Falloween Social 10.20.19

MVPA had their Falloween Social. This is the third or 4th one we've attended. The kids put the police man costume on Liam. It would fit Miles so it was quite big.

Photo Taken October 20, 2019

 At the end I tried to get a picture with all 3 kids. We did a few tries but they aren't the best.  You can see Miles didn't last in his costume either.

There were 5 families there. There were 2 Liams. But at their Spring one there were 3 Liams out of 11 kids! I have some group pictures but I forget if all the parents allow pictures of their kids online so I will just avoid posting any.

2019 Week 26/52 Photo

We went to a pool party. This group picture was taken right after they got ice cream. Not quite all the kids are pictured.  I didn't end up picking one picture since there wasn't just one picture that had all the kids.  It was pretty cool so by the time the sun went a little down and ti was shady it was quite chilly. I think the high was only 78. The kids loved it anyway.

Miles liked the "cold pool" and didn't want to ever go in the hot tub.

Here's another. I had Sarah take it near the end to show that I was actually there.

Photo Taken June 27, 2019

Shrinky Dinks meetup (2.25.18)

A mom organized a meetup where all the kids got to use Shrinky Dinks.  I had never heard of them before. There were pre-designed things to color and also blank sheets.

I got Miles to sleep and then went and picked Ella up and we went. Dave was home sick (sleeping) so I was able to leave Miles and make it there.   Ella had a blast coloring them.   Then we put them in a toaster oven and saw them shrink. Ella loved it.

Next everyone put them on necklaces or keychains. They used some beads too.

Here is one colored in before it was put in the toaster oven.

We do a decent amount of playdates where we make something like this. I wish I blogged about them more. Sometimes later I forget half the prep that was involved.

Fire Station Tour (2.9.19)

Miles was so excited about the tour. The firetruck wasn't there when we arrived. On our way we saw it going out on a call. Then the call got extended so they got a truck from another fire station. Before the end our truck came back too.   Ella wanted to wear her Elsa dress since later she'd be wearing it at a birthday party. I tried to tell her it was too long to deal with but she wouldn't listen. Then she got there and wished she had something else on. She didn't like that the ground was wet so she was always holding it up to walk around. Going up and down the steps were a little more of a challenge. 
Miles head bumped me and I told him not to do that. It was an accident. But Ella decided to poke him in the eye telling him he was bad. So she started crying. Then she cried for a good half hour. We left the fire station to try to get her to calm down but then Miles was missing out on the explanation of equipment so we went back in while she was crying. She hated people looking at her and asking what is wrong so then she just kept crying.  There was another Elsa there who was making friends with Ella before the whole crying ordeal and then when she was crying the other Elsa came over trying to comfort her and hug her but Ella didn't want anyone around.

We ate immediately before we left the house. Then mid tour the kids were begging for food.
By the end, Ella got better and was having more fun posing for pictures and looking at the fire trucks.

Dave didn't go because he had a going away brunch to go to. It would have been better with 2 adults but we managed. Miles isn't too upset about missing a little of the tour. He barely even noticed.  He would not look at the camera for pictures saying he wanted to look at the truck.

The chief ended up giving most of the tour when he wasn't originally going to.

Valentine's Day Parties

We attended a bunch of parties this year.
South Bay Moms Group - February 4
MVPA (mom group) - February 12
LACP (preschool) - February 14
MVPNS (preschool) - February 15

The kids had so much fun at the meetups. They liked decorating and crafting. They also liked eating. 

 I used my hearts to make the photo booth here. We took class shots.

Miles didn't want to decorate his bag.  Then I coaxed him into it. He could have just glued on 1 heart but then he had to glue on a ton!
I took many pictures but I was trying to be careful not to post pics of all the other kids.

Carnival 2016 (7.30.16)

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I started my day off bright and early making bacon for the carnival. I thought we needed some to go with the bagels. I was not the best at making bacon and had 3 pans going instead of using the oven. I splattered grease on my shirt and stained it too.

I used every inch of the car to get everything to the carnival. I don't even know if these pictures of the car were after everything was in.

