credit is due.  I got the idea about the Ten Lepers and the ABC gratitude  Worksheet from The Red-Headed Hostess.  I re-worked her ABC worksheet to fit my needs, but I loved the idea.  You can go to her website and see all her fabulous stuff.

Graham's Hot Diggity Dog party

Graham had his 3rd birthday party last week.  We kept going back and forth between dog and Mickey Mouse, but a dog party was easier, so that is what we went with.  Luckily he loved them both equally as much.  

So, I based the whole party around this invitation.  It was all about hotdogs and fancy dogs with their bow ties.  I didn't get a picture of it, but I attached this invitation with a big red ribbon to a dog rope toy I got at the Dollar store that matched my color scheme.

When the guest first walked up to the door they were greeted with very large doggie prints.

And then they opened the door and saw this.  

One of my favorite decorations about this party was the giant size dog house and dog to greet the kids.  How cute is that dog.  I bought him years ago from Costco and he has just sat around not doing much until the party and then he was the showcase piece of the party (well, of course besides my little graham).

We started out the kids with a coloring activity.  Here is how I decorated the tables.  I saw the cute dog balloon idea on Martha Stewart so I used their template.  Note: the ears were too heavy (started to make the balloons fall) so I just cut the ears shorter and the seemed to work).  

Also, I made doggie medallions for each chair.  I had 4 different dogs represented, again the different dog templates were found on Martha Stewart, I just added a hot dog in each dog's mouth to go with my theme. 

I got the paw print paper at the dollar store.  it is just a roll of wrapping paper.  So easy and it adds so much.  I bought the scalloped placemats at Part City and traced some coloring pages onto it for the kids to color.  That was their first activity - coloring.  What 3 years old don't like to color, right.

I made the cute bowtie utensil holders from this tutorial.  I loved how they tied (no pun intended) into my whole theme.  

Next item of business was lunch.  Of course we had hot dogs, but we had a fun more fun items to go with out puppy theme.  

On the menu were some fun items.  Like dipped doggie bones (scooby doo graham cracker bones), paw-tato chips and paw-sta salad.  

  

And the hot dog menu was as follows, but as you can guess not one 3 year old looked at this thing.  They all just wanted to eat.

I got these adorable doggie bone sippy cups at Oriental Trading Company (I just love that place) and added some coordinating paper to the middle.

And the cupcakes were these cute little doggies made out of mini milanos from Pepperidge Farms, m&ms for the noses and eyes from Wilton and some black frosting gel.  Seriously so easy, but yet so cute.  

After the food, we turned the little boys and girls into puppies.  They were able to each pick out some dog ears, a bow tie and we drew a nose and dots on their faces.   Again, I got the ears from OTC and I made the bowties.  

Here are just a few of our little puppies.

And the whole dog pound!

 Some of the games we played were:

Obedience School - Simon Says

Dog Chase - Relay Races - timed them to see who was the fastest dog.

Catch the Cat - Dad was the cat and the kids had to chase him and when he was caught he had to freeze and throw out candy while the kids were distracted he could "escape" and they had to catch him again.  A nice alternative to a piñata.  The kids loved this came by the way!

and Best Bark.

For the prizes, they got a box of Scooby Doo Graham Cracker Bones.

We sang happy birthday and had cupcakes and ice cream and opened presents.

As the friends left, they got to stop by the adoption center and adopt a puppy.  

They got to choose their own dog (notice the bow ties on each of the adopted dogs :-)  

Then they put their new pets into the boxes and got to name them.

 They also got a certificate that made it all official!

 Then they got to pick a puppy pop for the road.

And some last little details:

I made the garland using my silhouette machine.

I made this banner years ago for Jake's dog party, glad I kept it!

And these cute dog signs.  I loved these two.  I just used foam core from the Dollar Store and taped the edges and used vinyl for the silhouette portion, painted the whole thing and took the tape and vinyl off and wa-laa!

So, there you have it. Graham's Hot Diggity Dog party.  

Family Halloween Costumes 2014

Ok, now for this year's family costumes.  This is our third year doing this and the kids love coming up with our family costumes and dressing up together so how can I say no.  This year everyone was on board to do Star Wars.  Jake is obsessed with Star Wars, so it was the perfect year to do it.  Here we are in all our Jedi glory.

Queen Amidala

Yoda

Princess Leia

Luke Skywalker

The kids all together.

Halloween Festivities

I swear the Halloween season is just as busy as Christmas time.  I feel a huge sigh of relief now that it is November 1st.  Fun parties, yummy treats, getting costumes together and then the big day.  The craziness of Halloween is over, but it sure was fun.  Here is a little of what we did and our family Halloween costume this year.

We carved pumpkin earlier than usually this year (because Chris had to go out of town). I was afraid the pumpkins would get moldy (we were 3 days early), but they made it to Halloween.  The kids love (I mean love) carving pumpkins.  They all get to design their own and then mom and dad cut it out (or this year... we only had to help on some of them).  Graham kept telling me he wanted a "mickey pumpkin".  So, I did the best I could.  Besides the ears, I think it looks pretty good (it really is all about the eyes :-).  He loved it, so I declare success.

We had our ward halloween trunk or treating party.  There is ella with her cute little friends.

And graham with his best bud.  These two are like a little married couple.  They are inseparable.  This picture is super blurry, but it captures their relationship perfectly!!!  Graham kept saying "yoda and minnie go trick or treating". 

Chris and I had a couple halloween party to go to.  And since our family costumes weren't really "couplish"  (made up word alert), I found this cute idea on pinterest and thought... done!  It was super easy, besides the time commitment to painting the details.  But I love how it turned out.

I'll share our family halloween costumes soon.  What fun we had as a Star Wars crew.

Fall and Football

Chris was given some tickets to a Fresno State Football game.  There were 4 tickets, so I told him to take the big kids and enjoy some daddy/kids time.  They went and had a ball.  Hannah was totally into the game asking all kinds of questions.  Ella I think just liked being out and Jake got tired of the whole thing about 1/2 way in.  But they had fun all and all... especially when they were able to go onto the field!

Jake and his kindergarten class went to the pumpkin patch as his first field trip.  They got to ride on a tractor, learn all about pumpkins and he got to bring his baby pumpkin home.  He had a lot of fun and we heard all about it for days to come.  And his baby pumpkin became a ball for his younger brother. I can't tell you how many times Graham has thrown that thing.  I'm so surprised it has still survived.