I took a dolly to get stuff from the car to the table area. I had to make quite a few trips. I got there a little bit after some did who were setting up but I did have to make bacon in the morning and also I was quite pregnant!

We had volunteers for each thing in the program. I typed up instructions for every volunteer so that they knew what they'd have to do in advance. We sent out the instructions + had them printed with each game/activity.  We brought so many plastic utensils and our mistake was not bringing a knife to cut the bagels. We managed but it took way longer without an actual good knife. Volunteers came to help set up and spent some time doing that. I kept trying to do 8 million things and would get distracted when someone asked what to do next then I'd put down what I was holding and doing and then couldn't find where later.

I had to go home and get Dave and Ella so we ended up missing Bean Bag Bowl Toss totally and also missing duck pond but the pond was still out.  Dave and Ella weren't ready when I got there. It was a pretty quick drive but I was a little late leaving to get them since we weren't set up in time and then they weren't ready. Dave apparently didn't even know the official start time.

When I got back with Dave, we opened the bacon container. Apparently it hadn't been opened so nobody ate any. Then all the bacon was gone in 10 minutes. I guess I should have made more. I couldn't believe how fast it went yet I could. I burnt a couple pieces too and they were also gone! I was told we didn't even need bacon. There are so many vegetarians and people who don't eat pork but plenty of people do eat bacon. I typed up some lessons learned after the event and one was about having plenty of bacon. :)

We spent over 2 months planning the event. There were 4 of us that met to try to finalize things.  Most of the planning was done the last week. We spent a lot of time on research on food choices but then it was just all too expensive. Or maybe I spent a lot of time early on doing that. When you set the cost out initially before figuring out food, it's a lot harder to have all the awesome options we were suggesting.  It was too last minute for me but it was so hard to do it all in advance. We were making the photo booths the week of and getting all the signs printed the week of. Divya and Laura planned the music time/story time itinerary just days before the event. I made all the food labels the week of.  I made matching hair ties for us to wear and we all wore red on purpose. Ella also had a ribbon hair tie to match us! So much of the planning was changing food or wanting different food but then food + decorations + prizes + game purchases were just too much so we needed cheap food.  We charged per adult and kids were free but kids had to eat too so the $12 per adult had to last. We had a decent amount of food but no big meal foods like sandwiches. We stuck with bagels, fruit, yogurt, cheese and crackers, croissants, etc.

The week of the carnival I had to miss a planning meeting because my sciatica pain was so bad. That sucked. I hate to miss out. Also I noticed when we had meetings with 3 people then other meetings with 3 people someone was out of the loop and still working off of some old decisions. It's so hard to keep up!

We gave prizes after every game. All the kids had little popcorn bags labeled with their name to put their prizes in them as the day went on. I had counted and labeled prizes so each volunteer had enough for every kid to eat least get one. Then I put notes on the instruction sheets on what to put the leftover prizes with (a later game kit usually).

Carnival 9.22.18

I organized a carnival for one mom group I'm in. The RSVPs were low so branched out and extended it to the 2nd mom group I'm in. I already wrote about the organization of it so this is just about the event. The date wasn't really picked based on when I knew people could attend but a date the park had rental open. I was even checking many parks but they were so booked up.

Most of the photos weren't taken by me but were on my camera so I'm including them.

Set up was a little hectic. No matter how hard I try, I can't get everything done before an event starts so we were still setting up when people started showing up. Then Dave had a lot more prep for making food than I anticipated. Our can opener wouldn't work on the nacho cheese so then he tried to use a knife. It broke the knife but he did eventually get in. Then we had to heat the cheese on the grill then transfer to the crock pot.

I was amazed how many kids played the games and didn't take the tickets for playing the games. They just had fun playing.

Miles played some games and couldn't throw far enough when standing on the line so he just bent down and moved the tape line 8 inches closer. He was so cute doing it.

I liked the photo booth frames and so did a lot of people. There are many more pictures but just including ones here I now I can share.

It was a fun event. I feel like people liking it made all the work worth it. Too bad it wasn't a better date when more people could attend.

Carnival Planning

I organized a carnival for the 2 mom groups I'm in. I thought a joint carnival was better to do all the work once for everyone all at once. And maybe new people would talk to each other.  It was a lot of work. I spent a good bit of time reminding people to pay or checking in with the people who said yes on meetup and facebook but did not fill out the actual form. Oh it was miserable just doing that part but I really needed a count to be accurate with my money.

I planned games and food.

 I was able to reuse the table cloths, big signs and banners, and photo booths from last year.

I made signs labeling all the games with directions for each game.  I made signs for the food. I also printed name tags. I had a sign in sheet printed on nice cardstock so we could check off who came and also confirm number of people. 

I made an agenda. Most things were out all day but I altered the rest to be able to handle it all.

Dave grilled hotdogs at the event.  We also planned for other food but it had to be inexpensive because of budget.

Prior to the carnival, I held a meetup for making cookies. It kind of failed but we still made peanut butter cup cookies and chocolate chip cookies. I just had to make the cupcakes and icing later.

I had a map in advance so that volunteers could know where things would be set up.

I feel like typing all of this makes it seem like not a lot of work. I had to borrow games from people and borrow various other things. So I had to actually get those.    I had a list of what to do in the morning but it didn't have everything on it. It helped though with a list so when volunteers came, they didn't always have to ask what to do.

The carnival was Saturday. Cooking baking was Wednesday.  Food purchasing was Thursday.  Friday was cupcake baking. 

The carnival was 10-1. I was there at 8 am setting up. I had my car totally full and then I unloaded that with 4 trips.  Then I came back after a bit to get the coolers, food, and grilling stuff which totally filled the trunk. To leave the event it took until 2 PM to clean up and lots of people were helped a little bit and a few people helped a lot. One person filled the back of her SUV and half her backseat and delivered it to my front door. Someone else had just a few things in her car. Dave walked home but I had to get the kids in the carseats so couldn't utilize that space in the car. My car was jam packed coming home too.

I'll have a separate post of the actual event.

There is probably more I'm missing here.

Tot Trot (7.29.18)

I organized a Tot Trot for the moms group and cross posted it in the other mom's group and emailed some preschool friends about it. I ran it with Stephanie.  It would have gone smoother without spending time making a balloon arch or with an additional volunteer. I guess we learned for next time.

Overall 28 kids ran it. We had a few no shows and a few cancel prior to race day.   I'm surprised we had so many.  If we wouldn't have had any cancellations or no shows we would have had close to 40 kids. That's a lot!

The balloon arch was such a cool addition. I realized after I forgot to actually use tape for a start/finish line.  I need to take some notes to make it go smoother next time.

Everyone ran almost a quarter mile. Then a little later ran a 30 yard dash.

All finishers got a medal.  Then they got a sticker for finishing the shorter race.  Ella put her sticker on her medal.

Stephanie's husband, Bruce, took a ton of awesome pictures.  I feel like all the pictures make the race even better. Everyone loves to look back after.  This was some kids first race and some have run a few before.

Ella has a fit prior to the race and didn't run it. Then once it was over, I ran it with her along with Lottie and Liam. She did so well with just the 4 of us. I wish she would have actually run with everyone else though.

Most of the research was spent finding alternatives for the medal and what kind of cool sticker to give out for the 2nd race.  We provided water, gatorade, bananas, granola bars, and bagels after the race.

I had trouble getting Ella and Miles actually in the photo booth.  They also kept standing too close to me.

I had asked Dave where he parked his bike. I said I never saw it. But here it is in the background of the picture.

Here everyone is at the start. The boy in front, I asked to lead the race. He's a little older and then I knew everyone would stay on the appropriate route. He really enjoyed helping.

Here is Miles finishing the race. I carried him for a little over half then he ran holding my hand. Right before the finish, I tried to let go so he could go under the balloons. He did not like that.

I cropped a big picture that showed Miles and Ella running the short race. We weren't particular and little kids could run by being held. :) 

The arch worked so much better when some people held it up. 

Here's a video of the instatories I posted.